I’ve alway considered the Maritime Republic of Eastport vs. Annapolis Tug of War — also known as the Slaughter Across the Water — to be one of the community’s defining events. (This year, it was a slaughter, with the MRE crushing downtown Annapolis (DTA) 5-2.) What other city stretches a rope across its harbor — shutting it down to navigation — to accommodate a tug of war? The 1,700 foot rope that crosses Spa Creek was made specifically for this event and has been valued at $23,488.50. And the event features the delightfully goofy “Maritime Republic of Eastport,” a brilliant marketing effort to promote Eastport businesses in 1998 when the Maryland State Highway Administration temporarily closed the bridge connecting downtown Annapolis with Eastport for repairs. Eastportericans responded by declaring their independence from Annapolis, even adopting their own flag featuring a severed scroll with the motto, “We Like It This Way.” The MRE’s yellow-and-black flags were once common on the east side of Spa Creek — or the “Gulf of Eastport,” as the MRE calls it. The flags, however, are seen less frequently as the years have passed.
This tow boat, used to facilitate stretching the 1,700-foot rope across Spa Creek, was a tug boat for the Slaughter Across the Water.
But for one of the community’s defining events, Saturday’s 18th Tug of War was sparsely attended. It was probably due to the rainy weather, which may have also provided an advantage to the Eastport side, where the tuggers were on asphalt rather than brick. For whatever reason, though, the Eastport side dominated the event.
First up were DTA bars versus Eastport’s 4th Street bars. WRNR radio personalities hosted the event on both sides of Spa Creek. The MC on the DTA side spotted Mike Pantelides — Annapolis’s 32-year-old mayor – in the crowd, and he was promptly drafted as the anchorman for the DTA bar tuggers. As anchors go, the thin mayor was on the light side and the Eastport bars pulled to an easy victory.
Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides (far left) was drafted from the crowd to join the downtown Annapolis bars’ unsuccessful tuggers.
Next up were Naval Academy midshipman against the Eastport Yacht Club. The midshipmen put on a synchronized tugging clinic and easily prevailed.
The Naval Academy easily defeated the Eastport Yacht Club
But then the MRE took over, with a stunning come-from-behind victory by the Eastport Fire Station over the Prince George’s County Firefighters, who were — for reasons I didn’t really understand — competing on the downtown Annapolis side.
My wife was a weather wimp and bailed out, leaving me there with my daughter and a friend of hers. Unfortunately there was an 18-year-old minimum age, so they didn’t get to compete even though some of the tugs were open to the public.
As an Arnold resident, I have no inherent allegiance to either DTA or Eastport. Next year, I plan to check out the Eastport side — which, at the very least, included more food options, including (oddly enough) Mason’s Lobster Roll, which is on Main Street on the DTA side of Spa Creek. I think I’ll also sign up to join one of the tugs, with the promise of boots gripping asphalt rather than brick. If the weather isn’t as liquid, perhaps this uniquely Annapolitan event will draw more of the Annapolis community in 2016.
Columbus Day weekend marks one of Annapolis’s biggest events: the United States Sailboat Show, which will be followed the next weekend by the United States Powerboat Show.
This year marks the 44th return of the sailboat show to Annapolis and the Capital tells us that this year, “more than 40,000 people are expected to attend the show.” Exercising my prerogative as a local to eschew the big local tourist event, I wasn’t one of them. But having skipped the party, I did attend the after-party.
The United States Sailboat Show as seen from the Naval Academy’s sea wall, right before the show’s end
The boat show starts in nautical fashion with the firing of a cannon. The Capital relays this vignette from 2004, the first year the signaling cannon was used to start the show: “The cannon recoiled, fell off a ledge and bounced down a flight of stairs leading to the harbormaster’s main office. A spokesman for the boat shows was ready to put it in context: ‘So we started with a loose cannon.’”
Anyone at the show on Friday evening would have gotten drenched as the sky turned black around 6:30 with heavy rainclouds. But the weather was perfect the rest of the weekend. Late Monday afternoon, when I showed up just before the sailboat show ended to hit the after- party at Pusser’s Landing, the temperature hovered around 70.
The crew breaking down the boat show’s docks
I parked on the Naval Academy’s yard, where I had an excellent view of the boat show from the sea wall. Right after 5, a crew began to break down the dock, creating openings for a parade of giant sailboats to exit from the City Dock into Spa Creek.
From the seawall, it was a short walk to Pusser’s Landing in the Annapolis Marriott Waterfront, where a large crowd was gathered at the two-story dock bar. Margaritaville-style music played over a loud speaker, including the execrable Escape (The Piña Colada Song). The hotel’s balconies were also crowded with observers. A cheer went up as each massive sailboat departed its slip. The best part: Pusser’s Landing’s Painkillers were on sale at the dock bar, in $7, $8, and $9 versions, depending on rum content. I’ve enjoyed a Painkiller at the British Virgin Island’s Soggy Dollar Bar, where it was invented. The bar gets its name from the fact that it has no dock. Boats have to drop anchor a few feet from Jost Van Dyke Island’s shore. The bar can be reached only by wading through the water like MacArthur returning to the Philippines. The natural result is a wet wallet, hence the “Soggy Dollar Bar.” There’s actually a clothes line behind the bar from which bills are hung to dry. The bar’s seating includes a hammock stretched out between two palm trees on the beach. In this idyllic setting, the Painkiller was born: orange juice, pineapple juice, cream of coconut, dark rum, and nutmeg. At the Soggy Dollar Bar, the bartender applied the final ingredient by grating fresh nutmeg over the drink, sprinkling the foamy top with auburn shavings. Pusser’s can’t capture the ambience of Jost Van Dyke, but still makes an excellent imitation Painkiller – though, sadly, the bartender at the Pusser’s dock bar sprinkled nutmeg from a stainless steel shaker onto the top of the drink rather than grating fresh nutmeg. For an extra fee, the Painkiller could be purchased in an enameled metal “Pusser’s Landing Painkiller Club” cup featuring the Painkiller recipe on the outside, flags from the Caribbean on the inside, and, on the bottom, a drawing of a sailor hanging by a noose from a yardarm above the words, “Good to the Last Drop.” The recipe on the cup includes, “Stir & grate fresh nutmeg on top!” Even the exclamation point failed to compel the stainless steel sharker-wielding bartender to obey that command. But reagardless of the nutmeg’s freshness, the Painkiller was refreshingly smooth, though in my hazy recollection, the Soggy Dollar Bar’s Painkiller had a higher ratio of cream of cocunut to pineapple and orange juice.
