Philly horns in on our turf – again

October 12, 2008

Bad enough that Philly has been trying to claim Edgar Allan Poe. Now The City of Brotherly Love seems to be making a play for The Wire.

Recent columns

• Our Poe? We'd rather he not be in Philadelphia

  October 10, 2008

  That would-be grave robber from Philly is at it again, trying to get his cheese-steak-y paws on Edgar Allan Poe.

• Phelpstival host appreciated the love

  October 8, 2008

  Access Hollywood host Billy Bush schlepped all the way from L.A. to Baltimore to host the Phelpstivities at Fort McHenry, but he didn't spend the night in town. He stayed instead at the Ritz in Georgetown.

• The artist paints, and he also multiplies

  October 5, 2008

  What makes an artist assemble 193,000 toothpicks?" PeteHilsee, spokesman for the American Visionary Art Museum, mused the other day.

• Running things was simpler in City Hall

  October 3, 2008

  In an article titled "Stat Governor," the latest issue of Governing magazine ponders this: "Martin O'Malley ran Baltimore by the numbers. Can he make it work for all of Maryland?"

• Just get them to the church on time

  October 1, 2008

  Florist? Check. Photographer? Check. Police traffic coordinator? Double check.

• Don't get your shorts in a bunch — visibly

  September 28, 2008

  The ladies who lunch at Petit Louis in Roland Park know enough to keep their undies to themselves. Same goes for the Harbor East crowd forking over hundreds for dinner at Charleston and the oenophiles tasting wines at nearby Cinghiale.

• Come back, kid, when you can show ID

  September 26, 2008

  With Michael Phelps' face plastered on the cover of Sports Illustrated and boxes of Frosted Flakes, you've got to wonder: Did he lose the chance to live a normal life when he won all that Olympic glory?

• Ken Harris never stopped trying

  September 24, 2008

  It only looked like Ken Harris loved being on TV.

• 'We did so' 'You did not' 'We did too' 'Uh, oops'

  September 21, 2008

  Baltimore's top two elected leaders, usually all chummy in public, duked it out the other day over:

• 'Oviestyle,' a mullet by any other name

  September 19, 2008

  Alexander Ovechkin, one of the greatest hockey players in the game today, and certainly the best paid, decided to get spruced up the day he signed a 13-year, $124 million deal with the Washington Capitals. He swung by Hair Cuttery for a $14 cut.

• For once, the big guns get run out in Baltimore

  September 17, 2008

  True-blue Maryland is about to see something unexpected this close to Election Day: someone actually on a presidential ballot. Two of them.

• Cool as a cucumber, he popped the question

  September 14, 2008

  Well, now we know the whole locavore thing really has arrived. An aspiring groom opted against the old fancy-schmancy restaurant setting and popped the question a couple of Sundays ago at the Baltimore farmers' market.

• Really, isn't everyone a winner in this race?

  September 12, 2008

  City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake might be Baltimore's mayor-in-waiting, but there was no waiting yesterday.

• Get out! Low-profile celebrity's a big tipper

  September 10, 2008

  The man who on TV gave us the re-gifter, double-dipper, anti-dentite, low-talker and bad breaker-upper proves to be something else entirely in real life: a great tipper.

• It's not business, Barack, just personal

  September 7, 2008

  There's Audacity of Hope," John Coale was saying, "and then there's just audacity."

• Building children's vocabularies — doggedly

  September 3, 2008

  A dog named Martha is talking - and talking and talking - on PBS, thanks to some errant alphabet soup and a University of Maryland professor.

• William Donald Schaefer slept here

  August 31, 2008

  Fells Point is about to lose a celebrity, somebody famous for jumping into a pool.

• If you talk the 9/11 talk, you better know the 9/11 facts

  August 29, 2008

  With Rudy Giuliani at his side the other day in Denver, former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele declared that Barack Obama lacked the homeland security cred to be president. While he was at it, Steele showed off his own loose grasp of the subject.

• Voters may have to tune in to more minstrelsy

  August 27, 2008

  Turns out Maryland is big enough for more than one guitar-strumming Democrat.

• If you live near Michael Phelps, don't answer the phone

  August 24, 2008

  How's this for gold-medal motivation? On July 31, just days before he headed to Beijing, Michael Phelps shelled out $36,538.46 for property taxes on his $1.7 million Fells Point townhouse.

• Breakfast of champions for Phelps — Frosted Flakes?

  August 22, 2008

  Frosted Flakes, the new breakfast of champions?

• Towson's talking secession

  August 20, 2008

  The times of London, in a profile of Michael Phelps that ran the other day, described the Olympian's hometown as "the blue-collar mill town of Towson."

