Dabysan in Hammersmith Palais

As an avowed grammar nerd, there are few things I like more than collective nouns. I love that they run from the whimsical -- a "charm" of hummingbirds -- to the morbid -- a "murder" of crows -- to the just plain strange -- a "rhumba" of rattlesnakes.

My question, which a five-second perusal of the Internets failed to answer, is who gets to decide when one of these things enters the lexicon? I mean they're already words, right? If I just start calling every group of car salesmen I see a  "cancer," and enough people pick up on it, does that get to be a collective noun? Or is there some secret society of English professors in a remote dungeon somewhere that approves these things? These are the sorts of questions that trouble men's souls.

Anyway, I've been pondering a few new ones, and once I figure out the process, I'll be submitting them to the collective noun tribunal, or whatever it is.

- a "Pabst" of hipsters
- a "shrill" of tweens
- a "Zima" of sorrority girls
- a "date rape" of frat boys
- a "Prius" of non-profit workers

I'm something of a one-trick-pony from a sporting standpoint. I love the National Football League, and specifically my Washington Redskins, but I've never been able to muster much in the way of interest in other sports. The way I typically explain this to people is by saying that the Redskins break my heart every year, and one abusive sporting relationship is already more than I can take,  but the reality is that I just don't find most other sports all that interesting. Baseball bores me so much I bring novels to the games, basketball is only interesting in the last five minutes of the game, and hockey is...well hockey. I quite like competitive martial arts, but try admitting to that in mixed company.

Anyway, all that changed last weekend when I had the opportunity to attend the DC Rollergirls Championship Bout between the DC Demon Cats and Scare Force One. I can say without exception that semi-professional roller derby is the second finest team sport being played in America today. It's got girls, skates, girls on skates, hip checks, shoulder checks, bad puns, good puns, noisemakers and creative bloodletting. If it doesn't replace hockey as America's fourth major sport in the next decade, there's something deeply wrong with people.

The night got started as my favorite team (decided the afternoon before after a glance at the Web site) The Secretaries of Hate tried to get their first-ever win against the Cherry Blossom Bombshells in the warm-up match. The Secretaries were game but undersized, and soon the Cherry Blossoms' blockers were able to impose their will with a series of vicious checks, winning going away in the second half. Apparently I choose roller derby teams about as well as I choose football teams, but whatever. We still we have the best name and the coolest banners. The victories can't be far behind.

In the finals, the unbeaten Scare Force One looked to defend their title against the tough-minded Demon Cats. Scare Force One has a player named Six-Five in Skates, and what was remarkable was not that she was tall, but that she was not all that much taller than the other players on the team. Tough, tough girls. The Demon Cats got off to an early lead, but they could hold off the Scare Force onslaught. Scare Force One pulled ahead in the second half and sealed their third-straight championship.

I'm buying season tickets (if that's possible) next year. If you live in DC and you don't you're dumb.

Tough week. I'm skeedadling off to Oregon on Sunday for work, which meant I had to do all the things I would have done last week, this week...blah, blah, blah. Boring. Anyway, the point is that I didn't have a lot of time to blog this week and I won't have time to do it tomorrow, so here I am, saying something with nothing to say.

I suppose I could leave it up to chance that my hotel in Portland will have wireless -- a reasonable assumption -- but I am not the sort of man who leaves his victory pie to chance.

Speaking of pie, I saw what may be the best vanity license plate in the history of vanity license plates (though frankly, that may be damning it with faint praise):

Fucking Dan Bejar.

I was all prepared for this week's post to be a bilious rant about how much his show sucked, what a giant turd farmer he is and how sandwich-eating Cannucks are a blight on the music industry.

I was pretty excited about it. I've been carrying around a lot of hate following his shameful performance with the New Pornographers the last time through town and I was very keen on a little character assassination. So what does that unshaven, curly haired fuckstick do on Friday night? He takes the stage at the Black Cat and puts on a tremendous show, during which he appears to actually care about every song.

Vexing.

I like slagging douchebags more than anyone, but I find it real, real hard when they're talented. And Dan Bejar is one talented douchebag.

So in lieu of bashing Bejar, I guess I'll just have to comment on one of the odder phenomena facing the indie hipster concert goer. If there was a dark stain on last night's show, aside from an air conditioner that could have frozen mercury, it was a phalanx of sorority girls and their thick-necked, date-raping fraternity counterparts clustered directly in front of us.

The guys were distinctly uninterested, mercifully leaving to go take Jaeger shots and share uncomfortable homo-erotic silences after just a few songs, but the sorority girls persisted for the bulk of the show, throwing the devil horns, shouting woo, and taking an unending supply of Myspace photos -- not of the band mind you -- but of each other ... pretending to listen to the band. One of their number, a willowy blond, dressed in a short skirt and hooker boots, didn't look at the stage once.

