Hiatus

While the diner seeks an appointed position the Diner Review is on Hiatus. This happens on sitcoms all the time.

Diner review: best of 2008 In Preocess

The Diner review is seeking the help of loyal readers. each year I put together a best of the diner review mix. It strikes me that putting it out in December is too late. It also strikes me that there must of have been some brilliant things out this year that i have not heard. Therefore I am publishing this mix early and accepting contributions and suggestions to modify and augment. These are not sequenced at this point so... forgive me.

Song Artist

Mansford Roof : Vampire Weekend

New York: Cat Power

Angel: The Wood Brothers

Lovecraft In Brooklyn: The Mountain Goats

“Woke up afraid of my own shadow Like, Genuinely afraid Headed for the pawnshop To buy myself a switchblade Someday somethings coming From way out beyond the stars To kill us while we stand here It will store our brains in mason jarsAnd then the girl behind the counter asks "How do you feel today?" and I say "I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn!"

Sausalito: Conor Oberst

Sick of Love: Takeover UK

Lost Coastlines : Okkervil River

Big Easy: Rafael Saadiq

Bitch Went Nuts : Ben Folds

Falling Down Again Buick MacKane

Paint the Rust: The Dodos

Few Words in Defense... Randy Newman

You know it kind of pisses me off. That this Supreme Court is going to outlive me. A couple of young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now, too. But I defy you, anywhere in the world, To find me two Italians as tightassed as the two Italians we got And as for the brother, well Pluto's not a planet anymore either

Handelbars: Flobots

Souled Out: Conor Oberst

Whiskey In My Whiskey: The Felice Brothers

“I put some Whiskey, in my whiskey
I put some heartache, into my heart.
I put my boots, on the old dance floor.
I put three rounds Lord, in my 44.”

Beaumont: Haes Carll

Down Together: Colin Meloy

Emma: Emmanuel Jai

Cowboys: Counting Crows
***
Out of sadness and hopelessness I am also putting this out on Facebook. That is pathetic even for me. For God’s sake....HELP ME. Help me help you. Help America! Do not be a hater.

Post Election Erata....blah, blah, blah

Down in the mouth and not half right
but I can feel the changes comin on
bloom like flowers in bluest night
bloom like the sunlight in my song*


Sooooo... I started writing a little on election night and other then responding to some Facebook posts... I didn’t have anything I thought was meaningful to say. I mean everyone said everything and in a 24 hour news cycle they said it about180,000 times already. So I waited... I watched.... I listened. I learned nothing.
****
Lutheran kids are by a large part angry and somewhat hate filled about the election. That propbably is not fair, I am sure it is just a vocal minority to full of hate but wow. What have these kids got to be so angry about? And why hate Obama? Do their parents hate him that bad? Even if they do shouldn’t the kids be rebelling against that? And what does it say about how we are raising them up as Christians that they have so much angry bile that they are willing to lay out on the web for everyone to see.
****
Mc Cain’s speech was an excellent piece of work. Grace filled. Generous. Funny and serious. It was everything that made me and a lot of other Americans like and admire him for years. It is too bad that such a quality person had to lose. I was worried that they would allow Sarah Palin to break tradition and give her own concession speech. I would not have cared for that.
****
The post election attacks on Palin are embarrassing and unforgivable. And not on her part. I do not think she was ready to be VP much less President but there is no reason to think that she is not spenty intelligent. I have no idea what the agenda is of the poeple who are stabbing at her anonymously but they should be outed, fired and banned from election politics. really unforgivable.
****
all of the words you can't say right
burn my ass with anger to no end
I love my country so much man
like an exasperating friend *


I do not know what Obama is going to do or what he realistically can get done. Picking Rahm Emmanuel is not exactly a reaching acroiss the aisles type move. He sounds like a meticulous, dangerous guy but perhaps he is the guy who can get a job done. We are counting on Obama to surround himself with quality people. Lets hope he is one and that he turns out to be the first of many. I put a number of things on Facebook as a dream for this administration:
I have a dream that Obama gets elected and immediately does the following:
1. Offers Secretary of Defense job to John Mc Cain
2. Makes Petraus head of joint Chiefs of Staff
3. Offers Secretary of Treasury or Fed job to Warren Buffet and urges him to take it as a matter of public service.
4. Announces Hillary will fill next Supreme Court opening.
5. Shuts down our stock market for a week to retool the rules regarding program trading, hedge funds and over night trading and perhaps selling “futures” of things that are not actual commodities.
6. Consider closing the banks for a brief period to review them and open them again so that people have confidence in them.
7. Set aside 700 billion plan and start over. Do not allow the banks to have any money for mergers unless they are mergers directed by the FDIC. Use the money in a way that actually gets banks to lend.
8. Give the first great speech of this Millenium. remind the country that we are the greatest country in the world but help the country to redefine that greatness.
9. Ask Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed to step down from their leadership positions in order to elect new leadership for our new challenges.
That is a lot.

***
I liked Obama’s speech but it was not transcendant. perhaps it did not mean to be. I was moved and not put off by Jesse Jackson’s tears.

yeah, i believe the war is wrong
don't believe that nations can be steered
lead the world by smarts and compassion
by example, not coercion, force and fear*

****
How great is it that Proposition 1 to provide mental health services to youth passed? A tax increase in a time of tremendous economic upset. That is a nice sign about people in St. Louis County and I did not expect it at all.

****
So.... where was i when Barack Obama made history? I was in my shower I believe when they called the elction for him. Granted it was a foregone conclusion before then. We sat at home all night and watched returns come in. I was looking for Indiana, Ohio or Florida to tip for Obama and that would seel it. the fact that they called Pennsylvania so quickly was a sign and the close races in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri which all were supposed to be Red states also boded well. When they called Florida and ohio it was over. The west coast was just gravy.
Looking at the map was a little depressing. It looked almost like a civil war map. Creepy.

****
There is of course the inevitable talk of a new alignment of politics in our country and it just seems so absurd to me. Obama won for among other reasons that the republicans have had the White House for the last eight years. He also was a tremendous campaigner, an unbelievable speaker and someone who catalyzed something in the American populace. The idea that in four years or eight years that this Democratic mandate will continue is delusional. This was a case of people being sick of the administration and having a bright young star to chose to put their hopes in. This honeymoon will likely be over even faster then prior ones, especially if the Democrats in the House have their own agenda.

****
One of the problems with the expectations and hopes people have for Obama is the obvious thing that he cannot change anything. Only we can change things by changing what we do every day. We do not want to change. We do not want to conserve. We do not want to pay more taxes. We want to elect someone to do all the hard things for us but this is America. It comes down to us. That is really annoying.

***
In any case... this is still the greatest country in the world to live and we are all blest. Pray for our leaders. They are going to need it.

*Lyrics of "Move On" by Mike Doughty

DINER REVIEW ELECTION PREVIEW 2008

Sooooo... it is election eves, eve. The talking heads say Obama is lock but Mc Cain has momentum so it is not over. I do not know how those things gibe. The say Mc Cain has to run the table but figuring they have called some of the races wrong I will say if Mc Cain loses Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida.... he is toast.

He was hilarious on SNL last night. He can make fun of himself and he does have timing. Somehow he let the campaign run him as a grumpy old man (and that is perhaps who he is) but that seems unfair. I like John Mc Cain. I like that he fights for what he believes in. I like that he got his reputation of speaking truth to power but i am voting for Obama because:

1. Mc Cain sold out his “crossing the aisle” I am a consensus maker and builder reputation when he chose a V.P. to pander towards a base which had no where else to go and he adopted the extension of the Bush tax cuts which he had made a career of opposing.

2. The choice of Palin also was just a poor choice for this election and the way she was handled is embarrassing. I am confident that she is smart, ambitious and has the best interests of the government at heart but... the way she was rolled out and pandered to the base was a mistake for a candidate who clearly has a lot going foe her.... even if I think i hate her.

3. He did not surround himself with people who could help him make good decisions in difficult time. Surrounding yourself with people who do not have good instincts is...Bushlike. Obama clearly ran a better, smarter campaign. Perhaps running a campaign is whole lot easier then running a government but if you cannot do one...

So I will show up at 6 in Webster and cast my vote. I have predictions.

