Local Activists Take Back Freedom Corner

Chud

For seven months, the Freedom Corner Cult has held nightly “vigils” outside the DC Jail. These are weird cult parties, where they chant the name of Ashli Babbitt, swill booze from travel mugs and blast the neighborhood with calls for rebellion.

Their aim is simple: free all the January 6th prisoners.

The Freedom Corner Cult doesn’t live in DC. Despite this, they believe that the 1900 block of E St SE belongs to them, and with the apparent support of the police, they have harassed neighbors and counterprotestors, one of whom they creepily stalked all the way back to his van.

A Shitshow of a Shitshow

It’s been a nightly shitshow, a spinoff of the highly unsuccessful 1776 Restoration Movement, which was a debauched version of the trucker convoy (cancelled after one season), featuring many of the same characters and the same problems (who stole the money?).

Devoted viewers know where to find it on YouTube and the #freedomcorner hashtag on Twitter.

Thanks to the brave work of DOA, Biketifa and the Commish, we learned that the Freedom Corner Cult does not own the corner on E Street by the DC Jail, despite what the police have told them in the past.

Last night, the talented trio of activists got to the corner before the cult. Instead of begging for GriftSendGo donations for personal use, like the J6ers do, they held a fundraiser For Jesse, a family that is struggling with ALS.

When J6ers Attack

For this good deed, they were assaulted by the Freedom Corner Cult, who washed away their #FreeJesse chalk messages on the sidewalk and then tried to physically remove the fundraisers from “their” corner.

Warning for bad language and fascist behavior:


Attacks on counterprotestors escalated to an attempt to scale the walls of Congressional Cemetery, in a scene reminiscent of the Night of the Living Dead.

J6ers Do Not Have a Permit

DOA, Biketifa and the Commish refused to leave, forcing the police to acknowledge what they knew all along – the J6ers have no permit! Seven months of setting up loudspeakers and blasting Capitol Hill with calls for sedition, without any official permission to do so.

You have as much right to that corner as they do.

The police separated the two sides, setting up orange barriers to keep them apart. The Freedom Corner Cult was enraged. They complained to the police, yelled homophobic slurs, made death threats and blasted the trio with lights and blaring music.

The Freedom Corner Cult uses lynch mob tactics to intimidate enemies. They try to surround and overwhelm opponents. Individually, they are weak, but as part of a mob (like on January 6th), they are dangerous.

It takes real bravery to go down a dark, dead-end street to confront J6ers. I salute the heroes who reclaimed “freedom corner” for the people.

The Freedom Corner Cult

Grifter Corner
“Freedom Corner” on E St at the DC Jail

The squalid January 6th cult known as “Freedom Corner” was the focus of  The Cult of the January 6th Martyrs by Laura Jedeed in the New Republic.

It’s an excellent article that captures the essential weirdness of the nightly vigil outside the DC Jail. Jedeed describes how the group chants the names of imprisoned rioters and then the response “hero” like some apocalyptic church. Followed by the benediction:

“So let’s say her name,” the man says once he’s finished with the list. The crowd roars to life and chants in unison the name above the woman on their T-shirts, over and over: “Ashli Babbitt! Ashli Babbitt!”

She also highlights the false piety of the group, which claims to be interested in prison reform, but only for one group of prisoners: the J6ers. They want to see them freed but don’t care about the justice system, longing to install Trump as dictator-for-life.

I’ve been following the “Freedom Corner” cult for a while, for they are descendants of the earlier trucker convoy and 1776 Restoration Movement (1776RM) cults.

Some context and an update.

E Street

“Freedom Corner” is in the 1900 block of E Street SE, where the street dead-ends against the DC Jail.

The whole block has bad energy, even during the day. The street slopes down from Capitol Hill, leaving you isolated with the looming jail on one side and the brick walls of Congressional Cemetery on the other. You feel both cut off from the nearby Capitol Hill neighborhood and under surveillance from the cameras located on the outside of the jail.

At night, it is even worse. The vigil starts at 7 PM. Police cars line the block as you approach, followed by the QAnon-covered vehicles of the J6ers, who drive in from the suburbs. Ahead is the corner, on the right-hand side of the street, bathed in the light of live-streaming YouTubers. Behind orange barriers, a dozen or so cultists wave flags and blare music next to posters of J6 “victims” like Ashli Babbitt and, outrageously, Brian Sicknick, who the J6ers killed.

