Comics Without Filters @ Windup Space Tonight

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So, we know we said we wanted to sit around, but we’re quickly remembering just how un-funny prime time television can be. Two and a Half Men? Gary Unmarried? The New Adventures of Old Christine? For fuck’s sake.

What is funny is tonight’s Comics Without Filters show at the Windup Space. Its a benefit for Doctors Without Borders too, because, you know, doctors don’t recommend filters.

The lineup features Jim Meyer, Justin Schlegel, Erin Jackson, Jason Weems, Erik Myers, and Doug Powell, which is quite a lot of talent for a mere $12 donation, and the show kicks off at 8:30.

Of course, if you’d rather stay home and piss and moan about snow some more, you can always catch Meyer’s Bar Bacon at the Golden West this Friday.

Doo Doo Brown! Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

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We haven’t had a chance to mention it yet, but the Chop is an enthusiastic member of the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally. And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like: upwardly mobile bleeding-heart urban quasi-intellectuals (along with a few bona-fide academics) get together every second and fourth Wednesday of the month to prognosticate and practice parlor punditry while solving polemical problems over pitchers of pilsner. You might say its the Chop’s own version of the Algonquin Round Table. At the very least, it combines two of our favorite pastimes and gives us something to look forward to on a Wednesday.

Formed almost 3 years ago, the Baltimore chapter has transformed in that time from a small core of relative strangers with common interests falling under the same umbrella to a group of quality friends the like of which its hard to make after one leaves college life behind.

Meetings are always informal and open to all comers of any left-of-center political persuasion. Discussion topics range from the personal and small talk to local and state issues, national politics, international crises and back again as more and more pitchers are served. And of course, a special effort is made to welcome and encourage first time visitors.

In the Future, we plan to use this space to blog about national politics bi-weekly in advance of each meeting, although this week we’ve just returned from abroad, where our access to media of any sort was severely limited. We definitely didn’t get our daily Wonkette fix, so we’re certainly looking forward to getting the dirt.

All we know today can be summed up in bullet point fashion:

> Dick Cheney is in the hospital. We hope he’s in a lot of pain. In fact, we hope its like torture.

>James O’Keefe III is in jail. Fuck that guy. we hope he stays there a really long time. And since its Louisiana, we like to picture him getting a daily butt-raping by that big black dude from The Green Mile. We’ll raise a pint to that.

>Scott “Doo Doo” Brown is public enemy number one of the wingnuts. The Chop loves a little political theater, farcical and absurd though it may be. Phony outrage is always more entertaining than genuine resentment, so if we’ve got to watch the teabaggers rant and rave, better they do it at him than at Uncle Ted. Besides, Brown’s daughter is single and he doesn’t mind pimping her out.

> And speaking of U.S. Senators with overexposed daughters, John McCain is almost out of a job. Awesome.

> Of course… everyone else is almost out of a job too.

We’ll be talking about all this and more at tonight’s meeting, which is 7 pm at Joe Squared. Just look for the table with the red, white, and blue bottle on it.

The Lush Goes To Southampton

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The Chop is taking the day off today. The post below comes instead from the March Issue of British FHM. Although the Chop didn’t write this one, we feel like we could have, because after spending a good part of our trip in Southampton, it mirrors some of our experiences quite closely. If you’re after going for a night on the town, this is pretty much what you can expect.

1. Joe Daflo’s, 5.55 pm

It seems the closer you get to the Continent, the closer you get to continental drinking hours. Its just shy of six and, after a journey involving a lost child, an angry naval officer, and a replacement bus, The Lush scuttles out of Central Station and into Joe Daflo’s. An establishment which sounds like a provincial fancy dress store, but is actually a church-turned-pub, albeit one without any alcohol worshipers. In fact, staff outnumber punters, and the only other imbibers have children. Children! A quick San Miguel and its off to check into the hotel.

