Progressive Intern Brownbag with Economist Dean Baker
The Progressive Intern Network Brownbag Series Presents:
The Conservative Nanny State With Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research will be talking about his book, "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer" (free download available at www.conservativenannystate.org)
seriously girlfriend, if you didn't get enough prince this week (and u knowz i di-int), you best get yourself to the Cat this Saturday for DJ Dredd's Prince vs. Outkast dance partay. Its exactly what it sounds like, and these are always fun. I went to Prince vs. Pharell on my birthday this year (when was that Abby? oh, you know, always) and, to my surprise, Pharell killed it hands down. But then, including everything he's produced and only marginally contributed vocals to, its easy to see why. But its not really a competition because, lets face it, with a full night of alternating Prince and Outkast tracks, everybody wins. And by "wins" i mean grinds up on you like a funky, purple velvet-wearing, john-waters mustachioed, 4foot11 dog in heat. yeeuh.
Well my weekend was pretty awesome, especially the bit where I ate my way through Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. I. am. friggin. full. y’all. So instead of venturing out tonight to any number of way more fun things to do, I’m going to be gettin all hot and sweaty (huhuhuh, perv). It’s become a battle of wills between my fat ass, Bally’s, and the effing Circulator during rush hour (god curse you), but I’m going to the gym tonight if it’s the last thing I do. Even though a part of me is dying inside that I’m going to miss the entire run of Purple Rain at the AFI. But you go. Sing along to “the Beautiful Ones” as you seductively caress the thigh of the person sitting next you. I’ll be fine, really, someday. Last chances are tonight at 9:10pm and Thursday 7:00pm. (Why don’t you just go Thursday Abby? Because I’m going to Fort Reno for the Aquarium and Benjy Ferree and ENDLESS CAKE, that’s why, smartass). If you’re not so into Prince (wtf?!), you could check out the gentle croonings of Georgie James' sometimes bassist, and Bar Pilar’s most huggable sometimes bartender, Paul Michel tonight at the Cat. And if you’re still not satisfied with those choices, then you can go poison some birds or something, weirdo. I wash my hands of you.
I have a problem with theater. Namely, I hate it. I like the idea of theater, and I’d like to not hate it, but I just don’t know how. Every once in a while I’ll give it another try, hoping that something will click and I’ll come out with a newfound appreciation for the arts, a glimpse of its raison d’etre, a deeper insight into the soul of man and beast. Usually I end up in an uncontrollable rage.
I remember liking a production of Sweeney Todd that my high school put on. And I saw The Tempest at the Old Vic with Derek Jacobi as Prospero, which was good as well. And I totally bawled at Rent on Broadway (so lame, I know). Aside from these, I can’t think of other examples of theater I’ve genuinely enjoyed. Does anyone else have this problem?
Like last night, for instance, I went to see the Pabst and Popcorn Hour presentation of the “Tragedy of Dr. Faustus” at the DC Center for the Arts as part of the Capitol Fringe Festival. Going in, it already had two strikes against it: A) the theater bit, and B) the popcorn bit. I also hate popcorn. In high school I worked at the AMC Town Center in Leawood, KS, enduring daily scaldings at the hands of a demonic popcorn maker. You had to watch that fucker like the boiler at the Overlook; it would creep, and creep, and then explode, and you’d be covered in boiling oil, screaming and running in circles as your face dripped off. Even now, the smell of popcorn always makes me a little ill.
But I was willing to forgive all this to just drink all the PBR I wanted for $10. I have to admit, I laughed at times, like when a demon impersonates Dubya, or during the various references to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But most of the time I spent shielding my eyes and twitching. My problem is that I get intensely embarrassed for the actors. It’s the same reason I can’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David is hilarious, I know this. But I just cringe and want to yell out loud, “Stop it! You’re making everyone uncomfortable!”
