Excuse Me, Is That Your Blog?

I guess you could say that I get down on DC sometimes. I suppose I give off that vibe. But I love this city, I really do, and nothing makes me realize that as much as having out of town guests come to visit.

This past weekend, two of my buddies from Cleveland came down to hang out. Reluctant to do the "touristy" crap that is usually par for the course, we nonetheless ended up spending an eventful night in Adams Morgan and taking a good three or four mile walk around the city. (sidenote: Adams Morgan may be a wretched hive of fratboy scum and villainy, but there are a few gems to be found. Millie and Al's is fantastic, as long as you get there before the big rush. And a big shout-out goes to Marcus, the kick-ass bartender who poured us a free pitcher of High Life and free shots of Grand Marnier)

After recovering from Friday night and pondering the occurrences that likely will lead to our ban from Toledo Lounge (whatever, it sucks anyway), the guys from Cleveland decided they wanted an authentic DC lunch. So we went to Chipotle. In Dupont. The food was typical Chipotle, but the surroundings certainly made an impression on the out-of-towners. Eager for more culture, we departed the "restaurant" and took a walk. Turns out we ended up walking in a big square because I'm an idiot, but we saw some cool stuff, took some pics and eventually made our way to good ol' Abe and the rest of the monuments. Suffice it to say that this was by far my most fascinating trip to that area.

As we walked past the Great American Phallus, we heard an auctioneer-like voice mumbling gibberish punctuated by loud bursts of "JESUS" and "SALVATION." To our immediate left was some giant, bald emeffer with a bow tie rambling on about how everyone's gonna burn in hell as one of his lackeys (similarly buff and moronic-looking) accentuated baldy's preaching with more coherent sentences about eternal damnation. Here's a rough sketch of baldy:


So my buddy Josh, who was an altar boy for 15 years, walks by this dude and starts chuckling. Lackey #1 turns to him and says: "YOU'RE ONLY LAUGHING BECAUSE YOU'RE SO FULL OF SIN." Josh continues to laugh. "YOU WON'T BE LAUGHING WHILE YOU'RE BURNING IN HELL." Josh's laughter grows. "I HOPE YOU DIE ON YOUR WAY HOME!!!"

Seriously. This "Christian" preacher wished death on a group of upstanding young gentlemen strolling around the capital of the free world. Then and now, I am at a loss for words. Emboldened, we continued our trek onward to the Smithsonian Metro Station.

Everyone in DC knows that Smithsonian Station is the fucking worst. There are more fanny packs per capita there than anywhere else in the world. Upon entering the hornet's nest, we encountered not one but two families literally carrying babies in strollers down the broken escalator one step at a time, blocking everyone else, rather than using the fucking elevator. The sight of these delusional yokels, combined with the 99 degree heat, was enough to incite a murderous passive-aggressiveness in all three of us. You know it's bad when even the out-of-towners start squawking "EXCUSE ME" as they pass tourists on the escalator.

So all told, I feel like the Clevelanders got their money's worth. I'm a pretty goddamned fantastic tour guide, if I do say so myself. But even when you don't have guests, it never hurts to spend an afternoon every once in a while meandering around our glorious city taking in a few of your favorite things.

And no, I'm not referring to one of my occasional forays into midget erotica. Rather, I'm reminiscing about the denouement of a "nice" evening at the Sculpture Garden for Jazz in the Garden last Friday.

Jazz in the Garden is a fantastic way to spend a Friday evening. That is if you love lugging blankets and picnic gear to work, or don't mind sitting straight on the grass/dirt/sticks surrounding the fountains. If you choose the latter, try this: grab a book on entomology and see if you can count the number of insect/arachnid species that crawl up your jeans/khakis/slacks/skirts/chaps over the course of the evening. Speaking of clothing, JITG is also a great place to go if you enjoy rubbing elbows with the most fashion-forward young urban professionals, such as the casual d-bag I noticed in a yellow LaCoste polo and orange chino shorts. Yes, all the finest, diverse sects of young, upper middle-class white America are represented at JITG.

Also! If you get bored of the people watching, there's actually jazz being played! I'm not much of a jazz critic, but I think it's usually some kind of hip-hop/electronica/world/death metal/indie/funk/klezmer/jazz fusion band lead by famous singer/songwriter/artist/DJ Alejandro Brahma Capreze Diego Escovedo Francois-Goldsteinberg or some shit. Who knows. I mean, I'm sure everyone at DCist's panties are totally wet over it, but I couldn't give less of a shit. I just went to hang out with friends, drink too much sangria, and be leered at by those on neighboring blankets that didn't appreciate our crudely refined sense of humor.

All in all, though, it's a decent evening. Even if you don't like jazz, it's worth it for the people watching and pretty surroundings. It's free if you bring stuff -- alcohol is "prohibited," but nobody gives a shit unless you're blatant -- and it's a great place to bring a date. If you decide not to pack a pic-a-nic basket, prepare yourself for $9 pulled-pork sammiches and $18 pitchers of sangria. The sangria's not bad, though, but a word to the wise: pace yourself, because if you don't, your pants will be a rancid amalgam of dirt, sangria and bug guts by 7:30. Not that I'd know anything about that...

Ok, now I don't intend this to be a sports or baseball-related blog, and I really intended to sit down and write an honest to God post tonight but... goddamn.

I got sucked into watching the MLB Home Run Derby, mostly because I love baseball and I love the Indians and our golden boy, Grady Sizemore, was taking part. But as I write this, I just watched Josh Hamilton hit a record-setting 28 homers in the first round. The runners-up hit 8, 8, and 7 homers, just FYI.