A sailboat departing the boat show
With drink in hand and the procession of sailboats leaving in front of me, this seems a perfect transition from the sailboat show to the powerboat show. Because none of those sailboats are leaving under sail: they are all under power.
Navy’s dominant quarterback Keenan Reynolds in an unfamiliar pose — passing the football.
“There’s a lot of pageantry that surrounds the game,” star Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds told the Washington Post. “But at the end it’s still football.”
Reynolds took care of the football during the Navy-Air Force game at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on October 3. He rushed for 183 yards on 24 carries and passed for another 117 yards, including a touchdown. Reynold’s play and Air Force’s carelessness with the ball – three lost fumbles and an interception – produced a lopsided 33-11 Navy victory.
But this post is about the pageantry.
I didn’t go to a service academy, but many years in the Marine Corps combined with almost two decades of living in the Annapolis area have made me a Navy football fan. Service academy games – in particularly the Army-Navy game – have long been touted as college athletics at its purest. When I first started attending Army-Navy games many years ago at Philadelphia’s old Veterans Stadium, I shared that view. In recent years, however, that contest has taken on a decidedly corporate feel, with ads from sponsors like Jeep and USAA displacing “spirit videos” on the jumbotron during breaks in play. The less-hyped Navy-Air Force game, which every other year is played in Annapolis, now has more of the pure college athletic feel than its more commercialized sibling in the Command-in-Chief’s Trophy series. There may be a creeping commercialism affecting this game, too. USAA, the game’s “sponsor” — whatever that means — was honored during the game and had what amounted to a USAA commercial played on the scoreboard.
The Navy-Air Force game may have also displaced the Army-Navy game as my favorite due to its competitiveness. There can be little doubt that Army-Navy still ranks as more important within the Brigade of Midshipmen. When it concluded singing “Navy Blue and Gold” after beating Air Force, the Brigade shouted, “Beat Army,” not “Beat Air Force.” When a relaxed weekend curfew for the midhsipmen was announced over the PA system as we left the stadium, that liberty status was called a “Beat Army” weekend, even though it was AIr Force whom the Naval Academy had just beaten. The game day program for Navy-Air Force day includes a recap of every Army-Navy game stretching back to 1890. The program informs the reader that Navy leads the series 59-49-7, but nowhere discloses the Navy-Air Force series tally — perhaps because before the opening kickoff, Air Force held a 28-19 series lead. But now the Army-Navy game feels diminished in part by just how regularly Navy has executed the imperative to “Beat Army.” Navy has beaten Army in 13 straight football games, including 34-0 (2008), 38-3 (2007), and 58-12 (2002) bludgeonings. Over the same period, Air Force has achieved a slightly more respectable 4-9 record against Navy, including overtime Navy victories in 2009 and 2012 and an overtime Air Force victory at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in 2011 aided by a taunting penalty that directly contributed to Navy missing an extra point. The two teams flat out don’t like each other. (I have several friends who work for the Naval Academy Athletic Association. One told me that while he roots for Army when it’s not playing Navy, he wants Air Force to lose every single game. Army and Navy are like two brothers who fight with each other but share a mutual love and respect; Navy and AIr Force, not so much.) So for football rather than pageantry, Navy’s rivalry with AIr Force is more compelling than the storied Army-Navy game.
The week leading up to Navy-Air Force week has its traditions, including pranks at the Naval Academy. A service academy being what it is, there are even regulations governing acceptable versus unacceptable pranks, the Capital reported. Among the prohibitions: no interrupting study hall; no pranks involving bodily fluids of any kind; and no food fights in King Hall. So instead of a food fight, this year some budding naval engineer transported a sailboat into the dining facility.
Pranks aren’t limited to the Academies’ grounds. I was on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where I walked by Senator John McCain’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building. While Senator McCain is one of the Naval Academy’s most celebrated alumni, there right beside his office door was a “Go Air Force! Beat Navy!” sign. The sign had been removed — no doubt with extreme prejudice — when I walked by on my way out of the building less than an hour later.
The week leading up to Saturday’s game featured rain followed by more rain. Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo speculated that the weather might work to Navy’s advantage. Precipitation usually moves Navy’s practices indoors to Halsey Field House, but during the week before Navy’s match with Air Force Coach Niumatalolo had his team practice in the rain. “We’re going to stay outdoors so we get accustomed to playing in the rain and handling wet footballs,” he explained before adding, “I hope it doesn’t rain in Colorado Springs. It’s hard to simulate rain.”
There was no need to simulate rain on game day; there was plenty of the real thing. Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium felt like a painting of a New England seascape come to life. The Gorton’s Fisherman would have felt at home in the stands. There cartainly would have been room for him. Even though the game was announced as a sellout, no more than about 3/4 of the seats were filled at any given time and by the game’s end, the fans who were left had a largely unobstructed view of the yellow seats spelling out “GO NAVY” in the upper deck. The rain also interfered with the pageantry, forcing the cancellation of the pregram flyover. Despite the weather, I stayed dry. My friend Marcus, a Navy officer, did not. I was layered in a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a raincoat, a ballcap, and a poncho. Marcus’s raingear consisted of a nylon jacket with a hood. I attribute our relative dampness by the game’s end to the different between Marine Corps and Navy training.
