Report from the Blue Line

We didn't play today and I had a day off from work. Since Coach said we didn't have to show up at Kettler until Monday, I spent my day chilling. I thought I would interview my fans and head out on the streets and see if I could find any bandwagon Caps fans and get their thoughts. I was headed up the hill to Boston Market when I ran into a young Caps fan wearing a Mike Green jersey. I thought to myself here's a real hockey fan, so I thought I would do an interview to get an idea of what people really thought about the Caps. I forgot my digital recorder so the conversation below is a rough transcription.

Me: Rock the Red.

Fan: Whuh?

Me: I see you're wearing a Mike Green jersey. Are you a fan?

Fan: Of Mike Green? No. I'm wearing this because I lost a bet.

Me: What was the bet?

Fan: I bet my friend Mike Green was the worst defenseman in the league.

Me: What kind of a bet is that?

Fan: Well, she's a Sabres fan and she likes pretty boys. She wanted Mike Green to play for Buffalo this season and I said no, as much as I hate the Sabres, you don't want Mike Green on your team, he's the worst defeseman in the league.

Me: Who in the right mind is a Sabres fan?

Fan: I know, right? Anyway she was all like Mike Green is awesome and I was all like no he is not and she was all like I bet you he's better than Tyler Myers and I was like he is so not, but turns out he is and so I have to wear this stupid jersey.

Me: The jersey is not stupid. You're stupid.

Fan: Whuh? What's your problem?

Me: Do you know who I am?

Fan: Mike Green's boyfriend?

Me: No. I'm Mike Green you idiot.

Fan: Well this is akward.

Me: What's your name asshole?

Fan: My name is Andrew.

Me: Well, what do you know about hockey Andrew?

Andrew: Well, I know you can't play it.

Me: Can you play?

Andrew: No.

Me: Well then, what's with the attitude?

Andrew: It is Summers Restaurant and Sports Grill.

Me: What about it? Its just up the hill from me but I've only heard bad things about it.

Andrew: It is not that bad.

Me: I hear they don't have salsa dancing.

Andrew: Do you know why don't they have Salsa dancing at Summers?

Me: What do you need Salsa dancing for?

Andrew: Salsa-dancing is now the number one preoccupation of Summers patrons. Do you know why Summers patrons like salsa dancing? Because the trivia nights sucked and becuase the karaoke sucked and because Joe can't keep the Red Room staffed on a regular schedule.

Me: You know, it must be impossible for someone to get service in the Red Room and not go Salsa dancing. I wanted service, not salsa dancing.

Andrew: Do you know the difference between service and salsa? You have the salsa after the service. Of course Mean Joe Green stopped offering salsa and apparently he stopped offering service becuase it takes an eternity to get service in the Red Room.

Me: Why do you even go there then?

Andrew: I don't know.

And that was my day. Arlington is kind of lame and I think I should get a place in Great Falls.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

As a result, I'm cheering for the Trojans tonight and seeing Red rather than going Green in the Red Room.

MSG = Mono Sodium Good God Learn How to Pronounce Players' Names

Is it just me or do the commentators on MSG not know anything about the Queen's English or about hockey in general? Seriously, I sounded better in my Geico commercial than these goombas do. Quebec is no part of my Canada, but it is still pronounced Canadiens, not Canadians. Perhaps you should worry less about Amare Stoudamaire coming to New York than Andre Kostichin and Tomas Plikanix because nobody cares about basketball.

Sabres Surprisingly Suck So Significantly Someone Snapped

Maybe I'm just pissed off because I can't play defense and we lost our game tonight because I can't figure out how to throw a body check, but I've only found one good thing to ever come out of Buffalo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiehzeAku1M

Semper Fi

Major shout out to anyone running the Marine Corps Marathon. Don't forget to stop by Summers for a beer after the race. Super shout out to anyone in the Marine Corps. I'm a door and protect tree huggers from the Red Room, but Marines help protect our country. Thank you.

