50 Shades of BFF

What do you do with your BFF? With my BFFs, I'm likely to see a show or, more likely, just chat for a few hours at a restaurant or museum or at home or, in summer, at the rooftop pool. And, often, recently, we chat about 50 Shades of Grey. Specifically, wtf is the fuss about? (Since we haven't read it and it seems so ridiculous to pay so much for what is described as a badly written sex book when you can find badly written or filmed porn online for free.)

And dates?  Especially first dates, when BFF-ness isn't established? I've done plenty 2 hours'-worth of chatting on first dates. In coffeeshops and bars and restaurants. And in parks and museums and at sports or theater or dance events. I can't recall ever discussing 50 shades of grey at any of these dates.

SOO... Brian Feldman, CapFringe artist and BFF for hire.  Not really a BFF and not really a first date.  During CapFringe, Brian and his BFFs (i.e., 1-person audiences) have spent their 2 hours together going bowling, eating/drinking at Hooters (among other fine establishments), and standing in line to apply to Metro's new anti-busking busking program.

SO... when I met Brian last week at the start of our 2 hours together, I suggested we read 50 shades of grey out loud.  Brian was game.  I mentioned how much I love public transportation and suggested we read it on the Circulator bus to Georgetown.  (Side note: I love public transportation. I love the dynamics of watching people, but not overtly. I love the random, diverse mix of people to watch. And the potential for crazy people.) Brian was game.  (Side note 2: I love the BFF for hire idea.  BFFs for hire seem very agreeable.) 

It was the beginning of rush hour, so the bus wasn't fully packed, though we did have to stand. And we read.  Starting at page 1. Alternating pages and filming each other. (And Brian live tweeting it. #eroticfiction #fiftyshades)

The writing is awful. And I already dislike the characters.  And we didn't get to any sex scenes.  But, the giggles and snorts of the 50-something woman next to me, her full knowledge of just exactly what we were reading and her enjoyment of it, made the entire experience worth it.

In Georgetown, we got off the bus to get beverages for our sore reading throats.  And chocolate.  

And chatted while waiting for a bus back to CapFringe (and some more 50 shades).  My CapFringe review:  Did it live up to its description? Did "hanging out with one of DC's top performance artists" "change my life"?  Not really.  Did I "explore friendship ... through 'friend building'"? Not really. But I laughed and got a kick out of doing something I wouldn't ordinarily do with friends or on a date. Verdict:  5 stars. Better than most first dates where I don't think there will be a second date.

Meanwhile, in local theocracy news . . .

Good morning, from the P6 bus.

Clandestine Action Shot!

Vietnam vet drinking malt liquor on the P6 bus tonight.  He got on the bus at the stop after I did.  I know he's a vet because he had a VA hospital wristband on the wrist not in the photo.  And because he kept yelling his status at the bus driver each time she threatened to throw him off the bus for drinking "that vodka," as she called it.  "I served in Vietnam!"  Swig.

And he wasn't just ballsy about the drinking.  He walked on without paying and the driver threatened to throw him off for that, too.  "I don't intend to pay!" Swig.

He and the bus driver bickered like an old married couple.  After a few exchanges with the bus driver who obviously wasn't throwing him off, he got more comfortable and took longer swigs.  That's when I took this picture.  He also started trying to engage other bus passengers to rally 'round him against the bus driver, without success.  Maybe because he prefaced each appeal with a slurred "Hey nice black lady," or "Hey nice black man," or "Hey nice white man," before yelling "I served in Vietnam!"

He was still trying when I got off the bus, telling me "Don't give up nice white lady."  I love the buses so much.

Free Enterprise is SASSy!

I totally don't get the message of this tour bus.  Take a Free Enterprise bus ride or . . . it's a bus ride?

Take a Free Enterprise bus ride because . . . buses lift you higher than airplanes?  . . . Iwo Jima?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all in favor of free enterprise for the tourists.  One of my faves -- a free enterprise purist, if you will -- is the busker who preys on relies on the kindness of the tourists outside ESPN Zone and the Hard Rock Cafe.  I don't know his name, but I will call him SASSy:  the Short Attention Span Saxophonist.

I've heard SASSy countless times.  But I've never heard SASSy play an entire song, or even both verse and chorus of the same song.  SASSy plays about 5 bars of a song and then stops and switches to another song.  Which he'll play about 5 bars of.  His repertoire consists of about half a dozen songs, tops.  Today, I heard SASSy play less than 30 seconds of each of the following:  Sesame Street theme song, Flintstones theme song, Take Five, and one of the songs from Wizard of Oz (Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, maybe?).

SASSy sucks.  The tourists love him.  They applaud him.  They give him money, which, in the Free Enterprise system, only encourages him.  Did I say I was all in favor of free enterprise for tourists?

Make Glorious Edition

WWBD (what would Borat do)? Make DC bus stops glorious for next
week's nuclear security summit.

And, yet . . . Edition

Middle school student tourist season is in full swing by the Hard Rock Cafe and ESPN Zone (and Ford's Theater, if they must).  I'm usually just annoyed by them and their refusal to comply with basic sidewalk etiquette, but this bus made me feel something new.  Pity.  Because they can fly, and yet they're stuck on this crappy bus.