One of the traditions of a Navy home game is the march on by the Brigade of Midshipman. About 15 minutes before game time, roughly 4,000 midshipmen marched onto the field. The sight was a little less stirring due to the elements. Rather than rank after rank of young men and women in their bright dress whites, the dominant image on Saturday was 4,000 black raincoats over dress whites. (The Navy probably insists on describing the black raincoats as “Navy blue.”)
The POW exchange
While the Brigade of Midshipmen march on for every home game, a service academy game adds a wrinkle – a “POW exchange” during which midshipmen exchange students attending the Air Force Academy for the year march from the Air Force side to midfield while a group of cadet exchange students attending the Naval Academy for the year march from the Navy side. The Navy “POWs” had letters spelling “GONAVY” on the backs of their raincoats.
Another aspect of service academy games is the “spirit video.” The Army-Navy game features videos prepared by the academies and military units from around the world exhorting their Services’ team to prevail, a Navy-Air Force game includes only the home team’s videos — or at least it did before corporate sponsors took over the jumbotron. Navy-AIr Force games, on the other hand, offer only videos extolling the home team. Navy’s first spirit video was disappointingly serious, albeit impressive – film of the Naval Academy’s silent drill team displaying precision rifle handling not included in the standard manual of arms. A clever series of well-produced videos afterwards adopted a more jocular approach, with Air Force cadets with chairs strapped to their bottoms attempted to successfully complete Navy training. The cadets flailed and failed at a number of military training evolutions including sprints and close order drill. One hilarious segment involved a cadet whose chair leg broke when he fell off the pullup bar. Another showed a cadet entering a swimming pool with a mask over his face and the obligatory chair strapped to his butt. “But that didn’t go as planned,” observed the midshipman responsible for the cadets’ training. The cadets excelled at only one task: musical chairs. The tag line at the end: GO NAVY BEAT CHAIR FORCE. The seats for the Air Force cadets who traveled to the game from Colorado Springs were near the scoreboard showing the video; they didn’t look amused.
One odd feature of the game was an elaborate first down ritual in the stands. Each time Navy got a first down, an older gentlemen wearing a ballcap sprouting large blue and gold stuffed horns would leap sprightly from his seat, run over to the middle of our section, and perform a chant, complete with choreographed gestures, ending in a first down signal. By the end of the game, he had gone hoarse but the animation of his gestures was undiminished. It occurred to me that the ritual’s very elaborateness was probably a reflection of how rarely Navy gained first downs – much less scored – when that older gentlemen was a midshipman. My friend Marcus noted that “Mr. Ram,” as I had dubbed out section’s self-appointed cheerleader, as well as another gentlemen of about the same vintage provoked heated arguments with some other fans in the stands. It appeared that Mr. Ram and his cohort were attempting to enforce some bleacher code of conduct known only to them.
Midshipmen pumping them out after a touchdown
A Navy game also features pushups by many of the midshipmen — one pushup for each point every time Navy scored. So seven pushups after the first touchdown and extra point, fourteen pushups after the second touchdown and extra point — you get the idea. By the end of the game, the midshipmen had pumped out 132 pushups. Following Air Force’s two scores — a field goal and a touchdown with a two-point conversion — I didn’t notice any cadets doing pushups.
Another beloved Navy home game football tradition is the “I Believe” chant. At some point when a victory seems assured, a group of voices from within the Brigade of Midshipmen’s seating section will begin a chant with, “I.” Then more voices will joint in shouting, “I believe.” Still more will yell, “I believe that.” I’ve seen the chant fizzle when not enough midshipmen think a win is inevitable. But if there’s a consensus that Navy will prevail, the entire Brigade of Midshipmen will bounce up and down while erupting with repeated chants of “I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win!” The chant seemed to come late on Saturday; victory had been assured long before the mass frenzy started.
After the game, a treasured tradition is observed. The midshipmen and cadets are poignantly aware that while they are competing on the football field today, they will be risking their lives fighting wars together after they graduate and become Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force officers. This mutual respect is displayed when all of the players from both teams approach the losing side first and take off their helmets as the losing academy’s alma mater is sung. Then the whole group approaches the student body of the winning academy and the process is repeated. There’s a saying at Navy: win first, sing second. The singing this year started with the Air Force Academy’s alma mater – which, truth be told, sounds an awful lot like Navy’s. When the group of players moved to the Navy side of the field, the Brigade of Midshipmen again erupted in cheers before the entire stadium hushed as the band played and many in the stadium sang the first verse of the Navy Blue and Gold:
Now colleges from sea to sea
May sing of colors true,
But who has better right than we
To hoist a symbol hue?
For sailors brave in battle fair
Since fighting days of old,
Have proved the sailor’s right to wear
The Navy Blue & Gold.
Keenan Reynolds had put football first, so Navy got to sing second.
Week 4 featured two nights out in Downtown Annapolis. On Thursday night, my brother and I ate dinner at an Annapolis institution – Chick & Ruth’s Delly [sic] – before catching a performance of the Colonial Players’ Sherlock’s Last Case. On Saturday night, my wife and I had dinner at Joss before spending a couple of hours at the Annapolis Fringe Fest.
While some higher-priced restaurants may get more buzz, Chick & Ruth’s is the soul of Annapolis, just a bit less than halfway up Main Street from the City Dock. It has several claims to fame. It may be most renowned for its morning ritual: at 8:30 a.m. on weekdays and 9:30 a.m. over the weekend, the staff and customers reverently stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Chick & Ruth’s offers “colossal” food challenges, one of which was featured on the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food: one hour to down a six-pound “Colossal” milkshake and a pound-and-a-half “Colossal” sandwich or one-pound hamburger. But what most endears Chick & Ruth’s to me are its sandwiches named for Maryland elected officials past and present. So Maryland’s comptroller, Peter “Watch Dog” Franchot has a kosher hot dog with bologna, onion, and mustard named for him while the Greek salad bears Congressman John Sarbanes’ name. Chick & Ruth’s also has a friendly vibe that infuses both the wait staff and the customers. When I mentioned to my brother that I was considering whether to order a particular menu item, a customer at a nearby booth offered me their opinion of it.
