Before I got my current fulltime job where I get paid to write creatively and research Internet memes all day, writing creatively and researching Internet memes all day was my hobby. Alas, now that that’s “work,” I’ve decided to pick up a new hobby—painting. I won’t lie: I don’t have a lot of experience. Besides elementary school, my only grown-up level art class was Ceramics 101 at Grinnell College. I was OK, but I don’t think I ever excelled. What I have always done, though, is doodle. At my old, boring job, where I was forced to sit through numerous Congressional hearings about mammoth radiation detectors (that is to say large-sized radiation detectors, and not detectors to find radiating prehistoric mammals—that would’ve been much less boring), I used to fill my notebooks with shapes, things, portraits. I drew ex-Senator Norm Coleman so many times that if I consolidated all of them, I could probably make a coffee table book no one would want. But I digress…

I still draw, but not like I used to, probably because I don’t have boring events to sit through anymore. Plus, I’m pretty sure because of those boring events, my brain subconsciously associates drawing with the feeling of being dissatisfied. It thinks, “Well, if Marissa is drawing, it must be because she’s busying her hands so not to take that pencil and stick it in her ear so far it would wound me.” Drawing for me makes the shitty parts of life just bearable enough so I don’t kill myself. It does not take me to a truly happy place.

But abstract painting does. Something about the freedom, the color, the fact that I find myself standing on a chair and humming nonsensical songs to myself while my hands move around the canvas making shapes into scenes… it makes me happy. It also makes me look crazy. But, if I may mouth-trumpet my own mouth-trumpet, the results have been pretty cool so far.

“One on One” — 2012 — Acrylic on canvas — 16 x 20 inches

“Cover Up” — 2012 — Acrylic on canvas — 20 x 16 inches

I posted these on Facebook and was pleased to read that people who are not just my close friends and family think I might actually be good at this. As of right now, I’m not selling any work (although someone made my life by actually asking unsarcastically!), but I may entertain the idea in the future, but I’ll have to think it through. If I repeat past patterns, the second this ever becomes “work,” I’ll have to take up a new hobby… Fire eating? Machete juggling? Ice road trucking? The list of possibilities is endless, yet really dangerous.

After several years of living in DC, where every other person is a Master of Whatever or a Doctor of Some Stuff, I’m used to not being the smartest person in the room. On the flip side, though, I’m also not usually the dumbest. However, that could be because I usually hang out with this cute, but pretty stupid guy… But I digress. As I sat down last Thursday at one of the shiny wooden community tables that adorns the front of Smith Commons‘ first floor, I felt squarely out of my element. Not because I don’t love Smith Commons (God no, I want to hold a boombox up to this H Street spot and play it 1980s love songs), but because I was attending a beer event, and well, up until that night I never considered myself a “beer person.” To give you an idea: I’m the a@#hole who goes to an Irish pub and orders wine.

But luckily (and tastily), I didn’t stay rolling in the derp for long. Thanks to the knowledgeable men and women around me, I learned not only is there no such thing as “not a beer person,” (as Smith Commons’ bar manager Miles Gray declared, “There’s a beer for everyone.”), but beer-tasting is pretty fun. It’s a little like wine-tasting, but more awesome because it’s essential to swallow the beer you’re tasting, whereas in wine-tasting you’re encouraged to swish and spit. But it’s also more awesome because there’s a lot more room for creativity when it comes to both your interpretation of what you’re drinking and also in what you’re drinking. “You can make beer out of pretty much everything,” said J.P, the lone homebrewer at the table. He recalled a time when he made beer out of bacon. “It tasted like breakfast,” he said. In your face, wine!

Yet just because the whole experience is a laid-back affair doesn’t mean there aren’t any rules. “Actually, there aren’t any rules,” said Tommy Hunter, a marketing manager for Flying Dog Brewery. Okay, so there may not be “rules,” per se, but there are some helpful guidelines that’ll make anyone a beer person, or at least help you be more mindful while you sip…

And while I know it’s a bit annoying, since I wrote this for my day job, I’m asking to you please click here to read the rest. It’ll be worth it, I swear! If you love tolerate me you’ll do it. Or at least if you want the five basic steps of craft beer tasting. It’s even, dare I say, slightly informational. 

And yes, that is a non-ironic title. In the following essay that I wrote for Scoutmob, I justify my unlikely love for the surprisingly intriguing theatrical experience, known to most simply as “professional wrestling.” Read it, digest it, body slam it into you mind and become a fan. Me, on the other hand? I’ll be dreaming of becoming the first permanent female commentator to kvetch with Michael Cole, laugh with Jerry “The King” Lawler and high-give Booker T. Don’t recognize those names yet? Then you really need to read my essay.

