By Ellen McCarthy
Friday, July 20, 2007
Just 10 more minutes.
Please? It's summer, and it's not even dark out yet.
Come on. Please? We don't have to get up for school tomorrow.
So that was it. An extra round of hide-and-seek on a Tuesday night. Four more fireflies captured on Wednesday evening. A third grape popsicle licked just slow enough to catch each drip on Thursday.
And then, a few years later, midweek sleepovers. A first glimpse of Letterman.
An extended curfew after that, one that still wasn't late enough because you needed to drive around town one more time to see whether there was anyone interesting out.
During college, too, that first year you didn't go home for summer break. There was a job, of course, but not a taxing one, so mostly there was hanging out, sitting on porches waiting for word about which house down the street had just tapped a keg and was looking for a few more "flip cup" enthusiasts.
Two decades like that -- splashing about in an extra layer of fun whenever it grew warm -- and it's no wonder we expect more from our summers. That the phrase "Wanna go out tonight?" seems to start tripping off everyone's tongue more regularly come June -- even if we're still expected to show up in the office each Monday through Friday.
It's just less tempting to sit at home during summer, school night or not. Regardless of how many years it has been since "school" was a factor.
But alfresco dinners and outdoor happy hours -- wonderful as they are -- can fill only so many dusky evenings.
To avoid the same old, same old, we wandered around town checking out a few more weeknight options. Some, like the concerts at Fort Reno, are Washington institutions. Others, like the Sunday night parties at Modern nightclub, are relatively new experiments that will thrive or wane depending on the city's ever-evolving taste in entertainment.
So, wanna go out?
SundayBlues Jam At Chick Hall's Surf Club
"You know we're trying to save this place," says a hovering man with a chicken wing and a blue short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest.
Then, leaning in closer: "It's the last of the freakin' honky-tonks."
So it is.
Chick Hall's Surf Club, established 1955.
And tonight this Bladensburg honky-tonk has got the blues, which seems fitting for a Sunday, when the weekend's crackling endorphins start to vanish and the stretch ahead looks awfully long.
Let's sit, then, beneath the glow of a neon Budweiser sign and watch the tattooed ladies in the back play pool between cigarettes. And nod along as the voice from the front rumbles:
"Woke up this mornin',
"And I couldn't hardly keep from cryin',
"I used to love yaaaaaaaaaa, but I don't believe you're no good at all."
Chick Hall's gets the blues every Sunday, when local musicians show up to jam. But the melancholy blowing through this gritty, windowless joint isn't coming from just the slow guitar licks and brokenhearted lyrics.
Chicken Wing Man is right. Chick Hall's, with its paneled walls and NASCAR racing flags, is on the auction block.
And saving it won't come easy. The chance to sit a spell in one of the last freakin' honky-tonks -- the last in this area, anyway -- might be gone by winter.
"The crowds just aren't what they used to be," explains Chris Hall, son of Chick, shoulders hunched over a faux-wood tabletop.
So, the nondescript concrete building, the "Beer to Go 7 Days a Week" banner, the man who loves chicken wings and the blues -- well, who knows what will become of them.
Right now, though, they've got a story and a song:
"Yeah, I used to think you were beautiful . . . but I don't see how it's gonna last."
Liquid Funk at ModernM Street NW is pretty quiet as the clock inches toward midnight on a Sunday evening.
Except on that block toward the end in Georgetown, where a dozen 20-somethings are pouring down a dark staircase that's vibrating with a thumping, persistent electronic rhythm.
"We play so much hip-hop here, it's good to do something different," the club's manager, Rebecca Brumberg, is shouting over a remixed version of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."
Sunday nights are a risk, Brumberg admits. For Modern, or any D.C. nightspot. Washington can be an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of town, so there was no guarantee anyone would show up when they started keeping the doors open on Sundays a couple of months ago.
And there's still no guarantee. Sometimes a hundred people or more pack the dance floor of the underground club. Sometimes just a couple of dozen customers wander in and out, sipping $5 watermelon martinis or having a quick beer in a booth at the back.
Usually folks come in two waves, Brumberg says. One set flows in about 9, when the doors open, just trying to extend their weekend a little longer. Later, after midnight, bartenders and bouncers from other clubs will swing by for downtime of their own.