Summers' Vacuum Rankings - Week of October 25

We're an equal opportunity offender, so the rankings are in no particular order.

1. Caps Fans - You win a game and they come out of the woodwork and clog up the sidewalks, and crowd the metro trains and don't stay to the right on the metro escalators.

2. Canadians - Enough with the fake accents. So what if the mouse ran in the house turned about and ran back out? Please just stop talking.

3. Trivia - Question 1: Who's not going to get the Grand Prize we offered? Answer: You. Anyone is also an acceptable answer.

4. Red Room Service - The Red Room is a misnomer, but if you're going to keep God's gift to the service industry open, you might want to staff it with someone, and someone other than God's regift to the service industry in the form of a shrink-wrapped Mya would be a good idea.

5. Red Room Carpet - I got new shoes last weekend. One of them is still stuck to the carpet in the Red Room. If you can lay down some new flooring, get some new carpet.

6. Oregon - *YAWN*. Oregon is boregon.

7. Mike Green - Less preening, more playing.

8. Agent 0 - I've never faked a hangover to get out of work, why are you faking an injury?

9. Daniel Snyder - You've done more to ruin fun in Washington than Joe has.

10. Sliders - Just because they're small doesn't mean they don't taste like ass.

Keep Fear Alive!

Don't come in here. This is the Red Room. It is full of smoke. There are people using dirty words. There are dirty people. Some people are drinking beer. Mya often works back here. There are a lot of Canadians inside. This is where they try to sing karaoke. The carpet is sticky and I don't know why. The bathroom doesn't lock. You'll have to wait forever for a beer. You won't get to watch your hockey game. It is half red and half green and looks like Santa vomited on the wall.

I'm Summers New Door. Do your part to Keep Fear Alive.

Hasta la Proxima

From one Washington icon to another, hasta la Proxima Jaime Moreno. Mi casa es sua casa. You were a credit to the sport of soccer in this country and to DC United. If I wasn't chained to the wall with the door hinges, I would have saluted you with the Barra Brava at your last game.

Remember the Maine!

I love hockey as much as the next person, but college hockey?

I was sitting in the Red Room on what would otherwise be expected to be a dreary Friday night when in walked a chowdahead from Maine. I'm pretty sure the guy was a perv hopped up on crack but he claimed his "nephew" was playing for the University of Maine. It was the kind of bullshit story that was odd enough to make you think, why would he lie about that of all things?

Anyway, when the pucked dropped he was yelling at the television like Scott Cote spewing out epithets because Mariano Rivera threw one high and inside to David Ortiz.

I appreciate that there are still individuals like him that take sports so seriously that they yell at the television in a public place like Summers, but this is the Red Room. We are a higher class of bar clientele and we don't raise our voices and we don't yell at televisions.

And serisouly, it was a game between Maine and North Dakota, two places I'm pretty sure don't even really exist. And I wish this loud-mouth spaz would go there.

Boston Ruin

I hate Zedno Chara. He is 8 feet tall and he plays worse denfence than I do. Granted, I've been injured for the entire season, but that's only because I decided to play hockey this season (I know! But We're going to win the Stanley Cup this year) and I body-checked people and as a result my body is sore because I acutally played my position.

Summers' Dirt Devil Rankings - Day of October, 20

Because you suck, but you suck don't suck that much.

1. Oregon Ducks - Seriously. Play a real team and then I'll think about putting you in the BCS.

2. Bobbleheads - Worse than Canadians. And SO patronizing. Always nodding their heads like they totally agree with you then saying or doing nothing when you ask for their support.

3. Wizards Bandwagon fans - The number one pick in the draft means jack sh!t. How soon we forget Kwame Brown. I'm a native Washingtonian but your overwhelming optimism in how totally awesome our sports teams are is unsettling. Wake up and smell the coffee.

