Where were you last night between the hours of 8pm and 2am?

If you live in Washington, DC, and weren’t at Bohemian Caverns for the Stock 13 Open Mic and After Party you were definitely in the wrong place.

So says Panama.

He’s sexxy.

And do you know why he’s sexxy?

Why?

Because he’s taken to speaking of himself in the third person. He’s sexxy enough to do that.

I realize that there the majority of the people who read this site do not live in DC. However, I write about this stuff so that you will all want to come and live here and move here so I won’t be wonewy (I’m so wonewy). Plus, when I have a good time, I want to share the good times with the masses. Minus, I was out of town last week so I wasn’t hosting last week so it felt good to be home.

Kind of in two ways too because it felt good to be back down South and it felt good to be back in the Caverns hosting the joint.

Okay, enough with all of this mumbo jumbo. Let’s get to the evening. Like I was doing before, I’m going to share 10 things I learned last night about that may or may not actually have anything to do wtih anything I learned. Kind of double positive negative.

And I almost think I need to start doing a Panama T-Shirt watch. You see, I kind of accidentally started a precedent of wearing off-brand t-shirts. Well, its become part of the night as lots of random people come up to me wanting to know whats on my shirt. The pressure is on now since I have to make sure that I come with that new-new (new-new for you-you).

This is the shirt I wore last night…and umm, this shit bodes SO well for quite a few people out there:

Oh yeah…

…SNAKES ON A PLANE!

10 THINGS I LEARNED WHILE TOSSING BACK RUM AND COKES COURTESY OF THE BEST BARTENDERS THIS SIDE OF NORTH CAPITOL STREET

1. Open Hour means jack shit to some people…

…and I, for one, couldn’t be happier. You see we have this happy hour from 6-7pm right. But nobody shows up. Like at all. By 630pm, the only people at the happy hour were me, Tom P. (this cat who gets on the congas during the show and during the afterparty he plays with the DJ…real cool cat, you should come and check him out), Russ (the promoter), and the bartenders. And do you know what that means? Yes, bitches. No waiting for drinks for Mr. Oh So Sexxy.

Man, this one particular bartender, Carl (not sure if it’s with a K or a C) was straight hooking me up all night. Good dude. And let me tell you why he’s a good dude. You see, I really wanted to pay for one of my drinks so I could give him a tip because all I had was a $20 bill. So you know what this kind soul did? Because I wanted to pay, he requested that I take a shot of Patron with him because I wanted to pay.

You see, it’s stuff like that that makes me proud to be an American.

Either way, fuck it, mo’ fo’ me.

Hmm…$5 dollars to anybody who can tell me what movie that last sentence came from.

2. It’s not the amount of people, it’s the vibe and spirits of the people there.

It seems to me that we’ve had more people packed inside of Bohemian Caverns before. Hell, I could actually walk around without molesting everybody in there. But let me tell you, the vibe in there was definitely good. It seemed like everybody wanted to have a good time, plus me chiding everybody to pretend like they loved eachother might have helped lighten the mood a little. The band was having a good night (it seemed), the women looked lovely, it was magic.

Okay, that’s way to fluffy and lie induced, but anyway…shit was cool. Basically, you should have been there.

3. It’s a small world after all.

So let me put you onto game. Two weeks ago, I was talking to random folks in the club right. Well, I run into this cat that looks really familiar. I’m like, “son, do I know you? where are you from?” He says Atlanta. Then it clicked. This was a dude who went to college with my older sister and used to hang with my brother-in-law like really tough. Catch is, I’ve only seen him ONCE in my life…like 5 years ago. Apparently he works in DC.

But last night takes the cake. So your boy Komplex (I’m going to talk about him in a few), got on the stage and started talking about rap vs. hip-hop and said he wanted to slap the shit out of a lot of the southern rappers right now. Understandable sentiment. Well, when he was done, I made sure to shout out the South and noticed these three fine young ladies who were hootin’ and hollerin’ from down South.

Later in the night I went to go speak to them because we were like the only folks in the whole damn place from down South. Turns out, that one of the women used to date a dude who used to date my Godsister in Huntsville, Alabama. If that doesn’t make for a small world, I don’t know what does. Another one of them knows some folks I know from Morehouse, but Hell, when you go to Morehouse, there’s ALWAYS somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.

Morehouse Men just have it like that. We’re something like some pimps.

And the other one??? Well, she happens to work with one resident blogger that we all know ’round here, big Will from In My Write Mind up in New York. See, small world.

If you somehow end up on this site because you told Will that you met me…”hello.”

Oh, and me, heh heh heh, I’m kind of a big deal.

4. When the show is going well, it seems to go really well.

So we kicked things off with this young lady named Shelby, who got up there and after a few seconds of trying to coordinate with the band just said, to hell with it, “I’m going to start singing and the band will just pick it up.” And by George (Paul, Jon, and Ringo) they sounded good together. The band picked up a nice smooth mellow sound from her and rolled with it. And the crowd said yay-men.