1. Voter turnout will be huge but even with a massive increase in young voters (18-25) they will not show up and make the effort to vote.
2. Obama wins in landslide with 58% of popular vote, without the youth vote.
3. He has huge electoral college win leading idiot Democrats to do the same thing Karl Rove did and predict a fundamental turn in the electorate and a permanent democratic majority. This is...idiotic. Our country is deeply polarized and politics is cyclical. It is the Dems year and it is only because Obama is a charismatic leader. With anyone else at the top of the ticket (even Hillary) this is a nail biter and they do not win all those states.
4. The Dems have 59 in the Senate.
5. Obama is one term President.
6. Obama is so wrapped up in recession/depression problems that there is no timing or funding for health care reform or almost anything else.

The Republicans could still win this election. They need to promo Sarah Palin at a 50,000 person rally in Branson to get the whole crowd chanting “Obama, Pelosi and Reed...OH MY!” to the tune of “Lions and Tigers and Bears”. That is a scary thought. That could turn the whole thing around with a few prime time TV buys and huge You Tube press. Seriously, that could do it. Instead they will try and scare people in stupid and unscary ways like Bill Ayers and “socialism”...yawn. they deserve to lose. They have no imagination and that is the unkindest thing I can say.

****

MY DREAM
I have a dream that Obama gets elected and immediately does the following:
1. Offers Secretary of Defense job to John Mc Cain
2. Makes Petraus head of joint Chiefs of Staff
3. Offers Secretary of Treasury or Fed job to Warren Buffet and urges him to take it as a matter of public service.
4. Announces Hillary will fill next Supreme Court opening.
5. Shuts down our stock market for a week to retool the rules regarding program trading, hedge funds and over night trading and perhaps selling “futures” of things that are not actual commodities.
6. Consider closing the banks for a brief period to review them and open them again so that people have confidence in them.
7. Set aside 700 billion plan and start over. Do not allow the banks to have any money for mergers unless they are mergers directed by the FDIC. Use the money in a way that actually gets banks to lend.
8. Give the first great speech of this Millenium. remind the country that we are the greatest country in the world but help the country to redefine that greatness.

****

I don’t ask for much.
God’s Blessings. Go vote.

WHAT I AM READING (With Apologies To Nick Hornby)

There is a magazine I read called The Believer (which I somewhat prematurely and optimistically labeled the new New Yorker) and one of my favorite columns in it has been written by Nick Hornby, the guy who wrote Hi Fidelity. The column was called “What I Have Been Reading” and the guy reads a lot and has turned me onto some good books. In fact some very good books. But Hornby is moving on from the column and the magazine so with imitation being the best form of flattery I give you the St. Louis Diner Review version of “What I Have Been reading”.

Michael Chabon: “Yiddish Policeman's Union”
Harper Collins 2007
416 Pages

Chabon is one of the writers that Hornby turned me on to. I think i did not think i would like him because it sounded like he had a French name and well... we hate those people. I like it when my instincts are wrong because you often find something new, and they were very wrong here.

Chabon invents a whole new world historically where after world war two when the state of Israel is started that the Arabs and Palestinians push the Jewish re-settlers into the ocean. The U.S. for reasons that are never quite clear through Secretary of State Seward offer the Jews a 50 year homeland in Alaska and 10s of thousands of Jews settle and prosper there. Like any ethnic group this band of wanderers has it’s share of normal people and crazies and the politics of Jewish Alaska are.... convoluted at best.

Our hero and narrator is a detective and he is living post divorce in a seedy hotel where someone else murdered. The investigation of the murder is complicated by the fact that the 50 years is up and most of the Jews are being forced to leave and those that stay are not necessarily welcome or being offered jobs in the new administration AND his ex wife has gotten the job as his boss.

The gentlemen who was killed also was expected at one point in his life to be the chosen one who would lead the Jews to their right place in the world and perhaps bring on Armageddon and the last days. I think Sarah Palin would have been in favor of this. Anyway, it is NOT a murder mystery but is a book deep in relationships and it is beautifully written if slightly long. This guy can just flat out write and like my earlier review of his book “No Map No Legend” this book is a highly recommended read.
Wikipedia has pretty good entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yiddish_Policemen's_Union
Among other things it tells me that the book is in pre-production for a film by the Coen Brothers.
*****
Will Self: “Liver”
Penguin Viking 2008
277 Pages