Most everyone else seemed to be having a good time, however, so I would half-recommend it on that account. There are only a few more shows scheduled for this weekend, so catch it while you can. For more info, visit http://www.damnedfaust.com/.
If, however, like me, you’d rather eat a steaming pile of dick cancer than go to the theater, you might check out the following going on around town:
1. Get yer grub on during Restaurant Week, starting Monday, August 6. Reserve your table now, or you'll have to wait until January before you'll be able to again afford a meal at one of DC's fanciest-pants restaurants. I'm banking on Agraria (woot woot), with Vidalia or Bistro Bis as runners up. Prix fixe lunch for $20 and dinner for $30.
2. Also, I'm going to this tonight, so if you're interested, stop by and say hello. Or, you know, throw a rotten tomato. Whatevs.
Shining the Light on Youth Homelessness
A reception hosted by the National Network for Youth, with Honorary Co-sponsors Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy & Congressman Todd R. Platts
Presenting Clips from The Hip Hop Project, a feature-length documentary released this spring about Chris “Kazi” Rolle, a formerly homeless youth who created an award-winning artist development program that connects teens to music industry professionals to write, produce, and market their own music. Proceeds from the film go to support organizations serving homeless youth.
Saw Bob Novak speak at Politics and Prose last night. I’d been to one of these talks at P&P just once before to see Laura Sessions Stepp rail against the young women of today. After sitting through an hour and a half of condescending tripe, in which she nearly labeled all unmarried females under-30 who date casually as sluts, I stepped to the microphone and tore her a new one.
With hopes of a similar reaming, I ventured up Connecticut Ave to see what the Prince of Darkness had to say. Like before, the place was brimming with old people. Upper NW DC seems a refuge for senior social clubs that, with naught to do but wait for death, shuttle their withered, scaly bodies from cultural event to stodgy cultural event, prolonging their subtle slide into the grave. And they took all the goddamn seats, forcing my companion and I to wobble on the edge of a book display and watch them (with some satisfaction) get up every 10 minutes to empty their colostomy bags.
Apropos, Novak is one old motherfucker. I was flipping through his 600-page book while waiting for the event to start, and there was a photo retrospective in the middle, like when a book gets turned into a major motion picture and they stuff all the promo pictures in the center spine. If Bob Novak was a major motion picture, he’d be the 2000 Year Old Man. Or Jurassic Park. As in he looks like a velociraptor, squawking and flailing his scraggly little claws at the end of his tiny dino-arms. Eh, I kind of secretly love Jurassic Park. I digress.
He read excerpts of his book, detailing how each successive president, save Reagan, ultimately failed as a person and a national figure, ending each point with “and that’s the first time you’ll find that printed anywhere,” as if anyone gave a shit. Things got slightly more interesting with the Q&A, except not a single person asked about the Plame affair. I mean, come on DC! Its Bob Novak! He’s right there! Take a shot! So I poked and prodded and promised my companion a beer if he’d ask how fighting with Zappa to censor dirty records fits with Novak’s newfound love for freedom of speech, since he got mixed up with Joe Wilson and the whole crazy bunch. So he went and stood in line and just as he got up to the mic, the old bag who owns the place (apologies if that’s your mom) shut it down. Then, in a poof of smoke, Novak flapped away to the sound of the flying monkey theme from the Wizard of Oz, and we went next door to Comet to drink PBR and stuff ourselves with pizza like the young folks do.
Since I’ll be missing everything fun in DC this weekend while I sweat it out back home in Kans-ass shitty, you must do for me this thing:
Congressional Briefing - Get Well Soon: Paid Sick Days for All Working Families
THE NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN & FAMILIES AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS Invite you to a Congressional briefing for Members of Congress, Congressional staff and the public:
"Get Well Soon: Paid Sick Days for All Working Families"
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m., HC-6
Refreshments will be served
This briefing, organized by the National Partnership for Women & Families, will address the imperative need to pass legislation guaranteeing all workers paid sick days they can use to care for sick family members or recover from their own illness, and will demonstrate the progress being made towards this goal at the local, state and federal levels.