"There's also a lot of people who've never experienced this music before," says Jason Riccardelli (a.k.a. DJ Jaybird), who persuaded Modern's managers to throw the Sunday night party, called Liquid Funk, after noticing a dearth of the type of drum'n'bass music he plays. "It's got a little bit of soul, a little bit of reggae, a little bit of hip-hop."
Whatever it's got, it's enough to keep slumber at bay for at least those few wandering the sidewalks of Georgetown as Monday draws near.
MondayConcerts at Fort Reno
Jump, jump, jump. Dive.
Jump, jump, jump. Dive.
Jump, jump, jump. Dive.
An antiwar anthem happens to be accompanying this particular bit of stylized choreography, but she doesn't care, the dancing toddler in sandals that blink with each bounce.
It's her concert, too. Hers and her dad's -- whose lap is the landing pad for those giggling dives -- and also her big sister's, who has taken off at the moment to roll down a hill while fireflies and Frisbees zoom overhead.
"Forty years, Fort Reno. That's incredible," Ian MacKaye, one half of the Evens, a rock duo headlining tonight, purrs into the microphone. Their fans have dotted the lawn with more black T-shirts and old Converse kicks than flowery sundresses, but when MacKaye invites people to dance -- "we are a dance band, after all" -- he clearly means everyone.
"I was thinking, with all these kids running around, wouldn't it be great if some day, 40 years from now, they said, 'My first Fort Reno was in 2007.' "
" 'My first Fort Reno' " -- MacKaye left out the word "concert." Maybe because it's assumed. Or maybe because it's more than that. It's a tradition and a party and a giant twilight play date for kids and dogs and their lounging, laughing chaperones.
"Light show!" MacKaye exclaims as he and his partner, Amy Farina, flip on a couple of floor lamps perched on either side of a simple stage that sits in the shadow of a Civil War lookout tower in Northwest Washington.
Then they're off again, rocking, and the toddler is up, beaming and dancing.
Show-Tune Singalong At JR's Bar & Grill"You're the one that I want,
"You-are-the-one-I-want,
"Oooh, oooh, oooh, honey. . ."
Awww, come on, you know the words. And if you don't, a couple of consecutive Monday nights at JR's Bar & Grill near Dupont Circle should do the trick.
It's show-tune singalong night!
Emphasis on the singalong. Show tunes aren't even the half of it.
Sure, sure, sure -- video clips from Broadway hits such as "Wicked" and "Rent" pop up on the dozen or so big-screen TVs hanging throughout the 17th Street bar.
But so do "Saturday Night Live" skits -- remember Jake Gyllenhaal singing that "Dreamgirls" showstopper in drag? -- and montages from sitcom theme songs:
"You take the good,
"You take the bad,
"You take them both and there you have the facts of life,
"The facts of life . . ."
It's kind of a lyrical walk down memory lane -- or an education in pop culture if you're not old enough to remember such things as the "Bosom Buddies" number Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur shared in the movie version of "Mame" (ehhhhhm, 1974).
And when is the last time you got to sing -- loudly, badly, in public -- without waking up with a stomach full of regret the next morning?
No such worries at JR's, since you're all singing -- loudly, badly, in public -- together. And it is together. Usually you stick with your own during nights out, mingling only if you're feeling especially brave.
But there's something more communal, more shared, about this experience. Like most nights, on Mondays JR's attracts a mostly gay crowd, and a very welcoming one.
Especially if you know the words to that tender "Little Shop of Horrors" ditty:
"Suddenly, Seymour
Is standing beside you . . ."
TuesdayWashington Psychotronic Film Society
A curl of cigarette smoke drifts past the movie screen just as the naked, communal shower scene gets underway.
The eerie electronic music spells danger for our wide-eyed heroine, and sure enough, within minutes the evil brainwashing foot soldiers are setting a small child on fire while some dubbed-in voice shouts, "Touchdown."
Upstairs the kids are listening to Dave Matthews and sipping fruity microbrews.
Not so much here in the basement of Dr. Dremo's Taphouse in Arlington. At least, not on Tuesday nights when the Washington Psychotronic Film Society takes over.