Across the street, the occasional counterprotester with a bullhorn yells at them, as officers watch from their vehicles.

Neighborhood Complaints

Despite having no permit, the J6ers on “Freedom Corner” believe that the street belongs to them. And I don’t blame them. A Metropolitan Police Department officer told a counterprotester that the J6ers “reserved” the corner.

You can’t reserve a corner in DC. They’re also violating the Safe Accommodations Act, which states that if you block the sidewalk, then you have to provide an ADA-compliant alternative for pedestrians. They also regularly trespass upon historic Congressional Cemetery, by putting flags and candles on its walls, and sneaking into the graveyard to piss.

Not to mention forcing the shutdown of the cemetery to film the worst rap music video in global history.

Most nights, it’s more of a party than a demonstration. White ladies drink wine. There is a buffet. People dance and catch up with their insurrectionist friends.

It’s a Cult

everyone knows it's a cult

If you join one cult, you’ll join another. That’s the surprising lesson from Cultish, an excellent book on why people give their lives to a cult. People looking for community and a sense of purpose gravitate toward cults.

“Freedom Corner” is a descendent of the earlier trucker convoy and 1776RM cults. The YouTubers who were members of those fascist cults migrated to “Freedom Corner” when their previous efforts collapsed.

Counterprotesters including Anarchy Princess and DOA followed them, making “Freedom Corner” like a spin-off of 1776RM, with the same characters and the same “insurrectionist losers” chants.

Also, the YouTubers who “cover” the corner are not journalists, despite wearing “press” badges that they purchased online. They are active participants in the movement, who provide material support for their fellow insurrectionists. If there is trouble with the police, they claim to be press, but once it dies down, they go back to yucking it up with their friends.

The YouTubers are making money off the plight of the J6 prisoners, collecting super chats and online donations from their tales of woe.

Money, Power and Sex

As I learned from following 1776RM, the truth is always more squalid than the high-minded ideals that cultists espouse in public. There is always a fight over money, power and sex.

One of the figures profiled in The Cult of the January 6th Martyrs is Randy Ireland, a NY Proud Boy who wrote a handbook on how to riot.

He’s been the emcee of the “Freedom Corner” vigils. The one with the microphone who takes calls from prisoners and even plays the guitar some nights.

Until he was gone. The vigil announced that he had gone off to work on another project.

Another vigil participant, Tommy Tatum, who directed rioters on January 6th and more recently harassed Capitol Police officers, accused Ireland of stealing from the cult:

How do you con a con? Everyone at “Freedom Corner” is grifting and trying to get their share while they can.

If the J6 vigil really cared about the prisoners, they wouldn’t broadcast their calls on YouTube, where they could incriminate themselves further.

But then they wouldn’t get super chats and big-figure donations. They wouldn’t get media exposure and be praised by Donald Trump. They would not be glamorous. Instead, they would just be ordinary people, without access to the money, power and sex that they get for being part of the J6 cult.

“Freedom Corner” is a con, a shallow and dingy copy of the long-running grift that Donald Trump has been running for years.

Two Countries, One Fight

Parasol Patrol at Crazy Aunt Helen's

Standing in the cold, surrounded by hundreds of people singing the Ukrainian national anthem, it occurred to me: it’s the same war. America and Ukraine are united together in the same struggle against fascism.

It was my second protest of the day. The first was at Crazy Aunt Helen’s, where the Proud Boys threatened to attack drag queen story hour. In response, people from around the region turned out to protect this Capitol Hill restaurant, lining the block with rainbow umbrellas and vowing nonviolent resistance.

The threat to Crazy Aunt Helen’s was not an idle one. The Proud Boys had attacked a Silver Spring bookstore the week before, a crime that had been extensively covered in the local news.

The DC City Council vowed that there would not be a repeat here. Scores of police were dispatched to Crazy Aunt Helen’s and the street in front of the restaurant was closed to traffic.

The community defense was organized by the Parasol Patrol, which shields kids from hateful and violent bigots at events like drag queen story hour. Volunteers purchased rainbow-covered umbrellas and were organized into two lines which stretched down the block. An organizer provided instructions for when the Proud Boys showed up.

“Do not engage. If you feel overwhelmed, back away. If you see someone else being overwhelmed, pull them away.”