Our current governor, Larry Hogan, is a favorite of the restaurant. An Anne Arundel County resident, Hogan was a regular even before moving into the big house up the street. Hogan was given the unusual honor of getting to name two menu items. For one, he asked that a sub be named “Hogan’s Hero.” He just liked the joke (as do I); he didn’t even care what was in it (answer: it’s an “Annapolis Cheese Steak” with American cheese and grilled onions). For the other, he asked that Chick & Ruth’s offer a concoction his daughter came up with – a combination of cream of crab soup and Maryland crab soup. Hence the menu item, Hogans [sic] Bipartisan Soup (punctuation and spelling just aren’t Chick & Ruth’s thing), which the menu describes as “MD Crab & Cream of Crab ‘Working Together.’” I ordered a bowl while my brother opted for the crab cake. The Bipartisan soup featured a dollop of cream of crab atop a far larger serving of Maryland crab soup. In this bipartisan mix, the Maryland crab soup must have represented the Democrats while the cream of crab represented the Republicans: Democrats hold a 2-1 voter registration in Maryland but, at least for now, a Republican is on top of the state government.
From Chick & Ruth’s, it was a short walk to the Colonial Players’ theater on East Street, near the foot of the hill that leads up to the State House. The Colonial Players are another Annapolis institution – now in their 67th season – but in the end considerably less satisfying than Chick & Ruth’s. The Players’ 180-seat theater in the round offers an intimate setting; many audience members actually walked through the Baker Street set when going to and from their seats. Having seen the Tony award winning best play on Broadway and a former Tony winner for best musical at the Kennedy Center recently, perhaps my points of comparison were too high. But I was fully prepared to offer a “local discount” to the Colonial Players’ production of Sherlock’s Last Case. Obviously a community theater can’t be held to the same standard as a Broadway or touring company production. But I didn’t expect the local discount to be quite so steep.
Part of the problem was the selection of the play. It wasn’t that it was too demanding for a community theater – it was just that it has a very troubled script. The program tells us that the play’s original script was written in just 14 days. I can only assume that roughly 13½ days were devoted to the first act while the second act was dashed off in a couple of hours. The first act is quite good and clever, with a delicious plot twist that caught me completely by surprise even though, in hindsight, the playwright had dropped some clues. The second act, however, was as bad as the first act was good. With the dramatic plot twist having already been revealed in the first act, the second act offers a retwist that somehow managed to be both ludicrous and obvious at the same time, followed by another poorly wrought third twist. The result is that what could have been a very good one-act play with a dark ending is diminished into something silly crowned by an alternate dark ending. The program did, however, include a couple of well-played inside jokes that became meaningful only after those retwists were revealed.
The script wasn’t the only problem. Fortunately the two lead actors – Jim Gallagher as Sherlock Holmes and Nick Beschen as Dr. Watson – were excellent, an adjective that can’t be applied to all of their cast mates. Two of the cast members’ British accents sounded distinctly Swedish. And one important prop in the second act was far too small to serve its intended purpose – a failing that merely magnified the script’s problems.
Two nights later, I was back in downtown Annapolis for dinner and entertainment, this time with my wife. This night’s destination: the Fringe Festival. First, we had dinner at Joss Cafe and Sushi Bar.
Our meal at Joss started with edamame with sea salt – which my wife enjoyed – and crab dumplings. The dumplings were the only disappointing part of the meal, with sticky rice dough overwhelming the crab meat’s flavor. The nigiri sushi, on the other hand, approached perfection. I had the maguro tuna. It felt like if I left it on my tongue, it would melt like a slab of butter. My wife had the kani. The presentation was exceptional. Tubes of rice wrapped in seaweed stood on the plate, with crabmeat bursting from the top like a floral bouquet. But I don’t have firsthand knowledge of whether it tastes as good as it looked. My wife is one of those “touch my food, feel my fork” (or, in this case, feel my chopsticks) types – she declined my entreaties to let me try her kani. (She’s an only child; enough said.) Having lived in Japan for a year, we are huge sushi fans. If there is a better sushi restaurant in Anne Arundel County, we have yet to find it. The wait staff was also attentive and engaging. And, just as at Chick & Ruth’s, diners at a neighboring table joined in our conversation at one point – is that an Annapolis thing?
Much later in the evening, I would be standing outside Annapolis Ice Cream Company with a friend. I remarked that I’d seen claims that Annapolis has more 18th century buildings than any other city in America, which I found surprising, thinking that Philadelphia or Boston would have more. (I’ve since seen the claim somewhat more limited as Annapolis having the most 18th century brick buildings of any city in America.) My friend mused about what the city’s 18th century residents would think if they could be brought back to life to stroll down Main Street today. He looked over at Joss and observed that they wouldn’t even know what “sushi” means. Then we noticed the Dry 85’s sign next door: “BOURBON│BEER│PROVISIONS.” At least they would recognize those words, though “bourbon” wasn’t used as the name of a kind of whiskey until the 19th Century; they would probably think it was some sort of reference to the French monarch.
But if a resurrected 18th Century Annapolitan would be confused by Main Street’s signage, what would he or she make of the events on West Street?
A Fringe Festival poster in Hermann Advertising’s window on West Street
The West Street block between Church Circle and Calvert Street is just 1/5 of a mile long. On this Saturday night, it was a 1/5 of a mile block party. But the Annapolis Fringe Festival, truth be told, didn’t feel all that fringey. The crowd – my wife and myself included – seemed pretty mainstream.
