Josh on Magic

"I don't have a specific memory of when I first got into magic, but I remember seeing magicians as a kid growing up in Maryland and loving them. My brother and I would get magic books from the library and do simple tricks for each other. Our first major trick was the old hide a carrot in your palm, cover your hand with a handkerchief, and stick needles into the carrot pretending it was your thumb. We did it to my Mom to freak her out. 

"While my brother ended up having a passing interest in magic, I could not get enough of it. I started doing shows for my family during the holidays or other family events. I used to prepare for these shows by going to the magic shop or to magic meetings. Yes, magicians have magic meetings. It's crazy, you have 50 year old men drinking beer and smoking next to 12 year olds talking about card tricks. A lot of time, the kids are the best magicians because they have nothing but time to perfect their skills. 

"At 14, I started doing magic professionally. I got my first job doing a 45 minute show for $45. I thought a dollar a minute was pretty good back then. The thing is that I was so excited that I did an hour and a half show and pulled out every trick that I knew. The local newspaper, The Carroll County Times, came and from that, I got more work. In high school, I had a show every weekend and was making more money in a weekend than my friends were making all week. I was amazed that I could do something I loved and make money from it. 

"To make my parents happy, I went to college to study graphic design, but the plan was always to do magic professionally. During college, I got involved with a start-up and then after I graduated and came to D.C., I split my time between the start-up and my magic career. D.C. is a great city for magic because there are so many meetings and conventions here that need entertainment and it is a great town for networking. Magic has always been my full-time focus, even if it was not my full-time job. At a certain point, I realized that I needed to quit my job to focus fully on my magic career. I decided that I would give myself a year to try and make it as a magician. After the first two months, I realized that I wanted to make this my life. That decision was so liberating for me. 

"People here are fascinated when I said that I am a magician. It is such an unusual profession anywhere, but especially in D.C. It always sounds like a joke. People say, 'No really, what do you do?' For me, the real pay off to magic is the reaction from people, whether I am telling someone that I am magician or seeing their response to a trick. You do the same trick you have done for ten years and every time, people are fascinated by it. It never gets old. I have also learned that the way that someone responds to a magic trick says a lot about their personality. Some people get mad at magicians when you really fool them. Not to stereotype, but these are largely lawyers, doctors, and accountants who get frustrated because they don't like not knowing how something is done. Other people are capable of not caring about how it is done and just enjoying it as a form of entertainment. Every once in a while, someone calls me an asshole, but this is the only profession where an insult is actually a compliment. It usually means, you really got me. 

"I would encourage everyone to learn a little magic. I think that just like having a joke, everyone should have a magic trick. It's a great, fun thing to know and you don't have to be a magician to do it."

You can see Josh Norris perform every Sunday night from 6-8 p.m. at the Kemble Park Tavern at 5125 Macarthur Blvd NW. See Josh perform one of his tricks on a man at a barbershop here. 

Derek on the Greatest Profession on the Planet

"Me and my brother, my father, my grandmother, and my great-grandfather are all from Washington, D.C. My family has a strong connection to the city, but, like many families, we eventually migrated out of the city to the suburbs. I grew up in Maryland and spent most of my childhood there. I grew up in the hard-core scene in D.C., which is funny to think about now that I own a bar. 

"As a teenager, I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, with my father. There is where I started to stray away from the idealistic, straight edge 14 year old and started drinking and partying with kids in high school. As soon as I could, I left South Carolina and came back to D.C. I had no plans or designs of being a wine-and-spirits professional at the time, but I got a job waiting tables at Rocky's in Adams Morgan, which is where Evolve is now. 

"At the time, I was somewhat aimless. I know this is going to come off as a little harsh, but a lot of people in the restaurant industry are aimless, which is a nice way of saying losers. It is an easy way to make cash and support substance-abuse issues. I considered myself one of those losers. Fortunately, I didn't have substance abuse issues, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. Eventually, one of the bartenders left and Rocky asked if I knew how to bartend. I said, 'Yes,' but I really had no idea. She could sense my hesitation and asked me to make her a rum punch on the spot. I grabbed every rum on the rail and threw in some juice and sour mix and garnished it with every piece of fruit I could find. Amazingly, she said it was good and that is how I got my first job bartending. After that, I fell in love with it and knew that it was the job that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I think that bartending is the greatest profession on the planet. Sometimes it is hard because people can abuse alcohol. There have been instances when I had to cut off people who were my grandparents' age. As much as I lionize drinking culture, I recognize the need for moderation. 

"After Rocky's closed, I went to work at a number of different places and then studied to be a sommelier. In the end, I didn't love being a sommelier as much as I loved being a bartender. While I was still a sommelier, some friends and I started a speakeasy during our days off. Eventually, I came back into bartending when I got involved with The Gibson and eventually opened The Passengerwith my brother, Tom, and Paul Ruppert. When we opened this place, we wanted a bar that was of the District. We were tired of the mentality that D.C. is not good enough, so we thought there was no better way to show pride in the District than putting a D.C. flag on the door with a sign that says, 'God save the District.' We also wanted to incorporate local things, like half-smokes and rickeys.