This whole display was more curious than it was annoying. Other than their relentless commitment to flash photography, they weren't actually disruptive, but I couldn't stop thinking of how they managed to stumble into the Black Cat to see a famously persnickety Canadian art rocker sing about literature.

You will never convince me that any of them owned a Destroyer record, or, in fact that they could properly describe what a "record" was.  And its not like the week before the Black Cat hosted Toby Keith or whoever the milquetoast kids are listening to these days. The Black Cat is an unstintingly snooty hipster venue, far from the part of town where they trade in $4 mojitos and rohypnol. So what the hell were they doing there? I spent much of the show writing mental scripts for how they managed to show up there (dare? pledge initiation?) but none of the explanations satisfied.

And the truth is, this happens all the time at indie/punky/off-the-beaten-path kind of shows. One of the realities of listening to non-mainstream music is that, depending on the band, you can usually predict the concert demographic with stunning accuracy. And then the sorority shows up and throws off all your calculations. Perplexing.

I'd like to propose an ambitious new program to fix what's wrong with music today. My plan calls for rounding up all the wan, sickly, post-ironic indie douchebags (Carl Newman's ears must be burning) and packing them off to re-education camps to learn the art of showmanship. In between hourly canings, the lads would be treated to lectures and demonstrations by artists who have mastered the fine art of giving a shit on stage. Classes could include Finding Your Inner Comb - The Fine Art of Stage Preparation; Singing the Hits People Paid to Hear; and Acting Like You Have a Clue How Fucking Lucky You Are.

I propose that the commandant of the inaugural camp be Frederick "Toots" Hibbert.

I saw Toots and his Maytals for the first time last night at the State Theater in lovely Falls Church, Virginia. As a general rule I: a) don't go out to late shows on school nights and b) don't go to Falls Church, ever. But the chance to see a reggae and rock steady legend at a tiny venue overrode those guidelines, so my girlfriend and I schlepped out to the suburban wasteland and the surprisingly accommodating State Theater.

The State is like a miniature version of the Warfield in San Francisco, with a small, sunken standing area down front, cocktail tables and bars behind that, and a balcony overhead. There was a pretty good crowd on hand, but none of the nuts-to-butts claustrophobia typical of most DC venues. The night started inauspiciously enough, as the crack team at the State seemed to have a little difficulty getting all the microphones working. By the time everything got unfucked and Toots took the stage, it was past 10:30, and I was starting to wonder if this show had been such a hot idea.

It took about .5 seconds of hearing Toots singing "Do the Reggay" to erase my concerns. The 62-year-old Toots took the stage wearing a sleeveless leather and wool pinstriped suit that might seem ridiculous on somebody else. He's been at it for so long that many of the Maytals are his actual offspring, including the bass player and one of the backup singers. From a technical standpoint, the band sounded amazing, and Toots' voice is unbelievably strong.  His energy was outrageous and infectious. With a few shouted exhortations he had the whole crowd skanking along (mostly) in time (this is Virginia, after all).

Toots played all but one song I wanted to hear (She's My Scorcher) including Pressure Drop, Monkey Man and Sweet and Dandy (above). He closed his set with a raucous, 10-minute rendition of the amazing 54-46, his signature track (and former prison number, if the story is to be believed). He didn't leave the stage until he had shaken every hand that he could reach in the audience. Just stunning. He'll whip Carl into shape in no time.

You know I like Hotrod, but it'd be nice if he could shut up about himself for five minutes. For the past two months he's been telling anyone who'd listen about his upcoming birthday, the exact flavor of brownie he wanted, what color streamers were appropriate for a newly minted 46-year-old and the exact key we should use in singing Happy Birthday. At least I wasn't there for his tiara fitting. Dreadful.

Anyway, we all got together earlier tonight for the fist of several Hotrod's birthday-related outings. The whole DC Vox crew was there -- Emma, Midwest Gal, Akai, Aussie Bob, Eileen and the Mysterious Dan. The venue was one of those newfangled bowling joints where they dim the lights, flash Rorschach images above the pins and charge $9 for watered down vodka gimlets (what, people don't drink those anymore? Sorry, it's been awhile). Still, for all the mood lighting, pricey drinks, and Hotrod's constant preening, we had a pretty good time. Lucky Strike's major contribution to world cuisine is a ball of macaroni and cheese, rolled in batter and deep fried. I'd like to be able to tell you that I find these gross, and opted instead for a salad, but I think they might be the best thing ever. I ate 50 or so.