OK....I love this guy. It does not make me a bad person but it does make me think a little sickeningly about the things I find pleasure in. Self reminds me of Will Sheff of my favorite band Okkervil River. In a recent Paste Magazine Interview he said:
“What I’m hoping is that people walk away from the songs feeling … a subtler kind of violence,” Sheff says, “that they feel uncomfortable and like a lot of their feelings have been stirred up and they’ve been entertained—but in a way that made them feel a little sick.” read the whole thing at: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/09/river-of-screams.html
I think Self goes for the same thing. This is actually not a novel but a collection of novellas which are tied together as near as I can tell by the following:

1. Alcoholism
2. Liver Maladies (some caused by Alcoholism).
3. The complexity of the human psyche
4. A Soho bar called “The Plantation Club”
The stories are in no small part, beautiful, depressing and creepy. The inhabitants (becuase they spend almost all their waking hours there) of the Plantation Club make you yearn for their demise, timely or untimely. One of Self’s gifts is to display peoples weaknesses and fragility while still making them obscenely unlikable. It is not at all important that the novellas have anything in common. All four of them are well written and compelling. I got a British Hardcover of this and it is beautifully bound with no dust jacker. Very nice.

!!!!!!!!

H.P. Lovecraft: “Call of the Cthulu”
Penguin Classics 1999
419 Pages

In reading Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon I became aware of the work of H.P. Lovecraft and what a powerful influence he has been on both of their work. Because I am a completist and like to find ways to spend idle hours I decided to check him out. Also becuase I am a Mountain Goats fan and they had a song that really kicked it on their last CD called “Lovecraft In Brooklyn”. The Mountain Goats song paints a bleak picture:

“woke up afraid of my own shadow
Like, Genuinely afraid
headed for the pawnshop
To buy myself a switchblade
Someday somethings coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It will store our brains in mason jar
And then the girl behind the counter asks "How do you feel today?" and I say "I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn!"
----Mountain Goats “Love craft In Brooklyn” 2008.

I thought this was something I needed to do, to read, to explore. From my perspective I was clearly wrong. Lovecraft did not really write a lot of books. He was a pulp writer for magazines and that resulted in a lot of short stories and novellas. These have been put together in various collections all of which start with a short biography of the guy and other then the fact that he lived with his aunts, liked to write letters and hang out with Robert Howard (Conan The Barbarian Creator) he did not seem compelling. I did find out from the biography that he was almost paralyzed by xenophobia and when he lived in Brooklyn found himself totally alienated and despising the mass of society.... and especially minorities and strangers. Though this might have gotten him a cabinet position with the Bush administration it seems an unhappy life. Here is the Wiki on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hp_lovecraft.

“Call of the Cthulu” is the main story in a group of novellas and never having read him before I was amazed at how relentlessly black all of his characters and prose are. There is no joy. There is not even a fake smile. His characters amble through these barren historical and imaginary landscapes and ultimately get to glimpse ultimate horror or ultimate evil before suffering grizzly death or a life a s a recluse from being scarred by what they found out.

It is not much different from being a lawyer.

You do not need to read Lovecraft’s stuff. better to read about him.

%%%%%%%

Ethan Canin: “America America”
Random House 2008
458 Pages

This was a beautiful book. Canin has long been a favorite of mine. I distinctly remember reading his book “Blue River” while I was taking the Missouri Bar Exam. The night before I was reading and finding comfort in his prose before spilling my guts on the exam the next day. My memory is of course totally suspect in that I took the Bar Exam in 1987 and the book was not published until 1995. So much for my bogus memories.

At that time Canin was new and had not really developed his style but since that time he has cranked out several books to universally critical acclaim. He is good and this book is just simply GREAT. It is a Richard Russo type effort set in upstate New York in a thriving, dying, thriving, dying town. A rich and political family adopts a lower class but hard working young man. He becomes acquainted with the ways of the rich, and their daughters. he gets sent to prep school and then to college while working around their house.

During this period, set in 1972 the family is supporting a Presidential Candidate who is running as a Democrat against Mc Govern, Muskie and Humphrey. It looks like he is going to win but there is a scandal and our narrators benefactors are right in the middle of it. Throughout the book as he benefits from the families largesse and connections there is always a sense that he is being used (and perhaps abused) in ways we do not understand.

