7 . 4 . 0 6
Another sweltering fourth of July in the District, decided to duck out the heat this year with my new grill pan and watch the fireworks on TV. After crazy thunderstorms and flash flooding, it’s been pushing 100 lately, with the freak storn lighting up the sky and forcasts of torrential rain and hail. Been a very busy weekend, NASA got a shuttle launched, N Korea tested a missle, the IDF blew up another Hamas building in Gaza, some US soldiers were indicted of war crimes, and I rented the zipcar to run some errands. Found some Lienenkugal’s red up in Rockville, a couple of six packs on the bottom shelf of the beer locker at this small beer & wine shop in a strip mall. It’s been a little bit of a treasure hunt for me scoping out Wisconsin brews out east, I think eventually the market will strengthen and some of those beers will come out here.
Meanwhile another wrinkle in the crazy DC housing market, thinking that I fit in the category of people too rich for public housing assistance, but too poor to buy in an overheated and insane housing market. People like me are left with no choice but to keep renting and hope that the market eventually regains some sanity. At the current rate it doesn’t make sense to buy anything around here, still can’t get over the $1.3M house down the street from me that sold a year ago and the $870K 2 bedroom/furnished basement townhome that just went on the market last month.
Last week I went to a eat at Agraria in Georgetown, an organic-themed resturant that apparently uses the family farm that runs the farmer’s market down the street from me. Being that I don’t head down there very often due to the over-pricey venues and limited access by public transportation, I have to say that it was an exception to the rule and was worth the trip down. Walking along the waterfront I ran into several crowds of people enjoying the weather - thought it was a strange concept to see people there with their boats parked alongside of the canal, I guess its kind of like having a car on the water to pick up chicks.
Getting down there was a pain in the ass though, I debated catching a cab but with the traffic I opted to ride the DC circulator, which is a great idea I might add, if the city would ever get around to devoting a lane or two on K street for just public transporation I’m sure more people would ride it. I keep recalling the story that GT residents once fought plans to expand a metro station in their neighborhood because they were trying to keep “those people” out. Funny how there seem to be more panhandlers and vagrants in GT than most other areas of the city, I suppose the opponents to the metro station didn’t realize that bums can walk across bridges and set up camp pretty much anywhere if they really wanted to.
It doesn’t matter really, the whole area is a hot/trendy place to hang out, especially with the younger college and yuppie crowd. I kind of wonder what would it be like if you were to swap the demographics of DC and Hawaii, in terms of venues, city layout, neighborhoods, who konws. Afterall cities are defined by the people who live there. GT definately has the Ocean’s vibe to it, lots of kids and young adults flaunting their affluence, both new and old, of course. Brings to mind some old Honolulu Weekly article about “Jappies” (The Author’s code name for Yuppie-Hawaiian-Japanese) hanging out at the trendy Honolulu hotspots. The article was pretty funny, a total rip on the private school, uppper-middle class descendants of Japanese ancestry that have risen to be a socio-economic-political force in Hawaii. It was self-defeating though, how the author seemed to have a very specific set of presumptions of this group of people, namely that they are all social conservatives, and the hardest sounds they listen to is christian rock.
Been doing some random browsing on Youtube and came across some clips from the J-Reggae scene out of Osaka-Kansai area. I had heard about some groups back in college but didn’t realize how widespread it was. I found this one video that had a good beat and groove to the lyrics “Respect”, one live recording of a performance by Spinna B-ill, some clips of reggae/R&B singer Pushim, one of her better songs “Forever”, one with a ragga named Ryo the Skywalker “From Distance”, and the whole home grown reggae crew watch for the big gorilla??? - Curious to what they’re singing about since my Japanese isn’t getting any better over the years.