Brad Kanus

Washington City Paper’s "Best of DC" – Not Really the "Best"

First of all - if it's a vote on the matter, the winner isn't the "best," it's the most "popular."  You are the "best" when you compete for your spot. You are "popular" when you are well liked by many.  Sorry to be a dick about that, but it has always irked me.  

So... I’m not saying that I know that the City Paper’s  “Best of DC” is rigged to reward advertisers or to flatter certain businesses into advertising with them.  What I am saying is that it’s likely.  I’m saying that because I do have some carnal knowledge of the “Best of” movement in America. 

First off, the rigging of the results…  These things are always supposed to be the results of a “vote of the people.”  In many categories, that’s probably true.  I don’t think Chipotle gives enough of a shit about the “Best Chipotle” category to buy a victory for one location over another.   Same thing goes for the  “Best Go Go Band” category.  Those contests are won by good ol’ fashioned social media promotion – something we’ll talk more about in a second. 

Having been close to three of these “Best of” contests in other cities, I can tell you that some categories aren’t decided by the voters.   A bar does not spend tens of thousands of dollars advertising with a weekly arts and entertainment magazine only to have them name a bar that doesn’t advertise with them the “Best Bar.”  That’s a bad way to please an advertiser.  So, you know and I know that in at least a few categories the City Paper likely went with their prized advertiser over the vote of the public.  You can’t blame them for doing it even though they’ll lie and say they didn’t.  Again, I’ve been on the inside and I know how these things work – or don’t.

The second thing about these contests that make them suspect is the way in which voters are gathered to vote.  In a perfect world people would be inspired to vote in the contest via telepathic waves of encouragement from the editorial staff at the Washington City Paper.  In reality it’s a contest of which business can browbeat the greatest number of their friends, relatives and customers into going to the ballot and picking them.   Social media networks and email lists are much more important to winning in these contests than whatever actual service or product the business provides. 

Knowing that all of this likely bullshit, let’s wade through my picks of their picks…

Best Restaurant:  Sushi Taro – Never heard of it.

Best Asian Restaurant: Pho 14 – Personally I think Pho 15 is just a smidge better and Pho 13 just a tad less tasty.  Glad we are following that “Asians all look the same” mantra with “all Asian foods are the same” attitude. 

Best Bagel: Bethesda Bagel – It’s a bagel… it does not belong in competition with other bagels.  It’s like having a contest to see who can walk the fastest.  Bagels are eaten by people who want a doughnut, but have the self control not to order one. 

Best Bakery: Sticky Fingers – I’m indifferent on baked goods, but the name of the place would better suit a popsicle stand. 

Best Bar: Boundary Stone Public House – Is this the best bar in DC or the place with the most over the top trendy name?  Great place to drink expensive bitter tasting beer and admire aged barn wood and strategically exposed brick walls.

Best BBQ: Rocklands – It’s DC so it’s not really BBQ, it’s some over-priced poor imitation of the real thing.  We’re talking an Asian Elvis impersonator here. 

Best Burger:  Five Guys – Now we know this whole thing is full of shit.  Five Guys isn’t the best burger in DC or anywhere.  Its existence can be traced to the fact that the DC area just doesn’t have anything like it.  Most cities have four or five competing chains that resemble the makeup of Five Guys.  However, those places actually have good burgers.  Case in point - you never hear of someone running out to a cab at Reagan and demand to be taken to the nearest Five Guys.  This happens with In-N-Out burger and other truly iconic burger joints all the time.   If you ran out of Reagan and demanded to be taken to Five Guys the cabby would simply ask “why?”  And that’s why this is bullshit.  DC has a bad burger culture. This will not change.

Best Charcuterie: Stachowski Market & Deli – We’re on minute 14 of Charcuterie’s popularity, so I could care less.  All I know is that whoever is buying this crap is getting ripped off. 

Best Cocktail Selection: The Passenger – Cocktails are for people who don’t drink very often.   Basically this contest was like cat owners judging a dog show. 

Best Coffee Shop: Peregrine Espresso – Same coffee scam, different feel. 

Best Contemporary American Restaurant: Founding Farmers – This whole “farm,” and “farmers” thing is getting a little old, but I’ll play along for one more year before I get hostile to the lie they are pedaling.

Best Craft Beer Selection: ChurchKey – This is the beer drinking assholes category and you had no doubt who would win.   Having a lot of something does not make it better. 

