Two Kinds of Football + Macking in Adams Morgan

Yesterday was epic. Made the three hour drive back from Ocean City in the morning, headed down to the University of Maryland's homecoming football game for tailgating, went to D.C. United's final game of the season ('97 MLS champions), and then hopped over to Adams Morgan for a little social experimentation. Let's start at the beginning:

The homecoming game tailgate was great. I don't have many friends still in the area, but my sister Sarah rolls deep. Her friend Amanda brought a metal cooler from about fifty years ago with a built in bottle opener. We grilled and grubbed, and my friend Tobi and I headed out to check out the campus I called home for four years.

We had such a good time there that we didn't make it to the DC United game until halftime. Tobi has season tickets, great seats, and the excitement of soccer at the fifty yard line is palpable, and I'd hate to admit, greatly enhanced by the result of tailgating for five hours beforehand. Makes me want to go to more Timbers games (and tailgate effectively)... anyone down?

After leaving the game, we headed over to Adams Morgan to check out their healthy bar scene. Tobi has tons of hotel points from business travel, and had booked a Hilton on Connecticut Ave to open up the night's possibilities. We walked to Adams Morgan looking sharp and feeling fine, and wandered into the first bar of the night, The Asylum.

I had forgotten about the great local music scene in DC. We were treated to a good tap selection, accompanied by the energetic hip hop stylings of Rosetta Stoned. Rocking the little bar's dozen patrons, they may have well been playing the 9:30 Club. Jumping off chairs, walking on the booth benches, screaming out into the night. The perfect start to the night, and a great reminder of the coolness of DC localism that I had long forgotten.

The quality of the night steadily declined from that point on, as I was completely unprepared for the competition Tobi and I would face at the bars. Any attempt at conversation or respect was overshadowed by the dozens of alpha males who didn't hesitate to grind and grunt, scaring off all the fish before anyone could get the slightest nibble. The bars steadily became more and more crowded (what happened to fire codes?), harder to talk (how am I supposed to be a good listener if I can't hear her?), harder to think, harder (almost impossible) to even buy a drink ($10 a pop!). As the night wore on, it became clear that bar hopping was not for me, and that no matter how many times I hear Bon Jovi, no matter how loudly the drunk bachelorette party sings along with the chorus of Livin' On A Prayer, it will always... always affect me like a cold shower. No man should have to face such soul strain.

As a DJ, it can be tough to go out. There's little worse than dancing with a great girl to a great song (the planets and your hips aligning, you can almost feel world peace being achieved), then enduring a bad mix into a song so poorly selected that all the ladies in the room stand on the dance floor tossing confused eyebrows at each other... trying desperately to recover and find the beat. Buddy, if you can't make a floor full of women dance, there's something very wrong. Pick a Backstreet Boy's solo album and put it on random play, whatever, just make it happen!

I would be cheating the city I call home if I didn't shout out to Portland night spots immediately. Consistent quality, innovative yet highly danceable tunes, friendly communal atmosphere, and virtually Bon Jovi-free. I've got to leave a little room for the possibility that I simply haven't found the comparable spots in DC, that I could find crap DJs in Portland if I tried a little, that night spots in DC are more plentiful and therefore average a lower quality, but every time I approach things from a new angle, I love PDX more.

...obligatory shout out to Soul Stew at the Goodfoot on Fridays! Now that's what I'm talking about....