Roughly 12 years ago, City Paper wrote a story about “Frances and the Working Girls,” a radio show starring a buxom woman (that would be Frances above) and mostly lady correspondents. It was sort of like the Daily Show, but on AM radio and with boobs. Sadly (I think?) it went off the air about two years later. Its home, WRC-AM 980, is also no longer with us (neither, it would seem, is the story in our somewhat lacking digital archives for 1996). Recently, I caught up with one of the correspondents from the show, Jane Hautanen, who also goes by Jane Doe (that’s her behind Frances).

Hautanen, who lives between Woodley and Cleveland Parks, still works in radio (part-time with the “True Oldies” show on WMAL and with another station), and supplements a lack of lucrative radio jobs by being a licensed massage therapist. She’s also a prolific blogger. She’s also really into guinea pigs.

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At the Yum’s on Kennedy, we set up shop last night to film patrons on the recent Petworth shootings. Things were going just fine. It was after 11 p.m.

Then a lady came running towards us. She had a warning for us.

Something about a dog on the loose.

She ran into the Yum’s. We saw the dog—a pit bull. And yes, I admit, I scurried into the Yum’s. Ted, I admit, played it cool. Even though they were safe inside, people screamed some more. I may or may not have screamed like an eight-year-old.

Eventually, I calmed down enough. Ted got some footage of the pit bull. For City Desk. We are very brave. We should be given an award or a free lunch.

We also captured the musings of one Petworth resident about pit bulls, a recent stabbing, violence in general, the police, and Obama:

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

Video by Ted Scheinman

Columbia Heights is the midst of a boom. At the Target, a lot of shelves are empty. This can only mean that people are buying stuff. New restaurants have opened up in recent months (a gastropub, a pretty great pizza place, the now ubiquitous Five Guys). Foot traffic has increased, etc. Its main drag may still be ugly as hell but it has more activity.

This is all to say that I expected much more from Columbia Heights Day. This is why I must respectfully disagree with Prince of Petworth’s assessment (”Columbia Heights Day — Good Times“). I hate to go negative on an event that’s just two years old. But C’mon! This did not feel like a celebration. It felt like a wake inside a Peckinpah film.

Full disclosure No. 1: I did not get to see the cupcake eating contest. Full Disclosure No. 2: I half expected rides. If you thought I was not exactly the CHD’s demo, you would be wrong (the cupcakes were vegan). The big disappointment is that the boring i.e. political outnumbered the fun. There was allegedly face painting (didn’t see it). There was a petting zoo (pretty cool, admittedly, but inferior to any county fair). And there was a moon bounce (smaller or same size of moon bounces found at any block party). The rest of the attractions for your CHD: Jim Graham and Patrick Mara (at least when I was there in the afternoon).

Kids of all ages do not find Jim Graham or Patrick Mara (I’m guessing here since he’s a newbie) entertaining. They attend these events because that’s where voters are–they shake hands, look “real” or “casual,” and pass out pamphlets that will promptly get deposited in the nearest trash can (not nearly enough at CHD).

Two things lacking to CHD that would have made CHD endurable: a well-kept field and festival food. By the time we got there, food consisted of dueling snowball makers and small samples of chips and runny guac. All this no food/no fun was held on a dirt field on the grounds of Harriet Tubman Elementary School at 11th and Kenyon Streets NW. The bands–not worth mentioning. I’m sorry but a guy noodling on a guitar like he’s opening for Merzbow doesn’t count.

Next time, organizers should block off some streets, take over a real field, and get some meat on a stick.

*photo courtesy of Prince of Petworth.

Last night while the rest of you were foaming about the governor’s mispronunciation of “nuclear,” I was on Duke Ellington Bridge walking home. And for the third time in a year, I watched an owl fly over the bridge. The owl, a barred owl as it turns out (pictured above) is one of three species that inhabit Rock Creek Park (the great horned and the screech owl are the other two). By far, the barred owl is the cutest of our city’s owl critters. It does not have pointy bat-like ears and has soft brown eyes, rather than the piercing pee-yellow ones of other owl varieties.

When I saw my brown-eyed owl friend land in a tree just on the other side of Walter Pierce Park, I stopped rushing home to turn on The Sexist’s live blog (sorry, Sexist) and instead watched the owl. The owl twisted its small head around to look, I presume, for dinner: mice or chipmunks or, apparently, tasty grouse and doves. It sat there on a limb for a good two minutes (long enough for either veep candidate to say “Main Street” and “kitchen table” approximately 82 times) and then it flew off toward the zoo grounds with an audible flap of its wings.

Look, I know I’m supposed to be writing in this space about Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin. But you know what, Jason Cherkis, I really don’t care. I am so sick to death of you and your ilk imploding all over yourself because you hate Sarah Palin. The way you all twitch with fear and loathing is exactly the way conservatives twitched with fear and loathing regarding Hillary Clinton, circa 1992-2008. She’s just a politician, people.

Personally, I prefer owls.