Last week, AOL News commented on the softly blooming romance between pixieish Blockbuster Entertainment Award-nominated Natalie Portman and psych folker Devendra Banhart, calling them an “odd couple.” Let’s skip the factual errors (Banhart wasn’t born in Venezuela) and the questionable sources (AOL gets much of its content from a Defamer joke) and skip on to AOL’s photo spread featuring 25 celebrity odd couples, past and present.

Okay, the branding of Evan Rachel Wood and Marilyn Manson as “odd” I will accept. Amber Tamblyn and David Cross: Fine. Eric Mabius and Ivy Sherman I have never heard of, but they seem happy. For some of these couples, I’m not even sure who’s supposed to be the weird one. Neither Josh Kelley nor Katherine Heigl seem odd, nor do they, together, make an “odd couple.” That’s odd.

But in the case of Matt Damon and wife Luciana Barroso, AOL News, you have gone too far. I, for one, think they are just lovely together! And who are you, WireImage.com photo aggregator, to decide what, in fact, is “odd”? It appears, AOL, that the integrity of your lighthearted celebrity photo extras has been threatened.

Typically, the only time LL’s Thursday-afternoon strolls through the John A. Wilson Building even get a whiff of celebrity are the occasional Dan Tangherlini sighting in the mayoral bullpen. (Governance rock star, that guy!) But not this week.

Yesterday afternoon, distinguished Spanish tenor and Washington National Opera general director Plácido Domingo spent more than an hour roaming the building with a pair of WNO bigwigs in tow, as well as an official photographer. (Yes, LL had his picture taken with the maestro.) His rounds took him to the offices of most councilmembers.

A couple of members asked for a command performance from the tenor, including Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, who rated his pipes as “excellent.”

Domingo treated Bowser and staff to a bit of Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” “We got a good taste, I think,” she said. Her chief of staff, Joy Holland, chimed in: “The first 10 bars, which is a good taste.”

So why exactly was Domingo roaming the Wilson Building halls? To ask for money, duh.

Later today, a panel of WNO bigwigs (not including Domingo) will appear before the council to make their case for a city subsidy. The mayor’s proposed list of budget earmarks leaves the opera out in the cold, even though such cultural organizations as the Washington Ballet ($1 million), Ford’s Theatre ($10 million), and the Ward 7 Arts Collaborative ($100,000) are currently in the money.

Domingo’s appeal played up the need for greater resources for arts-education programs. He then had to be rushed out to rehearse for his upcoming role in Handel’s Tamerlano.

So, you may have heard that our Best of D.C. issue is out. If you haven’t heard: Are you living out of a box in Rock Creek Park or something? Go get one! Even though the issue is the largest in memory for the City Paper, there were some items that just wouldn’t fit. To wit: the classic D.C. Go-Go Band, Mambo Sauce. All of Mambo Sauce (of “Welcome to D.C.” fame and the stars of local label Red C Records) were included in our Classic D.C. Archetypes feature, but didn’t make it to the print issue. For this, we are sorry, because these people are pretty, they’re talented, and they love them some D.C., so here they are, along with their answers to the burning question: What is the Best of D.C.?

Andy White: Ben’s Chili Bowl

Black Boo: We’ve got our own swagger. We march to the beat of our own drum.

Keyboard Chris: We have our own form of music native to our area (until Mambo Sauce spreads it to the rest of the world)!

Pep: Go-Go!!!

Twink: My family

Yendy: The city’s rich African-American history.

He may not like art or, apparently, mushrooms, which are not on the Pope’s birthday lunch being served as we type at Cafe Milano. (Hey, Holiness, it’s also a decent place for old dudes like yourself to pick up chicks. Grrrr…) In honor of the Pope’s 81st, we bring you The Last Supper.

Ostensible Post columnist Tony Kornheiser–hey, he had something in the paper last month!–disclosed last night on Pardon the Interruption that he went to elementary school with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. Sadly, he noted that Morris probably doesn’t know who Tony Kornheiser is. Happily, he noted that Morris was a swirlie recipient. New York magazine’s Vulture blog is on the case. –Mark Athitakis

Cherry blossom tourists and kite-flyers had a chance to get star-struck over a total nobody last weekend. Some guy you don’t know organized an “Improv Everywhere” event in which another guy you don’t know acted like a celebrity, and some 40 other people acted like paparazzi, bodyguards, photographers, and adoring fans; and in the end, all the randoms on the National Mall were following him around and taking pictures with their cell phone cameras. His fake girlfriend even got fake-mad when a fake-fan demanded that he sign her (real) boob.

The supposed singer of the supposed hit song “Trapped in My Heart” attracted dozens of hangers-on and fans-for-a day but failed at his ultimate mission of being allowed to go to the top of the Washington Monument without a ticket. Apparently the security guard nearly came to blows with the tour guide in the Abraham Lincoln costume over it. (You can always count on Honest Abe to reassure us that we’re all still created equal, and we all need a ticket to get to the top of the Monument.)

Together with the Freeze Action that happened in Union Station a couple weeks ago, this is almost enough to convince you that Washington is becoming absurdist-artsy-hip like we always dream it will.

Photo by Bruce Witzenburg.

This is important. Classy. I like the way it looks. Five times distilled, dual carbon filtered. From Holland. Where the bulbs come from. And that kid with his finger in the dike…Hans Brinker, right? More like Hans Drinker! Good provenance—is that the right word? provenance? yeah?—Jacques de Lat, third-generation master distiller. That’s MASTER distiller. An important distinction. And the bottle. Mwah! Gold—speaks to the brand and the superiority of the product. People are gonna want this. Good work, everybody.

