Twins Jazz: A Review

As you all know I'm a big jazz fan. DC is a great town for jazz, however, I haven't been to a legit jazz club since I've lived here. Today after work I decided to take the metro a few stations north of my stop to the historic U Street area for a quick concert at Twins Jazz.

The place is kind of a dump, as many places are in the area, but it was a dump with charm. If you weren't looking for the place you would almost certainly miss it. It's been around for almost 25 years and it looks like it hasn't really been updated since it opened. Tonight it wasn't a normal group that played together often. Every Wednesday of March they were doing a Women in Jazz night. Through overhearing conversations I learned that the musicians were mostly former Howard University students who still live in the area.

First, The Pros: The band was good. The night had a jam session feel as opposed to a concert feel, but that was fine given it was a Wednesday 8pm show. They played together well and had a few really great moments. The pianist was especially good and the drummer was solid. The standout of the night was the female singer. She was fantastic. I also liked many things about the atmosphere. The dirty windows had broken shades in them that were leaning against broken florescent lights. The chairs didn't match and the tables were too close together. The bathroom was generally disgusting and the lock was broken. Christmas lights and various signed jazz photos were their idea of decorations. All of this added to the authentic and warm feel of the place.

The Cons: While I've been to numerous jazz clubs over the years I have never been to what I would consider to be a true, authentic club. My image of what it would be like was completely formed from pictures of 50s jazz legends. I had two big problems with the night. First and most importantly, the musicians smiled too much. Serious jazz musicians don't smile when they play. It says to me that they're not taking it seriously enough. Jimmy Buffet smiles when he plays, Miles Davis did not smile or laugh. My high school jazz teacher described the look you should have on your face when you play or listen to great jazz as the look you have when you smell something rotten. It's a "stanky" face.

The other problem I had was the smell. Jazz clubs should smell like smoke and gin. Do you know what a jazz club smells like when a city passes a smoking ban? Ethiopian food and bad perfume. I prefer smoke. My final complaint was that the stage was too bright. I would have possibly been able to get over this if the bass player wasn't wearing a matching faux suede jacket and boots whose color could only be described as "Grimace purple".

Despite my complaints, this is a great club! It's fairly cheap and the music is very solid. I look forward to going back on a weekend when they have a regular band playing.

Beware of Jet Blasts and Online Reviews

Last Saturday I drove to Norfolk, VA with some coworkers to go on a tour of the Navy's newest Aircraft Carrier, The George H.W. Bush. It was impossible for me to get a good full photo because of the size so here is an internet photo. All of the rest of the photos are mine.

A few fun facts before I get to my story.

• Northrop made the ship for $6.2 Billion. This past week the SEC allowed Northrop to divest its ship building division to focus on more profitable defense projects.
• The ship is nuclear powered. It needs to be refueled once every 23 years (yes, years).
• The ship holds up to 5000 sailors. 
• There are usually about  65 aircrafts on the carrier but it can hold up to about 90 depending on size.
• The U.S. has 11 active aircraft carriers with 2 more planned and 1 more being built. The next closest countries (Italy and Spain) have...2 aircraft carriers each.

On the way down we decided to find a seafood place because we were extremely close to the ocean. The place our phones sent us was interesting to say the least. It was a little dive place in a shady area call The Willoughby Inn Seafood Restaurant. It had a 86% on UrbanSpoon and was generally well reviewed. We did not think it was as great as the collective internet. If any of you are in the Norfolk area I would pass on the Willoughby Inn.




The tour was extremely interesting. We got to go in a lot of the unclassified areas. It's incredible to think that up to 5000 people live on this ship. We saw their sleeping area and it was easier to understand how they all fit.

This trip confirmed that I made the right choice by not joining the navy. I was ready to be off the ship after only two hours. Everything was so close and cramped. It made me very uncomfortable.

It's hard to describe just how large everything was on the ship. For example, they still have an old school anchor and every link in the chain to hold the anchor weighed 300lbs.