4. Decaf Coffee - WTF?

5. Trivia Nights - Seriously. I know nothing. Stop treating me like a Mensa candidate.

6. Professional Wresting - It is total bullshit.

7. Red Room - Its still half green.

8. UEFA Champions League Soccer - Great. Big Fish in a little pond. Who cares about soccer?

9. Futbol - It spelled "football".

10. Mya - She'll bring me beer. Eventually. This year some time. I think.

Summers' Vacuum Rankings - Week of October, 17

Why develop a great idea when you can steal one? This is a list of things that suck.

1. Hockey coverage - I know its the baseball playoffs and its football season, but how hard is it to get a hockey game on a television at Summers? Baseball sucks and its boring. Football is better, but you're not allowed to hit guys like you are in hockey.

2. Caps fans - I couldn't get a parking spot in Arlington there were so many bandwagons. Its dangerous too with so many people jumping on and off the Caps bandwagon.

3. Philadelphia - I know this isn't strickly Summers-related but I hate Phillies phans and Flyers fans and I see plenty of them trying to park their own bandwagons outside Summers.

4. Red Room Service - If you're going to keep the Red Room open, Rock the Fucking Red. The flow of alcohol should be non-stop like the flow of brilliant conversation is. Stop pulling the goalie and put somone in the crease full-time and give me my damn beer. I shouldn't have to wait.

5. Red Room Bathroom - Seriously. No lock? Enough said.

6. Karaoke - Nobody here can sing.

7. Summers New Door - You're not new anymore. Get over it.

8. Moldy Tiles - I know beer and cigarettes and Summers food are bigger heakth risks, but every time I mistakenly glance upwards at the ceiling tiles, I throw up in my mouth a little.

9. Golden Tee - I know its not there any more and that's what sucks.

10 . Canadians - Seriously. Talk too much and think they know everything.

The Mike Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy

Knows I'm just a country boy from Calgary, Alberta but I still don't get the local fascination with the Washington Redskins. We've been the best sports team in DC for the last, oh I don't know whenever I showed up in town, several years and we've been to the playoffs the last couple of years and we have the two greatest players in the game (me & Sascha) and still we get no love. All every all-knowing sportscasters talk about is how awesome the Redskins are.

We kick ass and take names and win games and Donovan McNabb comes in, throws a couple of interceptions, loses the games and get all the headlines.

Not that I want all the headlines, but seriously, prove yourself first. Win me a few games or get me to the playoffs, and then I'll consider friending you on Facebook.

Dazed and Confused

What is it about watching football in public that turns people into idiots? I was in CVS after the early NFL games and I felt like I was in a remake of Night of the Living Dead as I tried to dodge flesh-eating undead creatures while I tried to buy deoderant. I hadn't showered since Friday morning before work but the smell of their rotting flesh was more offensive.

I saw countless slack-jawed glassy-eyed dazed & confused automatons in footballs jerseys wandering the aisles of CVS as they tried to find that one item on sale that would fill the hole in their heart after their team lost the game because their rookie quarterback forgot how to throw a football after he signed his mega-long-term contract or as they tried to find the sustinence to fill the bottomless pit that was their stomach but is now the center for their desire for human flesh.

To save the human race, go straight home after the game if you watch football in public.

What the Duck?

I don't watch a lot of college football because I'm a door and I don't have eyes and I can't even see any of the televisions from my spot in the hallway, but how the H-E-Double-hockey-sticks did Oregon end up as the number one team in college football?

One is the Lonliest Number

Where have all the good bartenders gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the good bartenders gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the good bartenders gone?
I think Summers still has at least one
When will Joe ever learn?
When will Joe ever learn?

Coming Around, Rogue Leader. Activate Harpoon.

I was thinking about activating my harpoon and starting a rogue Summers New Door Facebook fan page but I don't want Joe to remove my door stop and drag me out by my non mortis door hinges and ship me back to Slovenia because I am not toeing the company line.

Report from the Blue Line

I heard a rumor that Facebook was charging Summers Restaurant & Sports Bar $90 a month for a free Facebook page. I've never been to Summers so I can't really comment on the clientelle or the ownership, but that shit is fucked up. One of the major keys to Facebook's success is that it is free for users.

