Redeeming Ray-Ray

The Baltimore Block blog has been quiet of late. Let me tell you, the block hasn’t been on fire with late summer parties. What remains of the non migratory block population has been ensconced in the library, cramming for biostatistics. But an unseemly headline from the local rag B the Spot has roused us from self-imposed seclusion to revisit the blog waters.

The Monday, August 31 headline looked straightforward at first: It read, “Rye Rye’s Ready to Rumble — MIA Protege Busts Out of B-More”. Our first thought: Rye Rye is leaving Baltimore! Sad but predictable: Another awesomely talented Charm City music icon leaves urban backwater for the Platinum-paved streets of New York City.

The shocking disingenuity of the headline revealed itself when the reader turned to page 16 and read the heartbreaking update about the teenager who British pop star M.I.A. has sampled in chart-topping singles like the remix for Paper Planes. We’ve heard her distinctive girlish high toned raps pipe up in hipster boites here and overseas.

The story–penned not by B or parent paper The Sun but by the Washington Post’s Kate Kilpatrick–is about the trauma that makes kids in Baltimore “grow up fast” as the original story was subtitled in the Post when it came out on August 2 (what made B wait for 30 days to run this thing?).

Rye – Rye’s debut album on Interscope was scheduled to come out this year. Now, she’s preggers, due in October, and the record is on hold. She’s waiting to see if Interscope drops it (and her, as a client) like it’s hot.

Delta Delta Delta

This blog is on a summer hiatus. We are delta-bound again; back in August.
Happy Artscape Weekend!!!

Population Dip? Swell

Just do It

On the Urban Discoveries Blog, Matt Smith highlights a recent article showing Baltimore’s population is plunging by some 3000 people every year. He proposes 6 highly sensible ways to increase the population. Here are a few more, coming at you from the New York City Department of City Planning.

According to the census, the City of New York grew by 686,000 people between 1990 and 2000 — more than Baltimore’s entire population, added within 10 years. How’d they do it?

a. “Substantial natural increase” a.k.a., baby-making, so that more people were born than died. This is a scalable model we can adopt, no?

b. “Domestic migration losses offset by immigration.” White people moving to put babies in suburban schools were replaced (who needs ‘em anyway) by plucky immigrants. Let’s here it for the Koreans and the El Salvadorians, and their bim bam bop tortillas. Come all ye Vietnamese, Indians, Hmong, Liberians, Maoris.

Plotting an Artscape Frenzy

new album from Nickodemus

The 2009 installment of Artscape is coming up this weekend. At America’s Largest Public Arts Festival, there’s a little something for everyone (and we mean it, everyone and your mom will be there, all sweaty and eating funnel cakes).

We can’t wait to get Going the Distance with Cake,  Say A Little Prayer (or even better, have psychic readings) with Dionne Warwick, scope a 10-person bike ride with the New Shanghai Circus (coming to us live from Branson, Missouri), and jam with Robert Randolph’s family band.

And our homie Nickodemus is taking a hiatus from his usual gig with Turntables on the Hudson at New York’s always sizzling Water Taxi Beach to get Artscape’s afternoon crowd bumping from the Main Stage on Sunday.

Be a Friend of Tilapia

Apparently there was a sustainable dinner series at the aquarium, which is super cool but disappointing because according to Black Coffee and a Donut, they just had the last one. The Fresh Thoughts dinners included dolphin shows and squid exhibits.

Out of this Mexico-themed shindig (guacamole, lime-cilantro creme, pepita seed salad) comes an interesting factoid.

Per the Black Coffee gals, who we recently bumped into at Joe Squared, the foodie mecca pizza joint (a rare string of words) on North Avenue, tilapia = Veganfish:

Tilapia, which is farm-raised in Maryland, “is an herbivore so it is low down on the food chain. Lower down on the food chain means fewer fish went into creating the fish you are eating … for every pound of tuna you eat (which is high on the food chain), that represents 10 pounds of squid.”