He grows to be the local newspaper editor and attempts to adopt a protégé in much the same matter and the book is a retrospective as he tells her the story which begins looking back from the funeral of the politician. The book is heartwarming, heart wrenching and achingly well written. If you love the myth of American politics it is a must read, or if you just like someone who really knows his way around language and storycreft. Do not miss this one. It also would make a great gift for anyone you know who reads.

&&&&&&&&

Kurt Vonnegut: “Armageddon In Retrospective”
Putnam 2008
233 Pages

I continue to be very sad that this guy is dead. There is a picture of him on the back of the dust jacket taken by one of his kids or grandkids in front of a door and surrounded by some flowers with boat tennis shoes on. He looks simpatico.
The great thing about Vonnegut is that he was never simpatico. He was questioning, tortured, profoundly disillusioned with humanity and especially government institutions and yet.... he still found a way to love, raise a family and produce some beautiful, beautiful books. Even through disillusionment, depression and despair he always loved people, while seemingly despising what people, especially groups of people, especially groups of people organized as governments.

this book is really just a collection of his wartime writings. Vonnegut was a late arriver in Europe in WWII and was almost immediately captured by the retreating and declining german Army. He was put to work cleaning the streets of Dresden which the allies had left alone because it had no military factories but in the waning days of the war, for one reason or another the Allies, the U.S. decided to firebomb it and level it. He gives that experience the whole book in “Slaughterhouse Five” and his stories here all dance around it. His experiences in the war, as a prisoner, as a survivor of the firebombing and as a liberated prisoner are what make up these stories. All fiction heavily colored by his own experiences.

The stories are short and easy to read and are a sweet glimpse into a young author. the forward written by his son is as revealing as anything written about the man. Families and people are complex and beautiful. War sucks and is dehumanizing. Always. Simple messages by a sweet, brilliant, confused man.

The Trip....Day VIII: An American In Paris

Day VIII
Well today was rainy and cloudy and cooler and... probably one of the best days on the whole trip, which is saying a lot. We got up and Sandy had messed around on the internet the night before and found a place that was about a twenty minute walk from the Hotel called “Breakfast In America”. It was perfect and charming complete with booths, a counter, a complete diner breakfast menu and.... ICED TEA! In France! With lots of ice! It was awesome. Our waitress was a sweet English girl who sounded like she was from Chicago. She was evidently used to dealing with grateful tourists. When we entered there was a group of French kids...early twenties... who had clearly been out all night. they were watching baseball playoffs while eating. We ordered, had a perfect little breakfast (other then the hashbrowns which were really the dreaded potatos Obrien. By the time we were done the place had fellied up with a nice eclectic mix of people. It was a great start to the day.

Next we took a train to the Musse’ D Or’. I like art but have no appreciation for it and as I might have said before the religious art leaves me a little cold. This place however was full of the impressionists and most importantly some Van Goghs. It was awesome and a pleasure just to wander around. We spent a LOT more time there then at the Louvre. Some of the art there was of the kind that just moved me.

On the way back we hit the Cathedral of Notre Dame. there was no hunchback (very disappointing) but we inadvertantly went in while worship services were going on. This was a little odd and disjointed as tourists walked around the edges of the Cathedral while about 500 people worshiped and took communion. What a beautiful place. Unbelievable stained glass and architecture. Going to church there would have been nice. I like Catholics, good liturgical worship.

As a special accomodation to me we hopped on the Metro and went up to Père Lachaise Cemetery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Père_Lachaise_Cemetery. There are Metro stations on two sides of it both which have floral shops next to them so that people can buy flowers for the graves.. It is also the final resting place of the late Jom Morrison. I have always liked the Doors hits but must admit to not owning a single Doors CD though you have to have respect for the body of work and the fact that we did not have to watch him grow old like so many 60’s rockers. How much better is a dead Jim Morrison then a live David Crosby? A lot is the answer. Morrison’s grave is in dierepair and was fenced off. I sat down on a grave next to it and we got yelled at so we went off to oscar Wilde’s grave. Anyone who was imrisoned, reviled, exiled and loved by the French cannot be all bad. He has a really pretty grave.

We went back to the Hotel and napped.

