The Indignities of Air Travel

I thought I was familiar with all of the indignities of air travel. But on a recent long trip, I encountered a new one.

Groggy and spaced out from a brutal 14 hour direct across 12 time zones to Beijing, I settled into a seat on an aging China Airlines 757 for the second leg of my trip. It seemed to begin well -- a flight attendant came to me and said to me, "you are a very important person."

"What?" I said puzzled.

"You are very important," she said. To my continued confusion she showed me a handwritten scrap of paper with my name on it and the word "VIP."

I still looked confused so she said "Gold." Ohhh, got it. Gold, the frequent flyer status you get if you fly more than 50,000 miles per year. A free upgrade would've been nice, but this little bit of recognition was all I was going to get.

Then the bad part began. It was only when the plane began taxiing and I tried to put on my seatbelt that I realized that the previous occupant of my seat had left their gum behind. The gum was all over the belt, and now all over me.

I wanted to move, but I couldn't, as the plane was preparing to take off. I tried to explain to another flight attendant, but he didn't understand me (and seemed to think it was my gum). It was gross, but I just had to endure it.

Finally with the plane at altitude, I picked what pieces of gum I could off of me, and got up and washed my hands of the anonymous gum chewer's spit, and moved to the only other empty seat on the plane, next to a bulky Chinese man who didn't want to get up at first to let me into the seat. He eventually relented, but he was clearly angry that he no longer had a vacant seat next to him.

After that though, I was so tired it didn't matter. I just slept for the rest of the flight.

Michael Jackson

I've got to belatedly say a couple of words of respect for the King of Pop. First, I realized that I mentioned him in my last post, just days before he died. Second, I want to mention one incident years ago that first made me appreciate him.

It was the early 1980s, I was probably 17 years old, and I was completely in the thrall of the narrow-mindedness that tended to characterize snotty young DC punks of the era. So I considered Michael Jackson's music and anything else Top 40 to be not worth my time.

I was visiting New York City, walking through Washington Square alone on a visit to NYU. There were some guys breakdancing in the park to a boombox, and they had a crowd gathering, and it got bigger and bigger. I stopped to take it all in. "Billie Jean" came on. By this time, the crowd was huge, and to Billie Jean you could hear people singing. Soft voices, mostly women. "The kid is not my son..." It struck me all at once, that their singing, the music, that song, were beautiful. From that point on I better understood.

Watching the wall to wall coverage of his death, and the videos from that era, one can't help but notice how vibrant he looked back in those days -- such a difference from his frail, pallid appearance of recent years. As he got weirder and weirder over time, abetted by the sycophants around him and torn at by the media -- I feared that like so many shooting stars before him he would not come to a good end. Watching what he once was, his long decline and final demise are very sad.

How Not to Park

Taking advantage of a rare day off, I headed over to Tryst for a weekday lunch -- the only time the always-popular restaurant isn't too crowded to bear. I'd been sitting at my window seat for only a couple of moments when I spied a beautiful blonde woman in sunglasses with a pony tail across the street in a PT cruiser convertible, getting ready to park.

She backed into the space, which was big enough to hold about one and a half cars. Notheless, she proceeded carefully and anxiously. She had set it up perfectly, but she backed in too far and tapped the Prius behind her ever-so-slightly. No big deal, that's what bumpers are for, all she had to do was just pull forward a bit and she was golden. I've always believed that people would be better parkers if they weren't so afraid of tapping bumpers (this does not apply to SUVs, which have bumpers above the bumper level of cars, and thus can do actual damage, and also tend to be driven by the type of people that don't care about that).

That's when I noticed the owner of the Prius come out of a nearby store and make a show of inspecting her bumper for damage. Alarmed, the blonde hung out of her window watching behind her, waiting to see what the woman would do. In classic passive-aggressive fashion, the Prius woman never acknowledged her, never made eye contact, but after the inspection, she got into her car.

