First of all, I have decided I hate taking a cab in the D.C. area. Taking cabs in other parts of the country usually only involve disinterested drivers that chat on their cell phones the entire ride, or crazy drivers taking the long way to make more money, or stinky cabs. But in D.C., they won’t even pick you up. I think that is of course, the worst. Okay now that I got that off of my chest, back to our regularly schedule blogging.

Last week, I missed an opportunity to see the Lianne La Havas show, because Smokey (my car, which is named after Smokey Robinson or possibly its color) decided to act up. I was okay with this because I couldn’t decide if I liked her CD or not. However, some tweets I saw claimed the concert was a success. Maybe next time.

On Saturday, I was back on schedule with a filthy loaner, complete with a cigarette butt and abandoned M&M. I will admit I prefer a clean inside of car rather than outside of car. I wonder what that says about me. I prefer the part of the car I see the most, the interior, to be clean rather than have shiny rims and a spotless finish. Last weekend, my month of things procured from a discount service continues. I picked up a discount deal to the New Orleans Bingo! Show at the Kennedy Center. I haven’t been to the Kennedy Center since I saw Stevie Wonder like three years ago. I used to go all the time for their free events and something weird happened. Oh now I remember, I am stuck working in the Northern Virginia suburbs which to me is like working in a Playskool village. Look at the Whole Foods on every corner!

Anyway, I decided to go because the Kennedy Center posted a video of Big Freedia and I was in love. I will admit I was a little worried that the regular KenCen crowd would attend this event and be flabbergasted by twerking and booty clapping. Turns out, I was right and it was awesome. The entire event is hard to describe. There is music, bingo, burlesque, skits, traditional New Orleans jazz by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (I think this tricked the old people into attending) and Big Freedia. The bingo winner received a giant spoon, which had to be won by a robot dancing contest after a tie. One of the KenCen dames made an executive decision to go for the gusto and another gave it a nice college try.

Big Freedia came out in a God-awful weave along with two additionally terribly weaved female dancers and two male dancers. Bounce music is my shizznit as I am from Detroit and our main dance output is shaking our rumps rhythmically (see Beyonce’s Uh Oh, which is actually a Detroit dance called the Booty Hop) and jitting (which I don’t even know how to spell). The dancers did lots of wonderful gyrating and booty popping that some of the KenCen folks weren’t ready for. Hilariously, the couples behind me (my section was mostly young) joked that they would pay a million dollars to see the looks of the more seasoned attendees’ faces during that segment. I got a firsthand download en route to the ladies room, when a woman said to her husband, “That last act was weird, huh?” To which the still mesmerized hubby replied, “Sure.”

I think the event really needed New Orleans food to cap it off. Man, is New Orleans food delicious. Wait…what happened? Oh, yea. The evening was awesome, three hours of pure fun.

Next, I attended the bi-annual Old School Hip Hop Bar Crawl. I arrived in time for the second set, which was this awful mix of popular hip hop songs over reggae beats. Despite the hair, I hate reggae except for watered down pop reggae, so I hate reggae. I gave that a whopping 24 minutes. See, how much more patient I am becoming. We moved on the 80’s and 90’s New York set, which was filled with wondrous songs I had never heard of. I get that the DJ wanted to stand out and not lean on popular songs, but I had to Sound Hound a lot. The event ended with Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones and that helped. Unfortunately, my favorite DJ from the last event helmed the only spot to get decent food. I was hungry as cereal only lasts so long. I could only hear the Native Tongues vs. Wu Tang set faintly. But it was probably great based on past experience.

Next was the Rock-A-Fella, Ruff Ryders and Flip Mode set. What happened to Rah Digga? I loved her. I never purchased any of her stuff but she was nice. Oh, I think I recognized the problem. Last, we went to the final set at Tabaq. We choose to go upstairs and I don’t remember why.  I do love the rooftop view but was forced to listen to Feist as the music from the bar crawl didn’t reach that far. This was redeemed by the fact that the bartender gave me a free shot that I shouldn’t have taken in hindsight. And he performed the sexy straw trick. I am a sucker for the sexy straw trick. All in all, it was a great weekend. For outings. It wasn’t perfect as I was without Smokey. I ended the weekend by giving Mad Men deep concentration. (darn shot!).