We got up and walked around the Latin Quarter which as I said seems a little like a good boardwalk or Dayton strip. It was a trip just people watching and walking around in the light rain. Paris is beautiful and we ended up getting some more pizza and drinking another bottle of wine and life was good.

After dinner we went to La Cave de la Huchette based on my desire to go watch jazz in Paris. We went in, paid a cover and walked downstairs into what truly was a cave. it appears that a lot of the basements in the latin quarter are carved out of the rock. The room was almost empty and we came in and sat and I went upstairs and got some...BUDWEISER! I had not seen a bottle of Bud in Europe up until that time. Eventually the place filled up and a lady began singing American standards like “Stormy Weather”. The band was tight but what was so much fun was the couples dancing and having an awesome time and between the beers, the music and the dancing it was a delightful evening. In fact it was a perfect day. But the trip was rapidly coming to a close.

The Trip....Day VII

Day VII

Saturday. Another travel day. Light rain. Baguettes and sandwich purchases before heading to the train. I got some pastry with chocolate in it. Very sweet. I have become addicted to the Herald Tribune and to a lesser extent The Guardian. They put our St. Louis Post Dispatch to shame. Seriously. great reporting and covering of issues in about 15 pages of print. If our economy was not heading into the tank I would subscribe. We rode the train to Dijon (no mom I did not get any mustard). Then headed to Paris. I was struck again by how awesome quality rail service is. Handling your own bags, and spreading out on a train is such a great way to travel. Figuring it out is stressful but once again it just seems so much more sustainable then our current batch of airlines going broke. I read in the Herald Tribune that falling fuel prices may allow airlines (other then Southwest) to post a profit. I will hold my breath.

My wife has been generally unimpressed by my contributions to planning this trip. I basically sat it out. This is for several reasons:

1. She is much smarter then me and much more detail oriented.

2. She likes things done in a way that she understands.

3. She always takes my feelings and preferences into account.

This leads to a certain disengagement. So she was pressing me for what I wanted to do. We hit town in the early afternoon after a short cab ride to our hotel on the Ile St. Louis. I thinkl the hotel was called Lettuce’. The female Consiere was cute and we checked into the first room on the whole trip that my wife was “disappointed” by. She seemed to feel that for 180 Euros a night we should be entitled to charm. I agreed but... what the hell. We were in Paris and right off the Latin Quarter.

So in order to make things right we went on a 10 mile Blitzkrieg of Paris. We hit the Louvre (two hours), walked the Champs De Lyse and then walked up to the top of the Arc De Triumphe. (284 steps after a several mile walk) I had no idea that it was so tall, or that people went to the top of it and used it as a lookout. It was very impressive with the longest spiral stairway of my experience. No one died though a Parisian working there screamed at us for not understanding the cue system (there was not one).

On the walk up we noticed some big aeronautics show and at the Arc, when we came down they were flying two large flags and had about 400 military people all tricked out in full regalia. I am sure it was charming but brought to mind every banal joke ever told regarding the French military prowess. From there we took an elongated hike to the Eifel Tower (I thought it was black but it is rather a muddy brown) during which time my feet began to blister and my wife acceeded to my demands that we not go up in the tower, and that we take the Metro back to near our hotel rather then walk the final two miles.

The Metro is cool and scary like all big city mass transit and it remains in my mind the defining difference between big cities like Atlanta, L.A. and Miami and real major cities like NYC, Philly, Chicago, Paris, London. Just my opinion, but what a great way to gt around. Though they do constantly warn you of pickpockets and i could see how at night it could get....sketchy. But still, there is nothing like the feeling of mastering the system and getting yourself around th city without a cab.

Sandy had read about about a great inexpensive place to eat called Polenis and it was both. I cramped place with communal tables out front and in back, but in back seemed to be for people in the know. We sat our front with two other couples sharing bread and water and just people watching. The two main servers looked like they were 50-60 years old and sisters. They bustled and the place was packed and the food was good and fairly cheap for Paris. I had a little rumpsteak with pepper sauce and Sandy had some chicken thing. Naturally we killed a bottle of wine. They did not take credit cards and I nearly had to leave Sandy there. I think that would have been....awkward.

We walked home through the latin District at night and it was seedy, tacky and fun with barkers out front of a lot of places trying to pull you in. there was a lot going on there on a Saturday night and we decided we would return tomorrow to check it out.