Springfield’s Jaxx Rock Club Sues Gunnar Nelson, Alleging Slander

(By Tom Jackman, Washington Post, August 31, 2011)

When it comes to heavy metal and hair bands, you just can’t top Jaxx, the Springfield club that has hosted more ear-bending, mind-warping hard rock shows than any other in the D.C. area. Owner Jay Nedry is the longtime owner, he loves the music, and he brings in bands like Jackyl, Kix and Nelson even when they don’t make big money, just to keep the rock rockin’. He’s also been a longtime supporter of local headbangers.  So Nedry was mighty shocked when he read on Examiner.com last year that Gunnar Nelson, half of the brother act Nelson, had slammed the daylights out of Nedry for a show two years earlier. “Jaxx was probably the low point of my career,” Nelson told writer Kimberly Reed, and he proceeded to claim that Nedry didn’t pay the band, ran out the back door with the proceeds, and is known for ripping off bands.

Nedry has responded with a defamation suit against Nelson and Reed, filed Aug. 18 in Fairfax County Circuit Court. He filed documents from Nelson’s own records that show he did pay the band $4,000; Nedry’s attorney notes that no band gets on stage without being paid first; and Nelson never made any subsequent demand for any unpaid fees.  Nelson, both the band and the singer-songwriter Gunnar, are not backing down from Gunnar’s remarks, such as, “Jaxx has gotten into a habit of booking national bands who don’t know any better, they might not come back again but he gets to rip them off once”and that Nedry “didn’t pay us.”

“That’s just an outright lie,” said William B. Crockett, Nedry’s attorney and longtime friend from Northern Virginia.  Jaxx, in the basement of a Rolling Road strip mall next to an excellent Afghan kabob place, has been banging heads since Bad Company opened it up in 1994. John Entwistle from the Who, John Paul Jones from Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, Foghat, Warrant, Peter Frampton, Twisted Sister, Molly Hatchet — the list of rock’s greats and once-greats fill up its history. Great White was scheduled to play there the night after their fireworks torched a Rhode Island club, killing 100 people. The gig was canceled.

The Nelson twins — sons of Ricky Nelson, grandsons of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson — had played Jaxx many times, and Nedry had become friends with them. They were lined up again to play in September 2008, for a fee of $7,500, and here’s where a crucial event did or didn’t happen.  Ten days before the Nelson gig, according to Nedry, only 16 tickets had been sold. Nedry claims he called the band’s tour manager, Obi Steinman, and that Steinman “agreed to reduce the contract price to $4,000.”  Steinman now says that never happened. In a sworn statement filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Nedry first sued, Steinman states, “At no time did I agree to reduce the price for Nelson’s performance.”

Nedry’s suit states that he paid the Nelson brothers $2,000 in cash and then gave them a $2,000 check. Nelson’s own records, produced in the lawsuit, confirm this. Nedry believed all was well, though only 75 people showed up for the concert. He never heard any complaints from Nelson or got any bill for unpaid fees.  Then came the August 2010 article on Examiner.com by Reed, the “D.C. Concerts Examiner.” Examiner.com is not the same as the Washington Examiner or other publications of the Clarity Digital Group empire. It is an opportunity for local citizens to post articles in their area of passion or expertise.  Justin Jimenez, a senior director of marketing for Examiner.com, said the local Examiners are carefully selected after an in-depth selection process, a review of their writing samples and a background check. But after that, their articles are “written and posted solely by the authors themselves.”

So Reed did a telephone interview with Gunnar Nelson and opened her article with the hypothetical, “Imagine your boss ran out the door with your paycheck. Imagine that happened two years ago and you are still owed that money.”  But Reed never called Nedry to see if the claim was true, which is what actual journalists do. She is a defendant in the lawsuit, and declined comment.  Reed proceeded to misspell Nedry’s name in every reference, after a quick visit to the Jaxx Web site, and then quoted Nelson’s lengthy blast. “Jaxx was a nightmare,” Nelson said. “I highly recommend that no one goes to Jaxx, ever. That club owner still owes me 8 grand. . . . Jay Nedrey ducked out the back door with the bar til under his arm while we were on stage. . . . and he didn’t pay us. I actually got ripped off playing Jaxx on my birthday. Jaxx was probably the lowpoint of my career. . . . I would rather play a community fair for free . . . than get ripped off playing another club like Jaxx.”

