The presidential candidates have spent plenty of time introducing and debating their economic polices. For a short-term boost, they should look no further than their own names for help. They are being used to sell products that have nothing to do with the campaigns. And I suspect, in most cases, the gimmicks work quite well.

For the past few days, Medaterra in Woodley Park has been serving the Obama Rama Martini and the Sugar McCain, and advertising the drinks on a sidewalk sign. Both are on the normal menu. The Obama drink is a Banana Rum Martini, with banana liquor, vodka, and cranberry juice, and the McCain drink is fresh lemonade, Stoli and Cointreau.

I called up Medaterra to see how the drinks were selling. In short: good. Martini sales are up overall, estimates waitress Andrea Tehan. “Everyone keeps asking who’s winning,” she says, adding that staff have been monitoring the drinks sales and have noted that the Obama Rama Martini has outsold its Republican counterpart by a 4-1 ratio, despite the McCain drink being more popular under its normal name. Which is to say this entire thing is pretty dumb, and pretty smart from a business perspective.

This got me thinking. Who else has recently jumped on the campaign commerce bandwagon? Read the rest of this entry »

First off, the good news is that it looks like Brian Beutler is going to make a full recovery. Beutler, a local blogger, was shot early yesterday morning in Adams Morgan. He’s at the hospital, getting regular visits from family and friends.

I got a few more details from the police report about what happened. Beutler and a friend were walking west on Euclid toward 17th Street when they were approached by two young men, who demanded their cell phones. Beutler’s friend said “you’re kidding, right?” and one of the muggers said “get the gun.” The other boy took out a small, silver handgun (probably a 25) and shot Beutler three times, in the left shoulder, left side and lower back. When police arrived they canvassed the area, looking for two 16 to 17-year-old boys, “with negative results.” The incident occurred near the middle of the block, so it was probably not within the sites of the crime camera.

Last October we ran a story about Goodloe Byron, a local author (and designer of snazzy book covers) who was giving away copies of his first novel, The Abstract. Not just a few copies, but all of ‘em–10,544 to be exact. (That’s a lot; most first novelists can only dream of selling that many copies, even if he or she is attached to a big publisher.)

At the time, Byron figured that he’d be done off-loading all copies of The Abstract by January 2008. He was about six months off. Byron writes in an e-mail that at last weekend’s Crafty Bastards fair, he finally handed off his last one:

The Zero Dollar Tour is over, long live the zero dollar tour. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, last September a friend of mine and I loaded up a truck with four thousand copies of a book and went around handing them out for free, mostly to vagabonds. We went to Chicago then up to Seattle down to LA, back to Chicago etc. The heap of books has dwindled down regularly since then to basically nothing, and now down to nothing, proper. Last Saturday I was going about my DC rounds when I heard there was an arts and crafts fair out in Silver Spring. After several hours of sitting on the curb and offering helpful information, the final book, # 10,544, was handed to a young lady to whom I shouted “Damn you! Just take it”, a less romantic conclusion than I had anticipated. So now, at last, the jig is up and the books are gone.

But for anybody itching to get hold of a copy, a second printing is planned. Byron has mocked up four new cover ideas for the new edition, and he’s inviting folks to e-mail him with their preference.

Via TheWashCycle, the news (to me; the story’s been out for over a month, ouch) that D.C. has for the first time in many years slipped off the list that the lock company Kryptonite keeps of the Top 10 cities with the most bike thefts.

I’ve got no idea how rigorously the data are parsed over at Kryptonite, but its blog post on the subject expresses surprise that Philadelphia rocketed to the top, displacing New York City for the top spot it’s held for the past nine years. “When we did the compilation, there wasn’t even a city close to Philly. Not even close,” says Kryptonite’s Donna T.

It’s even weirder that we’re not on there because, Nationals Park aside, bike-rack availability is lousy here. And empirically, pretty much everyone I know here has had at least one bike stolen. But hey, a win’s a win.

Kryptonite also offers largely common-sense set of bike-locking tips.

Photo by Rockers generation

The Washington Kastles, the city’s new team tennis outfit, are still telling ticket buyers that Serena Williams will be playing three matches with the squad next week, starting with Tuesday’s home opener on the site of the old DC convention center.

Who thinks that’ll happen?

If Serena whups underdog Zheng Jie in today’s Wimbledon semifinal, she’ll be in London through the weekend.

Prediction: The word “fatigue” will pop up when revised lineups are announced for the Kastles’ Tuesday match-up with something called the Boston Lobsters.

According to the Kastles schedule, that’s the only home date Serena will be playing this season.

Luckily for the Kastles, Serena’s not the only team member in the news these days. Justin Gimelstob’s been very media friendly.

* Local writer Holly Jones has another Dispatch from the Anacostia, a McSweeney’s column following youth from the Earth Conservation Corps—this time with an appearance by the Columbia Heights Target.

* Prince of Petworth dishes out the July 4th firework advice. (Ugh).

* Reliable Source continues its mission to unmask D.C. art rogue “The Collector.”