Best Culinary Event: Turkish Restaurant Week – Sure… whatever you say.  I’m willing to bet I’ll find a unicorn in DC before I find a Turkish restaurant and I can bet the unicorn will taste better.

Best Dish: Palak chaat at Rasika -  Now they’re just making shit up.  I don’t know that is, but I’m almost certain Ben’s Chili Dogs weren’t invited to the competition. 

Best Dive Bar: The Raven Grill – Rule #1 for dive bars = they don’t win popularity awards in magazines.  Stupid wins again.

Best Downtown Lunch:  Founding Farmers – No. 

Best Food Blog:  Eater DC – Never been.  Bitches Who Brunch seem to be much more popular. 

Best Food Truck: Rito Loco – I don’t work in construction, so I don’t buy my food from a truck.  I’ll let you know if things change.

Best Gluten-Free Menu: Everlasting Life Café – Why not have a real category for a made up food allergy?

Best Gourmet Pizza: 2Amys – As far as snooty pizza goes, you can’t beat2Amys.  Again – as snooty pizza goes.  Two words on all other pizza – Italian Store.

Best Hangover Breakfast: The Diner – Hardly.

Best Happy Hour: DC Reynolds – Never heard of it.

Best Hookah Lounge: Chi-Cha Lounge – The best place to get mouth herpes participating in the last acceptable form of smoking.  How proud they must be.

Best Irish Pub: Fado – I’m assuming nobody asked the Irish about their thoughts on this. 

Best Italian Restaurant: Dino – Maybe next year, Pines of Florence.

Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant:  Ted’s Bulletin – Gentlemen, this is where you take your girlfriend to get her to shut up about marriage and kids. 

Best Late Night East: The Diner – I’m noticing a trend, are you?

Best Local Brewery: DC Brau – Shocker given the half page DC Brau ad running adjacent to the announcement. 

Best Margarita: Lauriol Plaza – It’s not necessarily that they have good margaritas; it’s just the only place people have them the one nice day a year they sit outside at the popular restaurant.  The whole thing is obligatory. 

Best Guacamole: Rosa Mexciano – This is funny because the City Paper’s verbatim on this is that it’s better because “they make it right at your table” – that’s not a testament to how good it is, but where it’s prepared instead.  These idiots should take the table side prep and be aware of just how easy guacamole is to make and exactly how much they are being ripped off while they watch a dude mash an avocado together with some onions, tomatoes and salt. 

Best Restaurant When Someone Else Pays: Komi – Now everyone will know you are trying to f*ck them over when you suggest Komi.  BLT thanks you for this.

I was giong to comment more, but we're way too many words into this already, so I'll let you add your disgust below. 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading the Washington City Paper so You Don't Have to - Volume 32, NO. 17

What can I say?  This week's City Paper was so bad I actually forgot to post something about it.  Total garbage. 

I'm not really sure anyone over there even gives a shit anymore and this last edition is my key piece of evidence to support that theory.   Each week they have the opportunity to be something great that is considered a "must read" or being really fancy toilet paper - it's toilet paper once again.

Here's how I imagine their chief editor finds stories during the weekly assignments meeting.

Editor:  Does anyone have a story for this week?

Reporter: I do!

Editor: Is it a completely unreadable, self-indulgent shit show with no identifiable audience and zero otherwise redeeming value? 

Reporter: Yes in all respects.

Editor: We have a feature for this week!  Run it! The rest of you take the rest of the week off, we're going to run the exact same stories we ran this week last year and just change the dates. 

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It's bad getting worse and I'm not sure that's possible. What a waste.

Reading the Washington City Paper so You Don't Have to - Volume 32, NO. 16

Sorry this is late, but I was gone Friday and didn't get a chance to be underwhelmed by the city's best crappy free weekly until today.  Thank God they didn't disappoint. 

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Chatter....

Last week they had some sob story about second hand stores getting ticketed for not following the rules.  "Tea Partiers," as the City Paper calls anyone that is not a liberal hipster, showed up to comment about big government.  Not worth your time.

And there was only one noteworthy response to the misleading article last week on some guy beating Marion Barry in an election when in fact that didn't happen.  Somehow the commenter was not at all upset that the headline didn't match the story.  He was bitching about identity politics and nothing is more boring than that.  Not worth your time. 

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District Line...

Some jackass thinks the transmitter on his electric meter is killing him.  Article makes zero references to tin foil hats, government cover ups of alien visits or Obama's birth certificate - complete fail.  

