Man On The Street DC

A few weeks ago, some friends of mine entered the 72-Hour Film Festival in Frederick MD, of which I had never heard, but appears to be at least tangentially related to our dearly departed Art-O-Matic. (And by dearly departed, I mean, hasn’t occurred in a way that my former band could play one of our 5 yearly gigs at it.) I had seen their work in the 48-Hour Film Fest and liked what they did, so was elated when the called me to help out on their film, but somewhat unconvinced when they asked me to act — as one of the two leads, no less. Continue reading →

While interviewing the folks in my “This Day in History” segment, I was alerted to the fact that there would be an economic-related protest in Freedom Square in a few days, so before leaving for a long weekend out of town, I swung by the protests. To be forthcoming, I’ve never been a big fan of protests. Whatever they achieve in term of moral, I’ve always found them to be lacking in mobilization or even organization. Nevertheless, protesting is a national pastime in DC, so I was curious what I could find and show. Continue reading →

After doing some websurfing, we came across History.com and their daily feature “This Day in History”, which gave us an idea. Why not talk to folks about events from the past,m mine some memories, and use them for discussion in a present-day context?

For our trial run of this hopefully rolling feature, we found out that on this day, October 5, in 1947, President Harry Truman delivered the first presidential address ever broadcast by television. At the time, an amazing few had TV sets (in the thousands) and the speech itself was about curbing American consumption of grains due to starvation across Europe. (Sixty-four years have truly changed the world). We camped out in front of the Newseum and spoke with a couple, married 50 years, from Columbia MD about Presidents and speechgiving.

Food trucks have come a long way in the last couple years since they started popping up around town. While a few have gone under (so long Sabora Street, we miss your plantains), the remainder few dozen have formed an alliance. Thanks to Food Truck Fiesta, the food truck aggregator, folks can get a GPS-y report each day telling them who’s where. The DC government even has a page dedicated to opening a mobile food biz, while local eateries are continuing to fight the trucks by insisting on an ordinance that keeps them moving after shorter amounts of time. Continue reading →

As mentioned in the Terry McMillan interview clip, we did 5 other interviews at the National Book Festival, all of which featured a tremendous, atonal buzz, covering up the audio we thought was A material. This was a gut-wrenching discovery, as we had been granted a press pass to a fairly high-profile event and scored interviews with some fairly notable folks in the literary, media, and performing arts worlds. We were imagining a series of highlights clips, put together in our newly Adobe Premier acquisition (bells and whistles!). Retweets by the Library of Congress. Respect from all the Fleischman-Hillard PR junkies who served as volunteers at the media tent. We’re talking big stuff here. Continue reading →

On one hand, the last minute application for and acceptance of a press pass to the National Book Festival was oddly exciting. This is a signature event in the publishing world, held out side on the Mall, that thousands of people plan their trips to our nation’s capital around. The parade of successful and well-known folks that come into the media tent is impressive. Who wouldn’t want to fire a few questions at a David McCollough or a Garrison Keillor or a Dave Eggers? Continue reading →

Taking place all weekend is the new (e)merge art fair, the brainchild of Leigh Connor and Helen Allen, among others. The event reflects the growth of DC’s profile as a contemporary art market, but isn’t the only game in town this weekend. Actually, its a crowded few days for art lovers, with probably more events and scenes they hope to attend (more than we can, that’s for sure). Continue reading →

We attended the Fall Gala last night for the Indigo Africa organization, a “social enterprise non-profit that helps Rwandan women deliver themselves out of poverty through the sale of culturally significant handcrafts and the building of long-term skills.” The event was held at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Penn Quarter, one of my favorite spaces downtown for its cinderblock industrialism, as well as its annual hosting of the Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind production. Continue reading →

Where to start? The H St NE Festival, held each September in the revitalized (and re-branded) Atlas District north of Capitol Hill is overwhelming in every sense of the world. The seven blocks of the formally downcast boulevard are peppered with so much culture, commerce, and character that its inevitable that you’ll miss something you probably didn’t even know about until after the fact. Or you’ll simply not be able to see everything you want to. And that’s exactly what happened. Continue reading →

Many of us dream of a job where not only is our work personally meaningful, but also results in a product that people like and, if we’re lucky, has a tie-in that is beneficial to communities in some way. I have long been an admirer of North Coast Brewing Company‘s beer, as well as their move to partner with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which receives a portion of revenues from sales of the Brother Thelonious Belgian-Style Abbey Ale. So, I was thrilled with not only the event at Churchkey featuring North Coast’s beer, but the opportunity to speak with those responsible for the product and the partnership.