(Empty bottle of Trump Vodka on the Champlain Street NW side of the Church of Christ, Scientist on Euclid Street NW)

Frozen Tropics has the best pics from the H Street invasion of Bobby Flay’s sweater vest and distressed jeans. Mr. Charred Poblano was in town Wednesday to tape an episode of Throwdown, his show on Food Network, where he “surprises” real chefs who think they might be getting their own show, only to have to stand there in front of the cameras and feed Flay’s ego. Sweater Vest took on Granville Moore’s exec chef Teddy Folkman and his moules and frites. The taping actually took place at the Argonaut, complete with Flay taking a call when he was supposed to be bringing it (Endless Simmer has the evidence). ES also dropped a few nods to the home team that sound suspiciously like a spoiler alert:

Though audience members have been asked not to reveal the outcome of the throwdown, I can say that I found Teddy Folkman’s blue cheese and bacon mussels to be plump, juicy and flavorful, and his frites were crisp, salty and coated in a delicious blend of herbs like tarragon and thyme. The yellow tomato and truffle aioli that he provided for dipping was amazing, though Folkman admitted that the expensive ingredients would preclude him adding it to the menu anytime soon. Bobby Flay’s mussels, true to form, were served in a broth that featured coconut milk, green chiles and tons of butter. They were tasty, but seemed smaller and less tender than Folkman’s. And although Flay’s roasted poblano (naturally) dipping sauce was delicious, the fries themselves were disappointingly plain – more like fast-food fries than Belgian frites.

DC Foodies say the show is set to air in May or June.

My boyfriend, Mike, spent Wednesday working as an extra on the set of the film State of Play, with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe. He says it felt like detention.

“I thought it was cool at first that I was cast as a ‘delivery guy,’ as opposed to being just another passerby, but in the end, I was just a douchebag wearing a UPS uniform.”

He had to get to Ben’s Chili Bowl, where the scene was being shot, at 7:15 a.m., which for us is the middle of the night. He was shipped in a mini-bus “people mover” to the “staging area” on New York and G, where he got uniformed up in his UPS browns. The only other extra wearing a costume was a Screen Actors’ Guild member who had come all the way from Jersey for his shot at stardom.

Then they waited five hours for something to happen, snacking on Goldfish crackers.

When their big moment finally came, they got to walk down the sidewalk – pushing an empty dolly – across the street from Ben’s. Three times. The Jersey UPS guy had negotiated a better route for them to walk, so they would be more clearly seen on camera. He vaguely insisted on being the one on in front.

The SAG members sat in the same tent, in the same cattle call, but they were getting paid twice as much and got first dibs on the good food for lunch. They sat around bragging about the other movies they had barely appeared in.

Mike didn’t get to see Ben Affleck or Helen Mirren but he did get a few glimpses of Russell Crowe, who he said looked (in his role as an investigative reporter for the fictional Washington Globe) like a slightly healthier Christopher Hitchens.

From what he can gather, the scene involves Russell Crowe going in to Ben’s Chili Bowl, ordering a chili cheese dog, and then something happens involving a woman they’d made up to look more or less like she was dying of herpes, and Crowe almost gets hit by a car, and in the meantime his briefcase disappears.

So when State of Play comes out and you go see it at the Gallery Place Regalplex, and that scene comes on, look for the UPS guy you can’t really see. That’s my boyfriend, the movie star.–Tanya Snyder

Hey, remember William Morva? The Dude-Ball-playing, barefoot, raw-meat-eating coffeeshop regular of Blacksburg? It took a jury under four hours to give him the death penalty. Can’t get enough? Check out Roanoke Times‘ online package “Homicide on the Huckleberry,” if purely for the title alone. —Jule Banville

Kudos to the New York Times for digging into Spitzer prostitute Ashley Alexandra Dupré’s MySpace page and coming up with this gem:

On the Web page is a recording of what she describes as her latest track, “What We Want,” a hip-hop-inflected rhythm-and-blues tune that asks, “Can you handle me, boy?” and uses some dated slang, calling someone her “boo.”

But the Times missed the real draw of Dupré’s site: the user comments. What do you say when your online acquaintance is revealed as a prostitute? Whatever it is, it’s probably in all caps. The highlights:

Read the rest of this entry »

Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax is dead at 69, according to the CEO of Troll Lord Games. The developer of the new edition of D&D says he hasn’t “grokked” Gygax’s demise yet.

Pete Wentz: Statesman. Lover. Genius. But not Fall Out Boy’s lead singer.

The New York Times reports that Henry Waxman’s congressional committee may ask the Justice Department to fire up a criminal inquiryinto Roger Clemens. For those without a TV, radio, or Internet connection, Clemens on Feb. 13 took the hot seat in front of Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in what turned into a hilarious circus of distortions, politicking, bullshit, and very possibly lies.

It’s that last part that Waxman’s interested in. Clemens used the hearing to do what he’s been doing ever since the Mitchell report on MLB steroid use came out last year–that is, deny he’s ever taken the substances. His denials contradict the testimony of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who says he shot up the Rocket on numerous occasions.

Much won’t come of this. I hope the Justice Department has better things to do than investigate whether this blowhard once used drugs. Waxman has said he regrets holding the hearing, which perhaps indicates how interested he is in really pursuing this matter. Plus, Clemens has suffered plenty: It was revealed that an abscess on his butt once caused him to bleed through a pair of designer pants.