Do you have a claim that can not be substantiated in any way?  Want to heap some bad press onto someone's plate?  Call the City Paper and give them wildest story you can think of and they'll have a reporter at your door within the hour.  

You may remember the feature they did on the homeless man who was going to open up a hot dog joint that would put Ben's out of business.  This was almost as bad. 

City Desk

They also have a cute little chart featuring metro lines that relates to something they try to explain and fail (again).   Come for the race and class stereotypes of the metro lines and stay for the race and class stereotypes of the metro lines.  Racism is only funny and acceptable when YOU do it, right?  

Housing Complex

Rent controlled apartments get bought by companies that will ultimately screw everybody (if you think charging fair market value for their product is screwing people) and they're damn good at it.  I didn't get to read the whole thing because the author (Lydia DePillis) refuses to get to the point.  The entire City Paper needs to go less Hemingway opening and more teen texting if they want people to make it to the last word consistently.  

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Straight Dope...

goes dope pandering with a question on whether dope is more powerful now than it was when our parents smoked it.  The answer is "yes" and we all knew it a long time ago. 

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Savage Love...

Gay teenager surprisingly only has one problem  being a gay teenager - he can't figure out buttsecks.  Even though he answers this exact question every week, Savage spends the time go through all of it in painstaking detail - AGAIN.   I was a little weirded out about him training teens to have sex, but I guess that's where we are these days.  Although, I'm sure if some guy off the street was caught by the cops telling two guys under 18 what Savage wrote, he'd be at a minimum detained.  Maybe I'm wrong.

Second question is on "desensitizing anal wipes."  There wasn't any answer he could give that would interest me in further discussion of the subject. 

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Feature...

Da Oral History of Da Butt by Sarah Godfrey

Not sure I get "oral history" when it's written in a weekly paper, but I guess it's just an expression.  I didn't indulge in a story about a gimmicky song from 1987 that pretty much sums up the success of DC's musical scene.  It's a 100 word afterthought once a year, not a 10,000 word missive trying to make it something it is not. 

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DC Feed...

You would never guess, but some of the restaurants who advertised themselves as "open till 5:00 a.m." and "open 24 hours" are no longer either.   The City Paper is on the story as Black & Orange and The Hamilton give up on their advertising gimmicks early morning dining.

Seriously - both used the hours as a marketing ploy to get the attention of the local press and never meant to keep the hours permanent.  If late night dining was profitable - there'd be a lot more people doing it.  It's not.  These people played every press outlet that reported on them as fools.  

At least Black & Orange has a decent story about wanting a liquor license and trying to cut a deal with the neighborhood to close early.  Although, you can poke holes in their actions when compared to their story if you give it any effort.

The Hamilton leads with something to the effect of "we were making money hand over fist!" They eventually claim that the drunks showing up late night were getting into too many fights and they decided to change their hours instead of hiring more security and continuing to make loads of dough.  

Yeah right - they were losing their ass and they decided to do what they were always going to do - not be open 24 hours a day.  They got tons of free press from their wacky hours and decided the game had been played long enough.  

Any questions?

Grazer

Who has a better Neapolitan pizza - 2 Amys or La Forchetta?  2 Amys wins.  Reading the descriptions gives you the impression that La Forchetta makes the shittiest pizza on earth so it's not a big deal that 2 amys won. 

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CP Arts...

Who cares.

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City List...

I'm really trying find something exciting here, but there's not much.  Rob Zombie and Megadeth will bre coming to the Merriweather Post Pavilion May 13th - should be a Mensa gathering if there ever was one. 

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We always end with a million different ways to promise a handy without saying "you're getting a handy" as usual. 

 

Reading the Washington City Paper so You Don't Have to - Volume 32, NO. 13

No longer am I going to hit every section - I'll just tell you what's worth it and what's not.

This week they unveil their "Best of" issue where business from around D.C. are judged on how good their product or service based on how well they gamed the ballot box.  More on this in a minute.

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The "Chatter" section this week is a testament to how weak the paper was last week.  Nothing much to report since they didn't get anyone talking.  What do you expect from a week that featured a piece on video games as art (gag me) and some fat guy who lied about Apple's manufacturing practices in China.  One story isn't a story and the other is one that was beat to death by the media a full week before the City Paper got off its ass and reported on it.

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"Best of" section starts with food and uses the list and mini feature layout to convey the will of the people... as it pertains to a completely useless voting system that can be easily gamed.

It's one overly written description of something you don't care about after another.  It's the writer's equivalent of flexing in the mirror for their own enjoyment. 

