For all his success outside of it, David Mamet has done all right by Hollywood. More than all right, in fact: His screenplays for The Verdict and Wag the Dog were nominated for Oscars, and, like Woody Allen, he gets to direct his own scripts just the way he wants to because 1) he’s got such unassailable artistic cred that everybody wants to work with him, and 2) he never spends very much money.......

The Capitals have assigned Ben Clymer to their farm team. For two years, Clymer has provided the Caps with leadership, toughness and first hand knowledge of what it's like to win a Stanley Cup. This year and next year, he'll take that knowledge to the American Hockey League's Hershey Bears. Clymer joins Stanley Cup winner Joe Motzko, whom the Caps signed this summer as a free agent and demoted over the weekend, in giving the......

Dr. Billy Taylor (pictured with his trio) is a walking history of jazz. He began playing professionally in 1944, and in that capacity he has composed over 350 songs, performed with legends such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and led his own trio for decades. The numerous awards Taylor garnered as a performer and educator include 23 honorary doctoral degrees, two Peabody Awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, and the National Medal of the......

MONDAY: Leftover anger from last week's G8 Summit? Check out John Perkins at Politics and Prose tonight. He'll be discussing his newest book The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption, which details the shady deals behind U.S. foreign aid to developing countries. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Hurricane season is upon us yet again, and this August will mark the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact......

CBS finally released video to YouTube today of that terrifying Battle of the Bands between Tony Snow and Bob Schieffer we previewed late last month. It's just exactly as scary as you might imagine.......

File this under "More Evidence that America has Become Way Too Litigious" -- a legal battle between two D.C. kickball leagues has now gone on for over a year, and doesn't look to be coming to a resulution anytime soon. Yes, a lawsuit. Over kickball. Early last year the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA) filed a lawsuit against upstart DC Kickball, alleging that founder and WAKA-defector Carter Rabasa had stolen WAKA's rules of play and......

Today the National Press Club announced the craziest show to hit the Washington music scene since Dismemberment Plan decided to reunite for two performances this weekend. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who's recovering well from his cancer surgery, and CBS anchor Bob Schieffer go head to head in a battle of the bands dubbed Honky Tonk Meets the White House Wonk. The veteran newsman sings with Honky Tonk Confidential, a country-western band, while......

I don’t spend much time listening to the radio anymore. What with WHFS having gone Latin and DC101 moving further and further towards an “All Nirvana, All the Time” format, I’ve had to turn to 94.7 The Arrow for anything approaching rock. Problem is, I’ve never much been a fan of classic rock, much less classic rock stations that promote themselves via TV ads starring a guy with a "radio in his finger." Yeah, you......

You've seen the ads in Metro tunnels, you've heard about all the fancypants editors and reporters they hired, and if you work on the Hill, today you may have seen the first paper editions floating around your office. The Politico, a new multimedia political news enterprise, officially launched today, and like many media-obsessed Washingtonians, we've long been wondering whether it could possibly live up to the pre-debut hype. And the answer, naturally, is that The......

Thanks to Dave Hughes' excellent DCRTV for reminding us of the local angle to a national media story: the status of Arlington native Katie Couric's recent ascension to the anchor's chair over at CBS News. Couric grew up in Arlington, attending Yorktown High School (where she was a cheerleader) and UVA before beginning her climb to the top of the TV news industry — a process that included a stint at D.C.'s WRC-TV, NBC4. From......

MONDAY >> Everyone, we're stumped. We've been scratching our heads for weeks now, trying to figure out why three bands with as much buzz following them around as Cold War Kids, Midlake, and Sound Team (pictured) would be playing the Black Cat's back stage, especially when nothing else is booked upstairs. We loved Cold War Kids when we saw them last month. Midlake is winning fans left and right, including a very hyperbolic Jason Lee.......

Washington chefs fell to 1-2 in Iron Chef America competitions, as Bobby Flay defeated the uni-monikered Morou in Battle Frozen Peas last night on the Food Network show -- two months after Galileo's Roberto Donna avenged his own loss to Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Morou -- the former Signatures chef who had earned the right to take on an Iron Chef when he topped former 1789 chef Ris Lacoste and Tosca's Cesare Lanfranconi in the......

After months of speculation, it's official: broadcast journalist Katie Couric will be leaving NBC's Today Show at the end of May to anchor the CBS Evening News. As noted yesterday in the Washington Post, three women -- Barbara Walters at ABC, Connie Chung at CBS and Elizabeth Vargas, at ABC's "World News Tonight" -- have co-anchored alongside men. This makes Couric the first solo female anchor of a weekday network newscast. Fishbowl DC has the......

For George Mason, Selection Sunday was a relief. For George Washington, it was the worst-case scenario. The Patriots -- a bubble team thanks to two recent losses to Hofstra -- didn't have to sweat too long on Selection Sunday, as they were named the 11 seed in the second bracket announced. This was much to the dismay of CBS basketball announcer Billy Packer. The Patriots' regional will be played in Washington, but GMU has plenty......

>>The votes are in and as of now, it looks like the Washington Wizards will not be represented in this year's NBA All Star game. Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison, both elected last year, will have to make other plans for All Star weekend after the coaches left them off of their ballots this year. Arenas is a suprising omission given that he's fourth in the entire league in scoring in addition to the......