***

As I stood in line on Monday night at a kiosk in the Verizon Center waiting to get my hands (or back, rather) on a fluorescent pink T-shirt that read in gigantic black-light-ready block lettering “IT’S NOT SHOWING OFF IF YOU BACK IT UP,” I became keenly aware of who I was, er, who I am. Obviously, I’m still getting used to the idea. I’m a rabid World Wrestling Entertainment fan. 

There. I said it.

What started eight months ago as a one-time ironic viewing of a television broadcast called Monday Night Raw (a title that sounds perfectly fit to be the pinnacle of entertainment for stereotypical redneck Middle American males), had somehow become an obsession for me, a 32-year-old, East Coast-educated female urbanite. But how? Why was I in this seemingly endless blob of a line so eagerly anticipating my purchase of an arguably hideous T-shirt to support a wrestler/villain named Dolph Ziggler? That sounds crazy! Even crazier, why had I spent hundreds of dollars to fly all the way to Miami just 8 days earlier to catch WrestleMania, the Superbowl of this scripted sport?

Cliffhanger! To read the rest and view a slideshow of awesome photos from Monday’s show (the photo above is The Undertaker’s entrance from this year’s WrestleMania in Miami), click here. And while Scoutmob’s site can’t facilitate comments (yet), I’m eager to discuss with WWE fans and skeptics alike what you think of my theory on this unique form of entertainment, so feel free to leave your comments right here on this blog. 

For my day job, I write on average about a bazillion words per week. While I love it because every words I type feels like I’m making sweet love to the English language (ew), it’s no wonder several articles get less attention than perhaps they deserve. Which is where my ego comes in and this blog, in particular, so that I may talk up my own work like a narcissistic asshole. Now that we’ve been truthful about what’s going on here, here is a reported piece I wrote last week for Scoutmob about a new (or maybe inevitable) trend happening in DC—food trucks are becoming increasingly attracted to permanent locales.

***

For a couple of years now, peddling delicacies via food truck has been all the rage. What started with a few has turned into many (over 100, according to dedicated food-truck tracker, foodtruckfiesta.com). And while we love having great lunch options come to us, there are certain signs in the sweet-smelling air (thanks to all the food trucks) that may indicate things are changing, that food truck operators are becoming increasingly attracted to traditional brick and mortar locations.

Consider the recent success of Uncurbed. Organized by property matchmaker VerdeHOUSE and food truck mavericks Eat Wonky Productions, this event marries food trucks with a temporary brick and mortar restaurant setting.

“Trucks provide an opportunity to incubate a food concept, and for the first time ever Uncurbed provides the opportunity to test out a brick and mortar environment,” said Morgan Greenhouse, the founder of VerdeHOUSE and co-founder of Uncurbed. She added, “[But] Uncurbed was certainly not the start.”

While it may not have been the start, Uncurbed certainly seems to be helping to usher in a new era in which food-truck chefs are increasingly attracted to more traditional restaurants…

To read the rest of this article, which I swear is actually interesting, click here, then feel free to pass it on. Or if you really want me to feel good about myself, leave a comment below.

If you know me at all (or at least e-know me a little, meaning maybe you’ve read this blog’s “About” page), then you know my full-time hustle is working as the head DC writer/editor for a growing media and marketing company named Scoutmob. I’ll give you a minute to familiarize yourself with it and download the sweet free smartphone app that’s guaranteed to make your life in DC (or in one of the other cities that we’ve launched in) at least a few iotas better.

OK, got it? Cool. Now, as I was saying, I write a lot for Scoutmob. Mostly it’s about dope people, places and things in and around DC, but once in a while, I get to go a little bit deeper on a subject that personally fascinates me and go full personal essay on it. Here’s one I really enjoyed writing last month that got some significant play around DC, namely, the Washington Post re-tweeted it for me and included it in a little “Best of the Week” type of round-up. I knew I liked those people. Anyway, here’s the piece:

***

It started with a text telling me to meet him at a popular intersection in a well known neighborhood. It wasn’t long after we exchanged hellos when he asked me to accompany him into a few dark alleys. But before you start thinking your Scoutmob editor moonlights as a call girl, let’s set this record straight: your Scoutmob editor is a bad ass who decided to go on patrol with a bike cop for a night. No sooner did we roll off into the dusk when a call came over the radio. “Oh, it’s just some naked guy approaching a car, I guess,” said the bike cop, who’s been on the job for some years now but has no desire to get fired so he shall remain anonymous. (DCPD has a “strange” media policy, apparently.)

