Sure, it’s chilly out today, and maybe it feels more like late March than it does late April, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little chilly in exchange for some free ice cream, does it? Ben & Jerry’s is giving out a free scoop of ice cream, for as long as their supply holds, in the greater world today. There are five B&J’s Scoop Shops in the District. Click on the pretty map for all the details.

There are a few outliers as well, including Old Town, Bethesda, and Fairfax, so zoom back if you’re out a bit further so you can get the ice cream love, too. Scooping starts at noon, be prepared to wait in a bit of a line.

The more time I spend telling jokes in and around DC, the more impressed I am with the quality of local talent we have hanging around here. The DC Improv is a great place to see national headliners, but there’s a great, bubbly mass o’ fun happening in smaller venues all around the area.

Local comedian (and a personal favorite of mine) Jake Young has started his own monthly show at McGinty’s Public House in Downtown Silver Spring, called The Awesome Room.

The first show will be January 31st at 9PM. You must go, if for no other reason than to see Seaton Smith. You will not be sorry.

AFI Silver has extended the run of the magnificent “Lawrence of Arabia” with daily showings at 3pm and 7:15pm from August 31 through September 13. That’s right, daily!

My viewing a few weeks ago reinforced my love for both a sublime film and theater experience. If you’ve been too lazy to catch it, then you really have no bloody excuse now - “HUT HUT HUT!!”

A distributor’s worst nightmare, I’ve given in to the home theater phenomenon when it comes to the movie experience. When I watch movies I want to be transported, and I can’t get into it properly with all the inane audiences yapping and texting. So I’ve curtailed my movie theater outings to special events, films that just beg to be seen on a super large screen. And AFI consistently is the place to go for this kind of transportation.

Sunday nights through September 2 at 7:15pm you can catch David Lean’s masterpiece “Lawrence of Arabia” in “glorious 70mm” as AFI says - and it truly is glorious. The restored print re-released on my eighteenth birthday and has captivated me ever since. Though I’m a huge Peter O’Toole fan, here in his intense cinematic debut, it’s Omar Sharif’s fire and ice performance that really does it for me now (”You will not be in Aqaba!!”). It’s also easily one of the most compelling and quotable scripts of the last century, not to mention, relevant once again.

The beautiful restoration of AFI’s Silver Theater back into an old-school temple of film makes it a great venue to see epics like this one. It sears the screen. You have five chances to escape your couch and go. I suggest you take them.

“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”

Twenty days ago, over 140 photographers gathered in Downtown Silver Spring, motivated to declare photographic freedom, the visualization of their First Amendment rights on Ellsworth Drive.

This public street, leased to PFA Silver Spring LC and the Peterson Companies for $1 per year, and according to those very same developers, restricted to approved actions and activities, was off-limits to casual photographers like Chip Py.

On July 4th, 2007, it became free for all to digitize, even Flickr-ize when the developers changed their policy to reduce photographic restrictions. On July 5th, real change, not a policy statement, came to the Ellsworth Drive debate. First the Press got involved and then, just last week, the bomb dropped.

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett wrote to PFA Silver Spring and Peterson Companies to express his opinion on the matter. An opinion that perfectly mirrors the Free Our Streets goal:

“The county considers Ellsworth [Drive] to be a public forum permitting the free and unfettered exercise of First Amendment rights by residents of the county and its visitors to the same extent as those rights are exercisable by residents and visitors to the county on any public sidewalk or public street within the county,”

No word yet on PFA Silver Spring’s reaction, but both Chip Py and I bet there’s freedom of speech at Peterson Companies headquarters this week!

Europe may have the Tour de France (perhaps a bit less exciting with the absence of a certain retired American), but here in Silver Spring we have a bike race of our own. In categories that began at 8:00am, men, women, kids and over-40s were all represented. But the real excitement started at 1:00 with the Silver Spring Grand Prix Men’s Pro 1/2/3.

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.