While Las Vegas, Miami, and New York all get the privilege of having both Crime Scene Investigation labs and a cool show that dramatizes and glorifies their work, the District gets the shaft and has neither of the two. That may soon change. Well, the lab part, at least. NBC 4 is reporting that District officials would love to have their own crack CSI team to investigate crime scenes, dust for prints, collect and analyze......

MONDAY >> Ray Suarez will discuss his book, The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration. However, he’s doing his discussion at the Fairfax County Government Center, so you can bet there will be plenty of people there saying, “But…what about our awesome fleet of school buses?” 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, Virginia, at 7:30 p.m. TUESDAY >> Hey, faithful readers. Have you been enjoying the awesomely bad spectacle that is CBS’s......

Get ready to set your DVR's and TiVo's, D.C. The major networks have already started rolling out their new line-ups, but this week there are seemingly unlimited primetime viewing options as the new fall TV season kicks into high gear. Family sitcoms are back, as are shows about aliens. Where does D.C. fit into this prime time muddle? Lucky for us, it looks like the political drama is still going strong. We'll have more then......

It's time again to indulge in our (possibly unhealthy) love for reality TV. In addition to the many fictional portrayals of the city ready to hit prime time this fall, a local family from Woodbridge, VA will be competing in the Emmy winning CBS series, The Amazing Race, the Family Edition. Last season featured a retired Easton, Maryland couple, Meredith & Gretchen, who did the region proud by being only slightly whiny and performing reasonably......

With season eight of CBS's Emmy winning reality TV hit, "The Amazing Race," reportedly in production, the show's producers are hosting an open casting call at Jack Taylor's Alexandria Toyota (3750 Jefferson Davis Highway) for the ninth season on July 10 at noon. The show's website contains the application form and a lengthy list of procedures and requirements for potential contestants. Teams of two (or, in the case of the upcoming eighth season, four) race......

Dan Rather leaves the anchor chair at CBS Evening News tonight after 24 years. His final broadcast is at 7 p.m. and while DCist hasn't watched a network news broadcast in, say, years, we feel bad for the guy that's apparently been brought down by bloggers. Will this DCist miss him? Um, probably not. Of all the high profile media anchors that have been jumping ship recently, we have to say it was Bob Edward's......

As February draws to a close, we at DCist pause to reflect upon how our brethren in the politically-oriented blogosphere spent another month in the zeitgeist. From the scalping of Eason Jordan and the outing of Jeff Gannon, to the victory lap being taken by the bloggers who forced the imminent departure of several CBS News bigwigs, bloggers are once again back in the news. The tenor of this recent coverage, however, is decidedly......

The organization RightMarch.com is organizing "Carols at the ACLU" in order to defend the Boy Scouts. The protest, organized by conservative activist Eugene Delgaudio, has been circulated to area members of several conservative organizations. The protest/caroling is scheduled for Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. at the organization's 15th Street D.C. office. "I hope you can help me," writes Delgaudio, "I have ten volunteers but would like to get more since some of us don't sing so......

DCist has been hearing some disturbing rumors again. Is Nightline host and news vetern Ted Koppel on his way out? While taking the Metro in to work this morning, we noticed an article in the Express via the LA Times, mentioning the resignation of Nightline executive producer Leroy Sievers. The LA Times quoted the departing producers resignation letter, which hints at some uncertainty surrounding the show's future:The company has made it clear that it is......

Major networks across the board will sacrifice a crucial night of the November sweeps period in the name of civic duty. Election Night coverage starts at 8 p.m. on most broadcast networks and presumably continues on through the wee hours of the morning. Here's your handy-dandy guide to Election Night viewing. ABC News: Peter Jennings anchors Vote 2004 with the help of George Stephanopoulos and Terry Moran. Former Salon.com writer Jake Tapper will have regular......

Is former WUSA Channel 9 morning weatherperson Hillary Howard coming to WJLA? Our source at WJLA Channel 7 reported seeing the news personality in the building a few times in the past couple of weeks, including this morning. The Washington Times reported on Howard's departure from WUSA: Of all the questionable personnel moves WUSA-TV (Channel 9) has made lately, none has fired up readers of this column as much as the CBS affiliate's decision......

The presidential debates are finally over, so let the punditry begin. The Post's Howard Kurtz who offers his usual rundown of what the major media outlets are saying in Media Notes, reporting: The Tempe debate lacked any sense of electricity -- at least compared to the Yankees/Red Sox game on Fox, which undoubtedly cut into the candidates' audience. These guys know each others' moves. There was no obvious turning point. And the pundit reaction was......

President Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry faceoff one last time in tonight's presidential debate. With 20 days left 'til the election, and the race in a virtual dead heat, DCist expects a gloves off, no holds barred performance from both men tonight at 9 p.m. from Tempe, Ariz. The third and final debate of the campaign will focus on domestic policy and social issues such as health care, job growth (or the lack of),......

Popular culture and politics are, indeed, strange bedfellows. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry appeared last night on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman and treated viewers by reading the Top Ten List. Kerry has also appeared on NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. According to AP reports, candidate Kerry wasn't all laughs last night: The Massachusetts senator spent much of his appearance discussing serious topics ranging from......

When the Capitol Police released a bland list of intersections where they would implement checkpoints, the District's media organizations were quick to create helpful graphics. However, not all checkpoint maps are made the same. Let's take a quick look at what the mediasphere had to offer. To see the sources, click on any of the graphics. We'll start with the Post, which produced a graphic you might expect from the District's largest newspaper. Their graphic......