Brian Posehn, Jim Meyer @ Ottobar Tonight

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So there’s this guy. Brian Posehn. He’s pretty famous. At least, we think he’s pretty famous, since he’s been all over TV for like 10 years now. He was on that show Just Shoot Me on the regular, which was a terrible show, but he was also on Seinfeld and News Radio a few times, which were great shows. And Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond, which also kind of sucked.

But besides that he wrote for Mr. Show, and he’s on a show now, called The Sarah Silverman Program, and since it’s on Comedy Central, it won’t air for a long stretch of time, and then it’ll air 9 times in 3 days. He’s also been on specials and comedy tours and put out records and everything else.

Brian Posehn brings the fart and wiener jokes to the Ottobar tonight. 9 pm Doors.

But despite all that, when we tell people “Hey, we’re really excited to have tickets to see Brian Posehn!” They usually come back with “Who?” And we have to say “You know… that giant nerdy bald metalhead guy with the thick glasses who makes jokes about comic books and bullies and geeksex.” So that’s what today’s blog is about. We’re going to the Ottobar tonight to see that giant nerdy bald metalhead guy with the thick glasses who makes jokes about comic books and bullies and geeksex.

And Jim Meyer, who you know well by now from Bar Bacon and if you don’t then shame on you. Bar Bacon is back with a vengeance and Meyer has been putting in work for a minute now, and he’s pretty much become the face of comedy in Baltimore. He’ll be joined by Tommy Sinbazo, & Peter O’Connell.

And not for nothing, but this is another show where we wildly missed our guess. We thought this thing would sell out way in advance, and we even went so far as to Buy Tickets Online while we were still in the desert. All for nothing though, since tickets are still available as of today.

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Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St in Charles Village. $20.00 advance, 18+ Doors at 9, Show at 10.

An Evening With Terry Gross @ MICA’s Brown Center Tonight

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Well, just when we thought we had learned our lesson about buying tickets for things in advance, we completely failed to secure tickets for tonight’s appearance by Terry Gross at MICA’s Brown Center. This is pretty disgraceful, since we’ve known about this for several months now. We even put it on our calendar and everything, but didn’t bother to look into buying tickets until it was well sold out. (Maybe just as well though; $50 is not a cheap ticket for a public radio host.)

Gross is, of course, the host of NPR’s Fresh Air, a daily arts and culture interview program which is easily one of the best things on radio and one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes.

Terry Gross appears at a sold-out Brown Center tonight.

Even though we’re not going tonight, it gives us a good excuse to relate an anecdote which we found funny at the time.

We were in a smallish German city on our trip to Europe earlier this year, where we found a tiny little record shop on a corner near the edge of downtown. There were some good vinyl and posters on display in the windows, but the first few times we went by there the shop was locked up tight.

Eventually we found it open one afternoon, and although we don’t mess around with vinyl records, we thought we might find some European exclusives as a souvenir for Roommate or even some eBay gold for our own benefit. We gave a nod to the proprietor who was busy with his macbook and started browsing the stacks. Instead of playing music we were listening to some old man go on about something or other over the speakers in English for several minutes. When he finally wound up his monologue, Terry Gross’ voice came over the air.

“Oh!” We say “You’re listening to Fresh Air! I didn’t realize you had that in Germany.”

When we said this to the guy behind the counter, his face lit up as brightly as a Christmas tree. It turns out that they do not have Fresh Air in Germany, but that he was listening via iTunes. When we mentioned that we regularly listen on the radio, and live sort of near Philadelphia (people abroad do not know where Maryland is), his perfect English became very excited. We recounted some of our favorite episodes, including the infamous Gene Simmons interview which was one of the most awkward broadcasts in the history of radio.

As it turned out, this record store guy was a huge and rabid fan of Fresh Air, and was trying to work his way through the entire archives of the show. Once he found out that we’d been listening for years, there was no shortage of questions, most of which we had no answers for.

There was one earnest question he did ask though, which we could answer with certainty:

“So, in your country, Terry Gross is a big star? Like Oprah?”

Not quite…

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If you’ve never heard the Gene Simmons Fresh Air interview, we strongly encourage you to click through and listen to it. It is not available in the NPR Archives, and it’s a solid hour of Simmons insulting Gross and NPR and making a series of very inappropriate and sexist remarks while making himself out to be a primal filthy rich sex god. In our opinion, Gene Simmons is a fucking clown, and Terry Gross is one of the greatest interviewers working anywhere today.

The Best Cars to Drive in Baltimore City

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Our neighbors here at the Chophouse are hood rich. They’re the sort of folks who drive nicer cars than the house they live in. Not judging, just saying. A top of the line GMC Yukon and a late model Sedan de Ville are some pretty nice wheels, and they’re regularly washed and shined by another neighbor who runs the part-time car wash hustle.

We’re just the opposite… for all the work and effort we put into decorating and maintaining the Chophouse, we bought our old Chevy specifically to run it straight into the ground. We wanted a Craigslist car that we could buy with cash on the spot and nail speed bumps, run red lights, skip oil changes, and generally abuse the hell out of. After better than 3 years of hard use, we’ve more than got our money’s worth.

A visual approximation of the Chop's driving habits in Baltimore.

Talking to our neighbor recently though, she admitted what we’d suspected all along; that a full size Cadillac is a giant burden to maintain in Baltimore City. She lamented the size, the necessary maintenance, the low MPG’s, the responsiveness, and every other problem you get from driving a suburban highway car in the city.

We often secretly wonder when we’ll run the wheels off of our Chevy, and it got us thinking about what our next car might be. Since we travel as much as we do, we’re going to need something without a payment that can sit for long periods of time, and that will stand up to cobblestones, streetcar tracks, potholes, water main breaks, snow salt, pigeon shit, parallel parking, and every other thing that the City of Baltimore can throw at it. Here’s a few picks from our shortlist.