Nedry was flabbergasted. His attorney sent a letter to Reed, who pulled down the story and replaced it with a note which said the article was “retracted completely and unqualified.”  Nedry sued Nelson and Reed in Los Angeles earlier this year, but it was dismissed because Nelson doesn’t live in Los Angeles and there was no jurisdiction there. So the suit was refiled recently in Fairfax.  Crockett pointed out that if Nelson didn’t get paid, they would never have taken the stage. There’s an old show business saying, “No dough, no show,” he said, but Nelson played their Jaxx show. He also pointed out that Nelson never claimed they weren’t paid until the Examiner article.

Vicki Greco, Nelson’s Los Angeles attorney, said the band played because “they took it upon Mr. Nedry’s good word that they would get paid. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t be good for his word.”  She said there was no subsequent demand for payment because the band wasn’t interested in the trouble of going to small-claims court for $3,500. Greco acknowledged that the claim that they weren’t paid at all isn’t exactly accurate but that there was a debt outstanding and that Nelson’s statements are true. (Nelson said in his sworn declaration that Reed misquoted him about the “8 grand.”)

Crockett said Nelson’s statements about Nedry were still defamatory, whether the band was playing for $7,500 or $4,000. And if Nedry had a reputation of ripping bands off, Crockett said, why did Nelson agree to play in the first place?  “You wonder why he would say that,” Crockett said of Nelson’s diatribe, which ended a longtime friendship between Nedry and the twins. “Jay will stand up and tell anybody, ‘If I don’t have my good name, I don’t have anything.’ ”  And to preserve his good name, he is going to court.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/springfields-jaxx-rock-club-sues-gunnar-nelson-for-slander/2011/08/30/gIQAES5ksJ_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_lunchln 

College101: Freshman Year Bucket List

(By Jenna Johnson, Washington Post, August 8, 2011)

Last week I shared a list of tips for surviving freshman year and asked you to share your tips for incoming freshmen in the comments section, on Twitter using the hashtag #College101, my Facebook page and during an online chat.  The response was overwhelming. I combed through hundreds of tips and edited them into this 50-item “bucket list.” I suggest that you print it out, tape it to the back of your closet door and cross things off as you do them.

1) “Make a resolution to meet one new person each day your first two months there,” tweeted @pgersty.

2) Invest in shower shoes, a caddy that won’t fill with water and a heavy-duty robe. (Suggested by @washingtonpost and a bunch of other tweeters.)

3) Arrive at your dorm as early as possible on move-in day, said Chris Pollack, a George Washington University senior, during the chat. As soon as your stuff is unloaded and you have sent your parents on their way, volunteer to help your new neighbors haul in their duffel bags, televisions and mini-fridges. This is a great way to make friends.

4) Join an intramural or club sports team. These teams are booming with popularity on many campuses, so sign up as soon as possible to ensure you get a spot.

5) Sample a local delicacy. Like crabs in Maryland, baked ham in Virginia, half-smokes in the District, peaches in Georgia, barbecue in Kansas City — you get the idea.

6) Leave your dorm room door open whenever you are there. “It makes it easier to meet people on your floor,” tweeted Emily Cahn, a.k.a. @ec2011, a recent college grad who works at The Post.

7) Explore campus — and not just the buildings where you have classes. Spend an entire afternoon wandering, finding cool, out-of-the-way spots and becoming enough of an expert that you could help your clueless roommate find her/his classes at the last minute.

8) And explore your college town. Learn the bus route, find a funky coffee shop, shop at the farmers’ market and locate the best spots for late-night food. (Also find the closest emergency room and 24-hour pharmacy, just in case.)

9) Enjoy your student ID. Sure, it won’t get you into bars if you are under 21, but it can save you so much money on so many things: student rates on movie, theater or concert tickets, 15 percent off full-price merchandise at J. Crew, stand-by tickets on Air Tran flights, and a bunch of other things.

