Dancin’ With Mr. D(C)

Ye Gods it’s been a while. Trying to catch up the last three weeks is a little unreasonable for a man who’s on his first cup of coffee, but for the sake of keeping the blog some semblance of current I’ll put up some photos and give a Readers Digest version of the time since we last left you, dear reader.

In the 10 years I’ve been old enough to drink in bars, I’ve purveyed dives all over the Western hemisphere and found some excellent places filled with beautiful losers, cheap drinks, shabby decor, good conversations and even better jukeboxes. For example, I would highly recommend Lebowski Bar next time you’re in former Communist East Berlin. Yes, it’s actually a Big Lebowski themed dive bar, where you can get White Russians for about $3 and the only other people in the place when I was in there was a touring indie rock band from the US. If you’re in LA you can’t go wrong with The Smog Cutter, where Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski and Elliott Smith all used to sit and write at one time or another and Elliott even filmed a music video there (“Miss Misery”). The bartenders/owners are angry Thai women (it’s been rumored they’re prostitutes and while I can’t confirm this, they’re definitely tough as nails and know how to take a poor saps money) who will berate you and tell you to “GET THE **** OUT!” in no uncertain terms if you don’t appreciate their attitude which is a great way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to douchey patrons. Add karaoke to the mix and you’ve got yourself a fine time. Vesuvio’s in San Francisco will probably always be my favorite bar, but I can finally say I’ve found a contender in Chicago’s The Green Mill. It’s Chicago’s oldest nightclub and opened in 1907 complete with outdoor walled gardens and dining room, meant to emulate the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Al Capone bought it in the 1920′s and had his henchman Jack McGurn manage it, who was responsible for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The place still has secret passageways that lead from behind the bar to secret tunnels running up and down the block. We showed up in time for a poetry slam complete with band playing a theme song to all the failed poets and each poet being ranked on a scale of minus infinity to ten. After the poets were done there was a break before the house band and I was standing outside when a van for people with disabilities pulled up out front, beeped its way back into a parallel parking job and out comes this guy with sunglasses on, old as dirt and gets led into the Green Mill looking like Ray Charles with a tapeworm. When I got back inside he was sitting behind the bar at an organ and I knew the night was about to get even better. He started plunking away on it and soon a guy in a suit took the bar stage with him playing jazz progressions on guitar and sprinkling little complimentary notes around the organ’s phrasings. We stayed for a while since Steph wanted to see the vocalist, who was alright until she started nervously carrying on a conversation with some dandy sitting at the bar instead of playing music so we braced ourselves for the cold and crackheads and wandered back to the deserted elevated night train platform and headed home.

Other Chicago highlights included my sisters graduation from Northwestern Law School (finally Shanna can now say “As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top…” with the credentials to back it up), an architecture cruise down the Chicago river (which doesn’t actually flow into Lake Michigan because Canada got angry that all of those Chicago hot dogs and green dye were polluting the lake so they dammed it up), seeing Kim Taylor play and talking with her afterward, discovering the nutty German board game Carcassonne, seeing my folks… Sweet pickles it was quite the extended sojourn and by the time the day came to pick up the Lolli from storage we were both itching to get back on the road. Before we got to Chicago we couldn’t wait to see civilization again, and then within two weeks we couldn’t wait to be free and on the road. The grass is always greener and wherever you go, there you are. Heady stuff. When I picked it up it was like being reunited with long-lost parents; I was so damn happy to see the thing I apologized to it for neglecting it like I did and running off to the big city. So back to Shanna’s apartment and pick up Steph and all our worldly belongings, say goodbyes and hit the road for Pioneer, OH once again.

