Bars & Parties

Get ready to ‘Howl in the City’

Friend of Ginsberg’s to read famous poem at Busboys

Published

15 years ago

July 21, 2010

“We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness.”

So wrote the great American mid-20th century modernist poet William Carlos Williams in 1956, in his introduction to the printing of Allen Ginsberg’s provocative and now famous poem “Howl.”

The poem that helped to change America.

The poem in which the young poet Ginsberg — heir to fellow gay poets Walt Whitman and Hart Crane — put his own queer shoulder to the wheel of history and found a new place of greater sexual freedom and personal liberation.

The poem Ginsberg first read the year before to a wildly cheering audience, for they must have intuitively understood that “some rough and shaggy beast was crouching towards America to be born,” in that reading at a San Francisco art gallery.

And now that poem will be read, with musical accompaniment, as “Howl in the City,” tonight and tomorrow night, July 23 and 24, at Busboys and Poets (5th and K streets, N.W.), in a partnership with the National Gallery of Art and the museum’s showing of Ginsberg’s photography on exhibit there through Sept. 6.

“We are blind,” Williams wrote in the opening pages of the City Lights Books edition of the poem, adding that “poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”

“Angel headed hipsters,” Ginsberg called his generation, but they were also “the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” he wrote, doomed by the blandness and blindness of the post-World War 2 years of conformity and conventionality and sexual singularity. And Ginsberg’s early masterpiece surely stands in the literary canon with T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” as well as Jack Kerouac’s own experiment in “beat” writing, the novelistic “On The Road” as a testimonial and confessional of the coming of age of a creative talent turned loose in a barren landscape, where the blind are leading the blind. And in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Anne Waldman, who will read “Howl” as well as from some of her own poetry at both 8 and 10 p.m. each night, was by Ginsberg’s side through much of his life in his later, post-“Howl” years.

“I met Allen in 1967,” she told the Blade in an exclusive interview from Boulder, Colo., where she teaches each summer at Naropa University, the center of higher consciousness as well as learning she and Ginsberg helped to found in the 1970s.

“He was then still a very young poet when we met at the Berkeley poetry conference, and I worked with him extensively after that, in New York, and London and we spent summers together in the 1970s,” when she lived on his farm in Cherry Valley, N.Y. In 1974, she recalls, “we came out to Boulder for what we thought would be just a summer session, but we ended up founding the Kerouac School there and Allen ended up teaching there until his death,” in 1997 at age 70. The school continues with a year-round program of courses and is fully accredited for BA and MFA degrees in writing, psychology and contemplative studies, according to Waldman, who now lives in New York City except during summers when she returns to Boulder.

In addition to reciting the memorable lines from “Howl,” Waldman will read from her own recent published work, including poems from “Manatee/Humanity,” which she calls “an ecological hybrid poem” and is now available in a Penguin paperback.

Speaking of Ginsberg, she calls him “a prophet — he was prescient, he was a seer, a very appropriate word, in fact, invoked by the (French symbolist) poet Rimbaud.” So prescient in fact that Waldman points out how in “Howl” Ginsberg’s language seems eerily to forecast the events of 9/11, even the bodies falling from the World Trade Center towers as people leaped to their deaths.

Writing nearly 50 years earlier, Ginsberg invoked Moloch, the Old Testament Canaanite fire-god of destruction who, as Waldman said, “demanded that parents sacrifice their children in a ritual auto da fe,” or test of their faith, much like Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his own son.

“Moloch,” wrote Ginsberg, “whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!

“Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets … and antennae crown the cities!

“Moloch whose love is endless oil (and) whose soul is electricity and banks!

“Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!”

“Allen was writing this section presumably under the influence of peyote,” says Waldman, “and it’s a shout towards the hold of ‘Moloch’ — this mind-control, tyrannical hold on our imagination and our freedom.”

Joining Waldman for each of the “Howl in the City” readings will be the musician Kyp Malone.

Bars & Parties

Halloween weekend is here

Local events abound for a spooky good time

Published

2 weeks ago

October 30, 2025

Tinashe Chingarande

The annual High Heel Race is the kickoff to D.C.’s Halloween festivities. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Halloween weekend is here, and here’s a list of just some of the local events if you’re looking to have a spooky good time.

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Halloween Party” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 5 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant. This is an opportunity to mingle with LGBTQ folk and allies. Halloween costumes are encouraged or casual beach attire is fine. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Mixtape Sapphics will host “Bad Witch, Good Butch: A Sapphic Halloween Dream” on Saturday, Nov. 1 at 4 p.m. at Revolt DC. This is a halloween party for sapphics from the ages of 35 and above. There will be costumes, connection and dancing. Tickets are $13.26 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

Taste Takeover will host “Abuela Halloween Party” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. at 639 Florida Ave., N.W. DJ Yani will play music and there will be a costume contest with prizes to be won. Tickets cost $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

Metro Cabaret Club will host “Spookshow Spectacular: Dance Place After Dark Halloween Party” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. at Dance Place. This is D.C.’s Halloween nightlife and draglesque showcase, featuring live performances, creative marketplace, and costumed revelry. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit Eventbrite.

