December 2011
28 posts
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The Best of DC 2011
The Best of DC 2011
According to whack jobs and disaster flicks, 2011 was the last full year on Earth, and what a good one it was for the denizens here in Chocolate City. In case you don’t already have enough excuses to pop some bottles and raise a glass this New Years, here’s a few more reasons why it’s good to live in Washington DC.
Adams Morgan doesn’t suck as...
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Now Playing: Midnight in Paris
Midnight in Paris
Midnight in Paris is for Owen Wilson what Stranger Than Fiction was for Will Ferrell: a staggeringly creative film that allowed a one-note comedy actor to surprise an audience with his ability to branch out.
Wilson plays Gil Pender, a Hollywood writer trying to make the switch to being a novelist. He’s on vacation with his fiancé and her parents in Paris, right in the heart of...
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Now Hear This: Merry Fat-mas
Merry Fat-mas and a Happy New Year’s Resolution
It’s that time of year again, where we deck the halls in pork fat and line our tables with bountiful sweets—enough to send a diabetic into a coma. There are chocolates and cheeses, fridges full of meats and there, lurking in the background is the gravy, just waiting to be poured over everything. Oh and did I forget to mention the...
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Channel Surfing: Misfits
Misfits
The opening episode builds towards a brilliant idea: a strange storm rolls into town, lightning strikes, and five teens on probation find themselves the new custodians of strange new powers. This isn’t some superhero show where a bunch of reckless losers slowly transform into a superhero team, though. Their already downtrodden and complicated lives, it seems, will only continue...
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The Reaction: Favorite Holiday Tradition
Being that the holiday season is so enriched with tradition, what’s your favorite one?
(Click “Read More” to see The Dispatch’s response.)
Jared: To say that my family is eccentric would be a wild understatement and so every Christmas, my one uncle, Bill, gets blitzed and begins raving about some one-liner that will inevitably go on to haunt him throughout the rest of the...
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Behind The Bar: Flying Dog Brewery
Flying Dog Brewery
“Good people drink good beer,” or so is the world according to Flying Dog, an eccentric craft brewery tucked away in Frederick Maryland. George Stranahan and the boys behind the brew have been at it for over twenty years now (five in Frederick), and their level of knowledge, experience and exuberance shows in spades.
ABOVE: FLYING DOG’S BEAUTIFUL BOTTLE...
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Margin Notes: A Long December by Counting Crows
The Quote: “The smell of hospitals in winter / And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls / All at once you look across a crowded room / To see the way that light attaches to a girl ” -Counting Crows
Margin Notes: Around this time of year, everyone starts getting all sentimental. Magazines run their best moments/wines/murders/sports achievements lists,...
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Now Hear This: Kim Jung Il Dies, Country Ordered...
Kim Jung Il Dies, Country Ordered To Mourn
PYONGYANG – Men and women line up by the dozens to show their grief for their late, luminous leader, Kim Jung Il. Draped in black, they kneel before the various monuments to Kim weeping uncontrollably, praying that the sun will still manage to rise tomorrow even if The Great One isn’t there to lift it over the horizon as he has all these...
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Now Hear This: Who the Hell is Philip Levine?
Who the Hell is Philip Levine?
For those of you who just looked him up, I’m going to tell you that I’m not doing poetry analysis. This is about song lyrics. So get that cursor off of the “New Tab” button and bring your eyes back here.
You know who our poet laureate is, right? Of course you don’t. His name is Philip Levine and I had no idea who he was until ten...
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The Reaction: Would you rather be good looking or...
(Click Read More to see The Dispatch’s Reaction)
Jared: Both are shallow ends that aren’t nearly as important as other factors so I’ll arbitrarily go with being rich. I can pay people to find me attractive, can probably date within the same pool of women as my handsome counterpart and, unlike good looks, gravity and Father Time won’t be able to chip away at my gifts....