There were also prohibitions against photography, to deny the Proud Boys battle intelligence and to protect the privacy of the Parasol Patrol.

But it was such a stirring sight to see a block-long line of rainbow umbrellas that people couldn’t help but take photos. Soon, folks were taking selfies and dancing to Disney music on 8th Street.

Marines from the barracks across the street came out for a look. Bored cops chatted amongst themselves. People lined up for bagels at Call Your Mother like it was any other Saturday and oblivious joggers traversed the scene. “Coming through!”

The great thing about a protest in DC is running into people you know. Amid the twirling umbrellas, I ran into fellow photographer friends, Capitol Hill residents and even some of the activists who trolled the 1776 Restoration Movement last summer.

DC don’t like fascists. But not just DC – there were people from Maryland and Virginia in the crowd, too. The whole region don’t like fascists.

And, in the end, the Proud Boys didn’t show. Drag time story hour happened without disruption and a beautiful snow began to fall, one of the very few of the season, as everyone left to enjoy the weekend.

Slava Ukraini!

A few hours later (and with a quick nap), I was outside the White House, watching  hundreds of Ukrainian supporters march through Lafayette Park and up 16th Street. They chanted:

“Russia is a terrorist state!”

Demonstrators chanted thanks to America and vows that Russia would pay for its war crimes.

The march stopped in front of the Russian Ambassador’s Residence on 16th Street, shutting down the entire block. Chants echoed off the office buildings of this commercial corridor.

And then, hearing the haunting melody of the Ukrainian national anthem, it occurred to me: there is only one war.

In America, that war began on January 6, 2021, when Trump voters attacked the Capitol to install Trump as dictator for life.

The people of Ukraine have been fighting this war much longer, as they struggle to break free from another dictator, Vladimir Putin.

Democracy versus dictatorship. That is the war, a struggle being fought in two countries inextricably linked, from a hot war on the battlefield to a cold one on the streets.

Trump supporters, like the Proud Boys, long for an American Putin that will end elections that they can’t win. They want a strongman to crush dissent and murder anyone different. They’re rooting for Russia, an appalling crime.

And if you believe in democracy, you support Ukraine, for you know that if Putin succeeds, it will embolden tyrants around the world, including American ones (not just Trump).

The fate of our two nations are tied together. Victory in Ukraine means victory in America. That is why Ukraine must win.

Rage Against the War Machine Offers a Preview of GOP 2024

Soviet and Russian flags at Rage Against the War Machine rally

The first time I saw a QAnon demonstration in DC, I thought they were nuts. It was a small crowd on Freedom Plaza in 2018. Who would believe that?

Yet, within a couple of years, this fringe philosophy would be endorsed by Donald Trump and lead to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

Despite the obvious harm the conspiracy theory brought to its adherents, the GOP wouldn’t denounce it, for too many of their voters believed in shadowy Q.

While there may be mainstream Republicans, the Qanon caucus steers the party. They selected the Speaker of the House and can vote him out at any time. The fringe now controls the GOP.

Another demonstration recently came to the nation’s capital. Rage Against the War Machine brought together MAGA cultists, libertarians, Communists and Code Pink to call for the elimination of NATO and the surrender of Ukraine. Speakers included Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard.

And lots of Russian and Soviet flags. Shocking to see at the Lincoln Memorial, the red banner of terror under which millions were murdered, blowing in the wind on a sunny day.

And in the crowd, men in the yellow colors of the Proud Boys and “patriots” with t-shirts calling for January 6th prisoners to be released. Mingling with them, crackpots of various ilks, from cryptocurrency fanatics to those that believe that government controls the weather.

fake news demonstrator

I listened to a MAGA chud argue with a libertarian. “You’re a fucking lunatic!” he shouted.

You’re all lunatics, I wanted to say.

There were perhaps 2,000 people at the Rage Against the War Machine rally, which sounds like a lot, but is small for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on a nice, early spring day. The demonstration was swamped by tourists (there’s a huge teen volleyball tournament in town) who went around and through the event, looking confused as they saw the Soviet flags. “Is this a pro-Russia rally?”

Yes.

Rage Against the War Machine brought a Soviet flag to the White House

After an interminable speech by Ron Paul, the rally marched to the White House, where they waved Russian and American flags while Biden was en route to Ukraine to show solidarity with an oppressed people.

