Blind Prophecy

I made it to DC. By the time I got checked in to my hotel, it was almost midnight last night. Despite that, the cute gay boys I sat next to on the plane told me I had to go visit JR’s on Monday night. It’s showtune night. So, as a duty-bound homo, I wandered around the corner from my hotel and found it.

JR’s is like every gay bar ever in every city I’ve ever been to, only more so. Little circles of boys obviously moving in groups. People already paired up with their trick of the night. Desperate looking older guys hovering around the walls. Vapid, muscular bartenders trying to appear both friendly and aloof at the same time, trying to size up their own tricks without being obvious. And on the video screens, showtunes designed to get a chorus of male voices singing along to Annie’s “Tomorrow” or the inevitable “And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going).” I lasted about 30 minutes sipping my Captain and Diet at the bar and trying to make eye contact with anyone. Despite my flight-mates’ belief that at JR’s “people will actually talk to you,” I had no such luck. If this is the “friendlier” bar, I might skip their reccomendation for tonight. In fairness, though, I did arrive at a late hour.

Anyway, since I’ve got the West Coast internal clock going on, and it still feels like prime time TV hours to me, I decided to explore the area a bit. Just wandering vaguely toward the Washington Monument, I was somewhat shocked to suddenly find myself staring at the White House. It was a surreal OMFG kinda moment. I’m enough of a political geek to have reacted much like a fanboy suddenly discovering that his favorite actor is appearing in a movie adaptation of his favorite comic book and it’ll have generous nearly-naked scenes.

So, here’s my unsuccessful attempt to take a picture of myself standing in front of the White House and the Washington Monument at 1 am…

As you can see, it was not to be. But I swear, behind those blurry trees and glaring lights is the place where they set West Wing!

On the return trip to my hotel, however, I realized that trying to navigate by the placement of hard-to-see statues of patriots on statues isn’t the best way to use DC landmarks. No worries, I eventually found the “right” patriot on a horse…

Well, off to my day of meetings. I may end up skipping the event I’m supposed to be at tonight. On closer inspection, it turns out the event is a lot closer to Baltimore than Washington, and I’m not adventurous enough for the train and don’t know if I want to indulge in a $75 cab ride each direction. We’ll see.

Filed under: livejournal by Jere Keys