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The Mix Tape: Cyrenic - Dying To Live
Cyrenic – Dying To Live
Cyrenic isn’t just one of those local bands who we raise lighters for because we’ve walked the very avenues they mention within the verses of their songs. No, when DC denizens throw their Bics up in the sky at a Cyrenic show, it’s for a much greater reason: the boys of Cyrenic are good. Damn good.
And their fourth album, Dying To Live, shows the band...
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Channel Surfing: Boardwalk Empire, Season Two
Here is my flat-out declaration: this second season of Boardwalk Empire features the best television writing since David Simon first came out with The Wire. (Let’s just forget about the boring, aimless disaster that is Treme.) For the past twelve weeks, I’ve been sure to make time for this hour-long drama that is a worthy counterpart to the jazz-age masterpiece that is F. Scott...
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D.C. Burger Wars Part II: And The Winner Is...
D.C. Burger Wars Part II: And The Winner Is…
(Click here to read Part I)
There are few items that are iconic enough to define America in the eyes of many: the stars and stripes, apple pie, John Wayne. The Burger. And being that Washington DC is our nation’s capital, uncovering its best burger felt like less of an adventure and more of a manifest destiny charged upon us. In this...
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On The Menu: D.C. Burger Wars, Part I
D.C. Burger Wars
For many months, Jared and I have talked about eating a lot of burgers in a single day. A disgusting act of gluttony? Perhaps. An opportunity to inform our readers of some quality burgers in D.C.? Absolutely.
The District has had several nominal burger spots pop up in recent months, so we set out to sample three of the most talked-about locations in hopes of determining...
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The Reaction: Rick Perry Loves Jesus, Hates All...
In hindsight, what else should jackass Rick Perry have included in his recent inflammatory ad?
(Click “Read More” to see The Dispatch’s reaction.)
Grant: Maybe he should have mentioned that those gay soldiers haven’t been protecting his freedoms enough to warrant their service. After all, it’s not like they’re dodging the same bullets and IEDs that all the...
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Now Hear This: The Car Makes The Man
The Car Makes The Man
Sir William Rootes once said “No other man-made device since the shields and lances of the ancient knights fulfills a man’s ego like an automobile.” It’s true, that since the dawn of its creation, man has defined himself by his car. There is no rite of passage greater—bar mitzvah, puberty, second base—that can more clearly indicate the progression of boy to...
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Margin Notes: Blind Pilot - Half Moon
“Don’t you forget you come from nothing.”
—Blind Pilot, “Half Moon”
For my birthday this year, my brother made me a kick-ass mix CD. Despite a troubled start in his pre-teen years, he somehow managed to find his way to the good stuff and for that, I am thankful. He threw on some music from Mayer Hawthorne, The Kooks, and The Lucksmiths, but it was this...
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Now Hear This: Your Wife, The Prop
Now Hear This: Your Wife, The Prop
Ex-cuse me?. That’s what we all were thinking when The Godfather of pizza and sex scandals stepped out on stage and announced that he would be dropping out of the race on Saturday. It’s not the fact that he was bowing out that was surprising—the man did have three continuous weeks of scorned women crawling out of the woodwork pointing their...
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A Farewell to My Grandfather
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
Pop-Pop used to sing those lyrics every time I saw him. That is the soundtrack to the times when we used to have dinner at Strapazza, when he took me and my cousins toy shopping in Owings Mills Mall, and when we walked the...
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The Reaction: Favorite Holiday Song?
Now that the radio has become inundated with the anthems of The Season, which song can you tolerate the most?
(Click “Read More” to see The Dispatch’s surprising reactions.)
Jared: Nothing speaks more of a white Christmas to me than the cheery lyrics from my favorite Queens trio. That’s right, I’m talking about Run D.M.C.’s “Christmas In Hollis.”...
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Now Playing: The Fillmore Silver Spring
The Fillmore Silver Spring
When Live Nation announced that it would be opening one of its San Francisco inspired music halls in downtown Silver Spring, the reactions by locals varied wildly. Some worried it would put the 9:30 and The Black Cat out of business. Others were excited that it would put the 9:30 and The Black Cat out of business.
Then several years passed and the concert...