2. Soul Cellar, 8pm

“You should be in prison, you filthy child molestor!” The Lush turns to mutter something about it being tough to tell girls’ ages nowadays, only to find the old woman’s vitriol is aimed at her husband- a man who is no longer welcome in her Honda and will now be walking home. Show over, we duck into Soul Cellar- a homely bar with a middle aged drunk spilling Guinness in the doorway, BB King on the stereo, a selection of 28 beers (including Duvel And Sam Adams) and oh, Jesus, legs. Nice Legs. In a short skirt and connected to a streamlined torso and pretty face that are celebrating their 21st birthday-and far more interested in screaming and drinking through a straw than conversing with the Lush. We drink up and head for the town’s binge drinking mecca, Bedford Place.

3. 90 Degrees, 9.20 pm

This should read 180 Degrees. It’s what anyone in their right mind will do.

4. The Cricketers, 9.30 pm

But What’s this? Just 100 yards away is a pub. A real pub, with a wooden bar and low roof, that serves real ale, but refuses to serve seventeen-year-olds. Great. Well, not for Lolita freezing her non-existent buttocks off in the strappy top and hot pants, admittedly, but great for the Lush.

5. Vodka Revolution 10.50 pm

Three pints later we take a stroll to what was once the Lizard Lounge, but its now a Vodka Revolution. Which must be a bad thing, right? yes, in every other town across the country. Here, no. Here, aside from the name, the only visible changes are the menu (it now sells pizzas) and the staff’s uniform (they now wear Inter Milan strips.) Is this supposed to be an Italian? Do Italians like Vodka? We’re discussing this with a chesty fox with one of those tattoos just above and below her jeans line when our afternoon McDonalds comes back to haunt us via a gut-dropper of table-clearing proportions. Time to run.

6. Orange Rooms 11.30 pm

Unfortunately however, we can’t hide, since the Orange Rooms is populated by the leggy 21-year-old, the chesty foxs, the hen do dressed as ladybirds, and the JLS wannabes- in other words, exactly the same people we’ve seen all night. It’s a perrenial deja vu that’s both the rough and the smooth of the small city. (sound familiar, Baltimore?) Well, this and theft. The Lush’s companionshang their coats on a hook for five minutes and POOF, they’re gone. Cue a military style retrieval operation featuring CCTV, sartorial descriptions, and concerned bouncers. Hardly. We’re served a double indifference with a splash of we’re-the-best-bar-in-Southampton-we-can-treat-punters-however-we-want. Disappointing. On the plus side, two girls were snogging at the bar.

The Rhino Club 1.05 am

A 17 second sprint down an ice-covered road is the Rhino. A club without a queue-Worrying, given its 1 am- or any decent whisky, but with bass so deep your body shakes and revelers who are either drunk and jumping or look like they’ve been puked up by a rap video. We leave before punches are thrown.

8. For Your Eyes Only, 1.45 am

Junk should be the next option. Its the club you go to if you’ve not pulled in Orange Rooms, but its got a queue and the Lush’s coatless colleagues are shivering, so we head to the town’s premier strip club. Bad move. We arrive too early, and are met by a room that’s empty, bar a gaggle of yawning strippers populating the right corner. they pretend to be perked up by our presence and approach one-by-one. Some are hot. some are not. Most have fake boobs. One has good banter. one has halitosis. We shell out 22 pounds for a half dozen Corona, have a couple of dances, then bid farewell to a mixed evening.

SCORES: (out of 10)

Quality of Hostelries: 7
Quality of Women: 8
Chance of a Beating: 1
Coat theft likelihood: 10

Return of the Chop!

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If you happened yesterday to notice the sun shining brightly and the birds chirping merrily, you were not mistaken. It was none other than nature heralding the Chop’s triumphant return to Baltimore Town.

And its lucky we got back when we did! For shame, Baltimore. Shame on you. Just because we’ve been away doesn’t mean we don’t know what you’ve been up to. We know you’ve been laid up on the couch in your snuggie, eating cheesy garlic mashed potatoes, drinking Cutty Sark, Sailor Jerry Rum, and whatever other gross booze is leftover from Xmas when you tried to foist it off on your kith and kin, all while waiting for your netflix to show and pretending to give a shit about the Olympics and Haiti.