We didn’t respond to the naked guy alert. It was too far away. “That kind of thing happens pretty often,” he said. “Probably PCP.” Plus, it was around the same time that another call came in. “Are you ready to punch it?” Bike Cop asked. “Oh, indeed,” I replied, channeling my best (which also happens to be the world’s worst) Omar from The Wire impression.

Of course, that’s about where my bravery and proclaimed bad-assedness ended. Being unarmed, I hung back while Bike Cop and other cops dealt with the just-radioed-in business. Something about a possible knife fight, I was later told…

To read the rest and view some photos of this fantastic misadventure, click here. And pass it on.

After years of bumming around the world, sleeping in no-star motels in South America and trying not to vomit in yurts heated only by the burning of petrified yak shit in the former Soviet Union, it would seem I’ve become boring in my older years. I recently got back from a luxurious weekend spent basking on the ocean-side cliffs of Negril, Jamaica, at one of the world’s best boutique hotels, Rockhouse. Yawn, right?

Which is why I won’t bore you with all the quiet fun I had. (I tore through the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy and half of Foucault’s Pendulum.) Oops, I guess I did just bore you with all the quiet fun I had. And since that seal’s broken, I might as well continue. Besides reading, these three photos pretty much sum up what 72 hours in utter indulgence looks like.

Endless fresh coconut water.

Nonstop cliff jumping.

And righteous sunsets.

Now, if it makes you feel any better, my next vacation is to Miami on April 1. And before you groan and think my adventures have officially come to and end, brace yourself for this. I’m not going for the beaches; I’m going for Wrestlemania. Seriously. You thought a poop-powered yurt was somethin’? You ain’t seen nothin’…

We pooled our money, counting it aloud under the dim glow of the streetlamp in the grocery store parking lot. One hundred, two hundred, three-hundred… It was nearing 2 a.m. If we were going to do this, we had to do it now. The countdown had already begun…

My boyfriend went back to the petite lady in the tank top and handed her the cash. “It’s $360,” he said. The woman nodded, said thanks and told us she’d be right back.

The next few moments were tense. I looked at my hand. It was shivering even though it was so humid out that steam rose from the asphalt. It was only hours after our plane had touched down in Orlando and we were both exhausted, but restless. If everything worked out, this had the potential to be the most spectacular twenty-four hours of our lives.

A man in glasses approached us, growing more sepia-toned with every step as he drew closer to the tangerine halo cast by the streetlamp. I could see the goods we so coveted in his left hand. My heart pounded harder.

“Oh my God. I can’t believe we’re actually doing this…!” I half-whispered, half-shouted to my boyfriend out of simultaneous nervousness and excitement. The man handed me what we’d just paid $180 each for. This was the good sh*t and I tucked it safely away into my handbag, making it official — tonight was gonna be wild.

“Have you two done this before?” the man asked in his gruff, septuagenarian voice.

“No. It’s our first time,” I said. I might’ve blushed.

“Well, let’s hope for the best then. Pleasure doing business with you,” He began to retreat back into the swampy late-night/early-morning air. “Oh, and if anyone asks,” he added over his shoulder, “you’re the Wongs.”

I looked at my boyfriend and he looked at me. At 6’4″ with Nordic features, he didn’t look much like a Wong, but at this point, we’d have to go with it and hope no one needed to verify our identities.

“Are you ready for this, Mr. Wong?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “I’ve been dreaming of this my whole life!”

And so has “Mrs. Wong,” which is why we gambled all of our spending money on scalped tickets to the Kennedy Space Center’s official causeway area to watch NASA’s space shuttle program conclude with one last spectacular launch — STS-135, the Atlantis. (What? You thought I was talking about black-tar heroin?)

But would it happen? The weather forecast when we bought into our Wong status at 2 a.m. gave the shuttle only a 30 percent chance of lift-off. The forecast remained the same after “the Wongs” made it past security at 3 a.m. and into the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center (no one checked our IDs!), where we got to nerd out around the premises all night long. And when we finally filed into the bus again at daybreak to get out to the causeway, Mother Nature still remained 70 percent certain to delay the launch. (Fickle bitch.) But if “the Wongs” were to be disappointed, so would the 1 million or so other people nerds who had also spent hundreds of dollars, Euros, rubles, cubits to attend the launch live. This was a gamble.