The good news is that advertisers bought special full page ads making sure readers question whether the results were actually from the vote tallied online or taken from ad sales.  I get the mental image of some hipster sales guy from City Paper saying to a local pizza joint owner "well, you could be the best pizza joint in town, but your advertisement is about a quarter of the size it needs to be in order to win that award."

If they aren't giving away the "Best of" awards in exchange for ad buys (which I'm sure at least in some categories that's the case), then it's a contest of which contestants have the biggest social media networks and know how to use them.  I was hit up by several local businesses I'm "friends" with or "following" on twitter for votes.  I don't actually patronize those businesses, but first "followed" or "friended" them because I know someone there and they wanted numbers when it came to their social media status.  So when they used that social connection made purely out of pitty in the first place to encourage me to pitty them once again even though I don't use their shit, I obliged.  Do I get waxed at Wendy's House of Wax (made up name so I don' t dime-out those I voted for and don't use)?  No, but I voted in the poll saying that I did.  Is that fair? Yes - there are no rules, so cheating is not only allowed, it's encouraged.

After the food is "arts and entertainment" awards and if you thought their normal print dedication to the subjects no one cares about is bad, just wait until you wade into this sea of shit.  My God! I couldn't find a less interesting collection of words written in English if I tried.   Come for the "Best Technical Rapper" category and stay for the more ridiculous "Best Soul Historian" winner Kevin Coombe, who, by the way, can be found in the D.C. yellow pages between "who the f*ck is that guy," and "who the f*ck cares." 

Then comes the section on "Goods & Services" and at this point I just quit... I can't go on. 

Bottom line - you can't get the time back, so proceed with caution.

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Savage Love is boring this week - the theme is "young and gay" and the answers are all exactly what you think they would be.

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And, of course, the ads for happy endings are still plentiful.  Try not to get arrested. 

No "Reading the City Paper so You Don't Have to" this week...

It's so bad this week I couldn't even work up enough strength to get through it...

Reading the Washington City Paper so You Don't Have to - Volume 32, NO. 11

Every week we do you a favor and weed out the very few high points of Washington's hippest half-assed weekly. 

Sorry I’m late with this edition… I got drunk last Thursday and only recently regained the use of my hands.

Cover

Profile pictures of some 50 year-old guy with dreads and very poor taste in tank tops.  If I read the corresponding cover text correctly, the guys is supposedly a 21-year-old high school dropout and a “prankster.”  Riveting.

Chatter

Last week the City Paper’s Chris Shott took a poop on Adams Morgan’s culinary maturity.  This week they featured comments from the neighborhood’s unofficial reputation defenders.  So fried are the brains of the folks in Adams Morgan, they failed to do much to refute the claims.  Sadly, all they had to write was “Perry’s” and then fist bump their peeps like they just went yard on CC Sabathia with two on and two out in the ninth to win the game.

The second subject they take comments from was so boring originally, it was almost lethally boring when it was rehashed by slow kids with nothing better to do than send their thoughts to the City Paper. 

Not worth reading.  

District Line

Virginia is for Hipsters by Lydia DePillis

I read the whole article and really never got the “hipster” connection in the title other than a poorly executed marketing plan by government workers who are about as “with it” as the Amish.  I expected some really detailed accounts of mustached fixie aficionados lamenting the cool lameness of Arlington’s yupster scene over some Pabst Blue Ribbons.  Sadly, the story is actually about a meeting put on by Arlington County where they talk about first-time home buyer programs.  Well, that and the inevitable tie in to DC’s housing market nightmare.

In fact, it’s a more of a story about DC’s housing market and why people should live there than anything to do with Arlington.  It is obvious DePillis uses the existence of Arlington’s innocuous meeting as an intro to bitch about people who don’t want to live in the District. 

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City Desk

I don’t always mention this subsection of the “District Line” because it’s usually awful and boring.  However, this week there’s a picture of some dude posing in front of what appears to be an SUV on fire.  The sad thing is there’s no explanation for the photo –just a photo credit.  Why would they show a picture of a major fire and not explain it?  Are they purposely avoiding interesting news?

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Loose Lips

Just Following Money Ordersby Alan Suderman

This was a lot of wasted words to tell people what they already know – DC government is corrupt and there are many ways in which to send money to politicians and candidates.

The Straight Dope 

Federal laws on states executing people by hanging.  Not at all interesting and exactly the answer you figured he give.

