MD Day 5 - Eastern Markets, African Art and Chinese Discos
Well turns out after staying up until six in the morning bonding with your cousin, you're probably gonna sleep at least half your day away. But the half a day I had was just packed.
A friend of mine from college, Ben, works at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, so I met up with him and his girlfriend, Mengting, another friend from college for lunch at Eastern Market. Eastern Market is home to a number of different local vendors from around the city, and also one of the best lunch places around. We all got sandwiches. I got crab cake, Ben got a burger, and Mengting got fried chicken. All the sandwiches were really good, huge, and super cheap (well the crab cake wasn't super cheap but it was the cheapest I've seen crab cake offered anywhere so I guess it's all relative). Good as the food was, it was better just getting to see my friends, catch up, hear about their crazy new jobs, and geek out a bit about music.
An older guy who worked at the restaurant (might have owned it) came up to us and started chatting which was sort of nice, but then it became kinda obvious that he just was kinda ignoring Mengting, and then he referred to Ben and I as Harvard boys even though we'd all said we went there. I doubt any of this was malicious, but her pointing out the little everyday sexisms I might not have noticed did also make me more acutely aware that while I've been having mostly great experiences and interactions with strangers on this trip, it's hard to say if that would be entirely true if I wasn't a generic white dude. I like to take an optimistic view of people and hope that big picture the majority of interactions wouldn't be different, but these smaller slights at least would undoubtedly be way more frequent.
After lunch we all got coffee at Ben and Mengting's favorite coffee shop in the city, Peregrine Espresso. Run by a couple with years of coffee experience, an effort for sustainability, and some unusual flavors. I got the iced coffee of the day which was nutty with a hint of berries. It was really good.
Slightly more energized and less hungover, I went to the museum of African Art. It was really beautiful, and full of a lot of contemporary African art as well more ancient stuff. I feel like generally when I go into a museum that has an African Art wing but isn't entirely dedicated to the subject they tend to just have ancient art, so getting to see the evolution and integration of different art traditions was really fascinating and new for me. There were some really beautiful pieces in there, but the one that gave me the biggest emotional reaction was a seemingly abstract sculpture where from a distance you could see that every facet was the portrait of a different influential African women. It was really beautiful.
After the museum, I figured I couldn't spend another day in DC without seeing the White House. I didn't see the president though, which wasn't super surprising. I did see a lot of different protestors which also wasn't super surprising either. I wonder what the longest time the white house has gone without protestors of some form has been since Vietnam, because I feel like it has to have always been relatively steady. It's kinda cool in a way though, because it's free performance art.
From there I went to Philz coffee, which is also known for having a lot of funky flavors. I got hazlenut chocolate which was honestly probably too much flavor for me but it was still good. There was a lot of inspirational graffiti in their bathroom which I liked a lot.
The mic I went to was at a place called the Chinese Disco, which is neither Chinese nor a Disco but a cool little bar in Georgetown. There was a mix of people new comics and veterans and a segment at the end where people just visiting the bar could get up and tell one joke for the potential to win a cash prize.
I thought it was a pretty consistently strong mic, and even the people who were going up for the first time acquitted themselves admirably. My personal favorites of the night were a guy named Benjy Himmelfarb who did did a really good bit about learning the hard way about search history as 14 year old, and woman named Pearl Rose, who did really funny dark observational/ absurdist jokes. Both of their sets were super strong, and they really had clear voices that shown throughout.
Of the newer comics, I thought a guy named Austin Haden was really good. He did a good bit about Kim Jong Un behaving like his little nephew that was really funny. It's hard to do a three minute set and commit to one bit in case it doesn't work because it's harder to do anything else, and it's also hard to do political stuff that doesn't feel like a rehash of late night jokes, so I really give him a lot of credit for pulling both of those things off in a really fun and clever way.
My own set while it was shorter did pretty well. I think I've now found my go to core jokes I feel pretty confident in, and don't mind telling over and over so that's a good feeling. A middle aged couple came up to me after the show and complimented me and bought me a drink so that made me feel really good. I'm sure there's something about my upbringing and comedic sensibilities that middle aged women do seem to my biggest supporters.
After the mic, I did a little bit of bar hopping around D.C. which was fun. We started at Right Proper Brewing, which made their own really good beer, had delicious pretzel bread, and had a crazy mural of animals shooting lasers on the wall. It was a great place. My favorite beer of theirs was an aged vintage Bret ale, I have no idea what about it was so good, but it just had a really great flavor profile.
From there we went to a tiki bar called Archipelago, and split a Pineapple of Hospitality. The ingredients listed were just Rum and Secrets, it came in a pineapple and there was lime in that pineapple that was on fire. As you can see, I was very impressed.
After that we went to a Halloween Pop Up themed Bar, called Pub Dread. It was super cool, and designed like a big haunted house with drinks. We didn't have any drinks because it was late in the night and we'd have to drive home soon, and I don't have any pictures because my phone was dead, but rest assured it was really neat and if you're in DC before it closes after Halloween I'd definitely recommend dropping in.
Favorite Random Sightings: A Batshit crazy sign that said "Don't Call 1-800- Cry Baby. Call Jesus"; So's Your Mom: Wonderful Food
Regional Observations: Driving and parking in DC is really hard, but the Metro is really nice so a metro card is a pretty valuable investment.
Albums Listened To: Fairytale by Donovan; Fashion Nugget by Cake; Fashionably Late by Linda Thompson; Favourite Noise by Reel Big Fish (just You Don't Know, Snoop Dog Baby, and I'll Never Be)
People's Favorite Jokes:
All the Pessimists are gone and all the optimists are dead (an uplifting one)
What's the difference between squash and racquetball? One's a sport and the other's a fruit
What do you call a deer with no eyes? No eye deer
What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs? Still no eye deer
What do you call a deer with no eyes, legs, or reproductive organs? Still no fucking eye deer (the first two in this sequence are some of my dad's favorite jokes, but for some reason he never said the third one)
What did the terrorist comedian do at his first open mic? He bombed
How many South Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb? A Brazillian
My personal favorite of the night and also the winner of the non-comic joke contest: What do you do if you see a spaceman? Park your car man
Song of the Day:
