With pros, including some national champions, entered in the event I was convinced the local boys were out of their league. Surprise! Ken Young, member of a team sponsored by Clean Currents and Don Beyer Volvo, took first place.

With the “ban” lifted, photographers were out in force, including yours truly.

After waiting and waiting with my brethren small-purchase linemates, I peered ahead to see what the problem was. Sure enough, some math-challenged mom-bitch with easily three or four times the maximum 8 items for the express line was holding us up. The sheepish clerk said nothing while he filled up her two paper bags worth of “express” items. Obviously a newbie, he wasn’t helping matters by letting her get away with it in the first place, not to mention the fact he was so green he had to consult the numbers book to ring up every produce item in her arsenal. The icing on the cake came when she stood there the entire time until getting the total before finally pulling out her purse, digging through it for a few minutes, getting out her credit card, and handing it to the clerk. Hello? McFly? There was a credit/debit card swiper right in front of your face the whole time and you can initiate payment after the first item is scanned by the clerk.

“Christ what a bitch,” I muttered under my breath a little too loudly because it drew chuckles all around from everyone except the greenhorn. Some days it just doesn’t pay to leave the house.

On a tip from Carl, I swung down on Saturday to see the Mekong River area. The Northern Ireland and Historic Virginia programs didn’t hold much interest for me, especially after dealing with poduncks from all points. Sheesh, after that last comment I guess I’ve now morphed into a confirmed DC local snob.

Food, and in particular crafts, are on full display. Bamboo weaving, fish trap building, silver smithing, pottery, culinary demonstrations and probably a dozen other things I missed are all worth visiting.

Or, you could just sleep in (my plan) and then mess with a giant evil corporation.

Also on display are works from the more whimsical Motel of the Mysteries. Macaulay’s sense of humor and his ability to render complex engineering concepts is a hallmark of his skill. In an industry now dominated by CAD, he continues to produce all his work with pencil, ink, and wash.

A more thorough biography including a list of his publications and awards is available in PDF format.

Before opening to the public today, NBM members were treated to an appearance on Saturday by Macaulay in an event dubbed The Big Draw, with a reception afterwards. The exhibit runs through January 21, 2008.

The film was conceived and directed by Jonathan Demme in 1984, after seeing the Heads perform live at the Greek in LA.

The cinematic nature of their show inspired him to approach David Byrne and pitch his idea.

I forgot just how good the film and performance are after a 20 year hiatus. The street was packed with aging new wavers dancing and clapping and smiling with obvious enjoyment. Younger folks and kids also joined in. One man I met, an older blues musician who wasn’t familiar with the band and the film, seemed really intrigued when I explained some of the history of the group and the movie.

I saw the original the same year it was released in 1985, at the Downer Theatre in Milwaukee. It was the first concert film to use digital audio, and they did not hold back on the volume. Around the same time I was lucky enough to run into Jerry Harrison, a Milwaukee native. I had a nice chat with him over a few beers at the famous Hooligan’s Super Bar in the same neighborhood. After the Heads broke up, Jerry went on to produce records for such bands as the Violent Femmes (also from Milwaukee, the trio used to play on the street and were “discovered” by the Pretenders before a show they were invited to open for at the historic Oriental Theatre), along with the Foo Fighters, Crash Test Dummies, The Verve Pipe, No Doubt, and many others.

Follow-up releases of the film on DVD (and other formats no one uses anymore) include songs that were edited out of the original due to time constraints.

Fans of bassist Tina Weymouth should remember her spin-off band, the Tom Tom Club, which was a collaboration with her husband and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. They performed one song in the film, Genius of Love.

I almost forgot to mention the big suit, drop me in the water…

The “Mayor of Silver Spring” was our official town drunk. Although he was born into a prominent DC family, Norman got off to a rough start. His mother had TB and the stress of bringing him to term took her life and left little Norman
with life-long problems. He ran away from a school for retarded children when he was six. He grew up as an outcast, drifting around the country doing odd jobs, farm work and washing dishes. He was an odd shaped piece that never quite fit into society’s jigsaw puzzle.

One day he put out his last cigarette in his last beer and just like that, he quit. But the truth is he wasn’t much different sober. Silver Spring’s loving care allowed Norman to live out his life on his own terms. Silver Spring’s
finest hour lasted 25 years.

Norman passed away in 1987.

The monument was sculpted and donated by Fred Folsom in 1991.

Most of us remember the story of George and Martha, and we’ve witnessed a number of other dramatic rescues. A visit to the National Zoo’s Bald Eagle Refuge will get you a close-up look at these majestic creatures. And now you can get a rare view of a wild bald eagle nest provided by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries at this WVEC Web cam page.

Down to a low of only 417 pairs in the lower 48 states in 1963, the birds have now been upgraded from endangered to threatened. I have yet to see one soaring over the river. What about you? Tell us your story of spotting our national symbol.

Warning: Tickets are not cheap. They range from $150 for the upper balcony to $750 for the best orchestra seats. If you have the disposable income, it should be an outstanding show. There is 4 ticket limit per person.

If you can’t afford to see the show live, don’t despair. PBS will broadcast the event on Wednesday, June 27th at 9PM ET.

Unfortunately, you only have until the 13th to get down to the USBG to see it yourself. Hey, better late than never. Don’t forget to check out the new National Garden while you’re there. It’s already starting to fill-in and in a few more years it will be really outstanding.

On politics:

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves…It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.”
—Slaughterhouse-Five

Or religion:

“When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes’.”
—Slaughterhouse-Five

Or cosmology:

“The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.”

Even in his 80s, when Brinkley interviewed Vonnegut in 2006, Vonnegut still had his edge:

I ask him whether he worries that cigarettes are killing him. “Oh, yes,” he answers, in what is clearly a set-piece gag. “I’ve been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I was twelve or fourteen. So I’m going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do you know why?” “Lung cancer?” I offer.

“No. No. Because I’m eighty-three years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me. Instead, their cigarettes didn’t work. Now I’m forced to suffer leaders with names like Bush and Dick and, up until recently, ‘Colon.’”….

When I was a University of Chicago freshman, I received a copy of the UC Alumni magazine.

“What does the “X” before the year mean?”, I asked a fellow student.

“The student dropped out before graduating.”

I then learned that Vonnegut dropped out before finishing his BA in anthropology. After the publication of “Cat’s Cradle”, the UC anthropology chair met with college administration and decided to confer on Vonnegut his BA based on Cat’s Cradle as his thesis.

Vonnegut gave the school the finger.

If only I had the talent in that finger.

RIP Kurt. NYC, April 11th, 2007.

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
—Kurt Vonnegut

Thanks to my friend Larry, who put these quotes together.