10) Attend a campus sporting event. (Bonus points for rooting on a team that gets less attention than football or basketball.)

11) Join a club. Any club. If you can’t find a club that meets your interests, than create one.

12) Visit the career center. If you think you know what you want to do with your life, learn what you need to do now to get an internship next summer or during your sophomore year. If you are still searching for a dream career, ask one of the counselors or advisers for assistance.

13) Get to know an upperclass student, such as your resident assistant, teaching assistant, student organization member, coworker or a classmate. Don’t hesitate to ask that person questions, check in throughout the year and draw inspiration from the fact that he/she made it through freshman year alive. (Suggested by food blogger Laura Kumin, a.k.a. @MotherWouldKnow.)

14) Rush a sorority or fraternity.

15) Volunteer in the community near campus. Many schools now have service offices or clubs that can help you find an opportunity.

16) Take charge and organize some sort of outing for everyone on your floor. It could be dinner in the dining hall, opening night of a movie or a Sunday afternoon hike.

17) Visit the library. Seriously. Your professor will be impressed to see cited sources that aren’t attached to a URL.

18) Play some sort of sport on the quad. Some ideas: ultimate Frisbee, touch football, soccer, hacky sack, tag or quidditch.

19) Attend a lecture, concert or cultural event on campus that’s not required for class.

20) After the drop date, make a friend in each class, tweeted @bluecykel. That way, if you have to miss a class, you have someone who can share what happened — and vice versa.

21) “Resist the free water bottle and credit card that it comes with,” tweeted @akilbello.

22) Embrace campus as your new home. “Don't go home until fall break. You should really try to get adjusted before going home. No weekend trips early,” tweeted @EGMerritt.

23) Mix up your study habits. If you always study in a quiet room, try a bustling coffee shop. If you always type your notes on a laptop, try an old-school notebook for one class. If you rely on study groups, try studying alone. You might discover new things about yourself and the way you learn.

24) Raise your hand and ask a question. In every single class. At least once.

25) Introduce yourself to someone sitting alone in the dining hall or in your first-period class. Who knows? That lonely person could be your new BFF.

26) Stay healthy. If you start to feel sick, eat healthy foods, get lots of sleep and visit the health center.

27) “Don't forget to call home every now and then!” tweeted @thecadvantage.

28) “[A]lthough this is a prestigious campus bustling with some of the world's greatest minds . . . we are NOT in a bubble. Please lock your doors (room & vehicle if you have one). Do NOT leave ANYTHING unattended. NEVER open your door for strangers. Take time to prevent crime.” — Commenter on the Tufts University Facebook page.

29) Buy a bike and a heavy-duty lock.

30) Try as hard as you can to earn a high GPA your first semester. Your junior and senior self will thank you.

31) “Be careful of what you post online — it only seems anonymous,” another online commenter wrote.

32) “The transition from high school to college might be harder than the actual classes. Take an easy load in your first semester to make sure you get used to it without the pressure of difficult classes. You can always make it up in sophomore year,” online commenter DCCubefarm wrote.

33) Get locked out of your dorm room. It’s going to happen. But try not to make it a regular thing, or you will annoy the housing staff.   — eabgarnet

34) Call home at least once. (Bonus points for a Skype session.)

35) If you plan to have sex, stock up on condoms so you will be prepared to be safe. You can usually find them for free at the campus health center. Sexually transmitted infections can quickly spread through a college campus, so protect yourself.

36) Become the person who says something if another person is in danger. Never assume that someone else will take action — because when everyone makes that assumption, nothing happens. Don’t try to handle these problems alone. Call 911, your RA, an administrator or your parents. In most situations, your identity can be concealed — and even if it’s not, it’s the right thing to do. (This tip was included on a list of advice I wrote for the WP Magazine.)

37) Learn how to do your laundry.

38) “[I]f you party and drink every night, or even just binge drink most nights, congrats! You will graduate an alcoholic! Just because it’s college doesn’t mean you are immune from developing a bad habit — and just because you graduate from college doesn’t mean you can turn off the tap after 4 years of constant drinking. You won't be able to — you will be on your way to a lifetime of hard drinking. So don't do it!” wrote online commenter davetheman.