And we had to win. This wasn’t just another shuttle launch. It was the last shuttle launch, a historic event, the end of an era. To delay it would be disappointing at best (I mentioned, we paid $360 to become Mr. and Mrs. Wong, right?) and devastating at worst. History cannot be delayed! …Especially, ahem, when our return flight, which was slated to leave early on Sunday — the most probable day for a rescheduling — meant we’d miss it entirely. Our Wong window, so to speak, was closing faster than the launch window.

But as the moment of scheduled lift-off came closer, it looked like “the Wongs” and America-at-large were gonna get lucky…

And, as you can see (and as I’m sure you’ve read) we did. Today, the Atlantis currently finds itself docked to the International Space Station for one last glorious time. This is history.

Thank you, NASA, for both the above photo and your work. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

If you’re anything like me, your pun-o-meter for dick jokes is off the charts right now. It’s been turned up to 11 thanks to the latest indiscretions of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. And while the headlines in major papers this week, since he told the truth about his wang, aren’t nearly as salacious (or funny) as last week’s, the American people at large have taken it upon themselves to keep the dick joke trend strong and, er, erect. (Sorry.) And while I admit sometimes it seems a bit like overkill when it comes to all the penis-related humor saturating our culture lately, still part of me always seems to find something worthy of a snicker. Example: “Breitbart Scours Internet For More Weiner Pics.” That’s fucking brilliant.

Indeed, the United States loves a good dick joke, perhaps more so than any other type of joke, judging from the near universality of them in the past few days. But why? They’re often unintelligent, debased and mostly pretty corny compared to other types of humor, so what’s the deal?

And so finally I had a good excuse to Google the phrase, “origins of the dick joke” on an office computer. And boy am I glad I did because I learned in the UK they’re apparently called “knob gags,” which sounds even more lewd than “dick jokes.” I also had the privilege of of coming across a messageboard chock full of what I would guess to be teenage videogame enthusiasts, who posed the same question I had: Where do dick jokes come from? And while their discussion ended up at one point turning into an inquiry about monkey sex (don’t ask), I gleaned that most on the board believed dick jokes have been around since, well, “people with dicks have been around.”

Considering the cognitive abilities of early man, though, I’m not sure that’s exactly true. However further research shows that perhaps they weren’t far off. We do know that many of the oldest recorded jokes had to do with bodily functions and body parts, including the male anatomy, according to a 2008 study by a group of academicians at the University of Wolverhampton:

The Dave Historical Humour Study defines a joke as having a clear set-up and punch line structure — this definition enabled the team to plot the history of the joke as far back as 1900 BC.  The results provide a unique and compelling insight into how jokes have evolved over the years…

And while the very first joke on record has to do with farting (I’m already sold), the first recorded dick joke didn’t seem to appear (at least on paper) until the 10th century AD on the Exeter Codex in Great Britain: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? Answer: A key.” This also happens to be the oldest recorded joke in the UK.

So, what does that say about us? Are English speakers more prone to dick jokes than other nations? Considering the first fart joke was recorded in the Middle East, I think it’s safe to say that dick jokes probably play a part in every culture’s humor. In Russia, I know the word for dick (hui) sounds auspiciously Chinese, which creates a whole genre of culturally offensive dick humor. Speaking of China, that country’s got Little Shenyeng. (And no, that sentence itself is actually not a dick joke.) South Africa has dick jokes, too, but apparently they’re not very funny…neither are Mexico’s. Yes, it seems despite their mixed appeal, dick jokes exist in every corner of the globe.

What’s especially interesting about them here, though, is their propensity and how much the whole of society seems to be embracing them regardless of gender, class, geographic location or any other qualifying factor. Nary another subject besides the penis makes for such crass, yet somehow acceptable and embraced headlines in not just scandal-driven tabloids like the New York Post, but also in smaller town papers like the Kansas City Star, which published, ”The Lesson of Weiner’s Schnitzel: Delete, Delete, Delete.” (Good one.)

Really, the only thing people seem to get upset about in the United States when it comes to dick jokes is if there’s not enough of them, which is exactly what happened after Daily Show host Jon Stewart failed to throw his dick-laden comedic daggers Weiner’s way on Monday night. Taping just hours after a press conference took place where the Congressman admitted he’d lied, Stewart largely skipped the Weiner scenario, opting instead to focus that evening’s show on non-dick-related roasts of John Edwards and Sarah Palin. Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun wrote:

I expected Stewart to dig into Weiner with…comedic ferocity last night, now that Weiner had finally admitted the truth.

Instead, Stewart used the occasion to compliment Weiner’s penis and pectoral size. He then ducked any further criticism of Weiner and transitioned to making fun of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

The most upsetting things to Stewart were that Weiner is “packing jumbo heat” and “ripped,” he said.