Of all the fascinating things I saw on the tour I was most intrigued by the food the sailors ate. From what I saw and the impression I got from the sailor giving the tour they live on fried food, pizza, and soda. I'm not sure how they work long hard days eating food devoid of any nutritional value and dripping in grease. I thought the military has been improving their food quality over the past few years? I'm not delusional enough to think they would serve free-range organic eggs and locally grown heirloom tomatoes but I wasn't expecting 80% of the calories to come from wings and Pepsi.

All in all it was a fun trip. I would highly recommend touring an aircraft carrier if you ever get a chance.

NBA and Theater: A classic combo?

A couple of interesting things I have done recently. Both new and fun.

Wizards Game
I went to my first NBA game a couple of weeks ago. It was the Washington Wizards vs. the LA Clippers. I went with a coworker who had free center court tickets about 20 rows from the floor. I don't watch basketball at all so it was a new experience for me.

It was an evening of visual stimulus. It was incredible how literally every second was filled with some kind of entertainment. Of all of the professional sports events I have attended, this was the most exciting.

I'm not going to lie, I was so entertained that it wasn't until late in the first quarter that I figured out where the scoreboard was (you have to look up). Turns out the Wizards are generally bad at basketball so they were losing. They ended up losing by about 20 points.

The highlight of the night was the "Chipotle Break". During a break Chipotle employees came out and threw burritos into the crowd while every screen in the place flashed "CHIPOTLE! CHIPOTLE! CHIPOTLE!" and the sound system repeated "CHIPOTLE!" over and over. Amazing. I was literally clapping with joy. Hilarious.


The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
I live in the theater district of DC. Twenty feet from my apartment entrance is the Woolly Mammoth Theater, which focuses on new, edgy, and experimental theater. It holds about 250 people.They are currently playing The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.  I went on Monday night to the "Pay What You Can" night, where you pay whatever you can/want for a ticket.

The show is a monologue where Mike Daisey (who wrote and performed the show) explores the history and culture of Apple and how we view technology. The entire show is just him sitting at a table, without scene changes, breaks, music, or any gimmicks. The show is hysterical and powerful at times. Evidently the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, saw the show and told the NYTimes that it changed the way he viewed technology.  This is a pretty good review.

Art Show and Street Musicians

Since I have been here I have been enjoying the cultural richness of the city. Both the formal cultural institutions and the informal. We'll start with the formal.

Last week I went to the opening party of a photography show titled "DCist Exposed Photography Show". Photographers submit entries via Flickr and then 30-40 photographs are choose to be displayed in the exhibit. All of the artists are from DC and all of the pictures were taken in the DC area. Click here for a slide show of this years winners.

To the left is a picture of the event. It's really a terrible picture because it's missing two things- any of the photography and any of the people I went with to the show. This is because I find it terribly dorky to take pictures of events I go to so I had to take it quickly when no one was looking.








As I was looking at the photographs I found one particularly striking but I couldn't figure out why. Below is a copy of the picture.

If I remember correctly the name of the photograph was "Street Musician". I then realized why I found the picture striking- because I had seen this man performing before outside of the Chinatown metro!

Last Sunday I got off at the Chinatown metro station for a reason I can't remember now. At the top of the stairs was an excellent street band. A large crowd had gathered to listen and I sat down and listen to them for about 20 minutes. It was an interesting instrumental make up: violin, bass and drums. They mostly covered pop songs. The one that I remember was a U2 song. The man in the above photo is here on the left.

Street musicians are extremely common in the area I live. Mostly because its a very busy area filled with people that aren't usually downtown-tourists and area resistants that are in the district for a big event at the Verizon center. The musicians range in ability. Some are typical bad guitar players who only know 4 songs. Others, such as this band are actually extremely talented. Although I don't know where these people come from or what they do I imagine they fall into two camps. First, casual musicians who have "legit" jobs and just play on the street on the weekend for fun. Second, local music students who want to make money while practicing. I really enjoy all of the street performers. It's like a soundtrack to the city. These musicians add to the cultural richness of the city. In just the past week I have heard countless blues and jazz musicians, a New Orleans style street band, several classical musicians, and numerous bucket and trash can drummers. This informal culture that residents and visitors are constantly exposed to makes the city a more enjoyable place to live.