We should have learned our lesson about Pioneer, OH the first time we were there and stayed and Loveberry’s Funny Farm where the water smelled so bad like Chlorine it stunk up the whole rv for a week and the broken showers had ladybugs covering the fluorescent light fixtures (I thought they ate aphids, not fluorescent lights but I’m no entomologist). Obviously, we didn’t because I found a different campsite a few miles away from the funny farm and decided to give it a try. We pulled in late and had to camp in the late check-in campsite, which was a soggy grass patch about 20 yards by 20 yards with an electrical outlet and faucet. I filled up the water jug in the darkness and when I brought it into the light of the Lolli, it looked like chocolate milk. I figured maybe the pipes needed to be flushed out a bit so I let the water run as we walked to the bathrooms, which were inexplicably locked for the night. It didn’t matter though because the next morning when they let us in to use them, I thought a troop of boyscouts with dysentery had stormed the place and left cackling until I realized that all that brown everywhere was from the water. I’m no Mr. Clean but a toilet shouldn’t look used after you flush it because the water supply is so filthy. Cereal for dinner with boiled water to drink and the next morning we’re on our way to the Cleveland KOA in desperate need of showers and clean water. The KOA delivered and it was a perfect sunny day as we make pasta, drink wine and lay on a bench listening to the snap crackle and pop of the mud drying around us in the sun. The next day we’re heading into Pennsylvania and I’m glad to be marking another state off my list, especially one as wooded and beautiful as PA. We stay in a town called Bedford that had an amazing little downtown built in the mid-18th century where George Washington had his headquarters when he crushed the Whisky Rebellion and effectively established the government’s authority to collect taxes by pointing a gun in your face. America! Went to a little market and then headed to our campsite which was having a “Yard Sale” meaning all of the campers had their stuff sprawled out next to their campers which was pretty awesome and we had a Mennonite couple pull up next to us in a minivan and camp in a tent then set up their homemade candle shop the next day. “Impress your wife!” the husband told one potential candle customer. Apparently Mennonite wives are easily impressed. It was a bittersweet night in the Lolli as we knew it might be the last night in it since the plan was to hole up in DC for a while and then look for apartments in New York. We were still up in the air though as to whether we wanted to give up the nomadic life so we didn’t spend a lot of time crying about it. Plus I hate goodbyes so it was better to leave it unceremonious anyway. The next day we pack up the Lolli one last time, then head out past Gettysburg and into Maryland. I’d had the shotgun with us the whole trip but DC and NYC both have insane regulations on transporting and possession of firearms without registering them so I figure it’s probably time to bid it farewell and sell it at a pawn shop for $100 then we’re on our way in much traffic to our nation’s capital. I look at the directions on my iPhone and although we’re only 12 miles away, it says we’ve got an hour and 20 minutes. My morale drops as the temperature rises. We hit dead stop traffic and the Lolli is now overheating so we turn on the heater and help keep warm since it’s only 94 degrees outside with 80% humidity. Then just to make things complete I duct tape a space heater to my crotch and wrap myself in blankets and tinfoil.  As we’re sitting there losing our minds a guy in a BMW pulls up next to us and yells “Hey you wanna sell that thing?” And yes, actually we do so I tell him to check out the Craigslist ad. We get into DC and to Megan and Ben’s house and when I say house, I mean HOUSE. They live in a great part of DC (a block away from Ian Mackaye of Fugazi, Minor Threat and Dischord Records fame) and in a huge 2 story 1920′s rowhouse with a huge basement converted into an apartment where we get to stay. Unbelievably kind and the nicest digs of our whole trip. Plus we get to set up the equipment in the basement and get a song recorded which will be mixed and put up next week. I call up my good friend Nick who comes over with wine and the 5 of us sit on the humid porch of evening heat and drink and shoot the bull before walking to a cool spot for dinner, meeting up with his friend and then Nick takes us on the grand tour of DC. We head to his friend’s birthday party at a bar in DuPont Circle drinking and eating birthday cake at a table in the back, then we’re off to the Black Cat club which is a cool indie rock venue where they’re having a dance party and wail and grab lapels and reminisce, then we head to his friend’s place