Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. V

George Henik reminded me that the Saturday night didn’t end with the live music. Anyone paying attention will note that the Saturday late night was the only time when we featured an extended DJ set. The reason was simply because we didn’t want to put the pressure on musicians to try to follow the show that preceded it that night. However, I think we left the night in the good hands of Jesse Miner and Rayned Wiles.

They kept the crowd going so well that they didn’t want to stop dancing even after they left the ballroom after 4:00 am. This was obviously not late enough for the 100+ dancers who loitered in front of the Manhattan Center until someone got the bright idea to just start clapping hands and get everyone dancing again.

Weekly Video Highlights: The Ninjammerz Invade Asia

The Ninjammerz hit up Japan and Korea last month brought lots of new material with them, and were greeted with an equal amount of creativity. Thanks to these YouTube users for posting these videos

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. IV

You would think everything would have gotten easier after we settled into the Hammerstein Ballroom, our home for the last half of the event, but not so much.

Saturday was the first day of workshops. Theoretically, over 1000 people were eligible to take workshops. According to a survey we took a month before, closer to 800 had plans on taking them.

Random DCene(s): The Lion or the Squirrel?

Anyone that lives in DC for any amount of time has a squirrel story. I have several including one where I was pickpocketed by one and another that involves the word threesome. I’ll save those for another day.

This weekend, I was walking through the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial when I ran into some very friendly squirrels. Or hungry. It's usually the latter, but like a lot of people in DC, they've learned to mask their true motivations behind a thin veneer of furry charm. My camera phone documents what happened next.

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. III

On Friday we did it all over again because we had to move everything from the Grand Ballroom to the Hammerstein Ballroom downstairs. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to skip out on the memorial service and the dance at Central Park. It was a tough decision especially after David had detailed the line up to me earlier in the week. The speaker and musical guest list was loaded, a testament to Frankie's influence.

Everyone is Doing It.

via Obamarama. Check out the caption there. That's right. Even Obama wanders and ponders. That's how we roll in DC.

It's Monday. Boo-Ya!

Weekend Video Review: The Harlem Hot Shots Go Old School

This frees me up to talk about the Harlem Hot Shots' huge week. Last weekend they performed in the show “The Last Bounce” which is supposed to be the last show featuring the Stockholm based dance company Bounce. As you’ll see from the video, it was a huge arena sized show in front of thousands of people. According to the website they did five shows in front of a total of 54,000 people!

Frankie95 Highlights & Observations Pt II

The week of the event, I pretty much hit the ground running when I got in on Wednesday. I arrived in NYC by bus a little after 1 pm, checked into my hotel and then got a text that some people were starting a meeting at 2 pm in the Manhattan Center. It was off to the races.

It kept going that day until about 3 am. I should have taken a cue from Chester Whitmore who I caught napping during our first and last all hands staff meeting that night. I was impressed by his ability to doze off, be awakened by a question directed at him, and then promptly fall back asleep when attention went on to something that didn't concern him. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury because everything concerned me.

Echoes of a Revolution

In 1965, long before coming to Capitol Hill, future Congressman John Lewis led 600 people on a march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama to question Governor George C. Wallace's role in subverting black voting rights in his state. Wallace is the same man who less than a year before famously declared “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Having already been beaten several times from participating in the Freedom Rides and numerous other marches throughout the South, Lewis crossed Edmund Pettus Bridge into a wall of state troopers. So bent on conflict, those officers had already donned their gas masks and had their billy clubs at the ready. They had every intention of kicking Lewis’s ass. Not only did he and the marchers keep going forward to meet them, but they did so with no intention of fighting back.

Congressman Lewis still bears scars from that day now remembered as Bloody Sunday.

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. I

I actually started writing notes after the first time I went up to New York City for meetings, but then Frankie passed away. The possibility of something happening before the event was always in the back of our minds. During our April 20th meeting in NYC, Frankie had been admitted into the hospital. At one point I caught myself considering various contingencies, but stopped. The idea just seemed too overwhelming not to mention too morbid to consider at the time.

And then it happened. A lot of people seemed to be surprised by his death, but for me it happened in slow motion as I got constant updates both public and private until the end. That weekend I wasn’t the biggest fan of the internet because it gave me a more intimate portrait of death than I ever wanted. I won’t go into that much further. We all had our reactions to it, and I’d rather keep mine to myself.