Continue reading →

Since starting this blog, we’ve had several ideas for fish out of water type stories and none more fishier nor more out of water than to somehow immerse ourselves in the world of fashion. Technically, it’s not my first encounter if you really want to cast a wide net for criteria, but definitely my first time shooting one. The event was a little confusing to me at first, since it was on the same night as Georgetown’s Fashion Night Out, but was an awareness event for the March of Dimes’s work trying to reduce infant mortality in DC and nationwide. Under those auspices, it featured fashion, food and fitness. And, being last Thursday, a long day of heavy rain which almost certainly had to hurt turnout, which at any one time probably didn’t exceed 100. Continue reading →

Held on both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, DC Arts on Foot provided a downtown counterpart to the Adams Morgan Day Festival, with food from more established restaurants, as well as a cooking demonstrations, events in the Verizon Center, and a wine tasting set-up inside the new Riot Act Comedy Theater. Continue reading →

During a long weekend of filming four different events, we spent part of Sunday afternoon away from the Mall and national September 11 commemorations to instead take in the day in one of DC’s more distinctive neighborhoods, Adams Morgan. Some embrace for it for its beautiful architecture, cultural diversity, and its symbolism of unity, drawing its name from two formally segregated schools. Other revile it for its Bourbon Street atmosphere on weekends, replete with police, disorderly conduct and pizza plates littering the ground. Continue reading →

At the behest of some friends in my DC neighborhood, I recently signed up to play bocce this fall. While I’ve played numerous times on lawns across America, I’d never set foot on one of those courts that seems to be springing up around this city and, as I found out, in neighborhoods in South Philadelphia as well. So, over the holiday weekend, I gave the sport a try. Continue reading →

As you may have already read by now, Edward Rothstein of the NY Times feels the new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial on the National Mall is a “failure” for a number of reasons. Continue reading →

Saturday, before the rains got heavy and the winds kicked up, DC residents took their final shots at grabbing a few sandbags provided by the city, passed out to endless lines of cars at one of the side parking lots at RFK stadium.

Continue reading →

In the middle of editing the footage we shot at the DC Sandbag Handout yesterday, we stepped outside to find this.

After shooting interviews (and getting kicked out by the NPS) at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, I biked back up towards the office, finding a bit of a traffic flow situation near the White House. With the west side sidewalk closed, pedestrians were routinely deciding to walk up and down 15th St NW in the bike lanes, rather than walk across the street to walk more safely on the sidewalk. Continue reading →

Our appearance at Riot Act Comedy Theater in Penn Quarter, DC, August 23, 2011. A few of my thoughts after the jump. Continue reading →

We grabbed the camera and went outside to get some reaction 5-10 minutes after the earthquake hit DC the afternoon.

Local realtors Greg and Christine Tindale, the husband and wife known as Tindale Team, threw a viewing party for their long-awaited appearance on HGTV’s House Hunters series Monday night. The Tindales invited friends as well as the couple who bought the house to Union Pub on Capitol Hill to watch the premier of the half-hour episode, shot last year in DC. Continue reading →

We stopped by DC Scoop 2011, the first ice cream festival and competition in the district, on a hot Saturday afternoon at Union Market in northeast DC. The free event was supported by a number of organizations and featured desserts from 15 different vendors, who all donated their products for three hours and entered into a competition. Attendees received a golden ticket that they could use to cast of their favorite sample, thereby determining the Consumer’s Choice Award, while a panel judges picked the, I guess, official winner. In any case, Sinplincity Ice Cream won the former distinction while Dolcezza Gelato won the later. Continue reading →

After stopping by the brewery in the afternoon, we attended the release party for Chocolate City Beer, the newest microbrew in DC. Held in the back room at RFD, the 9pm scheduled start time was jumped by about an hour, as kegs of Big Chair IPA, Conerstone Copper Ale, Cer Veza Nacional, and 1814 ESB were taped by 8pm and the room had already begun to fill up. Continue reading →

Before going to the Chocolate City Beer Release Party, we stopped by Meridian Pint to see what all the fuss was about on Twitter. Schlafly Brewery from St. Louis, celebrating 20 years of business and increasing presence on the east coast, was on hand to offer porksteaks ($10) and brats ($5) off the grill on the Pint’s patio as part of DC Beer Week. The porksteaks were enormous, so we turned one down for fear of claiming an item of limited without the proper appetite for that much food. David from the Pint assisted Matt from Schlafly serving folks, while folks had a choice of Schlafly Summer Brew or DC Brau to go with their food. Continue reading →

We stopped by Chocolate City Beer this afternoon to shoot footage in advance of tonight’s release event at RFD in Chinatown. Visit CC’s site or their Facebook page.

More clips available on our YouTube channel. We will be there tonight doing our first “on the street” interviews.

A test run on recording video. MotS talks to former roommate Dave at the Nats-Reds game about proper walk out music for batters.

"Are laughing with each other or at each other?"

Most people love getting massages, but outside of those who want to do it for a living, how many people care about giving good massages? Wouldn’t you like to get a better massage from your friend or partner? I mean, what’s better than dating someone that can get the occasional knot out of your back after you spent all day being a burgeoning social media king?

Presented by Lunar Massage of Adams Morgan and Mt. Vernon, something called a “Partners’ Massage Workshop” sounded like our kind of thing: fun, educational, and a little different than the average night out. So, we enlisted a ladyfriend and signed up for the $40 per couple, 90-minute class. The class took place at the Adams Morgan location last night and consisted of 10 couples, which means 20 people crowded into Lunar’s relatively modest space on Columbia Ave. Originally, we were on the waiting list when the class was only meant to be 6 couples, but thankfully they expanded the class, so I’m certainly willing to ignore a little shortage of space. Continue reading →