* Daily Campello Art News offers up a poll: Choose whether “We Should Have a National Museum Just for Latinos” or if “We Should Have More Latinos In Our Museums.” So far, the second choice has 100% of the vote. At Morning Roundup time, only two votes were in; hat means Campello’s got at least one voter in his camp. Or he refreshed the page.

* In Shaw points us to a new blog, Bohemian Yankee in the Capital: Salty dog author talks history, sports, queer imagery and urban development. Writes IS: “It’s still new so he’s feeling his way around. Jimbo and I have been helping him grasp the concept and purpose of blogging, so when you visit be nice.” IS also drops that the Yankee started the blog in order to promote two books he’s got coming out. Sounds like he’s got the hang of it already.

* Brightest Young Things watches Raquel Welch dance. Badly.

* Slate has got your patriotism blah blah blah blah.

Photo by NCinDC.

So it could be just me, but a guy’s gotta wonder how McCain isn’t drawing more fire for…just about everything, no?

Okay, perhaps it is just me who gets bummed when Fox wins big in the ratings after accusing Obama of proffering terrorist fist jabs and calling Michelle his “Baby Mama”, when McCain gets a free pass to assert that everyone knows who Hamas wants to be President, when the presumptive Republican nominee hires Steve Schmidt, Bush footsoldier, to rejuvenate his wizened, ailing campaign—this after giving a “full-throated” (phrase of the season) and thoroughly inane shout-out to the current Vice President—when Gen. Wesley Clark finds himself caught in some serious media crossfire for the simple crime of pinpointing the basis of McCain’s campaign and questioning its validity…and when Obama gets accused of elitism and out-of-touchism for his Ivy Leaguesmanship when McCain owns…what, like, thirty houses?

So a rant’s a rant, and rarely adorable. Here’s the question: is the MSM holding out on full-throttle McCain excoriation because:

a. They’re trying to shake their rep of being LIBERAL, or

b. They want to make it an interesting fight, for the sake of preserving ratings and because one of the candidates can’t raise money or adrenaline on his own steam?

Lemme know in the comments. Or, you know, don’t. After all, a fella like me only cares what they say in commie rags like the New York Times.

Meanwhile…Michael Douglass:

Olbermann sampled this speech in a recent special comment…merely proving Aaron Sorkin’s abiding influence on U.S. infotainment.

I recently moved to the District from the other Washington (as in, I flew over Monday night), and while chatting up the sublettor as he packed the last of his things, he mentioned that he was taking his Brita filter with him. I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to my new roommate about this situation, but I’m concerned.

I never felt comfortable drinking water straight from the tap in my house in Seattle. Early on in my two-year stay in that house off campus, I filled a glass from the kitchen faucet and was dismayed and a bit disgusted to find swirling gray water almost touching my lips. From then on, I used botted water, even to cook.

My parents’ house in eastern Washington (the state) has great water, but I think that’s because we have well water.

When I visited friends in New Jersey and New York City earlier this year, I heard all about how great tap water is in the city, and yes, I definitely agree. The water in NYC is pretty darn swell. NYC is so big and still has awesome water, it would be logical to thing that D.C. water filtration systems would be of high quality as well.

What do you think? Should I buy a water filter on my way home from work tonight? Is tap water in D.C. rivaling NYC in water taste, purity and clarity? Are Brita filters so common in the District that it’s unheard of to drink straight from the tap? Does everyone know something that I, mere “newbie,” haven’t discovered yet? Or are filters for the health-conscious Seattleites and other West-Coasters who move east and fear for the worst?

Brian Beutler, a liberal blogger and CP alum, was shot early this morning near 17th and Euclid Streets. Beutler had left the Black Cat and was walking toward Adams Morgan when the attack occurred. According to Talking Points Memo, a man confronted Beutler and his friend and demanded their cell phones. It’s unclear how everything unfolded, but Beutler was shot three times, twice in the shoulder and once in the spleen, according to TPM. I just spoke with police, who got the call just before 2 a.m. Beutler was conscious and breathing when they found him.  They searched the area for a juvenile suspect but no arrest has been made.

Beutler has gone through surgery and is expected to recover fully. His family is with him at the hospital.

Brian’s a smart, funny guy. Our best wishes go out to him.

Jury duty is no joke. You sit. You wait. You suffer boredom or Ken Burns overload. But still. You have to do it. It’s like voting, changing your MD tags to DC tags, and reading Loose Lips. I confess: A few years back, I kinda ignored my jury duty invites. I know I failed to RSVP until after the deadline. But recently, I did show up for my federal court jury time.

Apparently, 100 residents failed to show up for their Superior Court experience. Today, the hammer fell pretty hard on these 100 no-shows.

According to the D.C. Superior Court press release:

“D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Rufus King III announced today that he had issued bench warrants for nearly 100 people who had failed to appear on their date of jury service, and had not appeared before him at a ‘show cause’ hearing that was scheduled for them to explain their absence. Those for whom bench warrants have been issued are subject to arrest at any time, and will then be detained by law enforcement until they can be brought before a judge….

Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Hitchens, a serious man of letters, has debased himself with a cheap stunt best left to the nobodies of YouTube and CNN. He submits himself for a little waterboarding vid. Watch the video for yourself and you will gag. Why must this towering intellectual fall for this sweeps-week-Fear-Factor trick. I hope he got some extra dough or nice bottle of booze for this.

I get his point. But his point has been made long before he decided to put on the black hood and get the sensation of drowning. A roll call on YouTube suggests this is old news. Are we to believe that the middle-aged-Lexus-driving readership of Vanity Fair is still on the fence about waterboarding? Are they the last to understand what happens during this procedure?

A bit of neighborhood trivia: Residents living near 15th Street between P and T streets have taken to calling their area “Borderstan.” The not-quite-Dupont not quite-U-street-Logan hood is divided between two police districts, with the eastern side falling under the Third District and the western side going to the Second District. (Not quite Laptopia, either.) The name arose when residents in Eastern and Western Borderstan convinced police in both districts to cooperate in solving crimes centered along 15th Street. These days, residents of Borderstan and beyond are concerned about the return of Darrell Barber, a well-known local hustler suspected of knocking on doors to offer handyman services, then breaking in if no one answers. Barber was released from jail in March.

Ever pass some new sleek club or divey pub and wonder what beers lie inside? As new bars pop up around the city, it can be hard to stay up on beer selection. So in keeping with my reputation as an enabler, here’s a few of the interweb’s finest sites to help you strike liquid gold.

Ratebeer and Beer Advocate are your best bets on finding the good  stuff. Their directory sections (called “Places” and “Beerfly,” respectively) both offer extensive reviews of bars and stores, and Ratebeer even has a neat Google Map mashup. What puts these sites at the top of the list is their community — the thorough reviewers can get down and nerdy, but these enthusiasts tend to offer the best tips on the web.

We realize it’s not all about quality, though. Save your booze dollars (or just stretch them further) with happy-hour finders like Bar DC and DC Happy Hours. There’s a panoply of these sites online, but these two have some of the more comprehensive listings. We also give kudos to the younger DrinkGuru. It seem to be still building its database, but it sports the cleanest, most navigable design of the bunch.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on Unthirsty and MappyHour. Both seem to be in beta mode, but also feature Google Maps interfaces.

We want it now: Beer Menus is the site we crave more than anything — a beautiful, simple directory of beer menus and prices all around the city. The problem? That city is New York. Damn yankees.

(Thanks in part to Webware)

Got a question about beer? E-mail the Beerspotter.

As July 4 approaches, I am sure there are many neighborhoods that have started to celebrate our independence a little early with some imported Mineshell Mayhem or a Phandemonium 205 Shot. I’m sure police are having a grand time chasing down every dispatch to some little back-alley salute and corner tribute in bottle rockets. And I know the listservs go crazy on this issue. I understand all the arguments against: kids need working fingers on July 5, cops need to chase after gunshot noises not the blast off a roman candle, it’s all such a noisy racket well past the time the Mall has emptied out. But still.

I secretly love driving around the city and watching the illegal stuff go off all sparkly in the air. In my experience, Columbia Heights is awesome with unregulated mini-finales (particularly 13th Street is gold).

So where are the best and worst places to catch the illegal action?

Dan Snyder’s cheerless theme park chain, Six Flags, will debut a cheerleading squad, the Thrilleaders, at its New Jersey outpost on July 4.

Six Flags boasts that the Thrilleaders are the first official cheerleading squad ever put together by an amusement park company.

Snyder’s operation hasn’t had much to wave pom-poms about lately.

Not with the company’s stock crashing to a buck a share during Tuesday’s trading.

And word getting out that Dwight Schar, one of Snyder’s Redskins partners and a member of Six Flags’ board, began dumping two million of his Six Flags shares last week.

And, um, Saturday’s decapitation of a teenage visitor to Six Flags Over Georgia by the Batman rollercoaster.

But, long before the Thrilleaders came about, Six Flags already had an unofficial cheerleader: Some guy named Rick Munarriz of the stock tout site Motley Fool.

Yesterday, as Six Flags stock (SIX) was continuing its descent toward double figures, Munarriz had the stones to write that “the chain is clawing its way back” and made yet another pitch for Six Flags stock.

Wha?

Munarriz’ previous Six Flags writings have been just as full of bullishness. For whatever reason, he’s been touting the company since shortly after Snyder took over, when SIX was trading at more than $10 a share.

He’s never let the near-total collapse of SIX get in the way of his cheering.

Last June, in a post headlined “Six Flags Rocks Around the Clock,” Munarriz hailed several moves Snyder’s management team had made, and was particularly taken with the partial purchase of Dick Clark Productions from Red Zone LLC — a bizarre transaction that essentially amounted to one of Snyder’s private equity outfits (Red Zone) making a $40 million sale to one of Snyder’s public equity outfits (Six Flags).

In any case, Munarriz called Six Flags’ acquisition “brilliant.”

On November 2, 2007, Munarriz posted a column headlined “Four Stocks That Should Quadruple Soon,” and included Six Flags in the mix. As of yesterday, Six Flags stock had lost more than two-thirds of its value since that post.

Brilliant.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.