Breakfast of Champions ca. 1950

For my final breakfast of 2009, I stepped back in time and ate at the Westwood Fountain on Patterson Avenue just past Libbie.

This old school pharmacy counter could have been ripped from the pages of the 1950s, including some of the customers. There were plenty of vintage tables, but we ate at the counter to get the full view of the grill cooks doing their nonstop dance.

Like the clientele, the prices are retro, so my friend went all out with a Belgian waffle, two eggs, one fried, one scrambled, bacon, grits and hashed browns.

I was only a tad more circumspect with a bacon, egg and cheese omelet with baked apples and wheat toast.

After we ordered, we noticed the cooks making things like burgers and steak and cheese subs and realized we could have ordered lunch, even though it was 9:30 in the morning. Clearly, some people were beginning their day that way.

I can't rave that the food was out of this world, just that it was plentiful and satisfying. The newspapers, RTD and USA Today that is, were spread all over the counter for community reading and

Pinky, our waitress (was there ever a Pinky who wasn't a waitress?), was delightful. She's planning to get silly drunk tonight so we wished her the best with that.

We were in and out in about 45 minutes. You know why? Because that's how things have worked at lunch counters for years: cheap and fast and filling.

At least circa 1950.

The Mixtape Master

Back in the 90s, I met and befriended a local club DJ, whose skill at mixing music was awe-inspiring.

He didn't have a car, so he'd ride his bike to gigs with a crate of records bungee-corded on the back of it.

He was a music junkie, always going back to DC to score new and obscure stuff he couldn't find in rva. Needless to say, I don't often meet someone as rabid about music as I am, so I wanted to know him better.

After seeing him for several weeks at one place or another, he suggested we meet up at the Virginia Museum on a Thursday night since that's when the museum stayed open in the evening.

As it turned out, I had to stay late at the radio station where I worked and missed meeting him.

I didn't even have a way to contact him to let him know I couldn't make it. What I didn't know at the time was that he'd made me a mixtape he'd intended to give me that night.

It was a masterpiece entitled "Naive Melodies/Waiting" and the title referred to his anticipation of our first outing together.

Full of classic 80s and early 90s indie pop, it was superbly chosen and mixed.

By the time we rescheduled our outing, he'd made me a second mixtape, this one called, "STOOD UP!" and full of jittery and angry music.

I got the message.

Other mixtapes followed, with names like "A Cup of Coffee and a Slice of Time" and "Groovy Tunes," which had one side of "Harmless Pop" and another of "Popless Harm."

One called "Delusions of Grandeur" didn't even list song titles or artists, just the instructions to listen and enjoy because titles were irrelevant.

I listened to those mixtapes for years because they were so well done. It got to the point where I could anticipate the next song because I knew the tape so well.

Finally I realized that I was going to wear out the tape itself and enlisted a friend to put them on CD for me so I could enjoy them in perpetuity.

My friend and I eventually lost touch, although I occasionally heard him on a late-night shift on several local commercial radio stations.

Not long after I'd heard he'd moved back to DC, he showed up weekly on WRIR doing Monday's Breakfast Blend.

What a treat! It's almost like having a new mixtape made for me every week because our tastes are so similar and I'm just so fond of his musical selections.

I listen when I'm up early enough, but I always make a point to look at his playlist for sentimental reasons.

Invariably, I see song after song from one of my many mixtapes that are still making it on to his show: the B52's "Follow Your Bliss," The Posies' "Mrs. Green," Marshall Crenshaw's "Cynical Girl" and anything by Paul Weller.

There's also plenty of new stuff which I'm also listening to, but it's these mixtape reminders that give me a retro thrill.

Over the years, no less than a dozen friends have made mixtapes for me; some were terrific and some were nice gestures, but uninspired.

Creating a really good mixtape is more difficult than it sounds and yet, I've still got this guy's collection of 1993/94 mixtapes in regular rotation.

No one but a mixtape master can inspire that kind of long-term musical devotion.