If you aren’t listening to Bill Simmons’ B.S. Report podcast, then you don’t know what you are missing.

Sports fans may know him as the ESPN columnist that’s a die-hard Boston sports fan (which appeals to me as a former Bostonian), I know him mainly from his daily podcasts that feature interviews with his friends, fellow writers, and the occasional GM or actor. His experience writing for the Jimmy Kimmel Show has given him a broad background and network that makes his podcasts entertaining for both fans of sports and pop culture.

So you can tell that I was thrilled to hear via Twitter that Simmons will be kicking off his book tour in Washington DC with a midnight signing at ESPN Zone. He’ll be there tonight to release his latest book, The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy, and he’ll be signing copies that you can purchase or you can bring in your own copies to be signed (he’s already recommended going to Amazon or Wal-Mart to get the best deals.)

So if you want to know where I’ll be tonight, I’ll be the one with the Red Sox cap standing in line downtown- however I have a feeling there’ll be a lot of Boston caps in line, maybe I should wear my Nationals hat instead.

UPDATE: It was great to shake The Sports Guy’s hand and get him to sign my copy of the book with an insult to my Alma Mater (which neighbors his Alma Mater of Holy Cross.) The event was so big that they didn’t have enough books for everyone, and the line rounded the corner and went down three blocks- glad to see DC has a lot of Bill Simmons fans!

Tony Perkins eats a sock. (courtesy WTTG-TV)

Last week saw a Labor Day with a few sprinkles as rain kept it a drab affair.

That was bad news to Fox 5 weatherman Tony Perkins, who guaranteed great weather for Labor Day or he’d eat his sock.

Well he kept his word and ate a sock on-air the Tuesday after, if you didn’t hear about it then you can check out the video of the daring feat.

In a man bites dog news world, it only some-what surprises me that he actually ate a sock.

Morning personalities are so wacky they will do anything.

h/t to DCist for the info.

Fellow Metblogs author Frank should be thrilled this week.

Fresh from his departure from Monday Night Football, he begged and pleaded for Tony Kornheiser to return to radio, well yesterday his dream came true as the The Tony Kornheiser Show returns to ESPN 980 AM, the place where he broadcasted between 1998-2004.

The show is going to air weekdays from 10 AM – Noon and should be available on ESPN 980’s website in on-demand and podcast formats. You should also be able to stream audio live from their website but certain people had trouble listening to Tony’s debut show yesterday. Maybe the return of his show had everyone hitting up ESPN 980’s website.

I first heard about Tony’s return on the B.S. Report with Bill Simmons, and I am a fan of PTI whenever I get a chance to watch it (almost never) so this morning I went to the site and took a listen. I have to agree that Tony really comes alive on radio, and as Jim Williams over at the Washington Examiner puts it, “you tune in to hear about sports and you come away with current events, pop culture and, most of all, an entertaining show — something rare on sports talk radio.”

Now I know what everyone in D.C. has been missing- and I’m glad he’s back.

DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM??!

Tony Kornheiser, Washington D.C. resident and national sports writing talking icon, has lost one of his two jobs. 

And yeah, yeah it’s sad and all that Mr. Tony will no longer be in the Monday Night Football booth, replaced by former Bucs coach John “Thank you for the Super Bowl team Mr. Dungy” Gruden.  But that’s not the story.  That’s not the thing to be excited about.

The thing to be exited about DC, the real reason this merits a blog post is the likely (please I hope to God, seriously this needs to happen) return of The Tony Kornheiser Show to radio.  Dozens upon dozens of radio listeners are rejoicing at the idea that this news might herald the return of the single greatest radio show the Washington D.C. are has ever heard.  Ever.

Mr. Tony is an old man (or at least he says so) and the prospect of doing a radio show, PTI and MNF was too much-particularly since his fear of flying meant travel by bus across the country.  It was just too much on his orange headed body to do it all, so the TKS (the job that paid the least) had to go.  

TKS had this kind of Eggnog quality to it:  Delicious, can’t get enough-but only available for a limited time.  Each January we would tune in and each May/June we’d plead with our radios for Tony not to go.  The promise was one day MNF would “wise up” and replace him in the booth with someone who knew football and he would come back and do the radio show. 

So we watched the skies, looking for signs that the prophecy would be fulfilled-and now that day seems to have come.   The most recent “Talking Points” both Wilbon and Kornheiser (May 18th and 19th episodes) seem to indicate that this is a “fo sho.” 

More about the show after the jump, if you’re interested.

(more…)

(Captain’s Note: Rachel from Rachel, Rachel I’ve Been Thinking was my lovely companion to last week’s WGA reception at the Newseum- here’s her take.)

Courtesy WGA East

Okay so I’m a little slow on the guest-blogging but last last Friday (that would be May 8th), Patrick took me as his plus-one to one of the many pre-/post-party events surrounding the White House Correspondents Dinner (aka journalist prom). We got to attend probably the funniest event of the weekend, maybe not including the actual dinner, because President Obama’s speech was hysterical.

Nonetheless, The Writer’s Guild of America, East hosted a reception, stand-up show and panel all packed into one evening at the Newsuem, highlighting the world of comedy news. There are many things to focus on from the night (open bar!) but in particular, the stand-up from writers of the Daily Show, Colbert and Letterman was pretty hysterical. They certainly knew how to play to the very liberal, very hip, urban crowd and the jokes were full of Obama-loving, Bush-hating rhetoric. And pointed cracks at their own awesomeness and general writing prowess.

The comics’ heavy-handed liberalness was a point in the panel discussion,when one audience member asked why the conservative media hadn’t jumped on the comedy news bandwagon. Certainly it could work in the same way that Daily Show and Colbert (obviously the two favorites of the night) make a point of mocking media and politics. A writer for one of the shows (I had a hard time keeping them all straight — it was an open bar after all) said that conservative comedy is out there — in the form of Fox & Friends every single day — and he had the unenviable job of watching every minute of it. No doubt comedic gold.

