Happy Funtime Friend Service

That’s right, bastards. You heard me. Crafts. But we’re not talking macrame owls and plant holders: This is edgy, counter-culture, hardcore, serious crafts. Time to crank the Christmas shopping into full-on, nitrogen-charged, throttle-busting mode and head over to the Washington City Paper’s 3rd annual Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Festival right in the heart of the Adams Morgan neighborhood this Sunday, October 1st from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The pickings look good with crafters ranging from fiber arts, to pottery, jewelry, paper crafts, and art & photography. If you can’t find something here for those hard-to-shop-for peeps on your list, you weren’t trying hard enough.

Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Festival:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/craftybastards/

Okay, well Sandman’s creator Neil Gaiman (who looks pretty cute in that black leather jacket I must say) will be at Politics and Prose on Friday, 29 September from 7 - 10 p.m. reading from his new collection of short stories Fragile Things. I was surprised to not see his name on the list for the Library of Congress Book Festival the next day, but maybe he’ll surprise us and stop by.

It’s definitely coming up on book tour season, so if you start planning your gifts now, you can get a lot of your Christmas shopping done early. Just think how much cooler it is to present someone with a book personalized for them by their favorite author.

Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft! Who’s movie is playing over at the Reynolds Center in the National Portrait Gallery tonight at 6:30 p.m.? Shaft! Damn right.

National Portrait Gallery - Reel Portraits:
http://americanart.si.edu/reynolds_center/calendar.cfm

This being the third time I’ve seen Jon Stewart’s stand-up routine (first at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore and the second at DAR here in D.C.), I expected to be slightly disappointed in the show only because I didn’t anticipate much new material; however, I think the Washington Post reviewer nailed it when he wrote that the audience was “like music concertgoers hearing the first few bars or beats of a song.” Stewart started off by aptly boiling President’s Bush’s discourse down to its predictable pattern - “I do A and then B; therefore I am a B A’er,” but when he moved into his squawking impersonation of Cheney, the audience erupted simultaneously as if we all congratulated each other for being in on the same joke. Sure, he closed with the same old bit about his wife and their assortment of mismatched projectile vomitting pets, but who cares? It’s Jon Stewart, telling stories at a venue in a town mid-way between Baltimore and D.C.

Of course, if you missed the show, I feel for you - no, seriously, I do. Maybe catching Kathy Griffin at the Kennedy Center on October 4th might make you feel better, but mmmmm, I’m guessing probably not. Myself, I’ll be holed up with some chinese take-out watching the season premiere of Lost. Sorry, Kathy, maybe next time.

For those that aren’t afraid of having their preconceived notions blasted to hell and back, be sure to catch Bob Saget at Lisner Auditorium on November 9th. Actually, before you order a ticket, I strongly urge you to rent last year’s documentary film The Aristocrats which features Saget telling possibly the lewdest version of the nauseating joke in the entire film. Yeah, you heard me - Bob Saget - lewdest joke teller - ever.

Avast ye, scurvy dogs! ‘Tis a day for parlaying like pirates or buccaneers or privateerrs whichsoever ye prefer to be called.

Land lubbers can be checking out this guide for pirate lingo more advanced than “Arrr!”:

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html

Think of Spa Week like Restaurant Week for day spas. The idea is to get you to try new treatments at a reduced cost that you might not otherwise spring for. In DC this fall Spa Week is October 16 - 22. The participating spas and salons and their deals are available today. Make your reservations early - they do fill up and if there’s someplace you’ve been really wanting to try, you don’t want to be disappointed. And a spa treatment is a great activity to invite a new friend along for - get pedicures together.

Spa Week isn’t confined to DC. Check out the specials in other cities if you’re looking for gifts or you’ll be traveling.

If you didn’t get enough sour cream and pierogis at the St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Festival, mark your calendars for St. John the Baptist’s Annual Russian Bazaar on September 30 & October 1st. The food’s a smidge different with more pirozhki, no pierogi (ack!), and a heavy hand with the kasha (buckwheat - mmmm), but you can find similar staples like stuffed cabbage and borscht. St. Andrew’s festival is definitely larger with an impressive assortment of Ukrainian dancers, singers and even folk violinist, but at St. John’s you can do shots of herb-infused vodka with the priest for a buck. I’m saving my dollar bills.

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
Annual Russian Bazaar
http://www.russianbazaar.org/

You know it’s definitely fall when the beer tasting season is upon us. If you’ve never been to a beer tasting, it’s exactly what it sounds like - either a brewmaster comes to talk you through tasting a variety of beers from one brewery or several brewmasters come and you try many different beers sometimes focused around a region or a theme (hoppy beers, holiday beers). We’re lucky in DC to have two of the premier beer bars and restauarants in the country - the Brickskellar and RFD (which stands for Regional Food and Drink).

They have two immediately upcoming events - one on 16 September (seems to be a popular beer date) in conjuction with the Smithsonian Resident Associates program for Oktoberfest. If tickets are still available, you’d discover that here:
http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=55007

The other is a first time visitor to RFD, Belgium’s Saint Bernardus Brewery (hmm… also a Belgian theme) on 20 September. They’ll talk, you’ll taste. Tickets are $28 and can be reserved by calling 202.289.2030.

There’s a cider tasting in October, Hops in November and the ever popular Holiday Beer tasting in December. You might want to get on this list. Drop a note to Brickskeller@aol.com.

Go with a friend or two and meet new folks. Everyone’s chatty after a couple of beers. Just don’t be that guy. (You know who you are.)

Driving along I-270 last week, I saw the first few red leaves on the trees, then today I notices bright yellow leaves falling from trees in Chevy Chase and then the Bethesda Starbucks had Pumpkin Spice Latte today, so of course I had to have one. And Great Country Farms included apples in the box from the farm this week. So I think it can no longer be denied, fall is definitely here. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite fall activities, but what are your signs that fall is here?