“I can’t believe this guy and I are the same f—– age,” Stewart joked. Stewart somehow managed to turn Weiner’s actions and subsequent lying into a compliment. Strange.

Similarly, Ken Tucker for Entertainment Weekly also complained:

Jon Stewart may have been the only television news commentator in America on Monday who did not pounce on Rep. Anthony Weiner and beat him up verbally for admitting he lied about his Twitter gaffe. Stewart was in an awkward position, having acknowledged last week that Weiner is an old friend, but even so, his restraint was striking…

[I]t was fascinating to see how a satirist in Stewart’s position finessed it. He showed the Twitter photo of Weiner’s bare chest and joked that he was jealous that “a, he’s packing jumbo heat and b, he’s f—in’ ripped.” Which led to a segment called “Jon Stewart Unloads on Anthony Weiner’s Chest,” ostensibly ridicule of Weiner’s torso (he had such deep cleavage, a tiny James Franco was shown trapped in it) but really, in the way the segment was worded, a joke on Stewart himself. In a comic sense, Stewart took a bullet for his pal.

Of course, not ever one to disappoint the comedy-seeking masses, Stewart took to his show last night to finally roast Weiner the day after his press conference. But aside from jabbing his friend (and cutting his own wrist), Stewart’s bit, in which he staged a mock press conference, served more to defend his comedic honor on the issue. He basically underlined his love for a good dick joke: “We’ve done over 59 jokes: nine penis puns, we used an R Kelly impersonator to provide Trapped in the Closet-style commentary, and I personally said the word cock [bleeped out] 10 times.”

In fact, it was Stewart’s defense of his own prowess at crass humor that makes this bit culturally interesting and not whatever jokes he actually told about Weiner, good or bad. Indeed, it proves even a comedian as sharp-witted and smart as Stewart still must play to the more basic our comedic instincts. Indeed, the dick joke remains, um, firm in American comedy. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, a compliment or a diss on our culture, I’m sure will be interpreted differently depending on who you ask. For me, while I admit dick jokes and other forms of crass humor are often, er, limp when it comes to sophistication, I think they’re evolutionarily intertwined with comedy. That is, they’re here to stay. So, God bless America and God bless dick jokes.

I’m making my curatorial debut (yes, I’m a woman of many trades) today at the Geoffrey Diner Gallery here in DC with the show Sidney Foster: A Life In Color. To learn more about him in his own words, see this profile in The People’s District. To read my summary of Sidney’s story and art, well, just keep reading:

"Mobile," Acrylic on paper, 2011

Ninety-five-year-old impresario Sidney Foster will exhibit 10 paintings in his first solo show at Geoffrey Diner Gallery from May 27 through June 25, during which he’ll celebrate his 96th birthday.

Foster, a concert violinist and jazz trumpeter who emigrated to the United States from England in 1938, never thought much about painting until he casually enrolled in a class at his retirement home late last year. “I was really just trying to keep busy,” he said. Sixty-plus paintings later, that seems like an understatement.

This will be Foster’s first gallery showing outside of his Greenspring Retirement campus. His excitement, however, outweighs any nerves. This is no surprise considering Foster’s long and varied musical past, which began in England at the age of seven. A graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music, Foster became a bugler in the U.S. Army Air Corp Band during World War II. He took his discharge after being stationed in Bermuda and opened the popular Elbow Beach Surf Club, where he played both the violin and trumpet with his orchestra until 1953. Back in the United States, Foster’s talent ended up taking him to Carnegie Hall as an orchestral violinist, as well as the popular supper club at Park Avenue’s Ambassador Hotel.

Foster’s love of music, including both the structure of classical music and the free form of jazz, shows in the 10 works that will be displayed at Geoffrey Diner Gallery. Sharp lines run deliberately into bright geometric shapes. Short strokes of paint haphazardly form whirlwinds of earth tones.

Foster’s paintings are captivating in color, form and creation. They hearken back to eras past, while still capturing something new. Uniting his work is his devotion to abstraction, which allows him to parlay emotion onto the paper. “Abstract to me means something primitive,” he says. He describes every work as an evolution, starting from a tiny seed of an idea and expanding over the initial sketching and final painting process into a finished work. “It is not finished until it is framed,” says Foster, insisting, “You can’t look at an unframed piece of paper and make a true judgment.”

The public is invited to join Foster for an opening reception on May 26 from 5-7 pm.

I hope to see you all there, however, if you can’t come tonight, make sure to mark your calendar for a talk with the artist on June 2 from 5-7 pm or stop by anytime between tomorrow and June 25, Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 pm. For location information, click here.