But the formula works. A very clear theme emerged during the course of the event: these guys (and it was almost all men) were largely unconcerned with making the kind of pop culture waves that they have so often made. When both the recent feud with Jim Cramer by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner were mentioned as great moments, not only for the shows, but for media and news in general, the writers simply said that, sure, they were really proud of those kind of results, for making people sit up and listen, but their goal on a day-to-day basis is just to make people laugh.

One writer said, we don’t expect to be educating anyone. We’re just there to shine a light on the things we expect our audience already knows.

That seems to be the key to comedy news success. To really poke fun, you have to know what’s going on in the first place. And only then can you really laugh at it.

I had a fever today. I’m not talking about the possible fallout from a night of debauchery. I’m not talking about a fever who’s remedy is more cowbell. I’m talking about a fever for chicken- Peruvian Chicken to be exact.

It all started when my intern was watching No Reservations in D.C. it featured a few places I was familiar with, including some Vietnamese restaurants in Eden Center. Then Mr. Bourdain randomly stops by El Pollo Rico, one of the many Peruvian chicken shops in Arlington. Peruvian chicken is one of the many cuisines that run rampant just like Kebobs, Sushi, and Ethiopian. He gave a glowing review of the place as he went behind the counter to see it first hand.

Now my only experience wit El Pollo Rico has been at the catered lunches that will sometimes feature the cuisine from El Pollo Rico, however it’s been awhile since that’s happened and since watching the program the conversation between my intern and I has often included trying to find this world renown El Pollo Rico.

So this past weekend I found myself starving and I decided I was going to go online and find it. It’s actually just down the street from my house in Clarendon, so I happily drove down and found it without any problems. It is a bit off the beaten path over on 932 N Kenmore St in Arlington.

The building is a plain brick building with no markings other than a yellow sign and the smell of roasted chicken in the air. The parking lot was already full and when I walked inside there were two long lines of hungry patrons waiting to get their chicken on.

The restaurant itself is pretty simple, wooden chairs and tables fill the sparsely decorated space. The shop is cash only and offers nothing but chicken in three sizes (quarter, half, and whole.) I was pretty hungry so I got the half chicken with fries and cole slaw. I was impressed with the amount of food I got for only $8. Definitely a cheap eat.

I wasn’t a big fan of the lime hot sauce but I quickly fell in love with the yellow mustard/mayo like sauce. I used it for dipping my fries in as I scarfed down the take-out order at home.

After eating every finger-licking bite I believe I have now found a new staple to my lazy weekends. Is anybody else  in love with this local favorite? I know I am.

We attended a screening of the new documentary Orphans of Apollo at George Washington University on Friday evening, and have been mulling ever since. On the surface, this is a documentary that tells the ill-fated story of a dot.com millionaire’s attempt to lease the Mir space station back in 2000. A bit deeper, it’s a thought-provoking look at why commercial access to space remains speculative fiction.

The tagline is “Join this band of rebels out to change the course of history in space, as they board a private Gulf Stream jet, fly to Russia and negotiate one of the most remarkable business deals of the final frontier.” The story is told in interviews with the participants, mixed with some great footage of this bunch of starry-eyed kids who grew up watching the Apollo landings and reading Heinlein. When they teamed up with MBAs intent on leveraging post-Soviet technology, they sidestepped decades of global politics. Watching it play out was fascinating (even if you’re not a closet space geek).

The underlying message, however, still makes me squirm. Our government dangles space as the future, promising scientific discovery, technological innovation, and life on the final frontier. But as one of the participants observes, “the government views anything you send into space as a weapon”. And of course, that’s true, but it’s also politics-as-usual and therefore complicated. Control of space for communications, global positioning, as well as more traditional weapons is a huge priority for our government, and the Outer Space Treaty is ticklish at best.

Me, I’d love to see Dancing with the Stars in microgravity. But I’m settling for great documentary films like this.

Read the blog, order the DVD, or post comments at www.OrphansofApollo.com

Just when I thought I was done with the Inauguration beat the hits keep on coming!

The Funny or Die crew visited DC during the Inauguration to film the latest installment of their high five montages.

My friends at Funny or Die sent along word about the video and when I saw it, I was immediately laughing. Now I thought the first couple were great but the DC version includes more celebs, pundits, and politicians than ever! They definitely did a great job taking advantage of the influx of famous names in town for the weekend.

I’m a sucker for DC locales and they did a great job of getting high fives all over downtown. The list of names range from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to Howard Dean to even Newt Gingrich. Celebs like Jack Black, Nelly, and even Obama Girl make an appearance. I especially like the sinister looking Larry King.

Click on the image below to watch the video:

Do you have national name recognition and at least 6 years of journalism-preferably in hosting radio?

Well NPR wants you for their new host of Weekend All Things Considered.  That’s right-you can be a national news outlet based in Washington DC looking to hire someone to expand one of the best known products in radio-and you still have to post your jobs online.

You would think that these types of jobs are done with headhunters and “people who know people” finding each other-but there you go, Joe Q. Public, you get your shot too.    

Maybe President-Elect Obama can put a posting for Secretary of Commerceon USAJobs while we’re at it.

My pal Molly at the Washington Post recently told me about an essay contest the paper is having. Between now through the end of 2008, the paper wants to know what you think it means to be a Washingtonian. The entries should be no more than 300 words (so this isn’t your college term paper) and the winning entries get $100. You can get complete details at their web site.

As one of many that enjoy writing about The District I encourage everyone to express their viewpoint- after seeing that it’s only a short essay I may even pen an entry- I’m sure my 11th grade English professor would be proud!