39) Go on a date. A real, true date that involves planning ahead and hours of talking to each other.

40) Read your student newspaper every single day that it’s published. Not only will you learn more about your college or university, you will also stay on top of upcoming concerts and local events.

41) “Set one-year, four-year and ten-year goals and align your decisions with attaining those goals,” wrote online commenter topwriter.

42) Make time to exercise. Go for a long walk, visit the gym, go swimming, take a yoga class, do anything. “[T]hey aren’t kidding about the Freshmen 10 — it can actually be more than that — and it helps with the stressful situations,” wrote online commenter annwhite1, who also suggests taking gym classes for academic credit.

43) Take a class that has nothing to do with your major but sounds interesting.

44) Learn to be invisible. When it gets late at night, you need to learn how to work without disrupting your sleeping roommate or fellow studying dorm mates. Get your own desk lamp so you don’t rely on the overhead light, and invest in some quality headphones. Along those lines, @trove tweeted: “Earplugs. Muted roommates = best roommates.”

45) Visit someone else’s home or invite them to visit yours during fall or winter break. (Bonus points if your visitor is an international student.)

46) Delete some “friends” on Facebook. Maybe it’s people you met at orientation and then never saw again. Maybe it’s a high school classmate you never really liked. Narrowing your definition of friendship will help you focus on real friends who matter most.

47) “Get to know at least one of your professors well. Visit him or her during office hours even when you don’t have any particular issues and talk about the course, the news, or whatever is on your mind. Having one go-to professor will help you enormously when situations do arise. And a lot of times professors will bring you in to their research efforts or work with you on other projects.” — Advice submitted by a reader during the chat.

48) Visit your high school friends at their campuses, suggested online commenter das0213. This is an opportunity to visit other parts of the country and meet people from different backgrounds.

49) “Best way to ensure success at college? Show up to all your classes. Yes, all of them,” tweeted @kevfor84.

50) Have fun. You are only a college freshman once. Enjoy the experience. Good luck!

Jeez — that’s a lot of advice. But if you have even more, please share it in the comments section below, on Twitter using the hashtag #College101 or on the Campus Overload Facebook page.

Best Rock Clubs In The DC Metro Area

(David Malitz, Washington Post, September 15, 2011)

For those about to rock, here are the area's best spots for live music.
 

9:30 Club
Washington, DC

This is the gold standard for rock clubs, and not just in Washington but across the country. There are plenty of reasons it regularly wins nightclub of the year awards from such magazines as Billboard and Pollstar. Such pantheon artists as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, James Brown and Dolly Parton have all graced the 9:30's stage.

Birchmere Music Hall

Alexandria, VA

Alexandria's 500-seat sit-down venue is the local home to many top veterans of country, singer-songwriter, R&B and bluegrass. Show up early if you want one of the best tables; prime spots are usually gone shortly after the doors open at 6 p.m.

Black Cat

Washington, DC

The Black Cat has been the undisputed king of indie rock clubs in Washington since it opened on U Street in 1993, before the area became the night life hub it is now. With the upstairs Mainstage (capacity about 700) and downstairs Backstage (capacity about 150), it hosts established and fledgling acts.

 
DC9
Washington, DC

The success of this venue in the U Street neighborhood helped pave the way for the Rock & Roll Hotel and the Red Palace, which have the same management. All those indie bands with bad names that you read about on blogs with worse names? They regularly make their first D.C. stop here.

Fillmore Silver Spring

Silver Spring, MD

The 2,000-capacity club Silver Spring is a new major player in the local concert scene. It is the latest in a franchise inspired by the legendary San Francisco club founded by promoter Bill Graham in the 1960s, with venues in such cities as Denver, Miami and Charlotte. It bears many of those clubs' hallmarks -- elegant chandeliers, posters from Fillmore concerts across the country and a psychedelic mural that greets you at the entrance. But this is not a counterculture hot spot, instead one that caters to audiences of all ages and tastes. There will be everything from classic rock to electronic music, jam bands to R&B.