Subaru Forester

Subaru Forester. 2006 model shown.

Most people regard the Subaru line as being strictly for hippies and lesbians, but we say it’s the poor man’s Volvo. Hell, take a drive through Guilford or Roland Park and you might find that even the Rich Man is buying Subarus these days. Any Subaru you buy is going to have all wheel drive, which is a huge plus, especially during the winter months, and the forester packs a ton of space onto a relatively small chassis. These things are basically little urban tanks.

Honda Civic

Honda Civic LX 4 door. 1998 model shown.

You don’t need us to tell you that the Civic is a great car for Baltimore City. The Civic is a great car for everywhere. The only criticism that we can level at this model is that not enough of them hit the used market, and when they do people want a lot of money for them, no matter how old or worn they may be. If Hitler had had his boys invent the Civic instead of that crappy Beetle, most of Europe would probably sprecken zee Deutsche today.

Nissan Sentra

Nissan Sentra 4 door. 2003 model shown.

Humble, inexpensive, scrappy, and dependable; in many ways, the Sentra is the perfect car for Baltimore City. If NYC and DC are the Acura and the Avalon blocking up traffic and scratching their heads after a fender bender, the Sentra is Baltimore… taking battle damage in stride and giving you the finger while it hits the gas. We’ve got someplace to be and the Sentra’s going to get us there come hell or high water. Fun Fact: the Chop once visited a Nissan factory in Yokozuka, Japan.

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What about you, Baltimore? What are you driving around the city? Love it? Hate it? Recommend it to a friend? Let us know below.

Tawny Port: The Perfect Wine for Thanksgiving

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You’ve all probably figured out by now that the Chop really likes our liquor. We’ll always embrace the chance to try something new or compare two whiskies side by side. What you may not have realized though is that we also like wine quite a bit.

The difference between lies in the fact that while we harbor some nerdy, snobbish tendencies about liquor, we’re not at all picky about wine. We fall squarely into the 15% of consumers who are ‘Savvy Shoppers’ on Constellation Brands’ six types of wine drinkers list. If it costs $10 and doesn’t smell like vinegar, odds are we’ve gone home with it at some point. (But enough about our sex life…)

A visual approximation of the Chop's Thanksgiving dinner.

So when a wine magazine editor writing for the Huffington Post recently called Thanksgiving “the clusterfuck of wine holidays” we were inclined to agree.

The Chop has a very large extended family. For thanksgiving we traditionally pay a visit to our singularly Republican aunt and uncle who are enthusiastic wine cellar-ers and have been for many years. In typical selfish, undemocratic GOP fashion though, they keep most of the cellar locked up, and buy a bunch of crappy Vendange or Turning Leaf for the family, thinking we don’t know the difference. No matter. Picking and pairing wines for thanksgiving dinner really can be more trouble than it’s worth.

So when you’re standing around the wine shop this week, wondering what bottle to bring as a gift or which will make the best digestif, we’d like to plant this thought in your head: Thanksgiving is the best day of the year for drinking Port.

All of the best drinkers throughout history have embraced Portos. From kings and noblemen to oenophilic tastemakers to the fathers of Maryland to hobos and winos, and of course, the Chop, anyone who knows wine knows it’s better when it’s fortified. With the perfect mix of lightness and body, fruit and oak, and caramel and spice, a good tawny Port is the perfect choice for a tipple after a feast of yams and turkey. It even pairs sublimely with pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

The bottle in our rack right now is the Sandeman 10 year old. We picked this out from among the large and varied selection of Portos at the Wine Source for about $25. To our mind Sandeman is roughly the Johnnie Walker of Portugal, from their wide range of Portos and a consistent quality near the bottom of their line, right down to their exporting machine and the shadowy figure in the logo. That’s not a knock. We’ve got nothing but love for Johnnie Black, and we’d recommend keeping both the Walker and the Sandeman on hand for the holidays, and all the year round.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Stoop Storytelling: War Stories @ Centerstage Tonight

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Well, it took a while, but the Chop has finally got our act together enough to buy a pair of advance tickets to something. We’re big on the pop-in, the drop-by, and the go-around-the-way. Whether it’s a band or a book signing or a baseball game, we don’t like to get locked into anything. Something’s happening? Maybe we’ll come by and check it out.

Nice as it is to keep your options open, it kind of sucks to miss your guess and show up to a packed house or a sold out event. The Stoop has fooled us before. We’ve been wanting to check out the Stoop for a long time now. We’ve even blogged about it before. Hell, we’ve actually shown up to Centerstage on time and heard the dreaded “We can put you on the waiting list.” Well, fool us twice, won’t get fooled again. Or something like that.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. The Stoop tells war stories at Centerstage tonight. 7 pm doors.

We’ve learned our lesson. The Stoop is popular. Storytelling is popular. Here in Baltimore, we tell ours on stoops, but out in San Francisco they do it by porchlight. In Portland they gather at the back fence, and down in DC they speak easy. Whatever you call it though, it amounts to the same thing… people relating to each other in the way they have since the beginning of time; no art, no artifice, just telling their stories.

If stories have been around since the beginning of time, then war stories have been around almost as long. There’s no shortage of stories close in to a battlefield. We’re sure that tonight’s topical tales will run the gamut from the heroic and inspiring to the heartrending and bittersweet, on down to the vulgar and absurd.

We only regret that we won’t hear the one story we want to hear most: the one about all the wars being over and done.

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Centerstage is at 700 N. Calvert St. in Mount Vernon. 410-332-0033 for tickets.