For more information, contact Steffany Stern at (202) 986-2600.
Sometimes I would give a pound of flesh to lie on my couch with my cat on my chest, paint my nails, eat an entire pizza, and watch season 2 of Laguna Beach straight through. Such was the mood of this intrepid blogger yesterday, when after a Tuesday marathon of CalTort, Ratatouille, and yellow fever, I achieved only nominal shut-eye. Result? Me=walking dead at work next day and seconds after 5pm, plummeting into much needed evening nap.
But then I got a grip and went out again. An attractive friend coaxed me into meeting at DC9 for the DCist’s “Unbuckled 6” show featuring the XYZ affair and local upstarts, le loup. I won’t go into detail, as you can read and view DCist’s take here. My two cents are this: both bands are really, really good. I spent the night standing on top of a booth, gingerly bouncing, and playing the “which-band-does-this-band-sound-like” game. The XYZ affair was easier; answer = Weezer. Wait, no, Queen. Shit. Le loup proved even more difficult, and after many hesitant mental comparisons (there’s 7 people and like 20 instruments similar to Architecture in Helsinki, the one dude sounds kinda like Ben Gibbard, etc.), I caved and acknowledged their sound is all their own. They’re also cute, earning them the “icing/cake” award in my book of things I like in a band (and life, duh). It was fun.
U can haz fun too?
Tonight: get yer pretty on at Cusp then check out Mary Timony and Co. at Fort Reno.
Friday: piss yourself at the AFI’s midnight screening of the original ‘Friday the 13th’
Saturday: Mos Def at 930 club. Just sold out, but I got mine bitcheeeez! Don’t hate cuz you ain’t! (shut up Abby). Also, Bastille Day parties all over.
Sunday: soothe your head with hangover brunch somewhere delicious like Bourbon or Levante’s.
Went to see Mickey Avalon at the 9:30 Club last night. Were probably the oldest people there (again). Doorman asked to check my bag and assured me “I only have to check ID if you’re 21 or older.” Thanks, dipshit.
The club is about a third full, mostly prepubescent douchebags in an array of popped collars and brightly colored tube dresses. And really structured hair, like, super shellac-ed, the kind that stands up in front with zebra-esque highlights. Upon seeing us, a friend working the food counter downstairs remarked, “You guys came for this shit?” Not a promising start to the evening.
Too bad it was the best show I’d been to in a long time. Mickey Avalon is this white boy club kid from LA who does sort of rap/rock, but not the shitty Kid Rock kind. Primarily, he raps about A) his dick; B) bulimic girls he sleeps with; C) cocaine. And he’s joined on stage by these two smokin’ hot chicks in skin tight, black leotards and fishnets and red, patent leather stripper heels who slink around the stage smoking and bending over for the crowd’s benefit. Some choice lyrics include: “my dick don’t fit down the chimney/ yo dick look like a kid from the phillipines,” or, “somethin’ smells fishy and I don’t know what/ but I got a hunch its ya lady.” I know, right? Head. Exploding.
We grabbed a spot against the railing upstairs way on the left side of the stage (the better to hate on everyone, obvs). This proved providential, seeing that who sidles up next to me in an oversized Mickey Avalon tee, cargo shorts, and unlaced skate shoes? Simon Rex. For the uninitiated, Rex was a Calvin Klein model turned MTV VJ turned “pornography personality” turned absolute joke. And now, apparently, he’s rapping as part of the opening “act” on Mickey Avalon’s tour. His stage name is Dirt Nasty. Dirt. Nasty. Right.
Being the amateur starfucker I am, I rack my brain for a casual intro, like, “which one of the twins are you banging?” or “I loved you on the Grind.” Before I can speak, he oozes back downstairs to join the others on stage for a rousing rendition of, what else, “My Dick,” to close out the show. After which I’m pretty sure they went backstage to do blow off the ass of some 14-year old.