Iota Club & Cafe
Arlington, VA

Tucked away in the yuppie heaven that is Clarendon (Whole Foods, an Apple store and the Container Store are all within a block), this cozy venue regularly hosts alt-country acts and singer-songwriters. A recent renovation expanded the dining area, and the new layout gives the space a welcome, open feel.

Jammin' Java

Vienna, VA

This converted coffeehouse in a Vienna strip mall is the go-to place for singer-songwriters, folk acts and children's music. The club is owned by local folk rockers the Brindley Brothers, and acoustic guitar is definitely the instrument of choice.

The Red Palace

Washington, DC

The newest piece in H Street's live-music puzzle and the sister venue to the Rock & Roll Hotel and DC9, the Red Palace combined the closet-size rock club the Red & the Black with its next-door neighbor, the burlesque-themed Palace of Wonders. There are still some sideshow-themed evenings, but you'll mostly see up-and-coming indie rock bands.

The Rock and Roll Hotel
Washington, DC

This club (not actually a hotel, of course) was one of the first foundations of the H Street revival. It's now the area's sturdy centerpiece and continues to be one of the best places in the city to see bands before they get famous. (James Blake and Odd Future were two recent sold-out shows.) There's also a giant bar upstairs that hosts regular sweat-inducing DJ nights.

The State Theatre
Falls Church, VA

A converted old movie theater, this Falls Church concert hall is one of the area's most versatile venues. The main level has tables and a general admission area. And from the seated balcony, you get an appropriately cinematic view of the stage. The State is home to local '80s tribute band the Legwarmers, who play a couple of sold-out shows every few months.

U Street Music Hall
Washington, DC

It's rare that a nightclub can immediately become one of a city's crown jewels, but U Street Music Hall is that rare club. The brainchild of longtime D.C. DJs Will Eastman and Jesse Tittsworth, U Hall opened to much fanfare and immediately exceeded lofty expectations. From the simple layout (limited seating, lots of room for dancing) to the no-cameras policy and the heavenly bass that quickly became the stuff of legend -- this is a place by and for music lovers. The club hosts mostly DJs, but rap and rock shows are peppered throughout the calendar.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/best-bets/rock-club,72311.html?wpisrc=nl_gogthu   

Before Hitler, Who Was the Stand-In for Pure Evil?

(By Brian Palmer, Slate.com, Oct. 4, 2011)

ESPN dropped singer Hank Williams Jr. from its Monday Night Football telecast after he publicly compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler on Monday. Today, the Führer is universally recognized as the embodiment of evil and the most convenient example of a truly terrible human being. Before World War II, who was the rhetorical worst person in history?  The Egyptian Pharaoh, of course.  In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, many Americans and Europeans had a firmer grasp of the bible than of the history of genocidal dictators. Orators in search of a universal symbol for evil typically turned to figures like Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, or, most frequently, the Pharaoh of Exodus, who chose to endure 10 plagues rather than let the Hebrew people go.

 

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote: “No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775 [the date of the Lexington massacre], but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England forever.” In the run-up to the Civil War, abolitionists regularly referred to slaveholders as modern-day Pharaohs. Even after VE Day, Pharaoh continued to pop up in the speeches of social reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

Generally speaking, hatred was more local and short-lived before World War II. Nineteenth-century polemicists occasionally used Napoleon Bonaparte as shorthand for an evil ruler—they sometimes referred to “the little tyrant” rather than name the diminutive conqueror—but those references were rare. There is little record of oratorical comparisons of political leaders to Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, or Ivan the Terrible. Even Adolf Hitler himself once commented on history’s tendency to forget the sins of bloody dictators. In 1939, the Führer asked rhetorically, “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?” (The authenticity of this quote is disputed.)

In the absence of a universal boogeyman, different regions latched on to a particular person as the personification of evil at different historical moments. Yet genocide and murder were less likely to earn a man universal revilement than treason or other forms of disloyalty. During the Civil War, for example, some Southerners spoke of Abraham Lincoln in vaguely Hitler-like terms. Upon Lincoln’s assassination, for example, the editor of the Texas Republican wrote, “the world is happily rid of a monster that disgraced the form of humanity.” (Some Confederates called Lincoln a “modern Pharaoh.”) Part of this scorn was based on their view of Lincoln as a traitor—both of his parents were Virginians, and Lincoln was born on slaveholding soil. Northerners, for their part, focused their ire on the traitorous assassin John Wilkes Booth. In fact, 52 years after Lincoln’s assassination, some Americans compared Woodrow Wilson to Booth, because he betrayed his country by leading the United States into war.

