What happens when you’re die-hard Republican red—but your beloved is true Democratic blue?
The phone’s ringing at ezStorage in Owings Mills, and a delivery man is waiting for a signature. But Lori Brazill is on far too much of a roll to answer the phone. She’s railing about a variety of topics: welfare (“you’re responsible for yourself—stop leaning on everybody else”), Social Security (“it was built to be a supplement”), and healthcare (“it’s something you earn”). She stops mid-...
The singer and activist on bobby socks, Maya Angelo, and second cousins twice removed.
Internationally acclaimed gospel, jazz, and soul singer Lea Gilmore is also a well-regarded advocate and spokesperson for civil rights. She calls herself the “singing policy wonk.” We call her “delightful.”
Where did you go to school?It is a curious thing about Baltimore. Whenever we are asked where we went to school, we automatically know it means what high school we attended. I went to Mercy...
Towson's Anne Wallace crusades against identity thieves.
Twice a week, Anne Wallace drives from her Towson home to Baltimore’s Penn Station, and catches the MARC train No. 513 to Washington, D.C.—one of 20,000 commuters who ride the MARC every day. That’s roughly the same number of people helped over the past four years by the nonprofit D.C.-based Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC), where Wallace has served for four years as executive director—and...
Almost six years after "the best show on TV" began, the man behind the series comes clean about why he did what he did.
“We want to be out of The Wire business,” says the mayor of Baltimore, repeating the affirmation that began this call twenty minutes ago, stalling us in the Safeway parking lot on Boston Street.
I am curbside at the grocery, caught between a cup of carryout coffee and an afternoon writer’s meeting, cellphone hard against my ear, playing liar’s poker with a politician.
“You’re telling me a week...
The Baltimore-based humorist on hobo porn, everyone’s secret inner nerd, and watching that step.
He pens witty columns for The New Yorker and Esquire, and his novel, I Love You, Beth Cooper—which chronicles one epic night in a lovesick geek's life—is already a teen-lit sensation (and slated to be a movie penned by Doyle himself). But the real reason we love Larry Doyle? He has written for both The Simpsons and Beavis & Butt-Head. Bow down, people.
What book or film most changed your life...
Chesapeake Search Dogs give a whole new meaning to the term, “Go Fetch!”
The volunteer hides behind a tree a few hundred yards from where Niko, a 4-month old German shepherd puppy, is playing with his owner, Dennis Ciesla. On Ciesla's "Find!" command, Niko bounds up the hill towards the wooded area, darting first right, then left, searching for the man's scent as it wafts through the chilly morning air.
Although the volunteer is in plain sight of Niko on more than one...
Bill Stevenson, tattoo artist and co-owner, Baltimore Tattoo Museum
"One of the things that consistently surprises me about our clientele is the number of people who come here for another reason—maybe to go to a baseball game or if they're in town for a convention—who end up coming in here and getting tattooed. I'm always amazed by that. I wasn't prepared for that. I really wasn't. They're different from the people who plot and plan and really think for a long...
Getting Goosed
Since Tony "Goose" Siragusa peeled off his ample No. 98 purple jersey for good after the 2001 season, the former Ravens defensive stalwart, who now lives in New Jersey, has become a TV regular. On January 9, he's back as host of Man Caves, a testosterone-charged home improvement show on DIY network.
Baltimore magazine: What's your man cave look like?Tony Siragusa: It's a serious man cave. I...
For three young cops, the allure is the same: helping people and "getting the situation under control."
It is nearly 2:30 a.m. on a cold Saturday in November when police officers Patrick Dotson and Lynell Green arrive on the scene at what appears to be a domestic disturbance in the Eastern District of Baltimore City. Dotson, 25, is barely two months out of the Police Academy. So he's pretty clear about the basic rules of law and police administration, but it is on the street and under the...
Food bank Director Deborah Flateman wants to end hunger in Maryland.
“My mother never threw away a leftover. Never, never,” recalls Deborah Flateman. “I learned from her that there’s a way to recycle food into other edible dishes. So, why would you ever throw it away?”
That philosophy should serve her well as the recently appointed CEO of the Maryland Food Bank (MFB). You see, Flateman hates the idea that someone somewhere in Maryland might be hungry. She takes it...