Savage Love

Kinky dude writes Savage Love fishing for a compliment and gets one.  General information about hotel sheet etiquette and another reminder of why you never want to sleep in a hotel bed unless you are forced to.

Straight guy goes to gay bar (with a friend, wink wink nudge nudge) and needs to know how to handle all the gay dudes hitting on him.  Does he lie or tell them the truth?  Answer is obvious, time is wasted reading it.

Love advice for a guy who likes having sex with his girlfriend, but nothing else.

And Dan Savage wouldn’t be Dan Savage if he didn’t weigh in on the contraception issue and says exactly what you’d think he’d say.   

Cover Story

Fat Trel’s Real D.C. by Ramon Ramirez

Here’s the initial problem – the guy they feature in the pictures is not a 21-year-old man.  He looks 40 or 50 at best.  Maybe he’s just a weathered 21-year-old… the pictures would make that case. 

The second problem is that for the first five paragraphs you have no idea what the article is about.  In the title you get the impression that this guy is a “prankster” and you’re waiting to hear about one of his pranks, but that doesn’t happen in the first 300-400 words.

I stopped reading after the fifth paragraph because I figured things would only remain cloudy or get worse.  Who is “Fat Trel?” I don’t know – the author couldn’t get to the point fast enough for me to figure it out. 

The major failure of this article is the same as all the other features in the City Paper – long intros with loads of scene setting and zero useful information on what you might be reading about.  Crappy writing, crappy story telling and crappy journalism. 

DC Feed

Young & Hungry

Finally a subject I’m interested in – the crazy son-of-a-bitch that owns and operates the “Ray’s” franchise.  Totally worth the read and I’m not going to ruin it here by spoiling it.  The only thing I’d wish the author had done is not take the owner’s whacked out answers designed to confuse him and lead him off subject as the last word.  Some very interesting things have happened with the various “Ray’s” locations and formats and I’m dying to know why those things happened. 

I will tell you this – go to a “Ray’s” as soon as you can because this guy is nuts and makes horrible business decisions as often as he can, which means it all may go away in a blink of an eye. 

CP Arts

Good story on some Jazz club lawsuit where a black woman sues a black man for racial discrimination because he’s not the descedant of American slaves.  Very odd, but interesting nonetheless.

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Movie reviews once again give entire plot away with spoilers.  I don’t know why they don’t put a warning on these things. 

City List

Still sucks this week and as usual, the ads are where the information is at. 

State Theatre – Blues Traveler in town on April 15^th.

Warner Theatre – Glenn Frey!!!! May 14^th.  The Heat is ON!

Merriweather Post Pavilion – The Black Keys… if you’re into that stuff.  May 18^th. 

The Fillmore – Collective Soul on May 16^th.  And if you’re a douche – Korn on May 4^th.

Classifieds

Proving there’s more than one way to skin a cat and a million ways to promise a happy ending in fifteen words or less.

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See you next week.

 

Reading the Washington City Paper so You Don't Have to - Volume 32, NO. 8

Every week we do you a favor a weed out the very few high points of Washington's hippest half-assed weekly. 

Cover

Chef Mike Isabella - has tats and is a chef, if he rode a "fixie" he'd be the City Paper's "Man of the Century."  Headline gives us the impression he's busy and you're about to find out just how much so.

Chatter

The weekly ink lashing the Washington Paper subjects it authors to was pretty bad in this edition.  Commenters on washingtoncitypaper.com pointed out the obvious for the hapless author of last week's cover story "Campus Planning."  The general tone of the comments are akin to someone criticising an article about Superman by stating "you really should have included Superman's alias Clark Kent and that he can fly."

The author, Shani Hilton (because that's the only kind of name you're allowed to have if you want to write for the hipster weekly), wrote about residents living near DC college campuses being displeased with the actions of the average college kid.  What she forgot to explore was the "Plymouth Rock landed on me" side of the story and she got a little spanking for it in print. 

Worth reading...

Best of DC

It's that time of year again!  Or is it always that time of year when it comes to pimping the "Best of" issue? 

The categories are listed and now it's a race for those restaurants, gyms, massage parlors, theater companies (are you serious?) and just about any other type of group or business you can think of to see who can get the most people to nominate/vote for them.  It's really a contest of marketing, not who is actually good at what they do.  Go HERE if you'd like to participate.

One of these days someone will do an article on how social media has changed these poll results.  Are you a shitty salon, but Facebook and Twitter savvy?  You could win "Best of DC."

District Line

Poor people problems... DC city council problems... DC city council challenger problems...