So why does this matter? Well, Josh Hamilton was the first overall pick in the '99 MLB draft. After a brief stint in the minors, Josh fell into the blackest of downward spirals and spent the better portion of his multi-million dollar signing bonus on his various debilitating addictions to heroin, coke, meth and alcohol over the course of three years.

Eventually, Josh was able to leave it behind. Trust me, there's much more to the story than I can do justice to in a short blog post... the details would make your jaw drop. Check out the June 2, 2008 issue of Sports Illustrated if you're interested in more. Anyway, my point is this: after three years of living hell, Josh has returned and proven himself as one of the greatest talents at the highest level of professional baseball in the world. Perhaps one of the best raw talents in the history of the game, literally.

The Home Run Derby is supposed to be a fun little diversion, but this one was, for lack of a less hokey term, special. Watching Hamilton crush 500 foot homers like it was nothing in front of a crowd of 60,000 fans chanting his name at the last All Star Game in Yankee Stadium... the chills are still running up my spine.

For any cheesy story ever written about redemption, Josh Hamilton is the truth. Real, human inspiration. I can honestly say with no hesitation and not one bit of sarcasm that I am moved. I wish him a long and successful career; I know I'll be following it all the way.


Anyway, thanks for your patience with the pseudo sports-themed post. Brian and I will return tomorrow with your regularly scheduled snark (as soon as we have our apartment-seeking dreams crushed).

Turk: Washington, DC is a city about obstruction, plain and simple. Even as I try to write this post, Brian has the fucking TV turned up to 11 so I can't concentrate. For a long time, both of us have mused that virtually anything you (try to) do in DC can and will be delayed, obstructed or turned into an all-out clusterfuck. You can't just... fill in the blank. You can't just go grab some lunch on a Sunday afternoon because the fucking Red Line is single tracking. You can't just enjoy a douche-free happy hour in Dupont. And, as we found out tonight, you can't just rent a reasonable apartment.

Braixan: Indeed. The city itself is, by its very nature, a complete clusterfuck. Never in my life have I lived someplace so thoroughly overgoverned and at the same time so completely incapable of getting its act together. This coming from a native of Durham, NC, where school board meetings ending in angry gangs of parents chanting "The board is blind every time!" are considered par for the course, and where every friendly discussion of local politics is a cloak masking a dagger of race hatred. Washington, DC, a not-exactly-huge city of 580,000 people, is policed by no fewer than 114 police agencies and broken down into eight different and disparate political entities, each subdivided into its own neighborhood councils pushing each other out of the way to suckle at the Great Federal Teat--the gigantic boob in the southeast corner of town holding court over the whole abominable nightmare. As a result, you can't just own a car, can't just go to a decent school, can't just ride the Metro on the weekend and be on time to where you're going...hell, can't just live safely in a middle-class neighborhood. But you WILL be fined for eating or playing music on Metro. This is the capital of Western Civilization, after all.

Turk: Let's not forget the fact that on the rare occasion you do decide to take part in the MASSIVE BOOM in Metro ridership, you will be swarmed by unruly crowds of transient hipsters, NOVAnite d-bags and clueless tourists trying their damnedest to make some sense out of this totally confusing fucking five line transit system. But every once in a while, something catches your eye or your ear and it makes you love everything this city is. Like the dude with the giant VATICAN HIDES PEDOPHILES sign who gets on at the Brookland stop and wanders between cars each stop, happily swinging his silent, cardboard protest. Or the repeated mispronunciation of "L'Enfant" (La-FONT) by Metro drivers. Or the persistent sound of sirens somewhere in the background, whether you're sipping a latte in Georgetown or chilling out across from the Big Chair in Anacostia. These small but precious details remind you that this city is important and therefore, goddammit, so are you.

Braixan: God. I AM fucking important, aren't I? In fact, very thing that convinced me I had to live here was a bomb threat that caused the evacuation of the Library of Congress while I was working on a research paper there. I knew, right then, right there, that if this city were good enough and important enough for someone to want to attack it, then dammit, I wanted in. That varnish wore off quickly once I actually moved here and confronted the Virginia suburbs (which have scarred me for life, and which warrant a long, angry, rambling diatribe that would put Fidel Castro to shame), and then the crime and the rats and mice and other bullshit that the District of Columbia has to offer. But in spite of all the threats to my own mental and physical well-being, I've finally found that this city has begun to feel...not like home...but like a place I'm able to call my own and where I somewhat successfully made that awkward transition from college student to proper adult. No, it's not New York, and much as everyone here wants it to be, it never will be. Let's face it. This city is awful. But it has mass transit in abundance, a good nightlife, ridiculously smart people (some of whom are even worth talking to), culture, and anything else you could ask for in a large city, all compressed into a convenient 62 square miles. For a smart, single twentysomething with moxy like me, it's a better place to be than 95 percent of these United States.

Turk: Right. And even for a dumb, rustbelt-bred, single twentysomething without moxy, it's still a pretty decent place to be. I mean hey, I love my hometown but let's face it; my political science degree would be even more worthless if I had stayed in Cleveland. Besides, without DC, I'd have to make things up to bitch about. This city is like a living, breathing dartboard, and we're all just the stupid drunks shooting for the bullseye but missing, accidentally spearing our friend in the arm and then falling over as we try unsuccessfully to high-five that same friend. And I fucking love it.