King George III was also a major whipping boy for American rhetoricians for decades after the Revolution. A good example is Walt Whitman’s “A Boston Ballad,” in which he argued that the Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northern States to return escaped slaves to their owners, represented a return of the ghost of King George.

Style Invitational Week 928: Turn A Movie Title Into A Punch Line

Style Invitational Week 928: Turn a movie title into a punch line
(By Pat Myers, Washington Post, July 15, 2011)

The Style Invitational is The Post’s weekly humor/wordplay contest. A new contest appears at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational every Friday. Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place wins a pretty notepad and daybook made of genuine Chinese panda poo paper (lots of bamboo fiber in that). It’d be far too nice for an Invite prize were it not for the raw materials.

This week: We asked you to cite a movie title and supply a question it could answer. We were not at all surprised the number of fart jokes for “Gone With the Wind,” none of which gets ink.

The winner of the Inker:

Answer: I’m Still Here.
Question:What is considered a lame answer to the question “Do you still love me?” (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

2. Winner of the note paper made of panda poo: A.Toy Story.
Q. Whom did Sarah Palin name as her favorite Russian author? (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

3. A. Bye Bye Birdie.
Q. What entry follows “Bye Bye Elin” in Tiger Woods’s diary? (Bruce Harris, Scotch Plains, N.J.)

4. A. Groundhog Day.
Q. What was the sequel to “Groundhog Day”? (John O’Byrne, Dublin; Evan Hadley, Potomac, Md.)

Dumb and dumber: Honorable mentions

Dead Poets Society: What group has about the same annual income as the Live Poets Society? (Randy Lee, doing volunteer work in Kibwezi, Kenya)

Say Anything: As a TV pundit, if you can’t say anything nice, what do you do? (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

Winnie the Pooh: What did Mrs. Churchill shout to her husband as he stepped off the curb? (Philip Justus, Potomac, Md., a First Offender)

Cape Fear: What does the prospect of another Superman movie trigger? (Dixon Wragg, Santa Rosa, Calif.)

Return of the Jedi: What occurs the day after you receive a Yoda bobblehead for Christmas? (Bonnie Speary Devore, Gaithersburg, Md.)

Salt: What can Donovan McNabb successfully pass? (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)

A Clockwork Orange: What was that Robert Frost poem about the passage of time, the one he never finished? (Barry Koch, Catlett, Va.)

Stand by Me: What does Tom Cruise always say to Danny DeVito at photo ops? (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

The Italian Job: Given the way the media and police make his life so difficult, how does Silvio Berlusconi portray himself? (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.)

A Man Apart: What did Lorena Bobbitt take in 1993? (Amanda Yanovitch, Midlothian, Va.)

Anger Management: What are you trying to do by pasting up those Dilbert comics all over your cubicle? (Larry Gray, Union Bridge, Md.)

The English Patient: Tell us, Tarzan, what makes you think Jane will wait for you? (Russell Beland, Fairfax, Va.)

Arms and the Man: What are the Secret Service nicknames for Michelle and Barack Obama? (Andrew Hoenig, Rockville, Md.)

Black Swan: Which swan always gets killed first in swan slasher movies? (Tom Witte)

Woodstock: What do even vegans admit is a terrible base for a soup? (Kathye Hamilton, Annandale, Va.)

Twelve Monkeys: Who were the jurors at the Scopes trial? (Dave Ferry, Key West, Fla.)

The Godfather Part 2: What was discovered some time later in a New Jersey swamp? (Bird Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.)

Fly Away Home: What was the original title for the movie “Up”? (David Litman, Arlington, Va.)

Cool Hand Luke: What did Princess Leia tell her brother after his limb replacement surgery? (Trevor Kerr, Chesapeake, Va.)

