Washington, D.C.

All right, I'll lay out our trip to D. C. as best I can after a week or so. (clicking on the pictures makes 'em bigger) Here's the skinny.

We flew direct from Cleveland to Reagan National last Friday. Easy breezy flight on one of those little Embrerer jets. GG had a bunch of extra points so the flight cost a total of $10.00 for the two of us.

We gathered our gear and headed for the Metro station at the Airport and were in our hotel in 30 minutes after landing. Again, Blondie had some coupons and shit, plus it was the weekend before Thanksgiving, so the room was $83.00 per night. Right on.

We were two blocks south of the Capitol in Capitol Hill. Just half a block from the "C" Street house of recent lore which is in the heart of RNC controlled south side of the Hill.


We first went to the National Botanical Garden. Lovely and free. Then off to the Air and Space. Saw tons of cool stuff including John Glenn's Freindship 7 capsule, bunches of Goddard related materils, a space monkey, the Enola Gay and a complete replica of the Hubble Space Telescope.

We had a 2:30 appt. for a tour of the Library of Congress at the Jefferson Building.
Breathtaking building that had a great Herblock exhibition and a nearly complete restoration of Thomas Jefferson's actual library which was, of course, the collection that begat the entire Library. Tres cool.

We went to dinner on Friday night at the world famous Ben's Chili Bowl. Sam Cooke on the jukebox and a greasy spoon on Friday night on U St.

Terrific.

We also tried to see the Numbers Band at a little joint down the street called The Velvet Lounge. That didn't pan out so well.

Saturday morning went straight to Ford's Theatre. First tour of the day starts at 9:00. We went in with a horde of High schoolers but jumped ahead of them and went straight to the balcony of the theatre. You can stand directly behind the chair that Lincoln was in when he was shot. It's really something and I oddly thought of Crazy Joe Davola when we were there. No pictures allowed.

We then went to the White House Visitors Center which sucked but had nice bathrooms. The line for our 11:30 appt. to tour the WH was chaos. People misdirected and confused and once past the initial metal detectors and such, a very loosely designed event. After going through there I frankly wasn't surprised that those boneheads that crashed the State Dinner 3 nights later got in as easily as they did. Again, no pics allowed at the WH.

Had a House of Reps tour scheduled via Dennis' office but that too became a unique mess. Because the House was out of Session, there were no tours of the House Chamber. However, with the health care vote going into Saturday, you could get into a live Senate session. The tour was great and just as we walked into the Senate Chamber, we heard the familiar tones of Al Franken orating in favor of passage of the HCR bill. Very neat indeed. Finished the evening at with dinner at Johnny's Half Shell and nightcaps at Sonoma

I also need to mention the excellent Trolley Tour we took both Saturday and Sunday. Ticket is $30 each and you can get on and off for two days all over the District and Georgetown. One of our drivers was an equity actor from OK named Sooner Steve. Hilarious and informative. We also used the Metro extensively. Fare cards and mini map got us all over.

Sunday was Memorials and such. Lincoln, WWII, Korea and the Vietnam Wall. Our trolley went across the Potomac to Arlington where we went up to the Tomb of the Unknowns and Kennedy's grave. Teddy, Jack and Bobby are the only plain white wooden crosses in the whole place. And unbelievably, it wasn't until we were directly in front of the Eternal Flame...at about noon...that GG observed that it was November 22nd. That kinda blew our minds.

We headed off to Georgetown for a late Sunday lunch and stumbled across Martins. Great joint. Got back on the trolley and headed back to the room. Monday was a travel day.

All in all it was a great time although I was yet again reminded of the power that the USA has always had is primarily military. Regardless, from an architectural and cultural perspective, this is a world class city that left us wanting to stay longer.

New Spoon

Mr. B. sent me one of those newfangled email things as he found today's All Songs Considered over at the NPR site replete with a pre-released cut of Britt and the boy's new tune-smithing.

Clangy guitars, ripping good bass lines and Prince vocals. Yep, that's fucking Spoon all right.

