Good morning, City Desk!

Good morning, Mayor Vincent Gray!

Just trying that one on for size, given the BIG NEWS in the mayor’s race! What does everyone think: “Can We Do Better”? How could we not, with a “dyed in the wool homey” at the city’s helm? (How do you spell that word anyway? Backed up by Webster’s New World, we’re going with “homey.” The Washington Post, though, which everyone knows is super-hip, likes  “homie.” So we and Webster‘s might have to reconsider.)

Anyway, the Post likes this all very much, because the Post told Vince to run. And, you see, “A Gray-Fenty mayoral race opens up choices for the District.” Now I suppose it does!

Nine people were shot last night in a driveby in the 4000 block of South Capitol Street SE; police at the scene told City Paper‘s Rend Smith that three people were killed, including two males and one female, after a van pulled up and opened fire on a porch full of people.

In case you missed it yesterday, Cara Cottle, the former girlfriend of Dirk Smiler, a mainstay in the D.C. goth scene who was shot in the head in February, was arrested and charged with his murder. Reached by WCP Arts Editor Jonathan Fischer, who has reported extensively on what went down the night Smiler died, Cottle declined to comment, saying: “Go to hell.”

A D.C. Council oversight hearing into the conditions and mismanagement at the D.C. General shelter will be held today beginning at 10 a.m. It’s a hearing and all, so Families Forward, which has the contract to run the place, will have to say something. So will honchos from the Department of Human Services. Jason Cherkis will be there to write down in his notebook whatever it is.

And finally: As the official Booty Wall and Booty Clock correspondent for City Desk, I must bring to your attention another Booty-related event: Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band is coming to D.C.! Well, Falls Church, Va., but still. The booty cannot be stopped.

Happy hump day, City Desk! Happy hump day, Maybe-Possibly Mayor Gray!