The woman in the PT cruiser waited, thinking the Prius woman was going to pull out and thus give her more room. But the Prius woman just sat there. Finally the blonde gave up, pulled out of the space, and headed down 18th. After she was gone, the Prius woman got back out of her car and went into a shop -- so she'd clearly been "guarding" her car from any further taps. Maybe she could've helped the woman park, instead?

Meanwhile, my sandwich, called the Neal, had arrived, with a side dish of bean salad. Delicious -- the reason why it's worth braving the weekday trustafarian crowd. I noticed a couple of DC EMTs park their huge ambulatory truck in front of Tryst with a lot less trouble than the blonde woman in the PT Cruiser had had, and come in for a couple of to-go iced lattes.

My mind wandered from the City Paper in front of me (50 best restaurants issue -- two of my favorite Columbia Heights spots, Pete's Abizza and Commonwealth, made the list) to reflect on the nature of power. A guy at a happy hour a while ago was telling me that he supported the Iraq war, and that "history is always made at gunpoint." Dick. And then there's the head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, a douche among douches, saying "people with guns make the rules." But then there are the millions of people in Iran who have taken to the streets in the face of a brazenly stolen election and terrifying threats of violence, proving something that history has shown over and over again -- that sooner or later courage and moral conviction will always trump brute force. I fear for these people and wish them well.

Tryst was playing an awesome soundtrack of old motown and soul -- Stevie Wonder's cover of the Beatles' "We Can Work it Out," The Isley Brothers "Who's That Lady," Michael Jackson's "Rock With You." I spent part of my childhood in Connecticut, where New York's radio and TV stations cast an even longer shadow than its skyscrapers, and this music for me still conjures images of the skyline of 1970s New York, shimmering in the distance, an intoxicating blend of menace, mystery, and promise.

Stimulus

Popped by the opening of Stimulus at Nevin Kelly Gallery last night. According to the gallery, the show focuses on local artists and is intended to " stimulate the mind and the economy." We got there slightly after the official closing time, but we were welcomed in to what is essentially an apartment at 1400 Irving by a friendly crowd of art appreciators (and presumably some of the artists and gallery owners as well -- I couldn't tell who was whom).

There was some good stuff on the walls, and one piece out of a series of very cool charcoal drawings -- if memory serves me by Lenny Campello -- especially grabbed us, and was priced at a very reasonable less than 100 bux, all of which said "buy me." But alas it was sold already. There were a couple of large photos by Stirling Elmendorf that I liked -- a cool night shot of the hand of "The Awakening" in its old Hains Point home, with Alexandria glimmering across the river in the background. Also one photograph I especially liked by Mark Parascandola, of a hollowed apartment building shell down 14th that I myself have been meaning to shoot for a long time. It's titled "Ghosts of Belmont Street." I love the name almost as much as the image, because I know about some of that street's ghosts. Unfortunately, should I decide I want to drop 500 simoleons I currently have more pressing priorities (like a Roomba). So we left empty handed, and weren't really looking for anything anyway, other than to enjoy some good art in a fun, friendly atmosphere. And that all worked out well.

For a taste of the exhibit, some of the pieces are shown here:

http://nevinkellygallery.blogspot.com/

"Stimulus" runs until July 11.

After the show we succumbed to the temptation to roam around the interior of the 1400 Irving Street apartment building (called Highland Park, but I am rooting for it to be colloquially known as "Five Guys Towers.") The lobby is ultra-modern with a lot of shiny white -- if you've ever been by Helix for happy hours you know the theme already. In fact, everything about it does feel more hotel than apartment building, from the lighted doorbells for each apartment, to the community room, to the gym, to the video screens displaying Metro train arrival times. It reminds me of Dragonfly, a bar that also felt super-slick upon opening but within a couple of years felt very dated. I wondered, who chooses to move to Columbia Heights and live in this outpost of "Clockwork Orange" surroundings, and the one resident I spotted, a short goateed guy walking two little dogs didn't really answer my question.