• Getting Baltimore dolled up

  August 17, 2008

  If little girls in and around Baltimore want a doll that looks like Mommy, they're in luck, no matter if she shops all day at Cross Keys, gets lost on Columbia cul-de-sacs, works a street corner in the 'hood or lives with another mommy in Mount Vernon.

• Pigtown gets some airtime

  August 15, 2008

  Forget the city-financed hotel and tourism slogans. Seems all Baltimore needs to reel in out-of-towners is pigs - pigs going to slaughter. Or rather, a festival celebrating the doomed porkers.

• Good press for a free ride

  August 13, 2008

  Turns out the Bush administration hasn't cornered the market on pay-for-puff journalism.

• Levinson moved, left his name

  August 3, 2008

  Barry Levinson has come a long way from the knotty pine club room and marble front stoop. All the way, in fact, to "10,000 sf on 2 level acres, pool, guest quarters, separate studio, 7BR, 8 full & 3 half baths," just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

• It's just a damyankee rodent

  August 1, 2008

  Maybe Sheila Dixon's "Cleaner, Greener" thing is working a little too well. In need of a rodent for that municipal ad campaign, Baltimore sent away to New York for a freeze-dried rat.

• Cosby's suddenly camera-shy

  July 30, 2008

  Bill Cosby comes to town tomorrow to speak at a Park Heights block party. Should we expect the genial actor/author/Jell-O pitchman or the tough-talking, black self-reliance preacher?

• A couple of irresistible targets

  July 27, 2008

  Baltimore's retail renaissance and beleaguered mayor converged this week, two Targets, together, at Mondawmin Mall.

• How much should you tip?

  July 25, 2008

  It's easier than you think to drop $70,000 on dinner for two at the Center Club.

• Just give us the loo-down

  July 23, 2008

  The political opposition researcher who illegally snooped into Michael Steele's credit history has found something else to stick her nose into: toilets.

• My brother-in-law, my boss

  July 20, 2008

  We all know the wedding etiquette: Bride's family sits on the left side of the church, groom's on the right. But what to do with the brother-in-law/direct-report? Emily Post is mum.

• No interest in Granddad's job

  July 18, 2008

  Hundreds of Maryland politicos gather on a parking lot every July to eat crabs, talk politics, sweat, sweat some more, and honor a long-gone governor.

• Top cop grabs perp on patrol

  July 16, 2008

  After a short foot chase the other night, Baltimore police arrested a guy suspected of dealing drugs. And you're thinking, "This is news?"

• A tiny peek into Dixon's closet

  June 20, 2008

  Even before prosecutors started sniffing around for Sheila Dixon's fur coats, her people were worried.

• He looks hot, but he's taken

  May 16, 2008

  You live by the biceps, you die by the biceps. The good news for Martin O'Malley: A national magazine has put him on one of those lists of top governors.

• Not blowing in the wind

  May 9, 2008

  Seen the wind turbines atop the Inner Harbor's Power Plant? Must admit I'd missed them until someone sent me the link to a video posted on the official city tourism Web site.

• Maybe it's for the XXX Games

  February 17, 2008

  Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff aren't just showing off their swimming in Missouri. They're showing off their new Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits. And that means they're showing off their birthday suits, too.

• Art imitates life imitates art

  January 25, 2008

  Felicia Pearson did time for murder, then went on to play a hitman named "Snoop" on The Wire. Now she finds herself caught up in another real-life killing - this time as a witness.

• Fake newsroom, real anger

  January 6, 2008

  Forget what you've heard about the fifth and final season of The Wire, which begins tonight on HBO. Officially, what some critics have called the greatest show in the history of TV wraps up with a meditation on the evils of corporate newspaper ownership. But really, it's all about revenge.

• Halloween goes all tasteful

  October 31, 2007

  Martin O'Malley's critics say he's a spender. Can't prove it by the Halloween decorations at the governor's mansion.

• They gasp at the doorway

  September 23, 2007

  Awoman born to antiques dealers and steeped in classical music has the hippest office in town, backstage at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

• It's a free press when you own it

  March 18, 2007

  From the pecan cabinetry to the flagstone patio, no detail about the Roland Park charmer featured in The Examiner's real estate section goes unnoticed, but for this: The guy trying to sell the place, Examiner Publisher Michael Phelps.

• Ain't the urn cool!

  September 30, 2005

  Chuck Thompson wasn't just a Hall of Fame sports announcer. He also was a husband, the kind who parked himself on a shopping mall bench while his wife roamed the stores. So his final resting place -- in the courtyard of a revamped shopping mall -- could not be more fitting.