"The rickey is actually D.C's native cocktail. The gin rickey may be the most popular rickey, but the bourbon rickey was the original, and it was invented at Shoomakers, which was on Pennsylvania Avenue, in 1893. It was described quite literally as a shit hole. One of the bartenders, George C. Williamson, was considered Washington's greatest bartender at the time. The Washington Post called him the 'King of Julep' makers and he invented the rickey. Every President visited Shoemakers except for Rutherford B. Hayes, who was dry. I went and made drinks for President Obama, but can you imagine that presidents actually used to go visit that guy to get a drink. It blows my mind. In his obituary, it said that Williamson likely had a hand in every political decision of the time, as Shoomakers was where all of the politicians and journalists hung out and talked about work. 

"Shoomakers eventually closed because of prohibition, which came to D.C. earlier than the rest of the country. Morris Sheppard, a senator from Texas, wanted to make an example of the District. D.C., now as then, drinks more per capita than any city in the country. Correspondingly, the indicators of drunkenness are 36th or 37th in the nation, which means that we can hold our alcohol." 

Derek Brown is the co-owner of The Passenger at 1021 7th Street Northwest.  He is also a regular contributor to The Atlantic.  

Chuck on Being the Godfather of Go-Go

"Go-go is a groove, man. It is a mixture of Latin percussion, jazz, blues, and African call and response. To me, it has also always had a spiritual vibe because the roots of go-go came from a church that my Mom used to take me to as a kid. At our church, people used to jump and shout, just like they do now when they are listening to go-go. 

"D.C. is where go-go got started. I always say that D.C. is my hall of fame. I was raised in all four corners of this city. When I was a kid, we used to live in a little shack by the railroad tracks. I used to beat on a rock to the beat of the train going by. Everyone in my family could sing, but my Mom could outsing anyone. We used to sing at church together, and she took me around to sing at house parties. We would pass around a hat to make some money. Then, I started shining shoes around town. One time, I shined Louis Armstrong's shoes outside of the Howard Theater. Back then, I would make $2 or $3 in a day, as shoe shines only cost a dime. I remember he gave me a whole dollar tip. I will never forget that. I told myself that one day I would play at the Howard Theater. 

"I left home and school at 13. I had all kinds of jobs and got into a bit of trouble. I spent my share of time behind bars, and then I did an eight-year stint at Lorton Reformatory. I had been to several other jails before, but all those experiences taught me was how not to go to those same jails no more. When I went to Lorton, it changed my whole life. That was over 50 years ago, and I ain't never been to jail since. I am proud of me for that. To me, Lorton was college. There, I got a high-school diploma, learned a trade, and learned the guitar. In Lorton, I paid a young man five packs of cigarettes to make me a guitar in the wood-working shop. I watched some of the cats there play, but pretty much taught myself the guitar. At Lorton, chow time and showtime used to both be at 5 p.m. on Saturdays. After about six months of practicing, I made it onto the show. When word got out that I was playing, they had to change the chow time to 7:30 p.m. because no one was at the mess hall when I was playing. That let me know that I could put on a show.

"When I got out, I used to play in a group called Los Latinos and the Earls of Rhythm. In 1966, I started my own band, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. I liked to keep the music going in between songs, so there was not a break. See, the music just goes and goes. I mixed up the Top 40 with a lot of the Latin percussion and the call-and-response. At the time, they had go-go clubs and go-go girls, but no go-go music, so I decided to call it go-go. When they heard my music, people started coming out of their clothes and moving the tables and chairs out of the place, so there was more room to dance. The music really caught on in 1976. After that, we put out a tune called Bustin Loose. That was our biggest hit. In 1979, we were on Soul Train, which meant that go-go had arrived. Then, some of the other bands started catching on, like Rare Essence, Trouble Funk, and the Junkyard Band. 

"Still, when I get on the stage, I become enraged and forget about my age. A lot of people ask me when I am going to retire. I say, 'Come on, I still got the fire, the desire, and I am getting hired. Ain't no need to retire.' People call me the Godfather of Go-Go. I didn't give myself that name; it was the fans and the DJs. They made it all happen and I appreciate it. Looking back, I still would have been happy had go-go just been popular in D.C. I didn't expect it to go anywhere, but it went all over the world. I will always be grateful to D.C. for that -- and for my family. You got a lot of love in D.C. I found my first wife here. We stayed married for 27 years. I then got remarried and have been with my second wife for 25 years. Both of them were great. I am the one that wasn't so great, but I am cool now because I am too old to be anything else. Now, I have four kids. I lost one son in an automobile accident 20 years ago. We have five grandkids and another grandkid on the way. I really feel lucky. 

"Last thing I gotta say is that for all of you who want to be on your feet dancing for hours, you need to go to a go-go."