So get your sad, sorry sack of a self up and into the shower. Wash off the cheeto-dust. scrub away the couch lint and cat hair, and for Christ’s sake brush your wine-teeth. Put on a sexy, seasonally inappropriate dress and stick a credit card into your bra, because the Chop is home and We’re Going Out!

But take your time about it. Because, after all, our little European jaunt wasn’t all pleasure. It was, technically, a business trip. The Chop works hard (sometimes) if you can believe it. Hell, for the last four months, we’ve actually had to wake up at 8am every morning. Do you know how terrible that is Baltimore? (Of course you do. You work for a living, I’m sure.) But it simply doesn’t agree with the Chop’s delicate patrician constitution. And if you think a couple feet of snow is bad, well, it snows in Europe too. It just doesn’t pile up because of the horrendous 50 kt winds off the North Sea.

The Chop has certainly earned the right to laze about on the couch for a bit and enjoy a few cocktails on our new furniture while we use the big screen to catch up on Always Sunny and The Sarah Silverman Program. We will, however, resume our normal carousing and bon-vivanterie later this week.

And lazing about is exactly what we plan to do tonight, after we return from a trek to the far suburbs to visit Mama Chop and Papa Chop, and reclaim the Chopmobile from its storage place, far away from the snowplows and the mayor’s DPW goon squad.

Tomorrow, you’ll be glad to know, we begin the groundwork of the Big Idea, which is totally happening, and will lead to even more nights inside the confines of our Stately North Baltimore Pleasure Dome.

In other news, we will post a little more about the trip this week, but not to bore you to death, since this is not a travel blog. We’ve also had some ideas to make this blog better. Some of which you might notice in the near future, some of which you probably won’t, but will improve the content nonetheless.

See you soon.

Seeking Fortune and Adventure

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We’re sorry. We’re sorry as hell. Its completely the Chop’s fault and we take all responsibility. We throw ourselves upon the mercy of Gentle Reader. (not Google Reader). The Chop is about to commit one of the biggest sins in the entire blogosphere, which is like bigger than the universe, even.

We’re leaving town for a while.

You know those Dos Equis ads about the Most Interesting Man In The World? Well, the Chop doesn’t want to flatter ourselves, but we’re pretty much the real life version of that. After all, how do you think it is we live as a man of leisure, and go out on the town 7 nights a week? We’ve been cadding around since Easter now.

Our line of work takes us to some far flung places. The Chop has seen some shit. The Chop has done some shit. Whether it was negotiating a land deal with a tribal chief in west Africa, taking part in re-supply missions in Kuwait, braving a hurricane at sea off the Bahamas, or singing karaoke in Japan… the Chop was there.

This time, the Chop is bound for a cold, cold winter in Northern Europe. Who knows what lies before us? Druids? Celtic chapels? Soccer hooligans? Autobahn races? Red light districts? We’re about to find out.

One thing is certain though… the Chop’s not going to be around a computer for a long time. Or a television. Or radio. We might be able to check in once a month or so. We’ll be reading books the rest of the time.

Regular posts will resume in March. Maybe in time for Opening Day.

Now, it pains us to start a blog and then get out of town a week later. It really does. But the Chop is not a sayer. The Chop’s a doer. We didn’t want to sit around and talk about “Oh, when we come back, maybe we’ll start blogging.” Nope. We just did it. Now we’ve got something to come back to. Incidentally, this thing has been a lot more fun that we thought it would be initially, so we’ll definitely pick up right where we left off. When the Chop returns, we’ll have a pocket full of money and a thirst for some good old American Whiskey.

And finally, it should be noted that in the first week, we didn’t actually believe that anybody would read the damn thing.

So thanks for that.

And to show our appreciation while we’re gone, we thought you might enjoy this image of Tara Reid drunk, as a reminder of what not to do this holiday season:

Didn't I see you at Mother's last night?