On the other hand, if you are stupid enough to pay for a free service, you shouldn't own a business in the first place. You're probably the same small business owner paying for free advertising. Or the same person making patrons pay for free chips & salsa. Which were never technically free because you actually had to ask for them, and that "free" promotion lasted about a week.

Serioulsy, if you're going to try and draw patrons in to your bar, don't draw them in and then shove a cold javelin up their ass. You can't keep screwing with your customers like that.

That's why I hang out at Cafe Asia.

Summers’ Power Rankings – week of Oct. 10, 2010

Back for the first time by no particular demand, but everyone else is doing it so I'm just trying to set an example.

1. Carrie.  Behold the miracle of life! She delivered her son an astonishing 8-12 weeks early, on the most auspicious date of the year (10/10/10).  By the way, I know what you’re thinkin’ but he ain’t brown.  We just left him in the incubator too long.

2. Shawn.  He might forget a couple things here and there, like important corporate passwords and the fact that there have been customers sitting unattended in the Red Room for 25 minutes, but he’s way too responsible to let fatherhood interfere with restaurant management.  

3. Bandwagoners.  Behold the miracle of October!  You can almost taste the buzz in the atmosphere as sport fans brave the harsh autumn chill to celebrate Ray Holliday’s pinch-hitter and Art Green’s campaign to defend his Mike Ross Trophy from all those Semin.  GOOOLLLLL!  Bring me my Glitter Fist!  And fill it with your finest grog, good sir - I've got an axe throwing and a log whacking after I punt this leathery orb through the wickets!

4.  Rogue Summers-related websites.  Who would have guessed a little well-directed satire could cause such a kerfuffle in the Joe-o-sphere?  Certainly not anyone who wouldn't recognize the sarcasm in that question!

5. Extended Happy Hour.  8 is Great!  It also happens to be a long-held standard among the more customer-friendly establishments around town.  But it is encouraging news, and opens the door for all kinds of innovation.  Hell, who knows - five years from now we could be finishing off that Peroni keg while watching an HDTV!  Dare to dream.

Others receiving votes: Oregon Ducks (#2 AP and USA Today); Ottawa Senators (0-2, but if you drink enough Molson Canadian to make your eyes cross it looks like 2-0); and Sidney Crosby (he’s not crying, he’s allergic to how bad everyone else sucks).

Mike Green with Envy

I am green with envy that the Leafs are rocking the red and blue lines and are the red hottest team in the NHL.

This was the view from the top of the Caps bandwagon as it traveled down H street and just for the record I was only on the bandwagon because bandwagon Caps fans saw my red jersey and just assumed I was a Caps fan because they don't know any better and I had to hitch a ride because the Metro wasn't running because the WMATA in all of its infinite wisdom decided to close stations between Foggy Bottom and Metro Center on a holiday weekend with major events downtown and college students returning to GW & AU and people returning from holiday travel, but luckily enough I have Caps bandwagon fans as friends, let's call them Keno and Priss, who were able to save me a seat on the Caps bandwagon as it sped through downtown.

Open Sesame

I open myself and all other Summers doors to all soccer fans regardless of race, creed or color but I am definitely cheering for the United State in their game against Colombia tonight.

A Battle of Nation's Capitals

We won, you lost. Our nation rules, your nation sucks. Do they even know how to play hockey in Canada?


via tweetdeck from the caps locker room

Another Brick in the Red Room Wall (Part 2)

Joe, we don't need no education
Joe, we don't need your thought control
No dark sarcasm in the Red room
Joe, leave those kids alone!
All in all, its just another brick in the Red Room wall
All in all Joe, you're just another brick in the Red Room wall.

Wrong, make my Russian Trachcan again!
If you don't eat your 1/2 price burger, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

Rock the Red Room

Caps and DC United play at home tonight, how awesome it that?