and hang out on the roof with the orange effervescent glow of DC stretching out before us as the rain falls. Finally it’s time to head home so Steph and I lock arms and charge through ghetto and gourmet a mile and a half back to our basement nest. The next day we walk to the zoo with Ben, Megan and their kids and have a mosquito picnic near a stream with caprese and pasta with asparagus and wine. Next day it’s down to the National Mall for a stroll through the halls of government and I’m really impressed with our country for creating such a beautiful collection of government buildings. I’m a cynical curmudgeon when it comes to our fair country and government but I have to say great job America. It felt like being in a European city and totally gave me a new respect for the city. Not our government, but just a rosy glow on the city. So we walk through all the government stuff then it’s up to DuPont circle where we hit up the lobby restaurant of an old hotel. Victorian style dark wood with dark velvet couches and dim lighting we sit and drink good Tempranillo and watch the place fill up with grey hairs and can’t afford more than a glass of wine each so we take off and start walking now that the evening has cooled and dig all of DuPont circle, ending at Bistro Du Coin. We notice it walking by with all the tables up front and the place is a huge cavernous hall all open and every inch filled with tables. We wait for a bit and then get seated in the back. Our waiter hardly speaks english and has a bulbous nose with bristly grey mustache and sweat pouring from every pore on his head like an exorcism of all the orders for wine and mussels he’s frantically recorded and rushed out to hungry socializers this evening. The meal is great and in the right light and if you squint hard enough you can almost imagine you’re in Paris again. High and fine we talk each others ears off and then head off into the night, this time catching a cab back to the basement. The next day I’m sitting on the couch playing guitar unwilling to go outside in the heat and my phone rings with a guy who’s standing outside looking at the Lolli. So I stagger outside and spend over two hours with the guy as he rambles on about needing to call his dad, how he’s going to kinda go “off the grid for a while” and after two hours of sweating profusely from standing in the humid sun staring at our sweet Lolli we’re finally walking into the bank so he can get me my money when his dad calls him back. “So my pops says that if there’s no generator the A/C won’t work” “Right, none of the Toyota motorhomes have generators so you’d need to be plugged in to use the roof A/C. Any park or campground you go to is going to have an electrical hookup.” “Well he says I’ll need to buy one and that they’re about $500 so can you knock it off the price for me?” “No.” So we start walking back and the whole time he’s talking about how he’ll bring me cash the second I say yes if I’ll go down on the price so that he can buy a generator. That’s like me going to buy a house and being upset that there’s no Thai masseuse living there. “Waaaaaaait a second…if I want a Thai Massage I’ll need to call one and have them come over, sooooo can you come down on the price of the house for me to help cover this unexpected expense?” Rigoddamndiculous. But the next day we’re looking at the fact we need to go to NYC by Monday since someone is going to be staying in the basement for a few days and we need to sell the thing. So I email Tyrone to let him know he can have the Lolli, but luckily before he can get back to me a sweet couple and their baby come over and they’re ecstatic about the Lolli and buy it. Things always work out if you let them; sometimes good and sometimes bad but always as they should. Then two days ago we realize we’ve got to go to NY in 48 hours and don’t have a place to stay or any way to get there so we go online and find a sweet studio apartment in the hippest part of Brooklyn for a week for half the price of a hotel and get bus tickets. Satisfied we head out for dinner and wine in the hood. Now we’re on said bus headed toward NY and on the agenda tonight is getting our pad, then going to see a sublet for the month of June two blocks away that may end up being our permanent home in the city and after that it’s Polish food with my boon companion Tom from high school days whose lived in NY for the past 4 years and just moved into the neighborhood we’ll be staying in.

I had a strange realization last night that I don’t have a key chain because I don’t have a vehicle or a home and laughed out loud. Hopefully after tonight that will change.

-J

PHOTOFUNTIME:

One of our cabbies was a 78-year-old lady who was the first woman bus driver in DC and had a ton of great stories. Plus a sweet fanny pack:

Lincoln Memorial:

The Rooftops of DC:

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