A people who the Rage Against the War Machine crowd wants dead. If Ukraine was forced to surrender to Russia, it would mean genocide.

I have a Bulgarian friend who likes to remind me that what starts over there, comes over here. Dictators copy tactics. And aspiring fascist movements learn from each other.

The “blood and soil” Christian nationalism of Russia will be copied by Republicans. Putin is a natural ally in the struggle against democracy. Expect more than a few Republicans to endorse him.

If you want to know where the GOP is going in 2024, look at Rage Against the War Machine. It’s the next QAnon.

The Media is the Virus Protest is a Bust in DC

The Media is the Virus protest outside the Washington Post

What if you gave a protest and no one showed up?

That was the case of the “The Media is the Virus” protest outside the Washington Post. Despite being promoted by veterans of the People’s Convoy and other Q-adjacent groups, this anti-vaxxer demonstration drew zero participants to the nation’s capital.

This was supposedly a worldwide event to draw attention to “media lies” about the covid pandemic. The Q folks believe that media outlets coerced the public into taking a vaccine that will allow “globalists” to control them.

Back in the real world, I walked down K Street and saw a couple of cops in vehicles monitoring the empty sidewalk. I left to get coffee and then visit my favorite local used book store.

Not even the local chuds could be bothered with “The Media is the Virus” demonstration, for they have a much better grift with the
 J6 prisoner movement. After a year of failure with the the People’s Convoy and the 1776 Restoration Movement (1776RM), the livestreamers that hung on discovered their cash cow: January 6th.

What’s worse than the insurrection? Profiting from it.

There’s a vast right-wing ecosystem making bank from the January 6 defendants held in the DC Jail.

At the top of the pyramid is, of course, Donald Trump who conned supporters out of $250 million while trying to overthrow the government. Following in his footsteps are operators like the Patriot Freedom Project, which recently tried to do a fundraiser in suburban Baltimore. J6 families have complained that they don’t know what these “patriots” are doing with the money they raise on behalf of their cause.

Scooping up the crumbs are the YouTube livesteamers broadcasting from the nightly prisoner vigil outside the DC Jail. They gather to say the pledge of allegiance, receive prisoner calls and chant the names of the J6 convicts with the liturgical response: “Hero!”

It’s a disgusting spectacle on a dead-end street next to a graveyard.

But evidently a profitable one, for they’ve been doing it for months, despite having fewer than a dozen participants.

For the livestreamers outside the DC Jail, it doesn’t matter if no one shows up. They’re interested in a different number. What counts to them are the online donations, which continue to roll in through YouTube and the Cash app, as Trump supporters pay to show their support for treason.

The grift goes on, grubby and eternal, a bottomless well of money from the deluded, available for anyone willing to mouth conspiracy theories and put their face on camera. There is no Republican Party. All that’s left is fleecing the rubes.

The Big Hunt is a Ghost

The Big Hunt is closed forever

Unlike Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris patronize restaurants in Washington, DC.

Recently, they got takeout from Ghostburger, a pop-up burger joint near the Convention Center.

If they went a few blocks west, they could’ve visited a real ghost: The Big Hunt.

This used to be a mainstay of the downtown bar scene, filled for happy hour during the week and for football on the weekends. It was a grungy, 90s-era place decked in a fake safari motif, with jungle murals painted on the walls and tiki torches.

Sprawling over multiple levels, it had a basement with a low ceiling where I once went to an epic Halloween party. Another time, I got dragged down there to see burlesque – one of those happy chaotic moments you’d find at the Big Hunt.

It was not slick, it was not polished, it was wonderful.

And unfortunately it closed during the Covid Shutdowns of 2020, giving up their lease in October of that year.

Yet, like a ghost, it lingers on Connecticut Avenue, their unlit sign facing the  busy street. Peer in the window and it looks the same, though battered and neglected, almost as if you could wipe down the counters and start serving beer again.

Covid accelerated trends which were already in effect, sending DC’s nightlife east to 14th Street. And sending its white-collar workforce remote. The offices that went sent dozens of young staffers to the Big Hunt for birthday parties and going-away celebrations are empty most of the week.

Mayor Bowser aims to change that. She wants the feds back downtown. The new Republican Congress wants federal workers back at their desks, too. People in the rest of the country are probably puzzled why DC is still remote.