Exodus: What do you get when Mel Gibson walks into a synagogue? (Stephen Gold, Glasgow, Scotland)

On the Waterfront: Where do all eyes focus during a wet-T-shirt contest? (Craig Dykstra, Centreville, Va.)

Stand and Deliver:What’s the motto of the Acme Alternative Birthing Clinic? (Steve Dantzler, Gaithersburg, a First Offender; Edmund Conti, Raleigh, N.C.; Steve Shapiro, Alexandria, Va.)

Salt: Granted, the best thing about that Angelina Jolie movie was the popcorn. But what was the second-best thing? (Brendan Beary)

The Pelican Brief: What is Hanes’s latest line of underwear that’s extra-roomy in front? (Larry Gray)

The King’s Speech: What is usually summarized as “Thank you. Thank you very much”? (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

Captain America: What are congressional leaders woefully unable to do? (Nan Reiner, Alexandria, Va.)

The Kids Are All Right: What was the foster agency’s review of the Bachmann household? (Kevin Dopart)

One Hundred Men and a Girl: What did Jenna Jameson do last night? (Dion Black, Washington)

The Bonfire of the Vanities: What ritual marks the climax of the Guild of Bathroom Remodelers’ annual jamboree? (Ken Fishbein, Laurel, Md., who last got Invite ink in 1998)

The 400 Blows: So what do you think of high society? (Richard Liebmann-Smith, New York, a First Offender)

The Color Purple: What will Prince Charles wear to his mother’s funeral? (Kelly Bielewicz, Newark, Del.)

The Cotton Club: What’s not likely to give you much of a concussion? (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

Watership Down: What do you have to do to a vessel after a flock of seagulls has flown over it? (Edward Gordon, Austin)

Milk: What slang term means “mother I’d like to kiss”? (Chris Doyle, vacationing in Minsk, Belarus)

And last: The Birdcage: Honey, have you seen this week’s Style Invitational? (Edmund Conti)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/style-invitational-week-932-well-call-them-your-mama-jokes/2011/08/07/gIQALXCz9I_story.html

Presidential Rebuttals Throughout History

By Albert Brooks, Huffington Post, July 26, 2011)

I don't remember growing up seeing the president of the United States being rebutted each time he gave a speech. When did this become part of our democracy? Isn't the whole point of winning the office of president that you can talk to the nation without others talking after you, belittling what you say and giving their own point of view? I began to think of some the great presidential moments and what their rebuttals might have sounded like, had they been allowed at the time.

Franklin Roosevelt: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

John Nance, speaker of the House, giving his rebuttal: "The president has obviously not taken a walk around Washington for quite some time. With all the thugs and the crime and the poverty which he is not addressing, we now must fear every individual that approaches us on the street. Fear is the last thing I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of the president and his inability to act."

John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Sam Rayburn, speaker of the House, his rebuttal: "The president is afraid to ask his country to help him because he knows he has bankrupted the nation we live in and our great land can no longer take care of us. Countries are meant to help its citizens. To ask how you can help your country is putting unnecessary burden on yourself and your family. If President Kennedy would run a better ship that ship could take us anywhere."

Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Schuyler Colfax, speaker of the House, in his rebuttal: "Mr. President, the fact that you are even thinking about fooling people suggests your presidency is a sham. A true president does not want to fool anyone. He trusts his constituency and treats them with respect. He does not idle away the time wondering who he can fool. You should be ashamed."

Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Tip O'Neil, speaker of the House, from his speech following the president: "Is Ronald Reagan really asking the Soviets to do the work that the United States should have been doing for decades? That is the problem with this country. We have to ask our enemy to do the heavy lifting. Can we not tear down this wall ourselves? The America I grew up in certainly could have, and I would like to return us to that era. What are we going to ask the Soviets to do next, cook us our dinner?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/albert-brooks/presidential-rebuttals-th_b_910405.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Bye Bye Borders: What The Chain's Closing Means For Bookstores, Authors And You

By Rachel Syme, NPR.org, July 19, 2011

The verdict has come in, and it is official: As of this week, the bookstore chain Borders is going for liquidation in bankruptcy court, which means that the company will dissolve, closing 399 stores and laying off approximately 10,700 workers in the process. After a last-ditch attempt to sell at auction (with no luck), the group announced its plans on Monday. Borders is no more.