It was probably the macaroni bites that propelled me to my awesome bowling performance. By the fifth frame, I had already topped Hotrod's score for the whole game. I think I ended up with a 274 or something, though I never keep track, because I play more for the fun of the game, than out of any desire to compete with my brothers and sisters.

Good times all around.

(Oh and I realize that I'm cutting it a wee bit close in with this week's entry in the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks challenge, but don't take it as weakness on my part. All part of my master plan. The pie will be mine.)

Baseball is kind of a big deal in my office. My bosses are absolute freaks for the stuff. One of the nice perks of their obsession is that we have season tickets to the Washington Nationals in their swanky new park. Another is that Major League Baseball's opening day is an official office holiday, when tradition dictates that we all down tools and head out to the ballpark to bond.

So it was more than a little disappointing when the marketing geniuses at MLB decided to commemorate this historic occasion by supplanting the lovely, languid tradition of opening day with a frigid, late, TV-friendly opening night. Gone was our day off, replaced by an all-but-mandatory evening outing with 40,000 of our closest friends, the Secret Service and the President of the United States. Par-tay.

By way of background, I am not what you'd call a baseball fan. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I'd like it more if there was more violent contact, more action, shoulder pads, and about a 10th as many games...that is to say, if it were more like football.

I'm also not a big fan of crowds. It's not that I'm agoraphobic, per se.  It's just that being among that many of my fellow passengers to the grave reminds me of how much our little human garden could use a good weeding.

And yesterday was cold. Not Minnesota cold, but certainly colder than is ideal for an extended outdoor sit.

So it was with some reluctance that I left my warm apartment to brave the fun and excitement of opening day. I took some pictures to document the occasion.

Here's me getting off the metro.  You know what this escalator needs?  More people.

Metal detectors and Secret Service at every entrance. Thanks to W for this, his final (we hope) insult.

What? Doesn't everybody read novels of English manners and listen to M.I.A. before baseball games?

When Hotrod informed me that Iron Maiden were coming to town, I felt a great surge of satisfaction. Here was my opportunity to fill one of the great gaps in my concert-going experience by seeing my first-ever favorite band live. When I read that they would performing material exclusively from their first seven (!) albums, and modeling their stage set on the Egyptian-themed "Powerslave" tour (think zombie mummies and laser-beam pyramids), I felt like Christmas had come early this year.

I don't listen to a lot of Iron Maiden these days, but when I was 12, I thought they were the best, most brilliant band ever to walk the face of the earth. While other bands sang about yucky girls, pointless dancing and stupid emotions, Iron Maiden performed songs about important stuff, like the novel Dune, ancient calvary battles, the flight of Icarus and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

While other bands pranced around like dandies in their linen suits and ponce-y feathered hair, Iron Maiden wore leather and spikes and grew their ratty, greasy tresses down to their asses (one of my great complaints in junior high stemmed from my inability to grow my hair long - stupid afro). And most importantly, Iron Maiden were always accompanied in concert by an 8 foot tall animatronic zombie named "Eddie." In a word, Iron Maiden were cool...to a geeky 12 year old science-fiction enthusiast who had yet to kiss a girl.

More than 20 years later, I still feel a little defensive of my first musical love, being as they are the butt of many, many jokes. In his book defending such artistic giants as Poison and Cinderella, Chuck Klosterman makes sure to potshot both Iron Maiden and their fans as hopeless dorks. "This is Spinal Tap" is essentially a 2-hour satire of Maiden (see the above video if you don't believe me). Sadly, the band has even lost its ability to convey a sense of menace to outsiders. While playing Guitar Hero, my girlfriend remarked that the "Number of the Beast" sounded "awfully jaunty, kind of like a musical."

It's lonely out there for an Iron Maiden fan, especially if you live somewhere other than a trailer park. But to all you goddamn hipsters who think you're better than me, I say you can fuck right off. I'll back Iron Maiden against whatever lousy sissified crap you were listening to when you were 12. When I throw the devil horns and bang my head this June, you can be assured that it will be without a trace of irony.

To whom it may concern,

So you've decided to come to Washington DC for your vacation. Congratulations. In addition to being uniquely rich in history and cultural tradition, Washington is a cosmopolitan city that offers some of the best in dining, shopping and nightlife. Although we're certain you'll have a rich and rewarding experience, we'd like to kindly remind you that Washington DC -- unlike say, Colonial Williamsburg or Harpers Ferry -- is a "working" city.

You need not trouble yourself with what that work entails (we suspect it may be a bit beyond you), but what is important is that you realize that when you come here, you will be surrounded by busy people, who may move and speak at a pace to which you are unaccustomed. We'd like to humbly offer some tips to make your visit as comfortable, harmonious and personally rewarding as possible.