Friday Random Ten (Black version)

I Got Shit -- Pearl Jam
Boppin' The Blues -- Carl Perkins
Star Bodies -- The New Pornographers
The Gymnast, High Above The Ground -- The Decemberists
M79 -- Vampire Weekend
Night In My Veins -- The Pretenders
Zacatecas -- The Iguanas
Girls Talk -- Dave Edmunds
Bury Me With It -- Modest Mouse
Air -- Talking Heads

Bonus punkin' pie slice:

Fuck And Run -- Liz Phair

Anyway the wind blows

This vid is going to go viral right quick. Very darn clever. Hat tip to TBogg...

Nighttown this evening

I still need to get some pics and commentary up here about D.C., but I've been running around all day doin' pre T'day stuff and tonight is Nellie McKay @ Nighttown.

I'll have the whole Nations Capitol story for you'ns tomorrow. In the interim, here's Nellie...

They walk among us

King of teh funny, TBogg, has a clip of some early morning Palinites out for a glimpse of Hillbilly Barbie at a bookstore near Columbus last Friday.

Oh. My. God.

BTW, I'll have a roundup later of our super fantastic trip to Washington D.C. later in the week. It was a blast.

Friday Random Ten

Winging off to Chocolate City for the weekend with the Blonde. We'll do what we can to push this health care thingy through while we're there and be sure to say "hi" to Mr. and Mrs. O for everyone. Here's the ten...

SAD.TXT -- Pere Ubu
Break Up The Concrete -- The Pretenders
Burnout -- Green Day
Reddy Teddy -- Buddy Holly
Till The End Of The Day -- The Kinks
Strapped For Cash -- Fountains Of Wayne
Chinese Radiation -- Pere Ubu
Darkness -- Black Uhuru
Hope For Us All -- Nick Lowe
Poor Places -- Wilco

Non Ubu Bonus cut:

Biscuit -- Portishead

I'm a quitter

Today is the Great American Smoke Out. Best thing I ever did for myself was to quit smoking. It's never to late to quit.

Gun Shows

This brave young man with the cool last name is trying to expose the major loophole to our flimsy gun laws as they relate to gun dealers at gun shows. Here's his film.

Tonight on Dave

Letterman has Mr. Ray Davies on his television programme this evening. You'll have to slog through Stupid Human Tricks and that vampire kid from the Twilight revenue generator first, but it'll be worth the wait.

Do tune in.

Presumably, he's stumping for this release.

Anybody feel like some Eels?...

Hey, me too.

Here's the video for Souljacker part 1. This was the only embedded version I could find so you'll just have to put up with the German video interview part at the beginning.

Robert Scheer

Bob Scheer asks the question that is on many a mind these days.

Mr. Obama?...we're waiting.

Bing-fuckin'-O

The Rude One gives Quitter McPalin the complete treatment.

No Take Backs

Oh, Puhlezeeee.

I thought that Republicans were all about rules, fair play and self responsibility. What a tool.

NME

Swell. I guess that we'll start seeing a bunch of this stuff now that we're nearing the end of the decade. I'm tired of time fleeting so quickly.

Anyway. Pretty good list all in all. I have several of the recordings on this list including what I think may be the best record of the bunch.

The Arcade Fire's Funeral

Lou Dobbs

Huh. I guessed I missed this story what with all the hub-bub about Lou leaving CNN last week.

Not a drop to drink

I'm continually curious as to why this topic isn't a big deal for the entirety of the desert SW beyond Las Vegas. The whole freakin' place could shrivel up in a matter of a couple of years one day relatively and while there is a general sense of concern, there appears to be little urgency in advance of that inevitability.

Who's Gonna Save My Soul

Huh. Those Gnarls Barkley fellas are really something special.

Pre Thanksgiving Strike

Ha!

I never liked pumpkin pie anyway.

Ellen

I never turn the TV on during the day. I did make a note last week though that Ellen DeGeneres was slated for an appearance with her wife, Portia de Rossi on Oprah.

I watched the program.

What Ellen has done for the acceptance and subtle homogenization of gay people into the greater society is truly special. I made a mental note that I wanted to catalog all of the different shades of how Ellen has been so successful at this over the years and then I read this piece in today's NYTs.

Frank Bruni says it much better than I ever could.

I sure hope that these two women stick together for the duration of their relationship. All that celebrity blather is obviously hard on a marriage and it'd be a shame if this one crumbles for everyone's sake who believes in equality, acceptance and fairness for all alternative lifestyles.

Now, if someone would just pull Oprah out of the closet...