Afterwards we popped by Commonwealth for a couple of drinks (I had the oatmeal stout). Commonwealth later in the evening after the crowd has subsided a bit is a very nice, chill place to hang out.

The mosquitos are really bad over in Dupont!

I saw this on my bike ride into work today:



They are mosquito nets, put up to raise awareness for Nothing But Nets, a campaign to distribute mosquito nets in Africa to stave off malaria. A worthwhile campaign and a cool display!

Huge girl fight out on 14th

Last night I was enjoying some delicious tacos on the tiny outdoor patio of Taqueria Distrito Federal, up at 14th and Otis, when the sound of teenage girls yelling at each other began to emerge from the general urban din.

Girls arguing is not that unusual a sound, so I paid it no heed, and continued to focus on my tacos (just a simple plate of strips of grilled steak sauteed with onions, served with small soft-shelled tacos).

The sound got louder and louder though, so I had to pop my head above the flowers lining the side of the patio, and was startled to see a huge mob of girls surrounding a core of at least two girls and maybe more who were going at it. Mini-fights were breaking out in the mob, like little tornadoes spinning off the edges of a hurricane.

Of course, there were guys around the edges too, egging them on. And some of them had their cell phones out in order to record the whole thing for posterity. But by and large the guys seemed a little bit awed by the ferocious anger on display, afraid to get too close.

As I finished the last of my Mexican lime soda, things were beginning to look dangerous, and various people were starting to call the cops on their cells.

They showed eventually, and the crowd dispersed, amazingly vanishing into nothing within seconds. But I also saw a fire truck leaving its station on 14th Street, and an ambulance coming up the street, which means someone had gotten hurt further up the street.

Wednesday wasn't a good day

Around 9:30 last night, with a light rain pouring down, the all-too familiar sound of shots could be heard. Six, maybe seven, fired with chilling deliberateness.

A minute or two later, looking down the alley from where they came, I could see figures moving around in the shadows. People running. At first I thought they were cops pouring into the alley like what happened last time I heard this, but it appeared to be people running away.

I listened for the sound of sirens, which around here you always hear in the first seconds after a shooting. For once, there was only silence, so I dialed 911. I was just starting to explain what I'd heard when the cops started showing up from all directions in cruisers. It had seemed like an eternity but it was probably only 3-4 minutes.

The rain had gotten much harder, looking almost like movie rain in the streetlamps, but the cops went to work securing the scene, looking agitated but determined to get the job done. Most of them didn't have rain gear but didn't seem to notice the rain at all.

Others rushed through the neighborhood in their cars, hoping to catch the shooter. The arrival of a fire truck and ambulance minutes later told me that this time, someone had been hit.

I watched through the hard rain as the ambulance crew went into the alley with a stretcher and came back with someone on it. He looked young but I couldn't tell much about him, and they loaded him into the ambulance. I could see them working on him through the window of the side of the ambulance -- I guess they were trying to stabilize him before they began moving.

Water was gushing down the street like a river as the rain continued to fall hard. The ambulance put its siren on and began to drive away. More cops arrived, and a woman who looked like she might be a reporter stopped and talked to an authoritative-looking guy in a white shirt.

I figured it must be hard to find any evidence in this incredible downpour. A good night to shoot someone, for sure. The cops wheeled some portable klieg lights that had been stationed over on Columbia Road over to the alley, and they continued working. Eventually many of them left, and the rains returned to a light drizzle. Some stayed, and in the morning, when I went past, they were still there.

Today in the Post I read that the shooting was a homicide -- so the man I saw on the stretcher was either dead or dying.

And of course yesterday was the same day a hate-consumed man walked into the Holocaust Museum and killed a guard. These two things are linked, as was the recent murder of Dr. Tiller. How? Years of efforts by the National Rifle Association and its yahoo supporters have helped make sure that guns are so cheap and easily obtained that even teenagers and documented psychopaths can get them without much effort. By ensuring the continued free flow of weapons, the NRA and its sympathizers are accessories to all of these crimes.