Tonight I popped into Eye-bar to catch up with Brian (DJ Geometrix) for a few minutes before heading to Five to see Friction on 3 decks in the main room at Five in DC. It was the first real drum & bass show that I’ve been to in almost a year, so I’d say it was eventful. I drank a variety of fancy drinks including foreign stuff I can’t pronounce followed by more traditional party spirits like Jagermeister and rum. I ran into Deinfamous, Scott, Luis, Apple, Ali, and a handful of other people that I haven’t seen in a few years, so the two-week DC reunion continued in usual fare. I’m more impervious to drum & bass rhythm than ever before, but Friction played a few choice tunes which I haven’t heard in a while, including Signal. When we left the club my Persian friend Nemo put on his Yassar Arafat headgear and yelled at people out of the window in faux Arabic which made me laugh so hard that my throat hurt. Just before leaving I took 15 minutes to talk to Courtney about her impression of India and that I’m planning on checking it out for a few weeks this year. It’s fresh in my mind because I visited my old office today and caught up with an Indian coworker that I haven’t seen or thought about in a few years. Her nephew is in Goa and she gave me his contact info. Exciting things for the future!

Cici has been trying to negotiate with Delta Airlines for the past few days to get me a ticket to the west coast before I leave with the 100,000 frequent flyer miles she has. I think her confidence is dwindling as she’s finding out that Delta is nearly bankrupt and about to completely go out of business. I’m not sure what to do about it but suppress my disappointment.

I just returned from Sonar in Baltimore (the second time this month) to check out Mr Killah, Tony Starks, with Jill. The place was much more packed than it was for Qbert and I believe it might’ve sold out just on the hype of the 9:30 Club show the previous night alone. When I arrived A-Alike was performing and they really killed it. After them there was an R&B-influenced duet without a DJ which was pretty weak. Before Ghost came out the place was getting hyped through the roof by half a dozen MC’s like “Porkchop” (not to be confused with Lambchop) freestyling and bigging up Ghost and the Wu.

I’m glad I saw the show in Baltimore instead of in DC as the crowd just seemed so much more genuine than it surely would’ve been at the 9:30 Club. After hearing one of the guys from Dead Prez go through the long-winded, politically-charged psuedo-speech “Fuck George Bush” stuff, it was pretty sweet. I think I understand that hip hop is a vehicle to transport ideas, but I guess I had hoped that it would’ve evolved past N.W.A. by this point. Oh well, I could totally relate to my deadlocked negro brother when he was preaching about the fight against white America. It sort of made me feel like a traitor, or a fake, for just coming for the music and not the idealogy. I haven’t felt that way since I was in Thai monestaries; I was raised around Buddhism, but I still feel like a fake when I’m around life-long Buddhists with calloused foreheads whose religious commitment make me feel like I just jumped on a bandwagon. Music and philosophy aren’t supposed to be judgemental, but that’s the way I feel when I’m around people who’s commitment make mine feel insignificant. Or maybe that’s just a bad analogy.

Tomorrow I have a golf lesson at at Belle Haven country club. I bought some khaki slacks today and I have a really silly bright yellow polo shirt that I would probably only wear on a golf course which I’ll reserve for the special occassion. 🙂