Decadent Chop

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It’s sometimes strange living as a man of leisure. Its easy to fall out of sync with the rest of the world. When the rest of the city is hating Monday and wanting to pass out with fatigue at night, we’re restless and looking for fun. When its Friday rush hour and everyone else is cursing traffic and hitting happy hour, we’re doing Sunday chores like vacuuming. Tuesday is date night and Wednesday is social.

So it is with Saturday. We don’t know what you all are up to tonight, but we might, maybe, finally spend a rare night in. (Or we might holler at Egg Babies at the Ottobar, since we had an invite from a very old friend.)

This weekend ought to be a good one to stay home, now that we have the new bedroom set, which we really can’t get over… it feels like spending the night in a hotel every night, but a really nice hotel that we can’t usually afford. We’ve even got the armchair and ottomans set up in the bay window along with the new flatscreen, and we’re buying curtains today as well. Tres chic.

The blogosphere takes the weekend off too. You’re not even reading this, apparently. We’re still new at this. We didn’t know it. No one told us. But we figured it out last weekend, and since Roommate is way better at buying DVD’s than we are, we’ve got no shortage of stuff waiting to be watched. Up in the Air, 500 Days of Summer, 30 Rock, Mad Men, and The Wire. Yeah, the Chop hasn’t actually seen any of those. Stop mocking. While y’all were watching TV, we were traveling the world and painting the town. It’s time for us to catch up.

So we’re gonna fire up the DVD player, run by the Wine Source, and figure out what to do with all these vegetables we’re buying this morning at the Waverly Farmers’ Market.

Sounds nice for a change.

Secret Mountains, Hop Along @ Hexagon Tonight

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It’s Friday Baltimore. Ease up a little. You’ve been busting ass and running yourself ragged all week… don’t think we haven’t noticed. So tonight it’s all about taking it easy. Slow and Low, that’s the word today.

And we’re in luck again, cause after you hit that post-work happy hour and nosh on something spring-timey and delicious, there’s really no better way to decompress that with Baltimore’s own Secret Mountains, playing at the Hexagon tonight.

Secret Mountains play the Hexagon w/ Hop Along tonight. 9 pm.

Aural States says that SM’s Kaddish EP is “nothing short of breathtaking.” We say that quiet is the new hard, and these guys sound like Mazzy Star. Don’t get us wrong though: what we mean to say is that they are as good as Mazzy Star. In our book, that’s no faint praise.

They’re supported on this bill by Philly’s Hop Along, which you may also know as Hop Along Queen Ansleis. They’ve played Baltimore plenty before, but we haven’t heard much from them recently. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you really should. Rounding out the bill is Dangerous Ponies and Lithuania.

The show tonight is BYOB, so we’ll probably strap on our trusty steel flask, which we get a lot more use out of than we thought we would when we bought it. We’re also planning to stop by the Windup Space beforehand and have a few cocktails while we check out their visual exhibit, Coupling: Selections from the Baker Artist Awards, which just opened on Wednesday.

Our walls in the new house are still entirely bare, and now that Value City finally got around to delivering the new bedroom furniture (half-assed customer service, to be sure, but the room is strictly big-pimpin’), we have an idea of exactly what we’ll need for that room, canvas-wise. If the work is up to snuff, we might even break out our checkbook.

Ed Schrader Show @ Open Space Tonight

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Like we said… we love Remington. We love it so much, we’re heading back out there tonight to catch Baltimore’s best band Double Dagger when they appear on the latest installment of the Ed Schrader Show tonight.

Ed Schrader films tonight @ Openspace (2720 Sisson). 9pm.

What’s the Schrader show all about? Well, if you took a sampling of the generalized content from this blog right here, The Baltimore Chop, and mixed it up with David Letterman, and made it like once or twice a year instead of daily, and let the audience drink Natty Boh’s, the result would be Ed Schrader. Past guests have included Cex, Jason Urick, CCRG’s, Food not Bombs, and Dan Deacon, among others.

