I started reading the Current newspapers recently. Their coverage of local issues is pretty great, but one thing in particular that shocks and intrigues me is the police blotter. I live in Adams Morgan and already knew that my block isn’t the safest—there’s drug dealing going on across the street, and our house was burglarized during the day a couple years ago. But, man, it turns out that crimes occur here all the time! Last week my block was mentioned in the police report twice (robbery [knife]; burglary), and the week before, it was in there four times (robbery [force and violence]; burglary (twice); theft from auto [below $250]).

What’s most shocking is that I haven’t heard about any of these recent crimes. One of my roommates has a nose for crime and always seems to be around during driveby shootings, car breakins, etc., but I’ve missed them all. It almost feels like I live on a parallel planet. Is Adams Morgan really that dangerous?

Perennial promoter of the art as well as the business of standup comedy, the DC Improv is announcing a monthly “Pay What You Can” night, in which tickets at the door cost… what you can pay for them. The first “Pay What You Can” night is one week from tonight, April 30th, and will feature Marc Maron. Tickets purchased in advance will still be regular price, but you can show up the night of and score a deal if there are any seats left. Additionally, the Improv will not be enforcing its usual 2-item minimum, making it an excellent opportunity to see professional standup in a great club on a budget. It’s a nice break from the $70 including fees you can expect to pay to see Lewis Black at the Warner next month. (Though, who am I kidding, I bought tickets to that too.)

Of course, while the Improv is a high-quality venue with professional, touring comics, that’s certainly not the only way to see great comedy on the cheap in DC. The Improv rents out its smaller lounge area to local comics and improv troupes, and you can check out the lineup right from the Improv’s ticketing system. And need I remind you of the many fine opportunities to see comedy in and around DC, ranging from free for most open mics to $10 for some of the locally-booked shows. Tonight, for example, you can catch some of my favorite local comics at The Awesome Room at McGinty’s in Silver Spring ($4 cover), and tomorrow head over to the Hotel Topaz on N Street for the no-cover open mic night there.

Well, while the Caps made the Flyers work for it, in the end they we lost in overtime 3 to 2. Ovechkin managed to pick up another goal and an assist along the way.

It’s disappointing, but quite frankly this is farther than I think a lot of us – myself included – expected them to get, and I’m happy they did.

Overtime.

It’s the dramatic finishes that are the end of sports fans everywhere. When your team’s fought to a draw at the end of regulation, pouring their hearts and souls and bodies into the play of the game, and come up no better than their opponent, it becomes an endurance game. 20 minutes more of Overtime, then a shootout, that’s all that remains between the Capitals and either heartbreak or triumph.

Much like the democratic primary battle that’s going on tonight, there’ve been ups and downs, gaffes and glory, excitement and doldrums.

C’mon Caps! Finish well!

Julia’s Empanadas opened a branch in Columbia Heights last month. I missed the news then, but hearing about it today, decided to go there for lunch. Julia’s is one of the better healthy alternatives in town, though I wish the vegetarian empanadas would always include beans, not just sometimes.

Columbia Heights was absolutely buzzing with energy at 2pm on a Tuesday. What surprised me most of all was the ubiquitous construction, which I’d wrongly assumed had ended when the big DC USA complex opened. The neighborhood is still in the process of reinventing itself, with buildings-in-progress stretching north towards 16th Street Heights. But the central area, around where Park Rd. meets 14th Street, is pretty much done. It’s pretty great, too, with a semicircle of restaurants and cafes and even ice cream shops surrounding an open area. I know, I know–gentrification, prices, displacement, etc. Still, an area of the city that didn’t feel super welcoming in the past has opened up to more District residents.

Anyway, some things aren’t too different. Not everyone in the area has somewhere to go, or a way to get there. A really nice guy stopped me as I left Julia’s, asking for $.85 to get across town so that he could show up for his bimonthly urine test. I gave it to him, and he thanked me, saying he’d pray for me that night.

I’m sure some of you have come to the conclusion that I like beating up on WaPo. Really, nothing is farther from the truth and overall I have a positive opinion of the paper, particularly compared to the yellow rag that the Miami Herald had become by the time I moved here six years ago.

Unfortunately today I find myself annoyed with one of the sections that normally I find above average – Health. I was a little perturbed that the story on the debate about plastics made no mention of the tremendous impact plastic has had on the safety of health care, but the real offense in the section was about a plastic surgery.

Well, it would have been a story about that if WaPo writer Sandra G. Boodman hasn’t just vomited Newsweek’s original bit of scandal manufacturing back up without a hint of journalistic rigor or effort. The reality of this story – not presented anywhere in the original Newsweek piece or Boodman’s uncredited paraphrasing – is that this is a book published by a vanity press and authored by a Florida plastic surgeon for his own clients. This plastic surgeon actually does some good outreach to the public on plastic surgery, though somehow that link didn’t make it into the story: I guess talking about articles covering sun damage and porta-cath scars doesn’t sell papers.