Not convinced? Peep this recipe for tilapia tacos

How to Find 90 Pounds of Cocaine

Scrooge from Ducktails

Baltimore City Police were watching a guy on Prestman Street in West Baltimore for a while. They figured Mr. Trenell Murphy was dealing, especially when he chucked a trash bag full of coke bags (or some paraphernalia) out the window of his truck. The plucky gumshoes assumed the truck was being used in a crime. But how did they finally make the bust?

The detectives got a lucky break. One recounted his discovery to the City Paper’s Mobtown Beat:

“He [Murphy] told me, ‘I have a spot up the street where I can take you to where there is 40 keys [kilograms] of cocaine’ He accompanied us to the truck and said, ‘It’s in there, it’s in the bed of the truck.’ “

Duh, isn’t it always in the truck bed?

The “historic” seizure in February is detailed here. The Biggest Bust in History–a stash valued at $2-3 million–was reported in the City Paper:

“After taking Murphy into custody, the detectives searched his black Chevrolet truck parked outside the house and in its bed found “approximately forty (40) wrapped kilogram-sized bricks of suspected cocaine,” the complaint states, which also describes them as being wrapped in newspaper.”

The paper also reported that, “Directly across the street from the house is a flashing Baltimore Police Department blue-light camera, a device meant to serve as an investigative tool and deterrent to crime.”

More importantly, what does 90 pounds of coke look like? Can you build a sandcastle with it? Can you make a fort with those bricks? Do you dive into snowy piles, like on Ducktails?

Happy Birthday to Country, Love, Baltimore

Sno Ball image courtesy of Urban Wanderer

It’s 4th of July weekend. America, our America, land of Stars and Stripes tees, anemic hot dogs in buns, pudgy dogs in red collars, porky men in too-tight shorts, yellow-haired children clutching glowing light sabers, whistling Chinese fireworks in the sky, and cold beer.

Top 10 ways you can tell you’re in Baltimore on Independence Day Weekend:

10)Cash-poor police department installs sobriety check on Interstate 395 to challenge all drivers entering Charm City.

9) Harbor water mysteriously turns color. Fishy-smelling grey is now fishy-smelling aquamarine.

Patriotic visitors strolling the harbor observe a 15-foot cell phone, supposedly the world’s largest, thanks to fireworks sponsor CricKet. Wild rock music plays, people are invited to make the “biggest call of their lives”

7) To witness the Harbor fireworks display, multilingual families camp out 10 hours before showtime on the lawn within ear blast by Poison from the Hard Rock Cafe loudspeakers. The saree-clad Desi camp settled in opposite the aquarium where bullhorns shepherded sunstroked parents and children through a multitude of lines.

6) African American Festival at M&T Bank Stadium features poetry slam, spelling bee, health education fair, and $5000 VIP cabana seats.

5) Fort McHenry revelers commemorate the day with fife and drum music, cannon-firing, poetry reading, musket salute for 18 states, period games, feasting and historic toasts… and hanging King George in effigy.

4) Crab permeates air, shards of claws appear in gutters, your neighbor’s fingernails are crusted with Old Bay.

3) Sno-Balls trump Bomb Pops. Souse that sucker in Blue Raspberry, Cherry and Vanilla.

2) The roofs in Fell’s fit together like jigsaw squares. From the ubiquitous wooden decks, roof hopping becomes a competitive sport (Ray Ray, the hahbor view’s better down here!).

1) It’s 3am and loud banging noises sound off in quick succession. POP POP POP POP!! Firecrackers, faulty wiring exploding, or semiautomatic weapons?

God bless America.

Baltimore Trend: Homeless and their Dogs

Foxy "stinkums" Brown was a stray in the Bronx

The dumpster divers on our alley have been appearing, of late, toting small stray pooches. I’m wondering, is it just Mount Vernon or is this a city-wide trend? Canine companions to the men sorting through the garbage are sort of middling height, with bushy fur and either furious barks or nervous pacing. The dogs are unleashed. It’s a good thing Baltimore has wisely reduced the off-leash fee from $1000 for first time offenders to $200.