Recommendations for upcoming chances to dryhump a pseudo-celebrity:
Smashing Pumpkins tonight at 9:30 Club. May have to do more than that just to get a ticket since they sold out seemingly before they went on sale.
Mos Def at 9:30 Club Saturday. Nuf said.
Prince vs. Outkast dance party at the Cat, August 4. Neither will actually be there, but I will, molesting someone to “erotic city.”
I have about half a brain synapse firing spasmodically and so will not be telling tale of any shenanigans of late. I will, however, be crawling on hand and knee into bed and deep unconsciousness as soon as possible. While I’m doing that, y’all should do the following and tell me how it was:
See the Fiery Furnaces tonight at the Cat. Apparently they suck live, but who cares. They’re adorable and the brother looks like John Mayer and Bruce Campbell’s indie love child.
Or, if you’re not so much the leaving-your-computer-and-interacting-with-other-humans type, watch this viral video and tell me if it’s offensive or not. Cuz I think its pretty fucking hilarious.
Fort Reno last night was awesome. I’d been forewarned that the lineup of former Fugazi members would bring a world of pain, and not in the punk rock sense. Indeed, Joe Lally played seemingly the same dirgey number over and over, only punctuated with periodic groaning and twinges of tuneless sax. The Evens started off on a slightly more upbeat note, with some songs that I might have called “power punk pop,” lest someone reach through my computer and punch me in the face. But around the hour and a half mark, Ian MacKaye started preaching and I lost it. “This song is about frat boys who just trash the place they live in and leave it to us to clean up after… oh, and I might be talking about the US government” (commence seated head-banging). My eyes rolled so far back in my head that I actually went blind and passed out.
Now, you may be thinking, “SoCapAbby, that sounds terrible. In fact, I’m considering making the trek out there just so I can napalm the shit out of that fort, ensuring no other boring twats can play ever again.” But I’ll stop you right there. What makes Fort Reno awesome is not the musicians, nor the sweaty summer evening air, nor the mosquitoes nor dirty grass nor lack of port-a-potties. It’s these two things:
1. Babies. There is nothing cuter than punk-rock families with punk-rock babies. Moms with full sleeves of ink carrying fuzzy-haired toddlers in camo onesies. Little girls in pink summer dresses chasing pit bulls with spiked collars in circles in the grass. At one point a group of them climbed up on the speakers behind the stage and were jumping up and down and waving at the crowd like tiny little groupies. It was like Pancake Mountain came to Tenleytown. Sigh.
2. Slutty high school kids. Wilson high was fully representing last night with twitchy teenagers sitting in packs clumsily pawing at each other. The girls had stringy hair and shirts five sizes too small that barely covered their navels. The boys wore even tighter black bike pants and whatever ironic tee they found at PacSun on the way over. And they couldn’t fucking sit still. I’m convinced there were rainbow parties going on in the back.
My girlfriends and I reclined on our blanket, quietly judging them and thanking sweet baby Jesus we grew out of that phase of horny awkwardness. And to prove it, we made tracks to Bar Pilar to flirt with the cute boys behind the bar and talk about makeup. Take that high schoolers.
Check out more local DC awesomeness twice weekly FREE at Fort Reno through August.
Oh, and if you don’t have plans for the holiday, take a look at these places to catch the fireworks. I strongly urge you NOT to go anywhere near the Mall unless you want to get caught in a clusterfuck of tourists. Happy 4th.
I’m in acute deadline hell. Not unlike having a baby, the panic attacks have been coming half-hourly like contractions. With my “Bat Mitzvah party” playlist of guilty pleasures on repeat for the last week, I’ve probably listened to “Juicy” more times today than there are members in Junior M.A.F.I.A. All this is to say, I’ve done little else the last few days than cry in public and drink copious amounts of coffee. And while I could write about crying (just ask), coffee is much more delicious and doesn’t usually end with people glaring at you as snot runs off your face.