Punch Bowl Social will host “Halloween Bash” on Friday. Oct 31 at 9 p.m. at Punch Bowl Social Arlington. This will be a night of hauntingly good times with a killer DJ, vendors, and a costume contest. Tickets cost $12.09 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

Thrust Lounge will host “Nightmare on 14th St.” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 5 p.m. DJ Tryfe will play music, and there’ll also be a costume contest with prizes. For more details, visit Thurst’s Instagram.

Nellie’s Sports Bar will host “Halloween Scariest Costume Contest” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 10 p.m. Guests are encouraged to bring their scariest, creepiest, most haunting look for a Halloween night they won’t forget — fueled by Casamigos and Nellie’s signature spooky fun. For more details, visit Nellie’s website.

Kiki DC will host “Kiki’s Halloween Costume Contest” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 10 p.m. This event will be hosted by Pirouette and there’ll be prizes for the top three costumes. For more details, visit Kiki’s Instagram.

Sinners and Saints will host “Heaven’s On Fire (Queer Pop Dance Party)” on Friday, Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. There will be two floors and music by Sonali Dawar, DJ Noons and Aria McIntosh. There will also be drink specials all night.

Crush Dance Bar will host a Halloween costume contest on Friday, Oct. 31 at 11 p.m. Drag queens Empress Lena and Sasha Adams will host the event. For more details, visit Crush’s Instagram.

Arts & Entertainment

D.C. bars step up to offer discounts for fed’l employees

Deals, freebies, events, and happy hours galore

Published

1 month ago

October 1, 2025

Evan Caplan

Bunker is offering free entry for anyone with government, contractor, military IDs this weekend. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

(Editor’s note: This list was compiled on Wednesday afternoon and is not meant to be comprehensive. If you would like to add your bar’s specials, please email [email protected].)

As the federal government comes to a standstill, the DMV restaurant and bar community has come to the aid of furloughed workers, who suddenly have plenty of time on their hands. More than a handful of spots are offering deals, discounts, freebies, events, and more. Many do require an identification to validate employment status. Plus, this shutdown looks like it’s here to stay for some time, so take advantage.

Franklin Hall: This sports bar on Florida Avenue is kicking off the shutdown hard: offering $6 Mixed Drinks, Canned Beers, and “furloughed Shooters” – as well as a free food buffet 4PM-6PM.

Carmine’s, located downtown, is offering steep discounts – $5 meatball sliders, and $8 cocktails: “Here We Go Again” and “The Essential Worker.” Carmine’s specifically noted that the specials are open to all, not just affected workers.

Compass Coffee is offering a free pastry with a drink purchase.

Cork Wine Bar and Market on 14th Street is offering a long happy hour – from 3 p.m. to close with wine specials, plus discounted fries and snacks.

Union Pub is providing steeply cheap beer ($3), alongside discounted hot dogs.

Two locations of Hank’s Oyster Bar are serving up all-day happy hour at the bar, along with $2.50 oysters and a percent off checks for federal workers.

Boqueria DC is giving federal workers with ID happy hour pricing all day long: meaning cheaper sangria, wine, beer, and lots of tapas.

Osteria Morini in D.C. is offering a “Federal Employee Appreciation Special” with $15 pastas for federal employees; Cucina Morini has $10 “primi pastas.”

Duke’s Grocery is offering a complimentary drink: A free shot of bourbon or a glass of house wine when you buy any burger or entrée. Plus, there are $5 select beers.

Thompson Restaurants is offering all government employees 20% off their bill by showing a valid government ID. The offer spans 11 of Thompson’s restaurant brands and more than 65 locations across the DMV, including Matchbox, Makers Union, Wiseguy Pizza, Big Buns, and more.

Shaw’s Tavern: $5 beers, $6 wine, $7 Deep Eddy, $10 burger and pizza, with ID.

LGBTQ BARS

Crush: This bar is offering a “Pouring it forward” event with a free vodka hour, 10-11 p.m. this Friday.

Number Nine is offering $9 cocktails all night after 9 p.m.

Bunker has free entry for anyone with government, contractor, military IDs this weekend.

District Eagle offers 30% off drinks for anyone with government, contractor, or military IDs this weekend.

Kiki has free Deep Eddy happy hour 8-9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1.

Her Diner offers all-night drink specials with ID.

Bars & Parties

Blade’s 18th annual Summer Kickoff Party set for May 16

Rehoboth Beach event to feature politicos, journalists, special guests

Published

6 months ago

May 8, 2025

Staff reports

Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff (right) with Rep. Sarah McBride at the 2024 Summer Kickoff Party in Rehoboth Beach. (Blade photo by Daniel Truitt)

The Washington Blade’s 18th annual Summer Kickoff Party is scheduled for Friday, May 16 in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

The event, held at the Blue Moon (35 Rehoboth Ave.) from 5-7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Blade Foundation’s Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism, which funds a summer position reporting on LGBTQ news in Delaware. This year’s recipient is Abigail Hatting, a rising senior at American University.

This year’s event will feature remarks from state Sen. Russ Huxtable, who recently introduced a state constitutional amendment to codify the right of same-sex couples to marry. CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Kim Leisey and Blade editor Kevin Naff will also speak, in addition to surprise guests. The event is generously sponsored by Realtor Justin Noble, The Avenue Inn & Spa, and Blue Moon.

A suggested donation of $20 is partially tax deductible and includes drink tickets and light appetizers. Tickets are available in advance at bladefoundation.org/rehoboth or at the door.