Hey! It's Thursday! Pick up our paper. It has another typo on the cover. Erika, please come back here soon! Otherwise this is an excellent issue, with a great story by Jeffrey Anderson about Peaceoholics' Ronald Moten, as well as all the usual bozos. Please don't forget to patronize our advertisers, especially anyone who can drop a giant cube on your enemies.

ITEMS:
• Hippies and punks---IN ONE PLACE! Wait, there's still hippies and punks?
• Riggo, the world's greatest man.
• Cheap parking spurned. Who pays? [sadtrombone.wav]
• Jawbox to reunite, on Fallon! "I think we’re all a bit taken aback that anyone is paying attention," Jawbox's J. Robbins told us yesterday.
• I will adhere to these new Michael Pollan rules and talk loudly about them, because it makes Riggs go coconuts.
• A friend IM'd me about the Chuck Brown feature Godfrey and I wrote for this week's paper; it bounces off the terrible Chuck Brown feature in last Sunday's Washington Post Magazine. In the intro, I mentioned that twice, author Robin Rose Parker mentioned that Brown's audience was "30- and 40-something African Americans" and took her to task for some sloppy math (Brown is speaking at a high school when her piece opens she says his 1979 hit “Bustin’ Loose” was released “decades before his high school audience was born.") Short decades, right? Says my pal: What about the 30- and 40-something African Americans? How old were they in 1979? Boom!

BIKE COMMUTING CORNER: If your ride is longer than a mile, you might want to have different clothes for biking and working. However! Now you have to get your nice clothes to work and keep them dry. Solution: a bag! However! What bag? Backpacks are great for short rides but get kinda hot on your back, especially in the summer. Messenger bags, sure why not? On my usual bike, I have a set of Ortlieb panniers. They have a nice Tron-ish look to them and are superwatertight. They cost a lot. That part I can't endorse. Many companies make panniers, but some of them require you to put covers on them when it rains, which seems like way too much trouble to me. Also, make sure you don't pronounce it "pann-i-AY." Pronounce the "r" or people in bike shops will laugh at you. I learned this firsthand!

I gotta bounce! Obey the Cube! Follow me on Twitter!

Bloomingdale (for now) observes the slow neglect of a huge brick home on Seaton Place. "16 months have passed, and the tyvek wrap continues to blow off the building, exposing the wood underneath to the elements. enormous amounts of water from the rains of the last year must have managed to seep down into the walls of this old rowhouse," the blogger notes.

River East Idealist posts five reasons to support the relatively new IHOP on Alabama Ave. We paid a visit when it first opened and walked away impressed. Unfortunately, we never again saw the waitress that we so loved. We have gone back many times. Sometimes the service absolutely sucks. Sometimes it's over-the-top awesome. The food is still IHOP food. Only this IHOP has rules like no sideways ballcaps. Sweet. River East Idealist gives kudos to the staff, the overall atmosphere, the fact that it exists, among other reasons.

Southwest...The Little Quadrant That Could presents a handy list of alternative ways to get to President-Elect Obama's swearing in. List includes ways to get to the Mall on foot, by water taxi, and by bike. Good luck. Soon after the inaugural, we may get tired of the motorcades once again. Even when it's Obama stopping traffic, it's not that fun.

Capital Spice offers a handy map detailing all 213 bars, restaurants and clubs that have extended hours for the inaugural week.

Pop Cesspool hates on Thievery Corporation (and the 9:30 Club). I wonder what the blogger would think about the duo's new video featuring Chuck Brown. The Cesspool writes: "...The Thievery dudes, with their XPN-approved album and their unflagging good taste, and they're blazingly recession-proof, at least in D.C., where lots of youn'ins still apparently have lots of disposable income and want to do things that are more 'benignly stylish' than 'dangerously interesting.'"

Planners of the city hall ball had speculated about bringing Brown in when they announced their event in December, but the Godfather of Go-Go was already booked for the Inaugural D.C. Ball, scheduled for the Old Post Office Pavilion.

The 51st Staters caught a break when organizers of that ball were forced to cancel last week, after logistical concerns about loading in equipment, food, and musical gear made the event impossible. So Brown will move his act three blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Allen Tubis, an event planner who organized the Inaugural D.C. event as a benefit for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington (he's a longtime member of the organization's board), says the traffic and security restrictions meant holding the ball at that location would be impossible. For one thing, he says, the Secret Service needed the Post Office Pavilion loading dock for storage space. "Our situation is, if you can't load in the food, the sound system, you just can't do it," he says.

Tubis explored alternatives, such as a smaller ballroom at Metro Center, but "we started looking at the logistics of it, the cost of it [and] it just did not work."

So though ticket sales were brisk, Tubis was forced to pull the plug last week---the first time he's had to cancel an event in 25 years in the business, he says---and he's offering full refunds to folks who had shelled out up to $150 for a ticket. (Another ball held nearby, the MTV ball at the Ronald Reagan Building, was canceled last week for similar reasons.)

But the Boys and Girls Clubs' loss is the statehood movement's gain. "A lot of the people coming to our event wanted to see Chuck Brown. So we've been notifying them," Tubin says. "For $51, you can get a ticket to see Chuck Brown."

Ayawna Chase, a staffer for Harry Thomas Jr. who's planning the city hall bash, said Friday she's sold about 200 tickets so far out of 2,000. Folks from across the country have expressed interest, and Chase---active in the local Young Democrats---says she's gotten a lot of interest from fellow Young Dems looking for a low-cost party option.

Some roadblocks remain: LL is told the organizers still have to get insurance for the event and logistics still need to be worked out, but Chase says that'll be worked out soon. Come Jan. 20, she says, expect the Wilson Building to sport a "semi-ballroom kind of feel."

Flickr photo by dalesun