Speaking of trash, can someone tell our neighbor to quit putting her old mail in our yellow City of Baltimore bin? It’s, like, begging these guys to sift through for forgotten checks and bank statements. Her stuff ends up all over the ground, strewn like snow in front of our door. Bills, class notes, practice tests, Kleenex. Our own middling stray, the Stinkums of the Block, wades like molasses sniffing through every morsel.

PS: You can feed a homeless person’s dog at this site.

PPS: Dogs can probably live on the chicken bones and rice scattered around this city especially at bus stops.

Red Line Debate at Enoch Pratt

Illustration from Maryland Daily Record

If like us you missed out on celebrating Drop the Pump Day last week, you still have a chance to speak up for petrol-free transit options in Baltimore.

Get thee to the Pratt library on Cathedral street next Wednesday, July 8. From 5:30-7pm in Wheeler Auditorium, Baltimore City, MTA, and Central Maryland Transportation Alliance (CMTA) are hosting a screening and panel discussion on the  documentary short, Transit Around the Nation. Clips on the CMTA site give residents a sense for what the Red Line would offer: a reliable, quick link between Woodline and Greektown including Bayview hospital and Fell’s Point (Avon Barksdale shudders to think, Westside and Eastside united??).

The film title refers to a city tour sponsored by CMTA et al. They invited activists, developers and city officials to learn about how transit projects impact communities and businesses. The group spoke with residents in Seattle, Portland, and … Los Angeles. Yes, even car-crazy Angelenos utilize more light rail than us east coasters–especially shameful here in Baltimore where about 32% of people or more than 200,000 people don’t have access to cars, according to the Abell foundation (which unfortunately concluded that we should give more people cars rather than fix our inefficient and outdated transit system).

101 Secrets of Baltimore

At 100 Dairy Lane

Not especially known for its adventurous spirit, Baltimore magazine’s “Secrets of the City” issue raised a few eyebrows. The whimsically illustrated June issue boasted 101 Things to Eat, See & Do Before YOU Die!”

Aside from the title’s morbid undertone–especially for those of us who actually live in Baltimore City (the magazine’s advertising heavily targets suburbanites)–the “secrets” promised were too tantalizing to leave on the Whole Foods magazine rack. And actually some of the writers unearthed, er, found some cool stuff we didn’t know about.

1. Nak Won — ok, most of the “cheap ethnic foods” sighted by the editors are neither secrets nor cheap, but apparently this Korean joint at 12 W. 20th street offers “Frisbee-sized seafood pancakes, tabletop barbecue, and bibimbap” with a total tab ringing in under $15 each. Sounds like it’s a highlight of Baltimore’s own Ktown (also known for late night karaoke at Rainbow Music Studies and even later night Nam Kang, upstairs, per Places to Go at 3am).

2. Great oldskool Old Bay spice-encrusted crabs at Obrycki’s on East Pratt street, open since 1944. Finally, something to tell people who ask, where oh where should we go for crabs.

3. Maryland Sunrise Farm used to be the US Naval Academy’s dairy farm. You can tour an 11 acre corn maze, and they produce oodles of organic staples–eggs, beef, hay and soybeans–yet the magazine gives no hint of where readers can buy this stuff. According to the farm’s site, the food from 100 Dairy Lane is sold at the Anne Arundel county’s farmer’s market and via their CSA.

4. Tangier Island, VA — while clearly not in Baltimore, it’s a Daytrip You Never Heard of that sounds worth the 3 hour trip: “Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have been known to visit this idyllic spot, where bikes are the primary mode of transportation.” The “rustic” island is known for seafood and striking sunsets.

5. “Places to People Watch”–otherwise known as places to Keep an Eye Out for Authenticity amidst rapid gentrification–readers are urged to check out Santoni’s Super Market for jarred pig knuckles, Mount Royal Tavern for hipsters and stone drunks, Union Baptist Church for hats, and bikers in Hampden.