"Psychotronic means everything but the norm -- from B-movies to Z-movies to underground to forbidden, student, experimental," explains Carl Cephas, the group's president. "It's the same way we describe alternative music."
Tonight that means "Escape 2000," a sci-fi flick originally titled "Turkey Shoot" when it was released in Australia in 1981.
There are plastic patio tables and pitchers of beer and a running stream of snarky commentary from the couple of dozen film buffs assembled in the makeshift theater.
They've been coming together for almost 20 years now, to meet and talk and smoke and drink and see what they can't see at the cineplex. The movies lure all types, Cephas says, "the curious, the hard-core, the purists, the historians. Anyone, really."
And occasionally the scene -- or maybe the search for a restroom -- will lure a few girls in miniskirts and tube tops down to Dr. Dremo's basement. They'll stay a minute, mesmerized or bewildered, before heading back toward the stairs.
"Touchdown," a film society member echoes after the ghastly fireball scene, and all his buddies shake their heads and laugh.
Open-Mike Poetry At Busboys and Poets"It starts at 9, and tickets go on sale at 8," says the woman on the phone. "But the line usually starts forming around 7:15."
The line.
The line to listen to poetry.
And they aren't kidding. By 7:20 p.m., there are 60 people in that line, snaking around the shelves that fill Busboys and Poets' small bookstore on 14th Street NW. Ten minutes later, it stretches out to the street, and a Saturday afternoon wait for a roller coaster is brought to mind.
"No cutting," someone grumbles.
By 8:10, the show is sold out. And still 100 other people stand there, as if needing to be told individually, "No, really, it would be a fire hazard for us to let any more people in."
"This is a slow Tuesday," says a bombastic bartender where the dejected have gathered to lick their wounds. "Believe it or not, this is a slow Tuesday."
"I'll give you $50 for your stamp," offers one would-be poetry patron who didn't make the cut. Admission to Busboys' open-mike event is $3.
Of course, this is not just poetry. It's two hours of bared souls on parade. It's passion and rage and despair and humor. It's a communion of kindred spirits. It's rousing dinner theater in a sepia-toned room wrapped in the faces of poets and activists past.
It starts with a teenage tap dancer, but from then on it's all words. Verses on war and family, relationships, politics, betrayal, identity and so on and so on. Some are old pros, the types who look as if they were born to speak from a stage. Others are nervous, barely able to glance up from their notebooks.
All of them are encouraged with ample applause. Sometimes more than that. Lamar Hill, the featured poet of the night, elicits hoots from half the room with a rhyme about jealousy and false accusations. He begins:
"To the right, to the right,
Everything you own in a box to the right . . . "
When he ends, they are laughing, shouting, clutching their stomachs.
It was worth the wait.
WednesdayWashington's 'Most Haunted Houses' Walking Tour
"Tonight we'll be winding our way through these seemingly unhaunted streets," Jordan Hill begins, his head turning slowly from side to side. "But then -- you'll learn the truth."
The truth, as Hill tells it, includes duels and mistresses, suicides and betrayals, cold spots, spooked servants and restless souls -- all within a five-block radius of the White House.
The Farragut West Metro station might look innocuous now, but once upon a time, Hill says, it was the site of a house owned by a high-society tailor whose wife was mysteriously never around. Folks gossiped, of course, and eventually the tailor moved away. After that no one seemed to stay in the house for too long; something always spooked them out. And wouldn't you know it, a few decades later, the most skeptical of homeowners bought the place and started renovations -- only to make a sinister discovery between the walls of the haunted mansion.
It's the type of thing you do in other people's towns -- in Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; or Gettysburg, Pa. -- follow someone around listening to stories of old buildings and odd gravestones. But in a way, it's more interesting when the tales are of streets you walk down every day and boarded-up windows you never even noticed.
"People always say, 'Is it really true, what you're telling us?' " says Hill, an animated, captivating storyteller. "And you always find, even if the story turns out not to be accurate, there's always a kernel of truth."
Open-Mike Night At Iota Club & CafeAmerica does have talent.
"Ummmmm, I wrote this song over the winter," one of the talented says during his 20-minute stint onstage. "Everybody's a little bit sadder in the winter."
He nods to the drummer, and soon the bar is filled with the strains of love and loss and originality.