I recently started a new government contractor job. Everything was remote, including the orientation. Gone are the days where you dress up for your first day of work, meet your coworkers and go to lunch. Instead, you login to your computer and get to work.

Which was fine by me, a seasoned professional, but if I was just starting out, I would feel very disconnected. What’s the point of working in a city if you’re not in a city?

Human contact is important and new workers are being cheated out of the downtown experience, that close collision of people and ideas, often fueled by alcohol.

Not that I want to return. I’ve had my fun. But I wouldn’t begrudge others the chance to connect with peers, coworkers and friends, to build meaningful and engaging moments. That in-person exposure to new experiences is how growth occurs.

The Big Hunt is a ghost on Connecticut Avenue, a reminder what was lost and is still missing three years after covid struck Washington, DC.

All the Light You See is from the Past

ALL THE LIGHT YOU SEE - ALICIA EGGERT
All the Light You See by Alicia Eggert

“When was that?” is the most common question you hear in our post-pandemic era.

The years of 2020/2021 are a blur of memories, a kaleidoscope of boredom and panic with the first days of Covid Time crystal-clear (remember the empty grocery store shelves?) but later periods inaccessible, like a hard drive that has been wiped clean.

What was I doing in 2021? There was the intimate horror of January 6th in DC and then a long blank spell until a Sunday morning in March when I biked across the city to Rosedale Recreation Center to get my J&J vaccine.

I can picture the gymnasium with precision. A socially-distanced line of folks waiting to get shots. A check-in station with a pair of health workers. Nurses at desks. “Do you want the shot in your left or right arm?” And then a fifteen minute wait as I looked around the scene, a sense of relief settling over me: at last, life could get back to normal.

Of course, it never did, for the days lost to Covid Time were gone forever.

I recently went on a walking tour of Georgetown Glow, the outdoor public art exhibition featuring light installations alive in the darkness.

This isn’t the first year for Georgetown Glow. I’ve seen it in other years and I recalled one winter when they had pieces along the C&O Canal, reflecting off the still water.

“When was that?” I asked the curator, for I could not recall the year. We were standing outside an installation called the Butterfly Effect, which were big glowing butterflies placed in front of Grace Church.

Was it before the pandemic? During the pandemic? Did Georgetown Glow happen in 2020 or 2021?

The time just slid away, as if years had been stolen from me. Thank god for Flickr, where I keep my photos. I was able to check there. They had art along the canal much further back than I realized: 2015.

And looming over the present is the fear: what’s next? I certainly didn’t expect that Donald Trump be President, a pandemic would shut down the world or that fascists would attack the Capitol.

That’s a lot of Black Swan events. And all in year: 2020.

Last night, I met friends at Martin’s Tavern. It’s a Georgetown institution that’s been open since 1933. You can sit in the booth where JFK proposed to Jackie Bouvier.

Martin’s is a neighborhood spot, tourist destination and an old rich white people playground all in one. And it was absolutely packed on a Friday evening, with people on all sides of us as we squeezed into a non-JFK booth.

“There’s going to be a war in five years,” one of my friends said as an opener. He believes it will be with China. “So drink up!”

In other words: YOLO.

The most striking part of Georgetown Glow is All the Light You See by Alicia Eggert which lights up the darkness along the Potomac River. The web site describes it best:

Light takes a moment to travel from one point to another, and to reach our eyes. The travel time varies – from eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth, to millions of years from a star at the edge of our universe. This means that the information that light brings us is always dated. This is the focus of All the Light You See; a poetic statement written in light that changes meaning with a small intervention. Part of the text in “All the Light You See is From the Past” occasionally switches off, simplifying the message to “All You See is Past.” The installation is a reflection on mortality, reminding us that in no time at all, we, too, will belong to the past.

Covid Time, like all time, is gone and cannot be recovered.

No one knows what is next. Black Swans may abound or we may have seen the last of them.  All we can do is make the best use of the time we have.

 

2022: The Year of YOLO

tulips with the Supreme Court in the background
Tulips at the Supreme Court

After surviving the despotic reign of Donald Trump and the scourge of covid, I was determined to live my best life in 2022.

In other words: YOLO.

