DC Post-Mortem: Our Capitol, Ourselves

For starters, I have to say that any bar (even if it's non-smoking) that has this sign up, is my kind of place. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This weekend, I was down in Washington for no other reason than it's basically the ground zero for my family. Practically everyone lived there or around it at one time and many still do. That said, I didn't tell them that I was coming because I didn't want to visit them. I just wanted to see what the city was like.

Not to sound like a tourist board operative, but Washington is extremely beautiful at least from an aesthetic viewpoint, especially the subway system. It may not run 24 hours (why on Earth is New York City still the only city with a 24 hour subway system?), but the stations really grab you by the proverbial balls and tell you this is a capitol city, from big central stations like Dupont Circle (which made me feel like I'm slowly being swallowed by a whale) to smaller ones like Shaw-Howard University.

(By the way, that station should not have Howard University in its name. Howard is probably more than a mile away from it. Just call the damn station Shaw.) In addition to the grand entrances, the system of using lights on the floor to signal an arriving train is very cool and not to mention user friendly. They're much better than just listening out for a high-pitched shriek and sparks. On the downside, the trains look like they haven't been updated since the early 1980's, but at least there are electronic signs in the station telling you how many minutes away the next train is. This is something that the MTA is only just getting around to think about doing. (DC even has pedestrian crossings that show you how much time you have to cross an intersection, which is yet another thing that they're only just getting around to doing up here, vehicular homicides be damned.)

Transportation geek serenade over, let's get to the drinking.

Given the fact that it was in the teens Saturday night and I was not about to go gallivanting all about town, I stayed mostly in Dupont Circle, which is apparently Washington's traditional gay neighbourhood that the literature compared to Greenwich Village. Perhaps in terms of social significance, but this was no Greenwich Village. It looked like Midtown East spread out, at least the parts east of the circle did.

My first stop was JR's, a bar touted as the place to be in DC. Well, if that's the case, then I don't need to be in that place. Now, when I see the phrase "video bar," that implies music videos, not videos from musicals. One or two songs from musicals I can stand, but nonstop for an hour is too much. Then there were the patrons. I was the only minority in the whole entire place.

Let me say that again: in a bar in Washington DC on a Saturday night, I was the only person of colour. That boggled my mind.

A good friend of mine (J) happened to be in town at the same time and called me while I was trying to debate how much longer I could hack it in there. (17 degree weather with high winds really makes you think twice before leaving.) When he basically said that it was the hub for Log Cabinettes, I knew I had to go.

Further up 17th street was Cobalt, which was really rather uneventful save for the fact that the place had the aforementioned sign plastered on a wall as soon as you entered.

After a surprisingly non-frostbite inducing trek past the circle, I went to The Fireplace which despite its name was not all that warm inside courtesy of a short distance between the entrances and the bar. Nonetheless, this was finally the bar that felt right because they finally had some damn videos, not to mention it was the first truly mixed (in terms of race) bar I had been in all night. It was here that I met up with J, and this is when the night really kicked into high gear.

J drove to The Green Lantern. Considering that you read and hear about all sorts of kink and raunch going on amongst the political crowd, I was surprised that all the previous bars seemed rather chaste. Well, they must all go to the Green Lantern to scratch that itch, because it was all laid out there. Apparently, it was underwear night and let me tell you, nearly everybody let it all hang out for free booze. I didn't participate, because J didn't and given the wind I figured catching pneumonia was not worth getting free drinks. Of course we were the odd ones out, as this place will be permanently etched in memory as where I saw a man in a harness dance and play with his nipples to Dead or Alive.

To cap the night off, J took me to Bachelor's Mill in the Southeast. Talk about a 180 degree turn from JR's log cabinettes. "The Mill" seemed more like a black gay house party instead of any actual bar/club. I loved every second of it. You can take all the sleek decor and named drinks, because nothing can compare to being in the middle of a throng of pulsating bodies while drinking an Alize Blue & orange juice. (Bougie, Alize trumps Hennessey with me.) Especially when the music is from the orange-haired era of rap and hip hop. I mean, how long has it been since you've heard Chubb Rock being played?

In many ways, Washington is the US crammed into a small former marshland. You have great architecture, a transportation system that looks good but doesn't quite exactly meet the needs of the populace, and a strong social segregation with enough pockets of integration that give you hope that things will change in due time.