Today marks the opening of Artomatic 2008 or what should be called “More Art Than You Can Shake a Stick At 2008″. This annual show promises to be bigger and better than ever this year, taking over the empty ten story Capitol Plaza office building and housing the work of about 1,000 artists. Yes. 1,000 artists. Not exactly something you can see all of in a casual walk through. Something tells me I’m going to have to make multiple trips to the show and even then probably won’t catch everything.

So what is Artomatic you ask? Their website sums it up best by saying:

Artomatic is a month-long multimedia arts event that draws together visual artists, musicians and performers and brings their work to the community without charge.

I had toyed around with the idea of exhibiting in this year’s show but just couldn’t get my act together in time. Picking a series of photos, printing them (bleh), framing them (bleh and cha-ching!), printing business cards, painting the walls of my space, arranging lighting…way too much work for me to tackle. I am, however, excited to see the work of many of my friends at this year’s show including Marie Kwak, Eric Petersen, Kyle Gustafson, Angela Kleis, and Jason Colston.

The show opens at noon today and if you are planning on going tonight (like I am), be prepared for an insane amount of people and chaos. If you want to avoid tonight’s crowd, the show runs until June 15th so you have plenty of time to pay your respects to DC’s art community.

Artomatic
Opening Friday, May 9 - Closing June 15
1200 First St NE
Capital Plaza I - corner of First & M streets NE - NY Ave Metro
Wed-Thu: 5pm-10pm; Fri-Sat: noon-2am; Sun: noon-10pm; closed Mon-Tue
Free admission; donations welcome

Photo by Tracy Lee

I was pretty sure that my good friend and colleague Jonny Goldstein (of Jonny’s Par-Tay) was never going to warm up to a city like Washington, DC. He moved here the same time I did, about two years ago, and I could tell that DC didn’t really have the spark he had come to love about the Big Apple after ten years there.

We met up at the Brickskeller with Andy Carvin one summer evening after the three of us had moved here independently within a month of each other and I sensed, from how Jonny described his DC experiences thus far, that he found the place serviceable but not necessarily interesting beyond the obvious tourist sites. I was excited to have moved somewhere with built-in friends and was a bit sad that Jonny may not be satisfied enough with the area to make it his home.

This is why I was happy to see the serene emotions in his post about five really cool things that happened to him in DC within about 90 minutes:

So, for all my griping, DC sometimes surprises me with little moments like these. And I appreciate that this former swamp has turned into a city that every once in a while even a jaded dude like me can appreciate.

Jonny, I know you won’t be here forever, but I am glad you have warmed up to the place a little. Hopefully when you go back to New York, whenever that may be, you will take positive memories with you, not just the occasional soullessness of the city and the bleak strip malls that pockmark the roads and highways. It’s a different kind of high here, but one definitely worth trying and I am glad you eventually inhaled deeply enough to get it.

To anyone lucky enough to have ended up here, like Jonny and me, I offer you this hope – give this city, in fact, the whole area, a fair chance. You’d be surprised how at home you can feel after just a short stay.

Readers, I would love to know what brought you here, what has kept you here and what do you find here in the DC area that you can’t get anywhere else. Please chime in.

I love AlertDC. The idea is so simple: send you text messages when something’s up.

Today’s something is six major water mains (8″ to 16″ in diameter) in Southeast DC being broken. Yeah. Five. Check out the map that shows where they are. Thanks to WASA for the service call information for each that’s in the google maps locations. Five of the Six are listed as “High” impact, which probably means there’s a lot of places that don’t have water right now.

Meanwhile, the other link on their front page? An 8.5% Rate Increased Proposed for Next Year. Looks like they might need one…

[Update] WASA is having a press conference at 12:30pm at 14th & B Sts SE. Sadly I can’t get there (damn you, work!) but I should hopefully have another update by 1:30 or 2pm.

The Capital Weather Gang (rarely wrong, always fun to read) have put up their insanely optimistic forecast for the early part of the week, calling for sunshine, low humidity and the kind of perfect days that exist only in the collective imagination of the poets.

So, here’s what you do after work today. Don’t head straight home, take a walk. Getting on the metro at McPherson Square? Walk to Metro Center or Farragut West. Walk through Dupont Circle down to Farragut North. Walk to Gallery Place or Archives.

Give yourself a taste of this awesome weather instead of taking the subterranean route home. Taking the bus? Walk a few blocks and catch it at the next stop up the route.

Or, blow off dinner at the house, and pack it up and head for the park for a picnic. Better yet? Take your camera and snap some shots for the Flickr group!

From my walk — Originally uploaded by tbridge

Phew, another week in DC! Things never seem to get boring around here do they?

• We’ve got the Wizards pulling off a stunner against Cleveland to survive one more day in the NBA playoffs. Good luck tonight fellas. Let’s hope that Queen James doesn’t decide to open up a can of whoopass and dunk on your heads. Here are some tips for winning: play some aggressive D, drive to the hole, make your foul shots, and rebound for Rodman’s sake!
• Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, the ‘DC Madam’, hung herself with some rope in a shed down in Florida. While suicide is not exactly the best way to solve your problems, I don’t feel sad for Deborah like a lot of people do. She got herself into her mess and then came up with a way to get herself out of it. Now if somehow we find out that there was foul play involved…that’s entirely different.
• Taxis started installing meters. And by ‘taxis’, I mean about six of them. Cabbies are dragging their feet when it comes to installing them, claiming their income will be drastically reduced. And that’s my problem how? I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to trick the system, like taking the long way around town or by choosing streets that are known for traffic jams.
• People lined up like starving wolves for free ice cream cones at Ben & Jerry’s. Baskin Robbins tried to follow that up by selling $0.31 scoops, but don’t they understand that nothing is better than free, and that people don’t want four pennies in change?
• There was a shootout at a school in NE DC. None of the victims died thankfully, but did this make the national news? It’s shame that people are so immune to hearing about shootings in DC. If this had happened in some place like, I dunno, Taos, CNN would have been on the scene faster than Wolf Blitzer’s beard grows.