Everett on Club Promotion

“I’m in club promotion right now. I used to be in records management, but my law firm got bought out by a bigger firm so right now, I am just doing my night club stuff. I promote for a company called Suite 202 and we throw parties at Lux on Fridays, Leila on Saturday’s and Lima on Sundays. These are mainly R&B and hip hop parties, but sometimes we have Carribean or Reggae music. You know how DC is a melting pot, we try and get everybody to our parties.

“In terms of the DC club scene, I’ve been doing this for eight years and I can say that it’s been changing up and down. A person who may not have come out before, is out all the time now because of so many different night life options in DC. I think that right now with the recession, you don’t see people out as much or spending as much money. But, we still try and get them out.

“When I’m not throwing my parties, I like to hang out at Lima, I go support other friends' parties at Josephine’s on Wednesdays, Shadow Room on Thursdays, we actually just did an event at the Donovan Room on the roof. I like to go to anything different that catches my eye. But usually, I like to lay back at Shelly's or Draper’s with a cigar. It just relaxes me so much. In the future, I’d love to open my own place, that’s the dream. I want the place to be catered around cigars. I love the clubs, but cigars are my life, too."

Svetlana on Brightest Young Things

“When I got to DC, I knew no one. At the time, I had a boyfriend who lived in LA, such a bad idea. I spent a year traveling back and forth and not giving DC a chance at all, just meeting a person here and there. Then, I broke up with my boyfriend and I decided to focus and really like DC and make it mine. I always used to take pictures and write stories on MySpace, basically narrating what was going on around town. My site really grew and I started getting 500 people a day or so checking out my photos. And, all of these people would come up to me and say, “Hey, you’re that girl who does those pictures.”

“So, my friend, Jason, suggested that we put the website out into the larger world. In 2006, we converted my site into a shitty blog and called it Brightest Young Things. I always wanted to call the blog that after Evelyn Waugh's novel, Vile Bodies. I wanted the name to be funny. The book talks about all of these kids running through London in the 1920's and they have nothing, but partying and live a very superficial life. In the book, they call those kids bright young things. Some people get the joke and some people don’t.

“Right now, our traffic is about 100,000 visitors a month. Sometimes, upwards of 10,000 a day. Now, we have 30 photographers, 60 contributors, and it’s a tight group of friends. So, we just went full-time in July. In the future, we are going to do more festivals and things that take over whole neighborhoods, especially parts of the city that many people don’t normally think of.

“I think that the parties we throw couldn’t happen in any place but DC. DC is an exceptionally smart city and its, like, a conquerable city so there is a sense of familiarity and everyone knows everyone. If you give people a chance to have fun and do something different and creative here, of course everyone is going to jump at it. To think that I needed something to do to avoid thinking about my breakup and now I have BYT, it’s pretty awesome. “

Brightest Young Things is organizing The Bentzen Ball, a comedy festival, this weekend. Get tickets here.

Hamzah on the Color Underneath Those Button-Downs

"How do I feel about the city? I just moved here from New York, and my first experience out in DC was on a Saturday night and I realized that my friend and I were the only ones out in t-shirts. Everyone else was in a polo or a button down. We were like what the..how does a city roll like this? And I did not understand how an entire bar could be filled with so many cookie-cutter people.

"People have a façade here that they don’t have elsewhere. I feel like you can meet cool people, though, who will let down their guard and tell you what they’re like. So, I am discovering that there is a lot more to DC than what I found at the bar. There is some color underneath those button-downs."

Check out some polling data on life in DC vs. NYC here.

Catherine and Moises on The District of Colombia

Moises. “I am Colombian. During the summer in DC, you see lots of different places promote nightlife on Saturday and relaxing at a hotel pool on Sunday. The pool parties are cool. It’s a good way to network, meet people…and put your rap down! Hey, why not? It’s different from where we’re from. This is part of the culture in Colombia, not just a once a week or month event like in DC. You go out with friends and family. I am from a Caribbean city, so the food and even the way your body functions is totally different over there. In DC, you need a little more alcohol to get your body to function! But here, there are the perks of opportunity. Over there, it is just a feeling. People enjoy each other for what they have there. Here, people worry about what they don’t have.”

Catherine – “I’m Colombian, too. For me, I would love to go back to my country. There is nothing like Colombia. You can have little and just be happy all day...not like here. Here, you got everybody, though, from all countries. In Colombia, you got just Colombians, nothing else. I love it there and no matter how long I stay here, I am Colombian all the way. The pool party, I like this. The party is really nice and diverse, but I still miss Colombia.”

Moises – “One more thing, I definitely wish there were more of a Latin crowd out at night in DC. It is a really diverse city, so it seems like clubs always have to split it up to make it even-steven for everybody. You know, the first floor is old school, the second floor is techno and a small room in the corner will be Latin. I wish there were some hard core Latin music…you know salsa. There are some places, but the venues are usually small and crowded.”

Moises and Catherine recommend Caribbean Breeze as their favorite Caribbean restaurant in the area. I would also suggest Sweet Mango.