Great Day in Harlemington

It was such a great day in Arlington today that I almost didn't show up for work but I'm attached to these god-awful walls by a couple of hinges and so I can't sit outside the Arlington County building just snoozing in the sun like some other people I know who left work early and wanted to go see The Social Network but forgot that that the movie is playing at Ballston not Courthouse even though I typed out a message on my new Blackberry Storm by using my door stop to its fullest advantage so its your own damn fault that you wasted your entire afternoon but I have no sympathy for you because I was stuck indoors all day because you know I am a door and people need to recognize but they dont because kids these days don't even know what Arlington used to be like back in the day when people actually opened doors for other people.

Personal Guarantee

I am giving my personal guarantee to everyone who rocks the red (or the red room) that the Caps will win the Stanley Cup this year.

Flyers Fans Fake Friendship

I hereby announce a Red Room ban on all Philadelphia Flyers fans. Dammit you dirty bastards, hockey season hasn't even started yet, and I'm already hating. I blame Chris Pronger. That guy is a dirty Darcy Tucker, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.

Whether they're running around with their sparkly fists or Flyers Flags or with the worst haircuts in the NHL since Jaromir Jagr (yeah, I hate you too Scott Hartnell), they're loud and annoying and not welcome anywhere, especially the Red Room.

The Red Room is Rock the Red territory.

Which means Daniel Briere isn't welcome either (yeah, I hate you too Daniel Briere) because he's the biggest cry baby in professional sports since Albert Haynesworth.

Anyone wearing orange will be promptly escorted out by Sonny.

Captain's Log, supplemental

It is fall. The cold is coming. The pumpkin spice everythings are here. My apathy has left me unprepared for this weather, as I only have two pairs of pants and no patience to go shopping. Frak. Everyone has their crosses to bear.

Break On Through (To The Other Bar)

You know that Joe destroys the night
Night is no different from the day
Patrons try to run
Patrons try to hide
Break on through to the other side
Cross the street to the other side
Break on through and go to another bar, yeah

We chased our pleasures here
Waited for our beers there
But you can still recall
The time we cried
Break on through to the other side
Let a better bartender be your guide

The Great 8 is the Great Wait

I'm sure the Caps are a decent hockey team, but what does it matter how you well you do during the regular season?

Football Jersey Shore

Is it just me or does a football jersey automatically raise the decibel level on a person's indoor voice? And why does wearing a football jersey make someone dumber than Pauly D? Granted I was in the Red Room halfway through the 4:00 clock games today and all the jersey shore sopranos wannabe goombas watching the Jets game and talking about the Mets and the Yankees has been drinking since 11:15 when they called their bookies to place a 2 grand Burlington Bertie on the Buffalo Bills so they had been drinking for hours and were too drunk to remember the difference between inside voice and outside voice, but NYC is so BFD and OMG WTF?

And why are so many football fans metrosexuals? I saw more exfoliated pores and more hair product and smelled more Axe body spray in the Red room today than I did the day it was painted red by the out of work tunesmiths in Colour Me Badd.

You wouldn't catch hair product on a hockey fan.

Unless that hockey fan was Darcy Tucker, Mother [radio edit]. Enjoy retirement A-hole.

How do you spell bandwagon?

C-A-P-S, CAPS, CAPS, CAPS. I haven't seen so many bandwagon fans since the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.

Bull S

So I'm watching the Stanford-Boregon game at home because I am afraid to go to Summers because there will be so many Oregon people in the Red Room and they are are so loud and have such a good time and that's creepy because when I have a good time I like to be quiet, but the game is on the big screen and once again I am appalled by the supercilious snootiness of Stanford.

The Standford Cardinal.

I call Bull S.

Just call yourselves the Stanford Cardinals for Christ's sake. Get over it, come down from your ivory tower, and admit you are just like everyone else.

Cardinal is amongst the worst team nicknames in all of sport (excluding all of the WNBA team names), but if you've got a team nickname worse than that, let us know.

Rokotoberfest

Welkomen to Roktober. All you slogomites out there better tighten up the leiderhosen because we're going to fucking bring it this month after our pathetic showing in September.