Downright Dickensian

Posted on by

This is the Chop’s first Pop-Up Picture Post! All of the links in this post go directly to photos of the things they are. Example: When you see teapot linked, it’ll show you a picture of a teapot. Its fun!

As you may know, the Chop recently spent some time in Germany, and we’ve been so busy since we got back there’s scarcely been time to recount what we found there.

And what we did find was sad, my friends. It was heart-wrenching stuff, straight out of Dickens or Les Miserables. If you think the recession is bad here, its so much worse in Germany.

Everywhere we went we saw Orphans. Some of them live out on the street,
 while other are lucky enough to get into the orphanages or the home for wayward girls. The situation has grown so dire there that there are whole streets of orphanages, where the poor dears knock on the windows and beg for attention.

There are some hard-working orphans in Germany.

Oh its bad, Gentle Reader. These orphans are so neglected that they actually dance on tables, hang all over the place, and even jump up in your lap and call you daddy. Some of them even sing for their supper in the public houses. We thought that never happened anymore, but those who can’t sing are out on their own. These orphans are so poor, most of them barely have enough clothes to cover themselves, and lots of them are all skin and bones.

The Chop hopes that things improve soon, because History has already shown us that when things go bad in Germany, they can get out of hand.

But while the Chop is usually a generous philanthropist, we kept it (our wallet, that is) in our pants, which was especially coldhearted around Christmas time. Shame on us and our cold, black, American heart.

How To Avoid a Ho-Hum Sunday

Posted on by

We need to talk about Sundays Baltimore.

You know, that time once a week when you’re caught between resting up from the better part of the weekend, putting off doing the laundry and changing the sheets, and a paralyzing fear of going back to work on Monday.

You don’t plan anything, open late and leave early, and its like a wild goose chase just to go get a six pack. And don’t even get me started on football season, your true religion. Fortunately the Chop has discovered the secret to beating the Sunday doldrums: a day at the movies!

Alice in Wonderland is playing at the Rotunda now.

Ever since the first time we saw a movie on a Sunday we’ve been hooked. No more waiting in crummy lines for tickets, no more of you (and you know who you are) trying to save 8 seats with two coats (you assholes), and especially no more punk ass high school kids screaming at each other, tweeting their half-assed opinions and forgetting to turn off their phones.

Nope. Sunday its just a half empty theater and people with no worrys about Monday. So we’re going to go see Alice in Wonderland tonight. Even if it may not be a good movie, we expect its still a good date movie.

Sick Sick Birds @ the Sidebar Tonight

Posted on by

What did you think Baltimore? That just because we’re an old man now we’re going to sit out on our stoop and whittle? Not so. Nope, we’re heading right back downtown tonight for a show we wouldn’t miss, and suggest you don’t either.

Of course we’re talking about our fellow oldsters, Baltimore’s own Sick Sick Birds at the Sidebar.

Sick Sick Birds Play the Sidebar Tonight.

SSB is easily one of the best bands Baltimore has produced, but they’d almost have to be with their kind of pedigree. A read of their resume is like a look back through the annals of Mobtown punk. Members have been in old favorites Blank, the Pee Tanks, the Thumbs, High School Hellcats and more. In their current incarnation they’ve been somewhat reclusive, although over the past year they’ve been playing out in town semi-regularly. Our advice: see them as often as you possibly can.

They’re not the only thing worth coming out for tonight though. Before we left for Europe, we had a chance to see the Fun Brigade, who definitely lived up to their name with a set full of Operation Ivy covers. So much music has been created since the OPIV era, but none of it has been as much fun to sing along to. Tonight FB is doing a punk-rock jukebox set ca. ’77-85. They’re joined by Tunnelbike! who’ll be spreading the word of Bibleman, and North Carolina’s Quarantines.

But what do you do before the game? Pregame, of course. The Charm City Art Space had the clever idea to throw a party that’s not quite a dance party, not quite a listening party, but not quite boring either. Billed as a ‘box social for punx’, we see it as a good chance to check out the Space’s new building (right next door to the old one) which opened while we were gone.

Of course being the Art Space, the event is Dry, so we might just sneak off to Midtown Yacht Club to pregame instead.

Welcome to the Distant Future!

Posted on by

That’s right Baltimore. Its the distant future. Right now! Today!

It must be the distant future, because we clearly remember being a wee little Chop in the Reagan era and doing the math. We were born in 1980, so In 1990 we’ll be ten, and in the fifth grade with Sister Joan. In the year 2000, we’ll be 20. But that’s a long way off. A loooong way. Twenty is like a grown up almost. I guess Kirk Cameron and Scott Baio are like 20. And in 2010, on March 5, We’ll be 30. That’s the real distant future. Those people on that show Thirtysomething are like 30. I’ll probably never be that old.

The Chop turns 30 tonight.

So here we are in the distant future, on our 30th birthday. We still don’t have the Jetsons’ cars. We still don’t have the hoverboard from Back to the Future II, We still don’t have robot butlers, but the Internet and the iPod aren’t that bad. Didn’t see those coming in 1985.

Without waxing too philosophical, We’ll say that we plan to fully embrace our thirties. We dress better. We’re smarter. We have more money. We own a great house in a great city. We have a career and a lifestyle we love, and we like women a lot more than girls.

We’ve also come to realize who’s who in our life. Some friends have come and gone and never looked back, but some are still here years, decades later. Its one of the most rewarding parts of Baltimore life; We have friends we’ve known for decades now, and who we’ll continue to know for the rest of our life.

So tonight the Chop is staying home for once. We’re hosting friends we’ve known 15, 20, even 25 years. Tonight we gather in our most intimate of intimates for some grown-ass-man, hide the car keys, reach for the top shelf, brown-liquor drinking. We’re going to talk about the Suburbs. We’re going to talk about the old neighborhood in East Balto. We’re going to talk shit on people who haven’t been around to defend themselves in years.

And most of all, we’re going to talk about the distant future.

Ignite Baltimore 5 @ Walters Art Gallery Tonight

Posted on by

Well, today it’s all about what we’re not doing tonight. Namely, We’re not going to the Walters’ for Ignite Baltimore #5. Mainly because we were in Europe and couldn’t put ourselves on the RSVP list in time. We got the wait list, but standing around Charles Street in the cold all night while the rest of you try to become the mayor of the the Walters on Foursquare is not our idea of an enchanted evening.

Ignite Baltimore #5 is sold-out at the Walters Art Gallery tonight.

For those of you unfamiliar, Ignite Baltimore is a wildly popular quarterly speaking series in which volunteers are given five minutes and 20 slides to say anything they want about anything they want. Now, the Chop is all for events with an intimate feel, and we love it when organizers remain fiercely independent in the face of success, but we cry foul on Ignite. You see, this isn’t the first time we haven’t been able to get in the door, and the event has reached the point where they’re simply refusing to grow. We say ideas are cultural currency, and supply should equal demand. They need a bigger venue.

We’re also not attending the Citypaper Cosmic Cocktail Party at the AVAM. Frankly, $50 is a lot of money to dress up and get drunk on a weeknight, especially since the event is only 3 hours and not in any way charitable.

Dirty Boots...

What we are up to tonight is another date. And this one is what you’d call a hot date. In fact, some of you may even remember Cowboy Boots from way back in October. We’re really pretty excited that she remembers the Chop, and we’re going to propose for our first date that we flee the hip district altogether and head up to Clementine for a nosh and a couple of Stonewall Pints, made of Ace pear cider, bourbon and fresh ginger. A little more laid-back than the first time we met, we hope.