ATM's Dispatch from the Beltway

Guest blogger, ATM.
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Was up in D.C. last week for the National League of Cities' Congressional Cities Conference. It's a huge gathering of mayors, councilmembers and other city officials from across the country who come together to hash out issues important to cities and towns and take those issues to Capital Hill. In a nutshell.

Stayed at the exceedingly decent Hilton Washington and Towers. Not sure which towers the name refers to, though. Perhaps they mean that one can see towers in the distance from that spot? I mean, the hotel is tall enough, but if you said "hey man check out that tower" and pointed in that direction I'd wonder what you were on about.

Interesting historical stuff: John Hinckley Jr.'s March 30, 1981, attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan took place at the Hilton. Here's a famous series of pix taken as it all went down. (Click on photo to enlarge) See that little railing in the upper right of the first picture? I had a smoke right there! They've since cleaned up any blood.

The long days sitting through the conference tired me out, so the only extracurricular activities I had energy for were walking up and down Connecticut Avenue looking for places to have a couple of beers. Tried one place, The Big Hunt. It looked dive-y enough for me to feel at home. And dive-y usually means cheap. Also good. Got to the bar and the dude carded me. This was a setback because my license had expired on my birthday just days earlier.

"Can't serve you, man. This is an invalid document"

"Well, they let me fly on the plane after just filling out a form and you're not going to serve me a beer?"

"Can't do it man. The [names some agency] will give me a fine."

Rather than argue with the asshole I left. Grumbling. "I'll find a fucking bar where they don't card 35 year olds, asshole." That kinda thing. Headed 2 blocks down and hit a place called Lucky Bar. Well there you go. No hassles. And the joint was a soccer bar, so I got to watch a Chelsea match. Oh, and I met a dude sitting beside me who had lived in Little Rock for a while. Kinda recently in fact. He praised Whole Hog and Chris Denny. One downside of this place: It was apparently the afterwork hangout of a large crew of bike messenger dudes. They'd come in and drink beer after beer, stacking the empty pint glasses four-foot high on the bar and talking bike messenger talk. Loudly. I stepped out for a smoke and had to listen to them out there too. It was a huge fixed-gear circle jerk. Seriously, it was ten times worse than music nerd talk.

Anyway, after a scotch and a couple of Stellas, I walked my grumpy, self-righteous self back up to the "Tower" and crashed out watching the free HBO. Um, what else. Oh! I got to ride in a stretch limo back to the airport!

FIN