We had missed the festival’s opening, featuring a high heel race – in which many, if not most, of the contestants were men. We had also missed the Donald Trump piñata suspended over West Street. I have no idea whether it was whacked with sticks and, if so, what poured out of its engorged belly. But there were still plenty of entertainment left.
After scoping out the block from east to west, we went into the Annapolis Collection Gallery to buy the nominally priced block passes. The passes, it turned out, were strictly on an honor system – nothing stopped anyone without the passes from enjoying the entertainment on the street, though the performances inside the tents at 60 West Street and beside Stan and Joe’s did require tickets. In addition to serving as the festival’s ticket booth, the Annapolis Collection Gallery featured a sculptor – Rick Casali – carving a block of clay into the likeness of a gentleman sitting in front of him in the Gallery’s window. Right outside the Gallery, Jimi Haha was painting a huge portrait of Beethoven on a flatbed truck.
Dean Rosenthal performed Dylan covers on the Fringe Festival’s Center Piano Stage
In fact, music was being played and art was being created all up and down West Street – though I never really understood the point of having a Lincoln Town Car in the middle of the street for people to paint. Dean Rosenthal sang Bob Dylan covers and Redwine Gypsy Jazz featured clarinet solos. The biggest audience we saw was for a little kid rock band called Fast as Lightning performing in front of Hermann Advertising. By “little kid rock band,” I don’t mean something like the Wiggles – a band of adults playing songs for kids. I mean a band of 9- to 14-year-old kids playing adult rock. We caught the set’s final song – Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was originally released a decade before the band’s oldest member was born. The kids nailed it.
A decidedly unfringey act was identified in the program only as “Mens [sic] Choir,” a group of African American men singing gospel songs. They were extremely talented and drew a big audience even if their gospel lyrics seemed to clash with some of the other events on the street. Right next to them was a large inflatable pen in which two people raced against each other in giant hamster balls.
The hamster ball races were at one end of the Fringe Fest, at the corner of West Street and Church Circle
The last show we caught was the Eastport Oyster Boys performing right underneath where the Trump piñata had hung earlier in the evening. Tom Guay served as the band’s emcee. He began by announcing that a set of car keys had been found – and jokingly threatened to have the vehicle moved onto West Street to be painted like the Lincoln. The band then played a great set, though its start was marred by a scratchy sound system. They played Caribbean music, an Irish jig, and a rewrite of Bill Haley and the Comets’ Rock Around the Clock: Rock Around the Eastport Dock, complete with jabs at residents of Annapolis’s Ward 1. That Downtown Annapolis-Eastport rivalry runs deep, with DTA in the heart of Ward 1 and Eastport forming Ward 8. Before the Eastport Oyster Boys started the song, Guay asked whether anyone from Ward 1 was in the audience. When no one responded, he quipped, “I guess they’re all home watching Jeopardy – or whatever they do in Ward 1.” What the visitors from Ward 8 did was rock the street, with members of the crowd dancing in front of the small stage in the middle of West Street.
I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed a Fringe Festival that was true to its name; fortunately, this festival was more Fringe-Light. I’m not sure what our hypothetical 18th Century Annapolitan would have thought of it, but this 21st Century visitor whose cultural preferences were formed in the 20th Century found it to be a fun block party – though I regret not having raced in the giant hamster balls. I guess I’ll have to check out the 2016 Fringe Festival to see if I get another chance.
Elbridge Gerry served as the fifth Vice President of the United States. Yet he is better known for giving his name to the practice of constructing oddly shaped electoral districts to achieve a political end — gerrymandering.
Gerry was no stranger to Anne Arundel County; in fact, he participated in one of the most famous events in local history. On December 23, 1783 — in a well-choreographed ceremony designed to enshrine the American principle of civilian control of the military — General George Washington appeared before Congress to resign his commission. One of the congressional delegates who attended that ceremony in the Maryland State House’s old Senate chamber was Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
Gerry died in office as vice president and is buried in Washington, D.C.’s Congressional Cemetery. But his legacy lives on in Anne Arundel County.
Maryland is currently allocated eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The General Assembly finely tailored the state’s eight congressional districts in a successful attempt to ensure that seven of the eight districts would elect a Democratic member of the House of Representatives. To make the math work, Anne Arundel County was drawn and quartered, with its pieces flung into four of the state’s congressional districts. The result might be called GerrymANNEdering.
Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District
Take a look at Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District, in which I live. It looks like a pair of earmuffs, with one ear in Prince George’s County, one in Anne Arundel County, and a thin strip of land on the west side of I-95 connecting them. Maryland’s Third Congressional District, which also includes slices of Anne Arundel County, is even worse. Judge Niemeyer vividly described that district as resembling “a broken–wingedpterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the State.” Fletcher v. Lamone, 831 F.Supp.2d 887, 902 n.5 (D. Md. 2011) (3-judge panel), aff’d, 133 S. Ct. 29 (2012).
Today I experienced a stark demonstration of how just how disjointed the results are. I was trying to contact my Member of Congress, Rep. Donna Edwards, to ask her to do something — anything — to try to improve the abysmal service that has come to characterize WMATA. While I was sitting on a stalled Metro train, I had plenty of time to access Rep. Edwards’ website and write a long note. But when I tried to submit the comment, the website blocked it, telling me that my ZIP Code isn’t in Rep. Edwards’ congressional district. Yes; yes, it is.
When a Member of Congress can’t figure out who her constituents are, the concept of “representation,” as in “House of Representatives,” is diminished.
Governor Larry Hogan is supporting a reform effort to establish a nonpartisan commission to redraw Maryland’s congressional districts. While it’s a bit of a cliché, Hogan’s comment that Anne Arundel County was “carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey” in the last round of redistricting is a fitting cliché. If those slices are ever reassembled, perhaps not only will Anne Arundel County voters know who their representatives are, but those representatives will know who their voters are.