The Straight Dope 

Another day, another question Google could have answered in seconds.

Savage Love

What problems did people invent this week in order to see themselves in print?

You have a question about potty love.  A straight teenager who needs to learn about the games women play. And the column closes with the dumbest man on earth falling for the oldest trick in the book - put a ring on it and I'll....

Savage closes by encouraging you to do something to Mormons that they do to the deceased that he doesn't like.  Nowhere does Savage see the irony in his call to mimic something he abhors.  There's nothing like stopping senseless beatings by encouraging more senseless beatings. 

Cover Story

Not Stop Chef by Chris Shott

Mr. Shott goes a long way to tell you the following.

Mike Isabella was on Top Chef and currently has one restaurant in DC - Graffiato. 

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella is opening a taco restaurant in Georgetown. 

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella  hates Mariachi music and thinks it's pretty much the only kind of music Mexicans listen to (if the same utterances were made by a guy named "Smith" LULAC would already be roasting his carcass over a social outrage fire - by the way).

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella is gaining inspiration for his Mexican food joint in Pennsylvania and other cities where nobody in their right mind would go to find inspiration for Mexican food - including Miami where he doesn't seem to know the difference between Cubans and Mexicans.  Ask either group what the differences between them are and you'll hear there are many.

Isabella is very busy.

There are pictures featuring dishes that look like traditional Mexican staples but many times smaller. It's as if someone made a regular taco and then used the laser from Honey, I Shrunk the Kidsto miniaturize it.  You get the impression that Isabella is going to rif on the Mexican concept of "lots of food for not a lot a money" by charging a lot of money for very little food.  At this point in the article, anyone from West of the Mississippi is giggling at this concept almost uncontrollably.  A responsible journalist would have stopped the interview at the point and said "you don't get it, do you?"

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella worked for the famous Jose Andres at Zaytinya.

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella was on TV - it has made getting investors easier than being a nobody that nobody knows or cares about.

Isabella is very busy.

Isabella is infinitely more successful than Spike Mendelsohn because he's opening up more places faster. 

 Isabella is very busy.

Isabella has a scooter.

Isabella is very busy.

Author gets quote from two hags whose culinary experience is summed up with "Top Chef fan." Follows that with a quote from a guy who takes a shot at the cupcake trend.

Story ends. 

DC Feed

There's a feature story on a chef who was once a nominee for an award, but now doesn't get along with anyone so she's doing random sittings in random places and the City Paper thinks that is  totally awesome.  The only bad part - you're not invited.  So... they told you about a person who cooks for other people, but never for you.  Glad they wasted space with that. 

CP Arts

The main review in this section is incredibly boring.  It's about 2,000 words too long.  If you care, it's a review of a crime novelist from DC who was a DC cop, but doesn't write about actual crimes and events that took place during his career.  There's also a biographical part to the story that is filled with mildly interesting run-ins with mildly famous people from a very long time ago.

Theater - A simple review of the sci-fi yawner (nothing says sci-fi like the absence of special effects live theater offers) named Astro Boy and the God of Comics.  Not only does the author literally give you a play by play of the entire plot, he injects a spoiler into the second paragraph.  Who needs to pay to see a play when the guy reviewing it spoils it in 50 words!  Amateur on a level that embarrasses amateurs.

The other two theater reviews cover plays so unwatchable it was painful to try and read a review of them.  But what do you expect?  It's the City Paper.

The film section reviews Bullhead and despite a very well written, interest piquing review, the author pans the movie. 

Music - uninteresting banter about the local band, The Tender Thrill. 

City List

Guess what - like 500 nobodies are coming to town to entertain us in the near future and approximately six somebodies will stop by too.   The ads are where the information is at. 

State Theater - I almost recognize three acts they're advertising... not good.

9:30 Club - meh... Quantity, not quality.

Merriweather Post Pavilion - Your goofy uncle's place -Beach Boys, Night Ranger and Cinderella with Ratt and Queensryche all coming soon.

The Fillmore - who are these people?

Warner Theatre - entertainment for the white and over-employed with Monty Python's Spamalot coming soon.

Black Cat - shit your maladjusted little brother likes mixed in with an "80s dance party" to kickoff March (I highly recommend).

DC9 - who?

Rock and Roll Hotel - don't forget your skinny jeans.

Classifieds

Your usual competition to see how many different ways you can say "happy ending" without saying "happy ending."

This week's comic strips is worse than usual, which is saying a lot.

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See you next week.