The show is a Wham City production, and while we think they’re usually way too hipster for their own good (and we don’t say that kind of thing often), they’ve dreamed up a good one this time. We also haven’t yet had a chance to get to Openspace (2720 Sisson Street. The garage right behind the alligator mural.) yet, since that’s another spot that debuted shortly before we went to Europe. We’ve heard good things about both the space and the kids running it, so we’re definitely eager to see for ourselves.

PPM Happy Hour: Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

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Whew!

After last night Baltimore, the Chop sure as hell needs a drink! Fortunately, we’re in luck, because there’s not one but two great groups of folks we’re out to drink with tonight.

First we’ll be heading out to Blue Hill Tavern for Planned Parenthood of Maryland’s ongoing series called the Drinks and Discussion Happy Hour. If you’ve never been to a PPM event before, rest assured, the vibe is very laid back and the structure is quite loose and free-form, but at the same time they’re always held in some of Baltimore’s finest establishments, and the style and fashion will have your head spinning. If you want to come out, dress to impress. The event runs from 6 to 8 pm and admission is free, but of course the more you drink the better it is for women’s health.

We’d show up anywhere they wanted to hold it, but we have to say that we’re really excited to get down to Blue Hill, which opened shortly before we left for Europe, and which we haven’t had a chance to visit yet, even though the buzz is good.

Its also convenient, since this being the second Wednesday of the month, its also time for the bi-monthly meeting of Baltimore Drinking Liberally, which is just a few blocks up Conkling Street at the Laughing Pint. Drinking liberally is also informal, and as we mentioned before, new members are always encouraged to come out.

Baltimore Drinking Liberallymeets tonight at the Laughing Pint. 7 pm.

Political theater has seldom been more absurd than it is this week. Eric Massa is crazy as fuck. Did he have cancer, or was he checking interns for prostate cancer? Maybe he cancerfied Glen Beck on that show yesterday.

Sarah Palin proves that she really is a dummy by taking notes on her hand on national TV. She also apparently likes Socialism, since she gets her healthcare in Canada.

Roy Ashburn is a big fag. Look dude, we know its hard to come out of the closet and all, but its even harder to come out while you’re losing your state house seat and facing drunk driving charges and having everyone you know suddenly hate you. But you know what? After your career, you deserve to take it up the ass.

Stop Wal-Mart Meeting in Remington Tonight

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We should all be lucky enough to live in Remington.

Seriously. Its a nice little spot, and the Chop came very close to moving there when we were doing our house buying. We’re right at home in the friendly confines of the Dizz, Papermoon, the Ottobar, etc.

What’s more, we remember a time when Remington was a real shithole; A bona-fide garbage dump. We’ve really enjoyed seeing the houses made over one at a time (the right way) and the slow influx of grad students and other professionals from Johns Hopkins. We’d say that Remington is no longer Hampden-south or CV-west, but is finally a viable neighborhood in its own right. Its even got its very own Blog.

But in a sense, we do all live in Remington, inasmuch as we’re all going to be negatively effected by the proposed Wal-Mart and Lowe’s development. The Mobtown Shank has already done an excellent job of pointing out the harm that big box stores would cause to North Baltimore, and you can sign a petition against the development here, but now is not the time for blogs and petitions. Now, right now, today, is the time to go out and get organized.

The first Remington community meeting ti stop Wal-Mart is tonight. 7:00 pm.

Tonight there will be a meeting of the Remington Neighborhood Association at the Good Shepherd Church (27th and Huntingdon) at 7:00 pm. You don’t need to live in Remington to show up! The meeting will focus entirely on keeping Wal-Mart off 25th street, and is the first of what should be a series of organized efforts.

And while you’re in the neighborhood, you can also stroll right over to the Ottobar after the meeting and check out Stars of Track and Field, like we’re about to do. We’re not nuts about this band, and we don’t really know anyone who is, although they’ve been successful enough recently. Ten dollars at the door on a Tuesday is a good chance to make up our mind once and for all. besides, any band who takes a Belle and Sebastian song for its name can’t be all bad.