As I doomscrolled through the bad pandemic days of 2020, and witnessed the violent 2021 assault on my city by Trump mobs, I told myself that if I survived this chaos, I would do two things:

  1. Drink in bars again.
  2. Ride trains in Europe.

That was my idea of YOLO.

At the start of 2022, DC was still under covid restrictions with mask and vax mandates still in place. I had masks stuffed in pockets and bags, to use when I wanted to go inside Whole Foods or elsewhere. And I had a photo of my vaccine card to show when I wanted to sit down with a cup of coffee.

I could avoid the mandates by crossing the river into Virginia. It was a short bike ride to place where I didn’t need to show my papers.

Restrictions like this carried on in Washington long after the rest of the country had abandoned them. It was the year that downtown was hollowed out.

The Office Experience
Some of us are old enough to remember when offices didn’t just exist on TV

Despite this, nightlife boomed. While the offices of K Street were empty, the bars and clubs of U Street were packed.

I wasn’t the only one eager to YOLO. People were willing to follow DC’s covid rules just to experience the oldest pleasure of all: having a drink with friends.

When the containment regime fell apart in the spring, with mask and vax mandates overturned by the courts, even DC relaxed the rules, though Mayor Bowser warned her wayward children that she would return them if we were bad (she didn’t).

After almost two years of relative isolation, I started to get back my busy urban life. I could write and drink coffee in coffee shops again. Sit at the bar at McClellan’s Retreat and talk to the bartender. Eat in restaurants. None of this was good for my waistline; that’s the price of the YOLO lifestyle.

#BikeDC

My bike social life returned, too. Bike to Work Day came back though who was going to an office anymore? White collar DC was remote or, at best, hybrid. I was happily 100% remote. In May, I commuted to Bike to Work Day stops in Virginia and DC before rolling home to my laptop.

And then came Open Streets 7th St, a big beautiful chunk of the city going car-free on a sunny summer day. This was also the year that the Metropolitan Branch Trail boomed, a bike trail and a beer trail through the heart of DC.

Evidence of Trump continued to be erased from Washington, like a disgraced Pharaoh written out of history. We got the Old Post Office back, his name pried off the front of the building in the middle of the night lest a crowd gather and cheer.

The White House complex was no longer a fortress. The fence around Lafayette Park disappeared. The protest signs that once covered it were put on display at the MLK Library. Uniformed Secret Service officers who beat peaceful protesters in 2020 now posed for photos with tourists. All was forgiven, apparently.

#1776RM

Summer brought a new comedy sensation: The 1776 Restoration Movement.  In the spring, the so-called People’s Convoy tried to shut down DC in protest of covid restrictions. They failed, defeated by the Capital Beltway, a 64-mile long ouroboros of never-ending traffic that broke up and scattered the convoy, leaving the truckers angry and soaked in their own urine.

But not everyone wanted to go home. The dregs formed a much smaller group, The 1776 Restoration Movement (1776RM).

You’re going to restore 1776, when we were British? It made no sense. Their incoherent anti-government ideas obscured the truth: these were Trumpkins trying to spark another January 6th. They hoped to be the vanguard of another coup attempt.

I wrote about them, because I delighted in mocking the follies of this tiny group of QAnon cultists. And I was not alone, there was a whole community of folks devoted to trolling 1776RM both online and in real-life.

When the group came to DC, to sit in lawnchairs on the National Mall, a Suicide Squad of left and right-wing trolls arrived to harass them, both sides of the insanity live-streaming on their phones and yelling at each other with bullhorns. You could watch it all on YouTube, a choose your own adventure where you got to see the perspective of the trolls and the trolled.

everyone knows it's a cult

It was the most popular content I wrote all year. Readers loved stories about the ongoing incompetence of the bucket-pooping 1776RM and the entertaining counterprotestors (with names like Anarchy Princess and Defender of Ants) that aggravated them to distraction.

For you web nerds, these blog posts had the best SEO of anything I’ve ever done, regularly appearing in the top five search results for 1776 Restoration Movement. While I made sure to use the term in the page title and in the body, the SEO secret is that you can’t fool Mother Google. Write good, informative content.

Eventually, they left the Mall, after the Park Police threatened to tow away their cars (vehicles are the American weakness).

My work made fun of 1776RM. After they left, I wondered if I contributed to the problem. More conflict led to more YouTube views which meant more donations for their streamers. Without the drama provided by the trolls, they don’t have anything interesting to say.