So with the imminent closure of two of DC’s most beloved independent venues for drinking coffee and more (Sparky’s and Warehouse Next Door), a recap of good (by DC standards) coffee shops seems in order now more than ever. Here are some of my personal faves, all of which have free internet (good for the typing while sipping and weeping):
Big Bear Café: This just opened up a block from my house in Shaw and shares street space on Sunday mornings with the newly established Bloomingdale farmer’s market. Only gripes so far are intensely strong coffee (doesn’t change color with milk) and ubiquitous lite jazz on the stereo. I was about to congratulate a barista friend on Sunday for his good work changing up the music, but just as I opened my mouth, the owner abruptly switched off “California Love” and the fucking jazz started up again. So I cut her.
Ebenezer’s: Near my work and convenient to folks near Union Station or the Senate side of the Hill. Its owned by a church, and they host special events like book signings and free dance classes sometimes. They also feature all fair trade coffee and these delicious little things called “magic bites,” which taste like almond joy crack and make me insane with pastry lust.
14 & U: At the corner of (guess where) 14th and U, NW, this is where, while drinking cocoa and eating homemade baklava on St. Paddy’s day, I first met crazy wandering Marc, a DC institution (Marc, not the coffee shop). Don’t worry, if you don’t know him, you will soon. Just look behind you.
Murky Coffee: One in Arlington and one near Eastern Market. The one in Arlington boasts a venue upstairs featuring periodic all-ages shows, including “Metal Night” this Wednesday that promises to fully rock.
Tryst: Can be kind of a meat market and internet is only free on weekdays, but the comfy couches and animal crackers that come with my chai still win me over. There’s also live jazz sometimes, and they have a full bar which is awesome when you feel like livening up your cocoa with a little rum. Or a lot.
This week I had my one-year review at work, the anticipation of which took a few years off my life, but in the end, went better than expected. So much so that I, in fact, was promoted and given a raise ($5 roughly, but still). To celebrate, I put on my summery-est summer dress, rounded the troops, and headed to the basement of St Ex to listen to Motown and drink 40s of Old English until I couldn’t remember where I worked anymore. Woke up in a hedge in Rock Creek Park the next day and got fired. Kidding.
In related sure-fucked-myself-up-there news, my right foot really hurts. I don’t know what I did to it, but it feels like I might have a stress fracture? Bruised bone? Angina? Not a clue. A friend of mine got four free tickets to the Nats game Wed, and I had high hopes of sitting in the upper balcony, wearing my furs, smoking, drinking beer from plastic bottles, and bitching about how Guliani won’t get off my tip. Instead, I spent the night huddled behind the opposing team’s dugout, stealing peanuts from the guys next to us who kept leaving to get more nachos, and whining about my throbbing foot. I have no idea who won (or who they even played for that matter). I left at the 7th inning to hobble home and down half a bottle of Ibuprofen. Its not like I play sports or exercise (bah!), so how did this happen to me? Good thing I have a cushy desk job where I can convalesce while I work (aka=read Perez Hilton).
Anyway, dinner at Coppi’s last night took my mind off my infirmity for a while. This is the perfect date restaurant. We shared a bottle of organic Chianti (don’t remember which, it had a rooster on the neck) that was like heaven and had me on my ass before we’d finished the little plate of tomato-rubbed foccacia they give you. I ordered the Insalata di Spinachi Novelli with roasted red peppers instead of bacon, and we shared the Margherita pizza with fresh basil. Between the wood-burned smell of fresh bread and the Italian wine, the old-timey bicycle décor and the always flattering candle lighting, if you don’t want to have sex with your dinner partner after a meal at Coppi’s, there’s seriously something wrong with you.
Tune in next week when I get my foot checked out and I check into rehab. Happy Friday.