Hello my name is...NOT a tourist

DC is covered in tourist. I have quickly got the impression that locals are extremely irritated by them. Washingtonians recognize that the tourist are a huge economic engine for the DC economy, but that doesn't mean they can't be annoyed that they slow up the metro every weekend. Being a new resident I am essentially a tourist. I am frequently lost, know little about DC, and am constantly looking around at all of the odd things happening around me. My goal on a daily basis is to not look like a tourist. Below are a few things I do to try to fake my way into being a resident:

• Walk with purpose. Even after realizing I am going the wrong way I walk with purpose back in the correct direction. Is this a waste of time? Absolutely. But stopping and starring at my iPhone for 45 seconds will reveal my lack of street knowledge.
• Wear ear buds. Everyone has ear buds in, especially on their commute. 
• Look slightly angry and look straight ahead. 
• Learn to text/BlackBerry/etc while walking. I have no idea how people do this. It's amazing.

Of course a resident would never go to a monument and take pictures. However, because I haven't been to DC (except for 7th grade) I want to do this. I solved this problem tonight by going on a jogging tour of the monuments in my area.

First stop- Washington Monument. iPhone photo actually turned out OK on this one. 

Next, WWII Monument. I tried to get a picture of the Iowa and Missouri statues but dang kids kept blocking my light. Why are children out at 8:30PM on a Wednesday anyway?

This is a picture from the WWII memorial with the Washington Monument in the background.

My last stop was the Lincoln Memorial. I had to break my "I'm a jogger who occasionally stops to mess with his phone" routine with this monument. I wanted to run up the steps like Rocky but I was afraid I would trip in front of hundreds of people so I decided to walk up the steps.

On my way back I saw many of the alphabet soup of government buildings (EPA, DOJ, DOI) and accidentally stumbled across a far view of the White House. All in all a good stealth tour of a small part of DC.

 

For Caryle

Caryle noted on my first post that I live very near the Crime and Punishment Museum. This is true, I live just a couple blocks south of the museum. I haven't gone yet but I'm sure I will eventually.

DC is well know for it's high crime rates. Below is a crime map of my area of DC. If you look at the Crime and Punishment Museum below you can see that there was recently a theft at the museum. I find this hilarious. That is one thief with a sense of humor I can appreciate. I just wonder what they took...

First Post

I've been living in Washington DC for one week now. It's been quite the experience thus far. I've never lived on the East Coast and it really is different here. I wanted to start this blog to keep friends and family updated on what I'm doing. I hope you all find it entertaining!

I have a lot to share but for the sake of brevity I'll try to keep my initial posts fairly short. 

To begin, this is where I live: 7th and D St. NW. If you scroll around on the Google map you can see that I'm just a few blocks north of numerous landmarks including The Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art, and The National Archives. Other sites such as the U.S. Capital, The Washington Monument, and Dept of Justice, and numerous other famous museums and government buildings are a quick walk from me as well. Just a few blocks north of me is Chinatown, which is also an interesting area. 

There are pros and cons of living in my area. The best part is that it's close to all metro lines. I'm only one block from the station that takes me to work. The area also has great restaurants, bars, and theater. The only downside to the area is that it's full of tourists during the weekend because I'm so close to so many landmarks. Overall, its a great place to live. 

I live on the 11th floor of a 4 story condo. My room is on the first floor. Below is a picture of the view from my room. The view from our 4th floor balcony is much better. I'll post a picture soon. You can see the Washington monument in the back of the photo. 

That's all for now. I'll have some more interesting stories and pictures later after I get some of the initial basic posts out of the way. Please pass the link to my blog along to other friends and family!