A Fire Week/Weekend in DC

I had meetings that took me to the District for several days last week and kept me there through the weekend. Well, just as I had good times in ATL and NYC, DC was not to be left out of the running. The first night was meet up night with Maxim (we hung out in ATL and DC, too). We used dinner at Café Salsa in Old Town Alexandria as our place to catch up on everything that may have happened to/with our friends since the NYC trip. Of course, we didn’t miss the opportunity to observe some of the hot Latino waiters in the restaurant. In fact, the vision of the wait staff combined with the Puerto Rican piononas (beef picadillo wrapped in sweet plaintains) and several glasses of sangria that rivaled my experience in Spain put this eatery on my list of “definitely go again.” That’s my own special rating system for restaurants – those on the “go again” list are 3 stars or better. Since the night temps were bit frigid, we called it a night early, especially knowing that would not be the case on Thursday night.

Now Thursday night reminded me of my undergraduate days when the weekend began on Thursday and ended on Tuesday (every week). Wednesdays were the day off from partying. Tandy joined Maxim and me for Ben’s Chili Bowl on U St. in NW before we headed to Busboy And Poets to catch my friend, Tim’m West’s Front Porch 1st anniversary celebration. If you caught my blog last week, you know that a fire destroyed Tim’m’s usual space at Café Mawonaj. Being the resourceful person that he is (we Duke men know how to handle business – lol), he turned to Bus Boys and Poets and secured the stage for his show. We arrived during open mic and heard the spoken word on loss of friends to AIDS. This was especially significant since it was also World AIDS Day. Tim’m came from his heart with his spoken words from past published works and from his blog. Complementing the show and complimenting the life work of Tim’m was a performance by Monica McIntyre accompanied by her sister Marcia. Monica is an accomplished cellist while Marcia commands the audience attention with her mastery of the classical violin. Together, these two women cover the full range of emotion as told through their music. The most touching moments of the evening came with Monica’s unexpected dramatization of a young women learning from her doctor that the health issues she is experiencing is a result of her having contracted the AIDS virus. You felt the devastation, hurt and betrayal in her characterization of the black female victim whose supposedly monogamous relationship turns out not to have been so monogamous. Monica indicated this was the first time she decided to perform this soliloquy. I encourage her to continue to perform and refine this piece because the message is so vital. If you get an opportunity to catch her in Philly or some other venue, I recommend her to you.
From Bus Boys and Poets, we headed downtown to the Bachelor’s Mill on 8th St. in SE. In addition to having a reasonable cover charge - $5 – the boys in there, were as hot as any I saw in NYC or Atlanta Pride 2005. The music was raging, the energy level high, and for the first time, I was in a club where I could dance, enjoy every minute of it, and not wish the track would end so I could leave the floor. Not only that, I met two guys right off from my home state. It’s a shame that we must leave the Bible Belt in order to have the true freedom to fully develop as loving human beings. Anyway, Rocky and Will did just that and the self-assuredness they have developed was evident. Dance floor downstairs, bar and lounge upstairs, outside secluded area upstairs, and heavy drinks (no watered down stuff here) makes for a highly rated evening in DC (and that's just on Thursday). We left around 2 am when the club closed. Tandy is well known and liked in the DC circuit although he had been away from the scene for a minute while pursuing a love interest. So leaving was made difficult by the number of guys who wanted to holla and renew old acquaintances. In addition, Maxim has more than a few friends some of whom are eager to renew and pursue a relationship with him (he really is a phyne 23 yo who knows it - don't let that go to your head when you read this).

Next entry about "A Fire/Weekend in DC" will talk about a 40 year old secret came out on Saturday.