What did I miss? You know, when some of us move out of DC to some place like, I dunno, Taos…life is going to be pretty boring in comparison. I can’t wait to see what happens next week! Hopefully less shooting and more free ice cream.

Photo by rsplatpc

The Golden Triangle BID announced their summer lineup for their popular “Sounds in the Square” concert series. The concerts are free at the Farragut Square Park on Thursday evenings in May and June from 5:00 to 7:00pm. Rain dates will be held in September.

This year’s series will feature concerts by some of the area’s most popular bands like No Second Troy, and local favorites including Everyone but Pete and JunkFood. So if you’re looking for some great local music fused with warm summer evenings in the middle of downtown DC, this might be your thing.

The current schedule is:

May 8 No Second Troy
May 15 Justin Jones & The Driving Rain
May 22 Everyone But Pete
June 5 JunkFood
June 12 The Kelly Bell Band
June 19 Crowded Streets
June 26 Reflex

You can check for any updates at the Golden Triangle’s website and if you’re myspace-savvy, add them as a friend.

OmegaBand, courtesy of stgermh

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.

A group of truckers was supposed to drive very slowly through DC during morning rush today in order to protest gas prices (by wasting it? I don’t get it.) and then go over to the Capitol to raise heck with the Congresscritters and Senators and demand a gas price cap.

Sadly, they got stuck in traffic on I-270, and missed morning rush.

I’m seriously laughing at my keyboard right now that they got screwed by the very force they intended to screw us all with. Surely, they’re going to be present today, messing with our street traffic for a bit, but at least they had the common decency to get stuck like the rest of us…

A few days ago, I found myself in a foreign land known as “Capitol Hill”. It took me about 45 minutes to find my way over there from NW DC, partly because my GPS told me to get onto 395 like the stupid gadget that it is. When will I learn to turn that thing off while driving through our complicated crisscross of roads and quadrants? Alas, after going from Dupont to Union Station to L’enfant Plaza to Eastern Market, I had finally made it to my destination on 8th street SE in what was probably the most difficult possible way.

After meeting with my underground stonecutters group and drinking the blood of an English sheep, I decided some food was in order. “What do these people of ‘Capitol Hill’ eat?” I wondered. Do they partake in the sushi, the steak frites, or the spaghetti and meatballs? It was then that I remembered a tale once told by my friend about a place known at Kenny’s BBQ and how it was legendary in this far off land. Low and behold, this famous eating establishment was a mere ten minute drive away.

As I made my way into the establishment, I was greeted by a fine young lady behind the counter. Actually that’s not true. She didn’t say a word and just stared off into the distance, waiting for me to order. She used a toothpick to clean underneath her fingernails. I perused their menu and started to salivate because one, I was starving and two, it’d been ages since I’d eaten some good BBQ.

I asked the customer service oriented counter lady, “What comes with the platter?” She replied, “It’s a platter.” Mmmmm. That was sounding good. I then remembered how much I like baked beans with my BBQ and asked, “Do you have baked beans?” As she stared down at the cash register and ran her fingers over the buttons she replied, “No.” So I decided on the shredded beef platter with a side of macaroni and cheese, and in the absence of baked beans I chose a side of black eyed peas and rice. In ten minutes my food was all bagged up and ready to go, so assuming I could find my way back to NW, I would be eating in no time.

When I got home, I unpacked my Styrofoam container of shredded dead cow as my dog anxiously drooled nearby. To my surprise they had included some cornbread along with my massive meal. I couldn’t wait to see how much of it I could stuff into my face at 10:00 at night. I dove into the BBQ beef and at first thought to myself, “Arrrggggghhhh….BBQ….sooo delicious….” My dog looked at me and said, “Arrrggggghhh….I know…BBQ…sooo delicious…give me some noooow you bastard….” But as my hunger wore off and I actually thought about critiquing the taste, my thoughts changed to, “Hmph. It tastes like shredded beef with sweet and sour sauce on top of it.” The macaroni and cheese had almost no flavor to it. It was more like macaroni and Elmer’s Glue. The black eyed peas and rice tasted pretty good but would have been much better had they been baked beans. And the cornbread you ask? It was pretty dry and tasted like it was premade or had been sitting on a shelf all day long.

So all in all, my Kenny’s BBQ experience wasn’t one that I’m going to highly recommend to you. In fact, I’d rather eat with my grandma in her retirement home’s cafeteria where they serve a delicious ham with applesauce. Plus I get to eat in the warm company of my grandma.

Photo of a flying pig by Grundlepuck

Well, apparently, the District now owns 3 Czech-made streetcars. Sure, they’re still operating and living in the Czech Republic. The city, and its taxpayers, have forked over $10 million for a set of three streetcars back in 2005. The line still hasn’t been built yet. Designed to go from Bolling AFB to the Anacostia Metro, the tracks have never been laid. The city promises they’ll be looking into that, and an operator for this new system, this summer.

But those 3 streetcars are still running in the Czech Republic…

So, wait. We’re going to pay $10M for used streetcars? For real?