All words and photos by Dakota
I showed up on Friday night to "the lighthouse" early. The Ryan Wakeman effect had once again taken hold of us, and I was doing my part to show up and get some snaps before jetting out to an Obama fundraiser at Civilian Art Projects. Besides, Kaz (aka PWFL Power) and barbeque were gonna be there... I mean what's a better combo than that? Hard to say.
Nevermind the fact that I had to leave too early to actually hear Kaz sing about Teriyaki, instead what I got was an indescribable percussion ensemble (I wanna say it was Burmese) playing instruments I had never seen before. I swear, I walked into a West Coast warpzone. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't actually on Northern California commune; vegan curried tofu stew notwithstanding. Hippies like I didn't know existed in DC made Ryan Wakeman look right at home, forcing me to reassess whether or not he actually does fall into that category, to his chagrin, I'm sure. I know I've witnessed at least one conversation in which he challenged this exact assertion made about himself. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin.
I bet all those cassettes are Grateful Dead bootlegs, I should've checked, but I think it's safe to assume anyways.
I made it down to Civilian Art Projects just in time to catch them change the bar from $2 drinks to free drinks, sweeeet. Chris Chen was there, camera in tow as always, and was looking beet red (damn, I shouldn't have photoshopped that image). Friday night Civilian was hosting a fundraiser for Obama.
I met Yospyn, creator of the flying tortoises, or is he? I swear someone else has done this before, or is it just that it evokes for me the flying toasters from the After Dark screensaver, remember that? Will Eastman was spinning.
|
 |
Hopped on the metro to U St (I got the metro shot to prove it) and bopped into Midnight Mass at Selam. Apparently I missed the most exciting part of the night when two girls started fist-fighting out front... I swear every time I go to Selam some kind of drama ensues. Anyways, there were neat-o laser beams. Yeah, I'm paying attention to the light more than I am the music, couldn't tell you what Steve Love played. However, I did eat pizza afterwards, from Alberto's, on my walk home.
|
 |
Lasers RULE.
God loves a cheerful giver.
I met Yospyn at this party back in May. we talked cameras etc for a while. the conversation was so low-key though he made me feel like he'd just bought his SLR the night before. Then I came upon his amazing flickr site. Very accomplished stuff. Yeah, and the preoccupation with airborne turtles ...
I don't remember the exact bands on those tapes but it was a lot of punk and alterntative... I remember it being surprisingly not hippy for the general aesthetic of the house, but then again... I feel like there was n arty hippy vibe... very wakeman.
also those instruments (collectively) were called Gamelan they are all tuned to function rhythmically with each other creating a cohesive sound based on rhythm...
ultimately baby tiger still got his ice cream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan
Yeah, I was gonna say, most of those kids come from the deaDCity punk scene, and were, if not maybe in some way still are, punx.....
the best part of this night was dakota's dance moves.
and then shit got shut down. man.
lasers, do in fact, RULE!!!
Kaz's performance that night was magical. I love him. Hard.
Remember when I started bringing lasers and smoke machines to indie dance nights like 4 years ago and all the stuck up DJ's gave me shit about it. Just sayin'
@beet red asian chris: dude, take a pepcid ac 5 minutes before you drink. i swear, pepcid is to drunkredasianmen as spinach is to Popeye.
zing.
Yup, I take an antacid before I drink to keep the Asian flush in check - the H2 blockers slows down the effects of alcohol for whatever reason. That's on the science tip, but it doesn't seem like that mention or link to the photographer's un-photoshopped pic was for science or even to highlight what Chris does for a living. It just seems disparaging and mean.
Not sure about the science, but while I've read about Pepcid & other acid blockers, they have absolutely no effect on the acetaldehyde buildup/asian alcohol flush syndrome for me (I should know as I used them @ prescription strength for a long-term bout w/acid reflux many years ago), nor for many other Asian folk I know. Maybe we drink too much/too quickly & it overwhelms the system. Cathy: Dakota is 1 of my BYT photo buds & it's all in good fun (heck, my own mother mocks me about how red I get). I was actually more red in person than even the un-retouched photo (probably because of the auto white balance on his chintzy Canon).