In a way, the closing feels like an inevitable end. In February, Borders filed for bankruptcy and closed a third of its stores. Long before that cry for help, the company had already begun to founder, unable to keep up with its competitors in the aggressive e-book market and losing online business to web-savvier brands like Amazon and B&N. When the bankruptcy papers went through, Borders owed over $270 million to its creditors, including every major publishing house in the business. The end of the chain will come as a heavy blow to those houses, who will likely not recoup their financial losses; but for the everyday consumer, the chain closing feels like just another casualty in the long and drawn-out decline of the paper-book market at large.

But the fizzling of Borders brings with it severe consequences for the publishing industry — and the consumer. It has the feel of a "Too Big to Fail" situation, albeit in the smaller-stakes book world, in which the toppling of a giant will send ripples into several smaller pools, and as with the crashing of the financial markets, it's almost always the little guy who loses out. A better explanation: Borders going under means that hundreds of people beyond its own employees will lose jobs. Because it was one of the top booksellers in the country, publishing houses had entire departments dedicated to working with Borders and its sales teams. It also means that suddenly, publishers have lost a major thoroughfare for book sales, one of their biggest. An entire arm of book sales has been amputated.

Kathleen Schmidt, a book publicist, provided this perfectly concise explanation on Twitter: "Here is how the Borders closing will impact publishers: Say you have a bestselling author and you usually do a 1st printing of 100K books. Out of that 1st print of 100K, B&N/Amazon would take a large quantity, then Target, maybe Costco/BJs/Walmart, then Borders, then indies. If you're an author with a 1st print of 30K (a lot), you prob don't have price clubs or Target. You have B&N, Amazon, Borders, and indies. Now, take Borders OUT of that 1st print equation. Also consider that B&N is conservative with numbers these days. That 30K turns into 15K."

Granted, the reduced print runs for books don't mean that fewer books will sell, but Borders closing does have a huge effect on how many physical copies will be out in the world. It is yet another nail in the coffin of the old-fashioned brick and mortar, paper and gum book business as the world zooms toward an ever-more-digital model. So what Borders closing means, at the basic level, is that fewer paper books will be produced. There is no other outlet big or solid enough to absorb the blow; there is nowhere else for all those paperbacks and hardcovers to go. The most logical thing to do is to stop printing them.

This harsh reality can feel tragic to those who love the physicality of books and still haven't gotten used to the Kindle, but a new generation is learning to adapt to e-reading. I suspect that the children who are just learning to read today on iPads won't grow up nostalgic for the Borders that they never knew. I certainly don't feel wistful about no longer getting to snag CDs at Sam Goody. There is no other future for reading but a digital one, and getting misty about the decline of tangible books is an exercise in futility. Reading itself has never been more popular, even if formats are in flux.

That said, the aspect of Borders' implosion that troubles me is that there will be 399 fewer places to take part in the communal act of book buying, which is a completely separate activity from reading (see: regular bookstore lurkers who never purchase a thing). As corporate as it has become, Borders began as an independent bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1979. Tom and Louis Borders bought out the aging Wahr's store at 316 South State, and they hired a local rare books restorer to stock it lovingly with unique reading material. The restorer kept a binding workshop upstairs. It expanded into the impersonal, sprawling latte experience that we know today, but Borders started small, and it grew out of a love for the shared browsing experience.

Bookstores are very special places, even the behemoths. They provide a space for cultural dilettantism. You can get lost in them for hours, perusing covers and picking up obscure titles. They are dedicated to discovery and are curated by some of the most dedicated retail employees around (even to get hired at a large corporate chain, one is still required to exhibit a sharp passion for reading).

Small bookstores may be celebrating Borders' demise (Nora Ephron reference: the Shop Around the Corner finally has a shot against Fox Books!), but they also know that this is a sign that these are the hardest of times. Bookstores are fighting for their lives, day in and day out. Only the most relevant, vibrant, dynamic, essential, committed, nimble, involved and enticing independents will survive the e-book tsunami. Independents are prepared to be all of those things — far better than a giant organization like Borders was — but they need to bring a lot of ammunition.