Annapolis, the locals like to say, is a drinking town with a sailing problem. Annapolis has several identities. As the state’s capital, it’s a government town, especially during the General Assembly’s 90-day session. It is a college town, though it doesn’t really feel like one. Neither the Naval Academy’s midshipmen nor the Johnnies lead typical college student lifestyles. Plus the midshipmen are literally walled off from the rest of the city for much of the week while the student body at St. John’s is actually smaller than that of the average Maryland middle school. Annapolis is certainly a sailing town, though Newport, San Diego, and other satlwater cities challenge its claim to being America’s Sailing Capital. Annapolis is also a Navy town, a dog town, and a tourism town. But whatever Annapolis is, this past Saturday my wife and I had a night on the town.
Rams Head On Stage is a concert venue attached to the Rams Head Tavern on Annapolis’s West Street. It’s an intimate venue of about 300 seats at tables for 2, 4, or 6. On September 19, the Capitol Steps were performing there. My political junkie wife and I would be in the audience.
Founded in 1981 by congressional staffers, the Capitol Steps offer political satire, largely in the form of parodies of Broadway tunes and light rock classics. While their home stage is at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.’s Federal Triangle, the comedy company sends out touring teams, like the one we saw on Saturday. Their name is a tip of the hat to an incident involving former Congressman John Jenrette. To the extent he’s remembered at all, Jenrette has two claims to infamy: (1) he was convicted for taking a bribe during the FBI’s Abscam sting operation; and (2) his then-wife Rita Jenrette was featured in a 1981 Playboy issue in which she revealed (in addition to her body) that she and her husband had sex behind a pillar on the Capitol Steps during a break in an all-night session of the House of Representatives.
Five members of the comedy troop plus one hard-working pianist delivered the Rams Head performance. While the State House dome is visible from the Rams Head’s front door, there were no jokes about Maryland politics thrown into the mix – perhaps because there are no tales of legislators copulating on the State House steps. But the lack of local humor proved to be only a slight disappointment as the cast delivered 95 straight minutes of high-energy comedy.
The first two jokes were based on current news – an announcement that, in case of an emergency, the audience should wait for Congress to reach agreement on how to evacuate followed by a warning that anyone whose cellphone rings will be given a clock and sent to high school in Texas.
The cast then took the stage with a song parodying the voluminous field of Republican presidential candidates – “76 Unknowns” to the tune of the Musica Man’s “76 Trombones.” A Donald Trump impersonator was the least polished performance of the show, with the cast member pulling out notes as he sang “You’re All Losers” to the tune of the Beatles’ “I’m a Loser.” The Trump jokes, which were obviously a recent addition, didn’t have the same polish as most of the show’s other comedy. The Barack Obama impersonator had some of the best lines, including a reference to 5 million immigrants doing stuff other Americans won’t do – “like vote for Democrats.” The biggest laughs of the night may have gone to the Vladimir Putin impersonator’s stage patter that preceded his song “Putin on a Blitz” to the tune of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Another crowd favorite was the George W. Bush impersonator, observing that the Supreme Court’s recent gay marriage decision was a victory for the “BLT” community.
My favorite performances were, of all things, a pair of parodies sung to Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes. One was an Obamacare website fiasco song to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar’s “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”: “I Don’t Know How to Log On.” The other was Pope Francis singing an Evita-inspired, “Don’t Cry for Me I’m From Argentina,” during which he held a note for a miraculously long time. The show concluded with a fast-paced review of news items from the Capitol Steps’ 34-year-history in “We Didn’t Start Satire” to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
West Street was crowded as the audience flowed from the venue onto the sidewalk. At least on a warm September Saturday night, Annapolis was an entertainment town. We’ll see whether it can maintain that status come February. It certainly won’t feel like a sailing town then.
Anne Arundel County’s calendar is generously sprinkled with fests and festivals. There’s the First Sunday Arts Festival, the Arts @ the Park Arts Festival, the Art in Action Street Festival, ArtFest, and the Annapolis Arts Crafts & Wine Festival. There’s the Fall Craft Festival and the Fall Harvest Festival. There’s Rocktoberfest and Annapolis Octoberfest, not be be confused with West Annapolis Oktoberfest held the following day or the more idiosyncratic Oktubafest held on October 17 at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold. The Captain Avery Museum hosts an Oyster Festival while the Benson-Hammond House hosts a Strawberry Festival, which I hope includes an homage to Captain Queeg. There’s the Annapolis Fringe Festival and the Annapolis Film Festival, the Annapolis Greek Festival and the Annapolis Irish Festival – which is actually held in Crownsville.
On Saturday, September 12 alone, Anne Arundel County hosted at least six fests and festivals: the Maryland Renaissance Festival, the National Treaty of Paris Festival, the Maryland Seafood Festival, the Rose Play Festival, the Annapolis Craft Beer and Music Festival, and SustainaFest, featuring a student-built Tiny House. Or at least Anne Arundel County was supposed to host six festivals. In the midst of an unusually dry summer, on Saturday heavy precipitation blew through every couple of hours like a soggy Acela. The county should have hosted a Rainfest. Before the day was over, I would attend two of the six scheduled festivals, so I can attest that at least some of the events proceeded more or less as planned.
The Chesapeake Steel Drum Band performs to almost no one at the Maryland Seafood Festival
Just as the morning’s showers were ending around 11:30, I set off for Sandy Point State Park and the Maryland Seafood Festival. While this is the 48th Maryland Seafood Festival, it was my first, I was amused by the festival’s slogan – “Savor the Bay” – which seemed like a clever play on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s “Save the Bay” motto. And I was particularly looking forward to the Crab Soup Cook-Off and a crab cake eating competition, all of which I planned to attend before heading to the National Treaty of Paris Festival in the evening. But the seafood festival turned out to be insufficiently festive to stay that long.