Iota Club & Cafe's address says Arlington, but the eclectic wood-beamed music haven could as easily be in Austin or a Colorado ski town. Someplace where government-contracting I.D. badges aren't quite so ubiquitous.
Every night Iota plays host to live musical groups -- and on Wednesdays, courtesy of Mike Maloney -- it plays host to a slew of them.
Maloney is the mop-topped ringmaster of this weekly open-mike session. There are good acts and bad, rock music and folk songs, full five-piece bands and solo artists. And no Simon Cowell sitting in the front row ready to hurl a string of insults as they finish their sets.
There are no prizes at stake. Or fame within spitting distance. But there is the chance to perform and be heard, and a 20- and 30-something Miller Lite-sipping audience packed beneath the twinkling white Christmas lights ready and willing to listen.
Well, listen between french fries and conversation, anyway.
Next up, two white boys singing the blues. After that, a big guy with a penchant for Johnny Cash tunes. Then a tiny woman with a big guitar and an even bigger, breathtaking voice.
Not included in the evening: cable bills, commercial breaks or a focus on family-friendly entertainment.
ThursdayWeirdo Show at Palace of Wonders
At first glance, they just look like a few folks chatting at a neighborhood tavern.
Folks like any other folks except that one has a sports coat that's just a little too plaid. And the blond is in sneakers that are a little too pink. Is that a Marilyn Monroe wig the girl on the end is wearing? And why is no one surprised by the cat strutting nonchalantly across the bar?
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your very own Weirdo Show.
No, really, a weirdo show.
"I like to think of myself as the talent agent of the underrepresented," the plaid-coated man says as he takes the stage at H Street NE's Palace of Wonders. His name, he says, is Greggy Glitteratti (it's really Ted Alsedek), and, boy, oh, boy, does he have a show for us tonight!
First up is Talia Melcer (a.k.a. Miss Joule), who's gonna "spin it to win it."
Cue Chubby Checker, and watch closely: That hula hoop and those hips might move in ways you never thought possible.
It's standing room only in the narrow bar as Glitteratti introduces our next act: a dialogue-free play featuring a giant cardboard pigeon, a Baltimore city park bench and an old man with an oversize head.
Hey, do those pink shoes look familiar?
No time to investigate, for we must turn our attention now to Mr. Cupcake (Dave Adams). "He's dedicated, he's demented and he's delicious," Glitteratti declares.
And he's a tall man in thick eyeglasses and a white bodysuit with a guitar and a ridiculous song for us:
"Whooooooooo can build a spider -- a tarantula?
"Whooooooooo can build clouds that look like clouds floatin' over ya?"
"I assure you no drugs were involved in the composition of that piece," Glitteratti says with a sigh -- and then adds, "Who needs a drink?"
Fine then, a drink, and a quick intermission to wander upstairs for a glimpse at the unicorn and the shrunken-head collection.
But, of course, there's more -- more from Glitteratti and Miss Joule and Mr. Cupcake.
And L'il Dutch (Amy Eggers), a redheaded go-go dancer whose finale is very, uh, revealing.
'Face to Face' Portrait Talks At the National Portrait GalleryLet's be clear: It's not that much. It's not a tour or a long lecture or a scholarly conference.
It's just a little art history aperitif is all. Just to whet the palate, you know, get you out of the heat for a quick reflection on Cornelius Vanderbilt.
So, Vanderbilt -- enlightened entrepreneur or robber baron? The theme of the National Portrait Gallery's series of "Face to Face" portrait talks is "American Scoundrels," but our dapper historian, Sid Hart, seems partial to a more reverential view of the shipping magnate.
A touch heavy for a summer evening, you say? Sure, sure, but it's only 30 minutes, in and out. Walk the halls of the Penn Quarter museum 20 times and you'll never have the chance to stop and think about the story behind each famous face chosen to hang there. This is like a cultural history retreat doled out in easy installments.
On the docket now is a series on America's "Freedom Fighters." On Thursday, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) will talk about his own portrait from the 1960s, done by Danny Lyon.
Consider it the conversation starter for a different set of aperitifs.
Ellen McCarthy is a Weekend section staff writer. Her e-mail address is mccarthye@washpost.com.
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