What with my several friends from Tennessee visiting, the Barcelona-Man U game, the Omega Psi Phi 100th anniversary, and the education reform protest.
I think what we need is another world superpower against which the US can compete to make us a greater nation. And by that I mean where we prioritize programs that enhance the welfare of our citizens like Medicare (for all), Social Security, education, etc. rather than stigmatizing and demonizing them as wastes of money. There needs to be another country that rises economically, socially, militarily against which we can measure ourselves and then I imagine we would see to it that all sectors of our society are of the quality that the rest of the world envies us once again. Maybe then we would get out of wars in countries like this, or at least not try to nation-build there until the cultural differences between our countries are less than something like six centuries.
Anyway.
They just don't make songs like this anymore do they? Well, no, they don't because they (Sleater-Kinney) broke up a little while ago. For the longest time I had said that if I were a professional baseball player I would use seconds 14 to 30 of this song as my coming-up-to-bat music. But One Beat could be a suitable replacement. I know I am like a decade late with this song but ooh it is good. Doesn't it just make you want to go light stuff on fire or something? I mean look at these lyrics:
I'm a bubble in a sound wave
A sonic push for energy
Exploding like the sun
A flash of clean light hope
All you scientists can hold your breath
Can I decide to show myself, oh oh
So the first of our people visiting arrived Thursday. An underlying theme of this weekend was taking full advantage of Columbia Heights in entertaining friends. And not getting to bed before 4am. Thursday fits the bill with a trip to Wonderland at about 2am. Who are the types of people that patronize Wonderland at 2am on a school night? People that get a 'gentleman's special' (beer with a shot of whiskey), which was us, and lumberjack looking ladies that, and I could not make this up, take the chewed gum out of their mouth and stick it in their ear. Goodness, I hope that was for medicinal reasons.
The others all arrived on Friday. After sitting all day in a car they were deserving of some cheap beer, which Raven in Mt. Pleasant had with their $2 cans of National Bohemian. Have you ever heard of Google Goggle? Yeah, neither had I. If you and a group of friends are sitting around and you are like, "we need something to make us laugh like little kids," have the one with the smart phone (and every group of friends needs someone with a smart phone) download Google Goggle. Then you have your friends pose and take their picture with Google Goggle. There is a good chance, if none of your friends are recognizable celebrities, that Google Goggle will interpret their face as something like a hyena playing the didgeridoo, a trapeze artist dressed as a clown, a snow covered mountain, or something of the like. Quite entertaining. Do it.
Then the group pho fix was had for dinner. Then there was party at our house for three of the roommates who mothers birthed them between July 14 and August 4.
Do you remember when I told you about how there was a historically black fraternity that had its national reunion in DC this weekend? Yeah, that explains the line outside Ben's Chili Bowl at 2am. So, while JJ's is not as famous as Ben's, it is probably just as, if not more, delicious.
When you have friends that have never been to DC before where do you take them and what do you tell them when they ask about random landmarks? I take them to all the big famous spots and make up stories on the spot. For example, did you know that while the first shots of the Revolutionary War are commonly thought to have been fired at Lexington & Concorde in Massachusetts they were really fired on the land that is now used for Franklin Square in DC? And did you know that the Lee and Blair Houses located right across the street from the White House are used as back-up White Houses when the President and his family get tired of living in what is for the most part an office building and museum? Yup, these are stops on the 'Jeff Matus May or May Not Tell You Facts About Real Places in DC Tour.' Get a notebook and tell all your friends. Oh, and be sure not to miss the Smithsonian Castle where America's last royal family, the Smithsons, resided before we declared our independence from England. If you're lucky, like we were, you just might be in town during a big ole protest like the education reform one or the competing pro/anti Syrian President Assad demonstrations. And if it's a Saturday in the summer be sure to hop in the Corcoran to cool down and check out some art.
At this point couple of people parted to attend the Barcelona-Manchester United World Football Classic match while the rest of us started walking and did not stop until we were doing our best impression of well-fed homeless people eating seafood underneath a bridge.
Let me explain:
So after the White House and Corcoran we gandered on over to the Washington Monument to sit in its shade and owl (yes, that's intended as a verb). Have you ever heard of these new fads owling and planking? Well, basically, you just pose like an owl and plank of wood, respectively. So there are pictures of us owling by the Washington Monument and a high quality planking in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which received some admiration from passersby.
Oh and if you are planning on coming to DC and want to pull a Jenny from Forest Gump and run through the Reflecting Pool, well, you're going to have to wait a little while because they tore up said Pool and it's fenced off. Sorry if this ruined your plans.
When I say 'Fish Market' what do you think of? If you think of anything other than exactly what it sounds like even after I say walking by this fish market smells a lot like dead fish airing out in hot weather, you are incorrect. Especially if you were thinking it is the name of a restaurant that inauthentically mimics an actual fish market where you are outside and there are dead fish airing out and reaking up the air. Yeah, you would be wrong. Not sure how this was misinterpreted.
Well, after walking from the White House to the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to the Maine Ave. Seafood Market in 100 degree heat and you are from a city where the main mode of transportation is an automobile there is a good chance you would think you're going to end up somewhere there are chairs and a legitimate bathroom and air conditioning. The Maine Ave. Seafood Market has none of these things. I apologize. I am working on my tour guiding.
What do they have? How about a chairless area overlooking the Potomac to eat your delicious, fresh seafood; some of the absolutely best fruit punch ever (but this may just be directly related to the level of parchedness I had when drinking it); and a convenient proximity to a grassy area underneath a bridge where you can actually sit and eat your crab, crab cakes, fried chicken, and fruit punch just like a well-fed homeless person.
Three mind-numbing consecutive hours of quarters: the drinking game and another jar of Tostitos queso later and there went Saturday. A trip to Meridian Pint for their as-good-as-advertised burgers for brunch later and there went the weekend.
Just let me know if you want me to direct your tour. Be sure to bring your walking shoes and party pants.
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