When I arrived at Sandy Point State Park, the Chesapeake Steel Drum Band was playing Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” followed by the Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman.” I’ve always enjoyed steel drums, a musical instrument that traces its roots to surplus 55-gallon oil barrels in Trinidad. The steel drum is a bit of an anomaly – a percussion instrument that produces melody instead of rhythm. The notes the steel drum plays are particularly sonorous, with a lingering spectral echo. Still, the band’s performance failed to draw me in, even with the visually arresting backdrop of the Bay Bridge stretched out behind the stage. Maybe it was the song selection. There’s no law that steel drum bands have to play reggae and I’ll give them a pass on Morrison, but a 43-year-old swamp rock tune? Maybe it was the arrangement, with a drummer playing rhythm on a standard drum kit at times overpowering the band’s seven steel drum players. Almost certainly, it was the audience, which wasn’t large enough for a decent pickup basketball game. Rows and rows of folding chairs sat empty except for small puddles of rain pooled on their white plastic seats.
The Irish have a wonderful term for the electric feeling of a successful social event: the “craic.” (Being an Irish word, “craic” isn’t allowed to be pronounced as it’s spelled or spelled as it’s pronounced; it sounds just like “crack.”) The Maryland Seafood Festival’s sodden music venue was the anti-craic.
Taster cups of Pit Boys’ Maryland crab soup at the Capital’s Crab Soup Cook-Off
It was a short walk from the stage to the tent hosting the Capital’s Crab Soup Cook-Off. Another $10 on top of the $10 gate price (plus $10 to park at Sandy Point State Park or $5 to park off-site and be bussed to the Park) bought you admission to the tent, a plastic spoon, and three marbles. The marbles were used to cast ballots for the best cream of crab soup (the most heavily contested category), Maryland (or vegetable) crab soup, and alternative crab soup.
The tent was crowded when I first arrived. It came oh-so-close to obtaining the craic when some of the restaurants began running out of samples to taste and the crowd started to dissipate. Running out of soup may have cost the Federal House Bar & Grille the People’s Choice award in the cream of crab category. Theirs was easily the best – not too thick with generous portions of lump crab meat and a hint a sherry. It won the Judges’ Choice award, but couldn’t compete for People’s Choice votes during the second half of the event because they had no soup for you – or for anyone – by that point. The Doubletree Hotels’ Ports of Call restaurant won the People’s Choice cream of crab award, with a potent swig of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry poured right from the bottle into the taster cup as it was handed to each patron. The Harvey’s may have been just the right lubricant to get marbles to roll into Ports of Call’s ballot box.
The People’s Choice and Judges’ Choice awards diverged in the other two categories as well. Baltimore’s Costas Inn won the Judges’ award for best Maryland crab soup, while the People’s Choice award went to perennial winner Superior Catering by M&M of Linthicum. The judges gave the best alternative award to Skipper’s Pier Restaurant & Dock Bar in Deale for their exceptional crab bouillabaisse, served with a baked baguette round topped with rockfish and clam, managing to pack both Maryland’s official state fish and state crustacean into one small taster cup. The result was worthy of an Iron Chef competition. The People’s Choice alternative winner – Nestlé’s Minor’s division, which sells ingredients to restaurants – was also excellent. Their sweet potato and crab bisque featured coconut milk as a prominent ingredient, giving the bisque a subtle taste that didn’t overwhelm the crab flavor while providing a smooth mouth feel.
I didn’t learn of the cook-off voting scandal until long after I left the seafood festival. The marble ballots for the People’s Choice awards were measured by weight. After the winners had been announced, the Capital later reporter, volunteers discovered ballot box stuffing: they found two oversized, heavy marbles among the regulation marbles that had been used for the voting. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t make clear whether the unauthorized marbles were in one or two ballot boxes or whose ballot box or boxes they were found in, though the article indicates they had not been cast for one of the ultimate winners. When you can ply the voters with Harvey’s Bristol Cream, you don’t need to stuff the ballot box.
Everything after the cook-off was anti-climatic. Before the cook-off’s winners were announced, I roamed through the festival grounds. An “Annapolis Crab Derby Race” still hadn’t started 15 minutes after the scheduled post-time. The rain was better at keeping its schedule, redampening the ground two hours after the previous showers ended.
AJ Smith and his laconic bass player,Lloyd Kikoler, performing an awesome indie-pop set at the Maryland Seafood Festival
I wandered back to the stage, where AJ Smith and the Apollo – complete with de rigueur laconic bass player in addition to a keyboard player and drummer – were pumping out an awesome indie-rock set to almost no one. As Smith and his band finished with his pop anthem for his home borough – “Brooklyn Nights” – I felt embarrassed that my adopted hometown couldn’t muster more than a smattering of spectators for such a talented musician. Smith somehow managed to deliver a high energy performance despite the absence of an appreciative audience – or any real audience at all. To add insult to injury, the festival’s schedule misspelled his band’s name. How hard is it to spell Apollo? Did I mention that I’m embarrassed?
After the Crab Soup Cook-Off awards and an excellent skewer of scallops grilled by one of the many seafood stands on the festival’s grounds, I returned to the stage area where a much larger audience than had turned out for either of the bands awaited a corn-on-the-cob eating competition. Watching the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN (no, it’s not a sport) has become a Fourth of July ritual for my family but I had never seen a competitive eating contest in person. Eight competitors took the stage to see who could eat the most corn on the cob in two minutes. While the winner was James Page, a gregarious gentleman from Bowie in a USMC t-shirt and Redskins ball cap, media outlets from New York to Kentucky actually provided coverage of the woman sitting next to him – Mandy Kadlec – for her zestful corn-eating technique.
After walking down the beach to get a closer look at the Sandy Point Shoal Lighthouse – and with more than an hour to go before the crab cake eating contest – I decided to abandon the festival just as plump raindrops started to pummel the park.