Healthy Edition

The P6 wasn't too crowded.  At least one person per row, but it wasn't a packed bus.  The person behind me is giving off just a little underarm odor, but only a little.  I'm sitting there thinking, it's not so bad, it could be worse, some kind of baby powder overkill layered on top of under-breast sweat and unwashed hair.  And then I look down and see this lovely bit of personal grooming detritus:

And a close up:

Mmmm, yellow!  After taking the photos, I look up to get my bearings, see if I'm at my stop.  And there, above, I see this decrepit poster:

Next stop, healthy living!  I said, NEXT STOP, please!

Fancy Edition

I am rectifying a true failing of these dispatches: not enough vomit.  In fact, no vomit whatsoever.  Until now. 


So, for the first time, these dispatches are employing those fancy "click for more"-type jumps, so as to protect those of gentler sensibilities from vomit pictures.  So clicky-click-click for more, those of you with hardier constitutions.  

Choose your Amendment Edition

Last year, Jon Stewart helped me understand whether or not I was a real American.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Quiz: Are You a Real American?
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I think back to that simpler day when I had only to choose: First or Second Amendment? Today, my world is so much more dangerous, so much more complex. Today, I had both!

This morning, I was driven out to the 'burbs to replace my lost work ID. Specifically, I was driven to an office in the NRA building in Fairfax, VA. Did you know the NRA building also is home to the National Firearms Museum? Neither did I! Unfortunately, it was one of those days, so even though I took about 4 pix -- including one of a lobby window with oodles of guns and another of the text of the second amendment in gold letters -- only this one crappy picture came out:

But, wait! There's more! I got the new ID, went back to work, and after work saw this sign from the American Humanists (aka, atheists) on the 54 bus:

I'm proud to be an _________

Brains from Humans Edition

I've witnessed a whole bunch of crazy this weekend. First, there was the guy flailing his arms on the street corner and screaming to the world that he holds his privates on the right side. Then, I saw this 2-sided note attached to a bus stop downtown. A bit hard to follow, but I think it is protesting the ironic mistreatment of NASA's kidnapping and harvesting of "organs, including brains from humans":

I agree. No stealing organs from the living, NASA!

OCD Edition

I was looking back through some of my recent posts and realized I write about bus stops a lot. I'm adding a new label.

Synchronicity Edition

Bear with me. This is longer than usual:

I went to the library after work tonight. The book I wanted was checked out. But, I found on the shelf a new novel by one of my favorite contemporary authors. I hadn't even known he had a new book. Not knowing about this book is, to my knowledge, my most personally felt side effect of the newspaper industry meltdown. The Washington Post stopped publishing the Sunday Book World section months ago. Now they print random reviews on random weekdays in the Styles section. But who has time to read an orphan book review over coffee before work? And, I don't want a week's worth of Styles sections cluttering my small apartment until I can get to them on a Sunday. They go in the recycling bag before I leave for the office.

But, I digress. While in the library, a friend called to tell me she had just auditioned for, and been accepted to, some kind of choir. I wanted to yell how excited I was, but I was in the library. So I hung up, checked out my book, and went outside to call her back. And light a cigarette.

I got sidetracked from calling my friend back when a girl asked me for a light. I handed her my purple lighter and she said she loved purple. She showed me her tattoo which said "Purple" in a fancy script. Synchronicity-lite. She let me take a picture:

The lighter stuck to her arm for the picture because the humidity was at 100%.

I called back my friend, who gave me the details of her audition at the Capitol Hill Chorale. The thunderstorm started moments later. I ducked under a bus stop shelter to avoid the rain.

I opened the book. The very first sentence compares "this" to war. The last sentence of that first paragraph reveals "this" to be a chorale group waiting to go onstage. Synchronicity.

Anyway, if you're interested in the book, apparently it was written for Playboy as a serial. Here's a review from the NYT. Damn the Post and it's serial reviews.

You heard it here first Edition

UPDATE: The bus stop-blocking council member's Mercedes, first noted here last Friday, was on Wonkette today.

I like to include pix with each blog, but I don't have another picture of the derelict driver, or his car, so please enjoy this lovely photo of my mom during her vacation here this spring:

Back in the Bus Stop Edition

Hello again!  After over a month without a home computer, I am back.   And, now, so much to catching up to do . . . 

Last week, I was on my way home when a gleaming black Mercedes pulled up next to me and parked.  In the bus stop just past the Chinatown arch.   

It's a bad cell phone picture, but that is the illegally parked Mercedes.  Anyway, two men popped out and ran across the street, to Vapiano's I think.  The license plates on the car caught my eye, because they weren't normal:

Fancy!

No You Can't! Edition

My office is smack-dab in the middle of tourist hell. The trolley tours stop on the block and every middle school group in the country on its DC trip seems to congregate in front of my office building in line for either Ford's Theater or Hard Rock Cafe. The kids block the doors to the building, their chaperons give me dirty looks when I light up cigarettes in their vicinity, and their tour buses park illegally in the bus stop.

This week, I saw the back of an Angelic Tours (specializing in church and youth groups) bus, with the company logo over a "Yes We Can" slogan. But, even better, is the irony-oblivious "Yes We Can" on the door:




Bonus Lincoln Waffle House (next door to Lincoln's Death House) photo:


Love,
Jess