Personally I think we have some… interesting attitudes about beauty and aging in the US, and it’s a subject that could do with some quality discussion. This isn’t it. If you’re interested in more detail about why this is a non-story, Teresa Neilsen Hayden spells out the situation in great detail here… in a post from about a week ago, which Boodman could probably have found if she’d taken longer than 4 minutes to re-use Newsweek’s story. The meat of the matter:

Big Tent Books … is a vanity press and marketing and fulfillment operation. It pretends it’s separate from another company called Dragonpencil—in theory, Big Tent is a marketing and distribution firm, and Dragonpencil is a publisher—but they’re really a single organization run by Jerry and Samantha Setzer. The two companies have the same address and phone number. Big Tent’s award-winning books get all their awards from Dragonpencil. Dragonpencil’s deluxe publishing package includes marketing and distribution by Big Tent. And if you poke around their sites long enough, you can find the page where they admit it.

Big Tent/Dragonpencil has the usual problem of vanity presses: zero to lousy sales and distribution. They’re a lot better at making books than they are at promoting them. Only a few of their titles are even listed at Amazon, and those are listed badly—half the normal publisher-furnished information is missing. Sales are minimal.

My Beautiful Mommy is not one of the books Big Tent lists on Amazon.

In other words, this story about shilling to children isn’t at all a case where anyone was shilling to chilren. Dr Michael Salzhauer’s book – which includes a surgeon named Dr Michael, in case you were wondering whether he really meant it for his patients – is for people who already have made the decision to have plastic surgery.

Or maybe Newsweek and Boodman think that books written about death for a child’s perspective are promoting kids being accepting of dying?

D.C. Mayor Fenty put the kibosh on any further extensions for cabbies working in the District to install meters. Bottom line? Those cabdrivers have to have meters installed by May 1 or face a $1,000 fine each time they pick up a fare.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking – “All those cabbies are going to have meters installed in a week? But there’s like, a ton of them and only a few installation garages!”

You’d be correct.

So there’s an extension – but it’s not called an extension. I call it “a bone” that’s been thrown to the cabdrivers. Basically, if they’re caught without a meter between May 1 and May 31, then they’ll get a warning. If no meter by June 1, all those warnings will convert to the monetary fine. After June 1, the fines are enforced. This gives them an extra four weeks to get metering devices installed.

All this because Fenty won the court ruling yesterday that upheld the city’s plan to require time-and-distance meters, as opposed to the eons-old zone-fare-customer-ripoff system.

Hey, it’s a good thing.

Although I really suspect cab customers are going to be out of luck snagging a metered cab in May; with the constant temper-tantrums the cabbies have been throwing over this changeover, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find many of them riding with dozens of warnings until June 1, in order to soak as many customers as possible.

Meantimes, the drivers are sending their lawyer to the D.C. Court of Appeals, in order to prevent scrapping the zone-ripoff system while the appeal is pending. We’ll see.

Cabs will be spot-checked in May and warnings handed out. Citizens can also report unmetered cabs. According to the press release put out by the mayor’s office, “Passengers who wish to file a complaint against an unmetered cab should obtain the taxicab driver’s name, company and license number and report it to the DC Taxicab Commission at (202) 645-6018 or dctc@dc.gov.”

I’ll stick to Metro and my own two feet until this mess is all over.

Cab stand at downtown Hyatt, courtesy of drewsaunders

While I may not have been successful in my bid for a national anthem slot at Nationals Park, I suppose I could try out to sing at the Metro. Metro’s looking for musicians to audition to sing at area stations this spring, summer and fall. Auditions run two days in May, and there’s a ton of detail at the MetroPerforms! page. Bring a headshot and a bio, as well as your musical group.

Me? I want a bagpipe choir.

But that’s just how I roll.

Street music — Originally uploaded by CGoulao

With about 14 minutes left in the third period, the Caps are holding on to a 3-2 lead over the Flyers. C’mon guys – get through this one and you’re back and home where we can cheer you on.

Update: And now 4-2, that’s two Ovechkin goals in a row. Seven more minutes…

And 4-2 is the final score! Woohoo! Next up: do or die at the Verizon center tomorrow.

…a suspicious package has been found at the White House, but no further details are available at this time. Thanks very much to a new Twitter-based News Service for breaking the news, and suggesting that you might not want to drive down 14th or 15th tonight near the White House if you can avoid it.

Chances are it’s some laundry, or maybe Cindy Sheehan’s latest missive, and totally unrelated to reality, but it is going to screw up your drive home. Metro, trust me.

Update: The package, as we suspected, is totally safe. It still fucked up rush hour though.