Breaking Bad

NOT the buskers in question.

There's a group of buskers that have taken up as artists-in-residence at Metro Center. They perform on the platform down the escalator where folks are waiting for the Orange, Blue and Silver lines and where the Red Line passengers walk to reach the opposite train. 

It's a fairly intimate spot. By intimate I mean small. The area is flanked by two triple sets of escalators, and there are big pillars with the lists of stops on either side next to their respective tracks. The buskers don't really get in the way, though. Good on them. Except that they may block one of the pillars so people unsure which train to get on won't have a clue.

When I've seen them, there's been 2-5 men setting up with an amp. I think that they dance, but I've mostly seen stretching. And jawing. There is an upturned baseball cap that is likely for donations. First time I saw it, I almost picked it up to give to the guy. I thought he dropped it. Then I recognized the signs of a pending performance: the amp, the fiddling with the amp, the stretching, the cool shoes and the multi-colored hair. 

I think, though, that they would be more likely to get green in the hat if there was some type of performance. Not being a busker myself, I could be wrong.

Today, as I crossed the platform-stage, there was sound coming from the amp. The sound was music. There was a guy who was kind of dancing. To be fair, I guess he really was dancing. Not in a way that was impressive, that might make you stop and watch or that was even choreographed.

Like I have on previous days, I rubbernecked. One of the guys was making motions at the "dancing" guy's back, almost like he was either trying to fan the flames or put out a fire. Hard to tell. It almost seemed like they were nervous or embarrassed, like the kids trotted out by their parents at the family gathering who really don't want to play the violin for Aunt Viola. The buskers looked like that the other days, too. If this was stage fright, I didn't see any imminent end to it.

There were four or five women clapping along to the music. There were people covertly glancing at the potential performers. These people didn't want to encourage the buskers, but they didn't want to miss out. A few others stopped to wait. Well they were waiting for the train anyway, but instead of facing the track they turned toward the amp and the guy moving in front of it.  Something might happen.

Me, I continued walking across the stage stepping onto the up-escalator, swinging around to face back at them. Something was bound to happen, no? No.

I didn't see any money going into the hat. Seems that bad busking is not a good entrepreneurial look.

[image: The Ballroom Project]

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Friends in Red Coats

My office is a block and a few steps from the subway stop.

I say this because the office isn't on the same block as the stop. You have to cross a street. The stop itself is like an eighth block in from the corner, so when I get out, I walk the most of the block, then cross the street. It's about a quarter of that next block to the entrance to my building.

Seems like a block and a few steps to me.

If I'm prompt to work, cars whizz by on all lanes. It's more likely that I am less prompt. This works out great because I can peruse the food trucks that line up as soon as the rush hour parking restrictions lift.

Overall, I am NOT a fan of the food trucks. First, they aren't any cheaper than building located restaurants and sandwich shops. You can't pay less than $10 for lunch (except for the burrito lady with all the good salsas, but she has a cart not a truck and is down the block in the other direction, so I stand by my ten bucks).

Second, they were supposed to be a response to lack of variety in food vendors. The variety though, consists of kebabs, Indian food and tacos/burritos. That might seem like variety, but if there are eight trucks lined up and 3 are gyros and 2 Indian every day, I'm missing the variety.

Third, where do you eat your truck food? On a nice day you can sit by the fountain--depending on how loud the guy by the elevator is arguing with himself. Even then, you have to balance whatever you're eating on your lap. You can't put your fork down. You can't keep your soda within arm's reach. Heaven forbid there's a little wind and your bitty napkin gets blown away. The solution to these struggles is worse. If you won't/can't perch outside, you're sentenced to taking your sad styrofoam container back to your sad little desk. Sad.

Why am I even looking at the trucks since I hate them so much, you ask? Good question. I guess I'm just shopping for that amazing bargain with cafe seating. Enough food trucks. This isn't even about them.

It's really all about walking past the Washington Marriott at Metro Center. But really much more about the men who call the cabs.

I don't know anything about the hotel except for what I see on the outside. And there are quite fancy men on the outside.

The men on the outside are all tall. Some are thin. Some are not so much thin. But they all wear these amazing red coats.

The coats look very lush, like big wool that isn't too heavy. Not like these guys couldn't easily wear a heavy and unwieldy wool. But the coats they wear seem more fluid.

The wear red pants, too. And have very jaunty and amazing caps.

But that is not the best part of what they wear. No. Not at all. The best part of the men who stand in front of the Marriott in their scarlet garb is the smiles and good nature that they wear.

I get how they wear that for their patrons. They earn tips. So they expertly bring in the cabs. They empty out the limos and ubers and Super Shuttles. Today I saw a woman exiting from a cab and the bellman adroitly and subtly removed the winter coat from the woman's arms, then her extraneous bag,  leaving her lighter and happier to stand there in her black booties and grey skinny jeans with a single black bag over her shoulder.  He took away her physical burdens by building trust. He did this in 2 seconds.

I walk by every day. In the morning--late as I admitted--and on the way back to the train in the evening.

I was walking back to the train this evening and walked back under the Marriott. It was almost raining, meaning that it was more substantive than a drizzle but less sustained. I was too lazy to pull my umbrella from my bag, so I hugged the hotel for my block and a few steps walk. There were awnings I could scurry under, and I looked forward to the big overhang by the main entrance, mostly because there is a heater that hangs outside. I always swerve to grab a taste of it's heat.

I passed by the entrance and sauntered underneath the heater when one of the bellman walked towards me in his claret wool. The evening man is bigger--girth wise--than the morning lead.

We were on the same path, so I moved a bit toward the street as I walked towards him. He was tucking a scarf under his chin, against the almost rain. He looked at me and he shined a smile of recognition that made the rain away.

In that one moment, I knew he knew me from walking back and forth. It wasn't the smile that he gave to the hotel guests. It was the smile that he gave to someone he sees most days.

I guess we're friends. We're friends because we see each other. He recognizes my coat and my hair. He has, over the past few months that I've been at this office, taken me from the randomness of the people he sees on that street in his day and knows me.

Since we say hello every day and we know each other, he's now my friend. And I am happy to see him, too.

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Fresh Grass

Legalized marijuana in the District stinks.

D.C. voters passed a ballot proposal that "legalized the limited possession and cultivation of marijuana by adults who are 21 or older." It became law about 11 months ago, and while there are limits to folks lighting up in public, police are pretty much letting smokers be.

This has translated into the pungent smell of weed imposing itself on me with increasing frequency. It was a bit jarring at first. Walking to work, smell pot. Driving down the road, smell pot from another vehicle. Walking to the dog park, same thing.

And it stinks. Plain and simple, it does not smell good.

It smells like skunk. It's our city skunk sachet. Ugh.

Today I was getting off the subway and was shocked by the smell of weed. Shocked that it smelled like the weed that scented the halls of East Quad in Ann Arbor many decades ago. Cheap weed that filled a ziploc sandwich bag for $5. Weed that was full of seeds and stems and nary a bud. It didn't have a name (other than pot) and had the simple effects of making people giggle, paranoid and hungry.

For a second there, I smelled a familiar smell, like fresh mown grass on a late spring day. Not like it smelled like grass, but it smelled like grass. Man.

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