The second stop of my September 12 festival hopping was the National Treaty of Paris Festival — which sounds a bit grandious. I mean, are there regional Treaty of Paris Festivals?
For about 8½ months from 1784 to 1784, Annapolis served as the nation’s capital. Congress sat is what is now the State House’s Old Senate Chamber. There, two significant events occurred: Washington resigned his commission on December 23, 1783 and Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Revolutionary War, on January 14, 1784 (though British ratification wouldn’t occur until April 9, 1784).
Before attending the festival in that treaty’s honor, I picked up my friend Phil and we stopped for dinner at Stan and Joe’s on West Street. When in Rome, eat as the Romans do. Phil, a visitor from Alexandria, understandably wanted seafood during his jaunt to Annapolis. We didn’t have an abundance of time before we were due at St. John’s College’s Francis Scott Key Auditorium. Stan and Joe’s was a perfect solution. Earlier in the day, I had tried taster cups of Stan and Joe’s Maryland crab soup and cream of crab soup at the Capital‘s Crab Soup Cook-Off. My one-word review from a soup-stained page of notes from the Cook-Off: “meh.” But Phil enjoyed his crab cake and we both enjoyed our beers. Phil ordered a draft Raging Bitch IPA brewed by Frederick, Maryland’s Flying Dog Brewery, which applies canine-related appellations to many of its beers (“Doggie Style Pale Ale,” “Double Dog Double IPA,” “Dogtoberfest Marzen” – you get the idea). Or at least Phil kind of ordered a Raging Bitch. He actually just ordered a draft “IPA,” leading Erin, our congenial waitress, to assure him, “That’s alright, hon, you can say ‘Raging Bitch’ to me.”
On to the National Treaty of Paris Festival, which I will dub the NTo’PF for ease of typing. Events had been going on all day, including lectures and movies at the Maryland Inn and carriage tours of historic Annapolis – assuming the horse wasn’t washed away in one of the day’s squalls. For the festival’s event event, around 70 people were gathered in the Key Auditorium; 70 also appeared to be the average age of the attendees.
The evening event had two parts. First was a lecture by Rand Scholet, a former IBM consultant and Dale Carnegie instructor who has created an “Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society,” followed by Christopher Lowell in the guise of Benjamin Franklin. Scholet was an engaging speaker; it was mentioned before and after his presentation that he used to be a motivational speaker – though he never once referred to living in a van down by the river. But the content of his PowerPoint-aided presentation was out of synch with both the contemporary zeitgeist and the audience. Who is now the nation’s hippest Founding Father? That would be one Alexander Hamilton, the subject of a hip hop Broadway musical that has wowed the critics and attracted huge audiences, including President Obama and the First Daughters. Obama told Jon Stewart it was “phenomenal” – it doesn’t get much hipper than that. Sure there’s a move underway to take Hamilton off the $10 bill. But that is leading to Hamilton being further extolled as he’s compared to the $20 bill’s Andrew Jackson. That p.r. duel is likely to end better for Hamilton than did his actual duel at Weehawken.
Yet, despite the buzz and adulation Hamilton is currently receiving, the point of Scholet’s lecture is that Hamilton’s role as what he characterizes as George Washington’s most important collaborator is underappreciated. September 2015 isn’t the right time for a Hamilton-isn’t-getting-his-due lecture. Nor was the presentation particularly well-suited to the audience. Anyone who chooses to spend a Saturday night at a Treaty of Paris Festival is probably smarter than the average bear when it comes to American history. So Scholet’s supposedly surprising facts about Hamilton likely surprised no one. At the end of his presentation, he also whiffed on a sophisticated question by someone who was probably a history professor concerning Scholet’s methodology for a particular taxonomy he offered.
Christopher Lowell as Benjamin Franklin at the National Treaty of Paris Festival
Far more successful was Christopher Lowell’s portrayal of the man on the $100 bill. Speaking as Franklin himself, Lowell engagingly described Franklin’s successful diplomatic mission to France without which there would have been no Treaty of Paris. Without France’s assistance, which Franklin was instrumental in obtaining, there would have been mere vanquished colonies with no separate nation for Brtiain to enter into a treaty with.
After the presentations, Phil and I adjourned to the Treaty of Paris restaurant’s Drummer’s Lot Pub. We assumed it would be full of NTo’PF patrons. Instead, we found it bereft of customers. After a quick – and quiet – round there, we traipsed up to Church Circle and down the stairs into Reynold’s Tavern’s basement, home of the far livelier 1747 Pub. Like the Maryland Inn, Reynold’s Tavern was already in business when the Treaty of Paris was ratified, though at the time the basement was a kitchen and hat shop. Back then, the drinking was done upstairs at the “Beaver and Lac’d Hat.” It’s possible that either Hamilton or Franklin — both of whom spent time in Annapolis, though Hamilton’s visits were far more historically significant than Franklin’s — might have enjoyed a pint there. (The Federal House, winner of the Judges’ Choice award for cream of crab soup at the Capital‘s Crab Soup Cook-Off, is a relative newcomer, having opened in 1830.) Despite the 1747 Pub’s historic pedigree, there appeared to be on one there from the NTo’PF; the septuagenarians must not be a late-night crowd. Maybe they were heeding Benjamin Franklin’s “early to bed” aphorims. Phil and I did not, continuing our pub crawl to West Street’s Rams Head Tavern after our round at the 1747 Pub.
The day belonged to Benjamin Franklin — Lowell’s interpretation of Franklin was the highlight of the festivals. Yet the day seemed the antithesis of Franklin’s aphorisms. For example, Franklin is credited with saying, “Eat to live, and not live to eat” — hardly an apt epigram for the day of the Maryland Seafood Festival. With a little editing, one Franklin observation can be rendered apt for the day. In a 1779 letter to André Morellet, Franklkn wrote, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” Rain plays a similar same role with barley and hops.
County Seat: An Anne Arundel Blog 