Then Joe Young the Jyant, Madeline, and Dope (I swear I hope that’s what he said, even TODAY I still think I’m getting it wrong) got up and did their song “(This Must Be) Heaven”, which is funny, because I was listening to the original song that the music is sampled from all day yesterday. Must be heaven indeed.

Viva la Jesus.

5. That boy Mic Fields continues to be a bad man.

When he turns it up, he turns it up. I’ve spoken about him before on here, but he had it going last night. The crowd was feeling it and he kept it moving pimpin (you don’t know me). Just like with the other performers, when everything is moving in the right direction, and we get it right (two step and let your shoulders lean), the stars seem to align. His closing number was hype and hell, even had me jumpin’ around a little (like Kriss Kross but not really at all).

6. Sometimes, I just got to represent for my Southern bredren because nobody else is around.

This poet Komplex did a set and I must admit he did his thing for real. He’s a very talented dude. But he ain’t feeling “rap” music. And I admit, a lot of Southern shit that comes out right now ain’t exactly the most positive (though I can admit to liking about 90 percent of it, D4L be damned). So he did his set, got the folks involved and I had to go back on stage and do a little Southern shoutout and make sure that though most folks claim to hate that Southern shit…it gets the clubs rocking. I had the band, Cut Tha Check, hit the 8Ball and MJG song “You Don’t Want Drama” and I’ll be damned if nearly everybody in there didn’t start bobbing their heads.

You can hate the Southern shit, but you can’t deny its infectiousness. Like Syphillis, it might not be good for you, but its catchy as all hell.

Ha ha, what you know about that?

Cuz we’re shooters…shooterrrrrrs.

7. Two good ass comedians can sho ’nuff set the night off…pleezbaleevit. Oh yeah, and if I ever get stopped by a particular cop in Baltimore, I’m SO getting off with a warning.

There were two comedians who came through last night, Eric T. Meiser and Timmy Hall. Eric is this goofy white dude who might be more ignorant than me. And let me tell you, this cat was SO fuckin’ funny I laughed the whole time. Admittedly, I don’t pay much attention to the comedians a lot of the time because save a few, some of them just don’t catch my attention. This dude…totally.

Off tha fo’ reely, you need to see this dude in action. There might not have been any group he didn’t take shots at. I mean, he even took shots at Hurricane Katrina victims…AND HE’S WHITE!!! Yes he’s going to Hell, but is he funny? Like America, FUCK YEAH!

Timmy Hall…what can I say about Timmy Hall? He’s an actual Baltimore City Police Officer, but he’s been on BET’s Comicview, HBO’s The Wire, etc. It’s like he just participates in ignorance all around!!! But I’ll be damned if he ain’t one of the funniest cat’s I’ve heard in a very long time. His routine went from being a punk ass police officer to marriage to his drunken and marijuana induced exploits.

And this nigga’s a cop. Very funny stuff indeed. You’d have enjoyed yourself. Yes, you should have been there.

8. A good damn DJ can make a good party even better than the good party that wasn’t quite the best that will eventually get gooder down by the riverside (down by).

DJ Scientific, a cat who’s been around for a while I gather is one hell of a party DJ. He’s a resident DJ at Love Nightclub in DC, he’s been on Rap City: The Bassment a few times, and has DJ’d at the last 6 Super Bowls. Either way, he’s a pretty damn good DJ. Nice mix of old and new stuff that kept the party moving. Though I will say, nothing trips me out more than a bunch of women on one end and a bunch of dudes on the other end like we’re in middle school.

9. LL just couldn’t live without his radio…well I just couldn’t do this shit without my Sidekick II.

Let me tell you. Nobody probaly notices at the venue, but me and Russ do so much communicating during the night its crazy. The text messages fly back and forth, the short communications that require yes or no answers fly all over the place. If I had to do texting on a real phone, it would never happen. At all. And I was about ready to chuck my Sidekick a while ago.

Which brings up another point. I don’t know if people really have any idea how much goes into doing these events. From the outside it looks like there aren’t a lot of parts. But let me tell you, there’s nothing but moving parts that move all night long until everybody leaves. And when done right, makes for a good party.

SNAKES ON A PLANE!

(Can’t you tell I’m like REALLY excited for this movie?!?!?)

10. This is a really good place to network and get to know new people.

You see, there are mostly a lot of working professionals coming through. But there are also a lot of down to earth folks and lots of beautiful women, especially last night…geee-yah. If you need to find a spot to go to on a Wednesday night and you’re in DC…I’m telling you, this is your place. Panama Jackson says so.

Umm, it’s also a place to go to see your game go down in flames. Last night I witnessed some pure travashamockeries in the form of game occur. Hell, I even tried to clean up one mess to no avail at all. I mean, I made good points but I was clearly bullshitting. They were nice enough ladies (it was the three fine chicks from down South), but yeah, even I couldn’t salvage the asstastic mess of pickup line/holler tactic this cat used. So sad…glad he ain’t me.

Anyway, these and other adventures can be found every Wednesday night at 2001 11th Street, NW, also known as the historic Bohemian Caverns.

It’s where we make it do what it do.

The Stock 13 Open Mic…it goes down!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 11:07 am and is filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.