One. Boutiques on U St. I normally scurry past the shops between 10th and 17th, maintaining blinders so as not to feel the pangs of emptiness and longing for the thrift outlets of my erstwhile home of Portland, OR. But this weekend I decided, you know what – fuck you, adorable boutiques on U St. I don’t care if your shoes cost more than a month’s rent. I’m going to browse your vintage jewelry and try on your designer dresses and god help you if you never have sales, because I may just buy something I can’t afford anyway. To my surprise, I found a skirt for $5 at Junction Vintage, a vintage, beaded necklace at Legendary Beast (upstairs from ShoeFly), and a cute, pocketed dress at Nana and didn’t have to file for disability the next day. Also found some adorable shoes at Meeps, but must have had a mild stroke at the time because I left without buying another pair of white leather, kitten-heels with ankle strap and cut-outs on the toes (as if one is enough). Overall experience rating = B
Two. Dine and Dip at the Omni Shoreham. Every Sunday through the summer, $21 gets you 3-course brunch with glass of champagne (we finagled two somehow, on our looks, I presume) and pool access until “dusk” (or “I’m never leaving” if you’re me). Service was disorganized and food was mediocre, and they make you eat first which definitely flies in the face of the 30-minute rule we all learned in kindergarten. But once we rolled ourselves out to the pool where the beautiful people were, all was forgotten in the face of new horrors. Seriously, it was like MTV Spring break took a dump on Woodley Park. Feeling irrationally threatened by the surfeit of abs and tans, I dragged my chez lounge over to the one tree near the patio, caked myself in SPF 9000, and retreated under my pashmina with Death in Venice (possibly the poorest choice of poolside reading ever, aside from maybe the Iliad, and soon abandoned for US Weekly). Overall rating = C+
Three. Free movies on Mondays at Galaxy Hut. First of all, I love Keanu Reeves. The man has played Ted in every movie he’s ever been in since he actually played Ted in a movie that once. In what was to be this showing of 1991's Point Break, he plays college football star turned F.B.I. agent! turned surfing/bankrobbing/skydiving Ted-of-all-trades. There is nothing wrong with this movie, it is a perfect, perfect thing. Plus, Gary Busey plays his detective partner and Patrick Swayze plays a surfing Bodhisattva – which, if you’re haven’t already quit reading to run out the door and rent it right now, should be all I really have to say if you have any sense at all, dear reader. So you can understand my shock and chagrin when, just as my friend and I curl up in a booth and are about to light up (inside! so novel, Virginia!), the opening credits of North Shore start rolling. We immediately walk out and burn the place down. Overall rating = F------- you fucking suck, North Shore, I hate you.
No time for details of my week (c’mon! no no, really kids), but here’s a bit of side-by-side action to tide one over. Shall we? Let’s.
Movies I saw this week that sucked so bad they were funny, but still not funny enough to not really, really suck = Mr. Brooks.
Films (see the difference, eh?) I’m going to see tonight that promise less sucking and more adjectives as well that mean “not sucking” = Stop Making Sense (SMS), at a special FREE outdoor screening as part of the AFI’s Silverdocs festival.
Mr. Brooks = Stars a washed up (get it? I’m hilarious) actor who once defended a post-apocalyptic floating kingdom in one of the greatest cinematic flops ever.
SMS = Stars the Talking Heads, one of the greatest American new wave rock bands ever.
Mr. Brooks = Features a psycho killer who’s totally boring and annoying at the same time.
SMS = Features the song “psycho killer,” which totally rocks and rolls… at the same time!
Mr. Brooks = After cringing through lines like “but I don’t want to kill the dancers!” from the main character - who sounds more like an angsty teenager than a murderer - to his devil-on-the-shoulder alter ego, I left the theater feeling irate and not a little brain-damaged.
SMS = Directed by Jonathan Demme and featuring live concert footage from 1984 - including many a big suit – the film will leave the audience cross-eyed and painless.
Mr. Brooks = I will only watch this movie once in my lifetime.