“Road closed” - that is what the sign in the photograph of Ellsworth Drive says and that’s what PFA Silver Spring, LC, the developers of Downtown Silver Spring, said to photographers for years who thought about snapping a picture on this once fully public street. Until last month.

That’s when Chip Py started questioning the policy after he was harassed for photography. And when Metroblogging DC decided to organize a photo walk to visualize his concerns through Free Our Streets.

Now the developer has changed their policy, a first step in the right direction. But a policy statement subject to change at any time is not the answer. Welcoming photography, videography, and other filming on Ellsworth Drive, consistent with First Amendment rights as they would apply on any other public street is.

Or as Marc Fisher says:

Chip Py’s run-in with the picture policeof downtown Silver Spring has morphed into a good old American fight for the right to express oneself…

…The Peterson Companies, the developer that took advantage of $100 million in generous taxpayer support to get their lovely downtown retail strip going, is apparently running scared, and has offered what it terms a compromise.

But it’s an empty offer. Peterson will put up a “Welcome Photographers” banner, but the reality is that the company is in no way conceding that the street it controls is open to the public in any meaningful way.

So its time for you to join our good old American fight for the right to express oneself. Its time for you to Free Our Streets with a Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk on the perfect day for a declaration of photographic freedom - July 4th!

Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk
a declaration of photographic freedom
Wednesday, July 4, 2007, 12:00pm - Noon
At the Green Turf, the corner of Ellsworth and Fenton Streets

Downtown Silver Spring by Chip Py

Free Our Streets, a loose association of Chip Py and DC Metrobloggers has started to make a difference.

Through our efforts, Montgomery county citizens are now aware that the developers of Downtown Silver Spring feel they have bought control over basic First Amendment rights on Ellsworth Avenue for $1 a year. And MoCo voters are not happy.

The questions they’re asking has led PFA Silver Spring LLC, a development partnership including the Peterson Companies, Foulger Pratt and Argo Investment, to change their stance on photography. But that change is just a start, a first, baby step. As the Baltimore Sun explains:

Last night, the development team, PFA Silver Spring LLC, issued a new policy, allowing photography in the area. And on July 4, it plans to display a “Welcome Photographers” banner on the site.

But Py insists photography is not his sole concern. All types of free expression should be permitted, from political campaigning to handing out fliers and other literature, he said.

“They are telling us it’s OK to take pictures on the street, but we don’t have any other First Amendment rights,” he said. “They don’t want to talk about public-private rights on a street. … We are asking for some First Amendment considerations in our town.”

Free Our Streets is asking for PFA Silver Spring LC to welcome photography, videography, and other filming on Ellsworth Drive, consistent with First Amendment rights as they would apply on any other public street. Not a watered down “photography at our discretion, if we like you” policy for Ellsworth Drive.

The Downtown Silver Spring development includes $187 million in county and state funds and the once completely public property Ellsworth Drive, public investment that should come with public rights.

And so the Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk is still on. A declaration of photographic freedom on July 4th.

Two weeks ago, we picked up the story of Chip Py, a long time Montgomery County resident who was barred from taking pictures in Downtown Silver Spring.

Both outraged and inspired by the incident, we’re organizing a Silver Spring Photo Walk via Free Our Streets to show our support of photography and our annoyance with the use of public lands restricted by private developers.

Downtown Silver Spring by Chip Py

If you too find yourself

• harrased when photographing people
• told to stop by security guards
• or even arrested for photography

and/or you are generally angry that taxpayer-supported urban renewal projects are leased to developers who then curtail First Amendment rights on quasi-public property, then come join us for:

Downtown Silver Spring Photo Walk
a declaration of photographic freedom
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 12:00pm - Noon

More performance art than concert film, Stop Making Sense is something any Talking Heads fan should seek out. And if you made it to Silver Spring last night, the AFI was gracious enough to provide a free outdoor screening on a closed off Ellsworth Drive as part of their SilverDocs documentary film festival (in collaboration with the Discovery Channel). The location is across the street from the MLK fountain and midway between the Discovery Channel headquarters and the site that hosts the annual Silver Spring Jazz Festival.

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…