In this, our first installment, we shall address transportation.

Metrorail is one of the cleanest, most accessible public transit systems in the country. Metrorail offers ready access to the Capitol, the White House, the museums of the Smithsonian, hot spots like Dupont Circle and a wide range of other local attractions. Maps of the Metrorail system are available in most hotels and at every metro station. A friendly station manager will be happy to help you with fare and destination information. But there are some things that you should keep in mind:

• Between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., and 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. commuters use the Metrorail system to get to and from work. You are not welcome during this time. Most of the attractions you're here to visit don't even open until after 10:00, so we don't know why you'd even want to force yourself onto a crowded train where you'll be distinctly unwelcome, but it bears mentioning. You're on vacation. We suggest sleeping in and taking advantage of your hotel's continental breakfast.

• If you do find yourself on the train with a large number of people in suits and business attire, you've probably inadvertently violated the above-stated principle. To minimize your gaffe, we recommend that you, and especially your brood of children (we'll never understand where you find the time) stand, rather than take up seats needed for tired locals on their way to or from the jobs that keep your country functioning.

• You may have noticed how clean the Metrorail system is. That's because we don't allow eating or drinking. That includes coffee, gum and anything else you may choose to put in your mouth. If your passion for consumption is so constant that you feel compelled to eat while moving from one place to another, we hear New York is nice.

• You may also have noticed how quiet the rail cars are. Most locals view their commute as a time for sober reflection, reading or in some cases, getting a little extra work done. There will be plenty of time for discussing Dale Jr.'s latest exploits on the oval track once you arrive at you destination. If you must speak, consider using your "inside voice," and limiting yourself to only essential communications (telling one of your children to swallow his or her gum, for instance).

• Our escalators are like your roads, in that they have "lanes." The left "lane" is for busy people who don't view the escalator as a ride, but rather a conveyance that helps them get more quickly to their destination. People walk in the left lane as if they were going up a regular flight of stairs. If you feel the need to stand idly on the escalator, keep to the right.

That's all for now. We're sure you'll have a tremendous time. Enjoy the Mall...it's there to keep you out of our collective hair.

Sincerely,

The People of the Washington Metropolitan Area

Here are a few facts:

- The Pogues are one of my all-time favorite bands.

- The  Pogues were in town tonight performing the second of two sold-out shows at my favorite local concert venue.

- I have a ticket to the show, for which I paid $55.

- I'm as fit as a fiddle.

- I had no conflicting plans.

- My musical hero, Joe Strummer, once said, while fighting off a bad flu at a Pogues show: "stay at home, when the Pogues are in town? That's the stupid thing to do."

- The show is going on right now.

- I am not there.

I got back from an extremely mellow vacation in the Bahamas on Saturday, and since then I'd been feeling decidedly ambivalent about going to see this show. For starters, it's on a Monday, which is the worst of all days to schedule a rock show. Second, the Pogues haven't put out an album of new material since the lamentable "Pogue Mahone" in 1996, and they haven't put out a good album since the 1988 masterpiece "If I Should Fall From Grace With God." Third, the Pogues haven't exactly been on heavy rotation on WDabysaninHammerSmithPalais ("The Quiet Storm") lately.  I was probably in college the last time I listened to a Pogues record in its entirety.

The problem with these perfectly rational reasons is that they all suck.

I like The Pogues' music. I know from first-hand experience that they put on a wicked-good live show. They were in town, and I had a ticket. So why didn't I go?

What it really comes down to is the type of people who go to a Pogues show. The last time I went to a Pogues show (last year around this time) I was shocked when I walked into the venue. Years of going to more wussified indie rock concerts had conditioned me to feel like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. At 6-0, 185, I'm no giant, but I'm more than capable of elbowing your average New Pornographers fan out of the way to get a better vantage point. I walked into the Pogues show and stared up at a wall of backs. From my nonscientific sample, the average Pogues concert attendee is 6-9, weighs 300 pounds and is on speaking terms with ancestors who only recently came down from the trees. It's all dudes. All. Dudes. Drunk dudes. Big, drunk, ornery Irish dudes. And the few girls who do claw their way in are not the sorts you'd like to meet in a back alley. At their last show here, I very nearly got in a fight (thankfully with one of the few non-simian attendees, but still).

The thing is, there was a time when I really liked that sort of thing. When I saw them in college, the crowd was -- if anything -- just as big, younger and more dangerous, but there I was, down in the pit, pogo dancing with skinheads and loving every violent second of it. I even got a little thrill from it last year. But today, the concept of battling for oxygen with that gang of drunken ogres made me a little queasy. I'm looking forward to when The Destroyers come to town.