I volunteered to help a friend move on Saturday for nothing more than the promise of driving the U-haul. There was something about the thought of commanding a 10-foot tall monster truck, reeking of gas fumes, with plastic seats and hopefully sans AC that just. felt. right. So we metro all the way out to pick up the truck in West Hyattesville, which I think is somewhere in South Carolina, because we exit the station and trek past the kiss n’ride and find ourselves on a deserted state highway across from an auto shop and a liquor store called “the Smoky Hut.” My companion asks a shirtless man for directions to the U-haul place on Chillum Road (no, really) as I look on in terror and pray for a swift death.
Much like the DMV and the post office, U-haul is one of those havens of universally shitty service. You could be the only one there, and you’d still have to wait 45 minutes for the woman at the counter to glance up from her game of pong. So while my friend waits in line, I perch atop a stack of packing boxes to paint my nails and conspicuously eavesdrop on a pair of sweaty yokels in the next row over, haggling over a tasty cake. “I till yew whut,” the sunburned, obese one in the turquoise man-tank drawled, “We’ll mud-wrestle for it.” He didn’t actually say that. In my head he did. I couldn’t really hear.
A year later they give us the keys and inform us that our truck should be waiting right out front. We swing the door open and stand before the most beautiful site I’ve ever seen. Swathed in heavenly light, a rust-covered jalopy, front left corner of the hood crushed in, driver-side door open and radio blaring Reggaeton, beckons me hither. Mother of god, she was glorious. I fix my scrunchie and run my hands over the torn duct-taped wheel, tip the seat back 45 degrees, and peel the eff out. We stopped for slurpees on the way back to town, and I died of happiness.
Here is some other cool shit I did this weekend in DC that you can do too:
Ate a delicious frittata at brunch at Dos Gringos in Mt. Pleasant.
Ate a delicious hand-dipped donut covered in chocolate chips and peanuts (“The Sundae”) at the Fractured Prune on P St.
Drank whisky and saw the Sea and Cake at the Black Cat.
Drank coffee and utilized free wi-fi at Sparky’s on 14th St.
Listened to crazy Australian pop music at the Architecture in Helsinki show at the 9:30 Club.
Yesterday I went with a friend who works for EMILY’s List to see Hillary Clinton speak at a fundraiser billed as a part of the “Club44” Make History! Tour. Speakers slated to be there included a who’s who of strong, History!-making womyn-folk, including Madeline Albright, Geraldine Ferraro, and Billy Jean King - none of whom I showed up in time to hear, of course. I did, however, catch lukewarm performances by Babyface (of Take a Bow fame. *Swoon*) and Katherine McPhee (of American Idol semi-fame) - who I guess were the only “musicians” alive on the planet and available to perform at the time because I can’t otherwise think of a reason why a presidential candidate would choose to punish potential supporters like that.
I stood in a mild rage at the back of the crowd, having unsuccessfully tried to push our way to the front of the shoulder-to-shoulder mass with the (usually golden) line, “We’re just trying to get back to our group! They’re in the front row, I swear!” One of my arms could’ve been severed and dangling from the shoulder socket, and the lady progressives would have body checked me to the asphalt before they let me get to the first aid tent if it meant getting in front of them. There were also no snacks, as I had been promised, and this was a deal-breaker.
Before I clawed my friend’s eyes out from snacklessness and a general sense of whiny exasperation, Hillary thankfully took the stage. I think someone near the front might have clapped, and when I came to, KT Tunstell was over the loudspeaker, ushering the addled crowd out and away from the site of Club-shame-and-disappointment. Maybe I’ve been in DC too long, or not long enough, or I don’t have a clue, but politics can be so booooring sometimes.
The only clear option available by which to recover the evening was to immediately go to the Wonderland, listen to that one Scissor Sisters song on repeat on the jukebox, and have a former marine “accidentally” throw his hefewiezen on my white wide-legged pants, allowing him to buy my drinks all night. Suhweet.
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