Also, 1776RM is more violent and stupid than portrayed in my work. Putting down in words what they do and believe gives the group a coherence and logic that they lack. Since getting kicked out of DC, and without conflict from trolls to spur donations, 1776RM has scattered to the backwoods.

#Doomscroll

During the bad pandemic days of 2020/21, I doomscrolled, compulsively checking my phone for covid news and predictions. In 2022, I became obsessed with following #1776RM on Twitter, as the online world monitored and mocked the follies of the group.

American capitalism exists on an addiction model (we don’t make anything anymore). It captures some through vaping, gambling or opioids. It caught me through social media, a Palantir that confirmed my beliefs and provided me a world of endless information.

I needed a break.

Fortunately, the end of the fiscal year brought me one as my government contracting job ended and I was free to travel to Ireland.

My homeland! The green country that my ancestors left just a couple of generations ago.

train in Cork
Train station in Cork

There I fulfilled my second YOLO dream: riding a train in Europe. I spent two weeks taking trains around this friendly country and going to pubs in Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork.

And I read, the rails being conducive to reading. A book on my lap as the green countryside rolled by the windows.

I got my focus back, which had been shattered by living in Washington during the madcap Trump and covid eras. Long days alone as I explored museums or  walked through towns alive with music helped me be more present in the moment, pulling me back from the online world to the real one.

The Year of YOLO is over.

And with my focus back, I’ve started work on another novel. A story of the post-pandemic era in America. The title is of course:

YOLO

 

Coffeeneuring 2022

bike at The Coffee Bar
Belty at The Coffee Bar

For Coffeeneuring 2022, I biked to seven different coffee shops in and around Washington, DC.

Now in its 12th year, the Coffeeneuring Challenge is a worldwide sensation.

The rules are simple:

  • between October 7 through November 20, 2022,
  • ride your bike to 7 different places,
  • at least 2 miles round trip each time,
  • drink 7 cups of coffee (or another fall-type beverage), and
  • document your coffeeneuring (either photos, Strava tracks, journal entries, control card, etc.).

I’ve been doing the Coffeeneuring Challenge for years. I wildly ambitious plans for Coffeeneuring 2022. I was going to take epic rides to new coffee places far outside of my home of Washington, DC. In the end, that didn’t happen.

But I still got to bike a lot and drink great coffee. I lived the Coffeeneuring Dream.

  1. Navy Yard

Date: October 21
Distance: 11 miles
Bike: Brilliant Cooper
Coffee: Philz

A beautiful fall day with some disappointing and expensive coffee at Philz in Navy Yard. The great thing about biking in DC, however, is running into people you know. It’s much easier to stop and chat while you’re on a bike versus being in car. While I was by the Anacostia River, Ted and Jean rolled up and said hello. They were also busy coffeeneuring on a mild October day.

Ted and Jean
Ted and Jean

2. Rosslyn

Date: October 23
Distance: 9 miles
Bike: Brilliant Cooper
Coffee: Compass

One of the habits I picked up during the pandemic was crossing the river for coffee on Sunday mornings. For long stretches of 2020, you weren’t allowed to dine indoors in DC so I’d bike to Virginia so I could be inside with coffee. My route takes me over the Potomac River and close to Teddy Roosevelt Island, where I stopped and took a walk.

Teddy Roosevelt Island
Teddy Roosevelt Island

3. Rosslyn

Date: October 30
Distance: 7 miles
Bike: Brilliant Cooper
Coffee: Compass

I went back to Rosslyn the following Sunday, not realizing that I’d have to cross the path of the Marine Corps Marathon! It was a beautiful ride down streets closed to cars and the fog-draped Key Bridge. But then a river of people to cross, an endless stream of runners in Rosslyn. Fortunately, this Virginia city has skyways, relics of a 1970s-era scheme. I carried my bike up a set a steps, over a pedestrian bridge, and down the other side.

foggy morning for the marathon
Runners on Key Bridge

4. Logan Circle

Date: November 2
Distance: 3 miles
Bike: Brilliant Cooper
Coffee: The Coffee Bar

The problem with going out for coffee in DC is that sometimes there’s no place to sit. The Coffee Bar is a super-cute neighborhood coffee shop, an Instagram dream in fall with the changing leaves, but its photogenic nature means that it’s often full of people taking photos and drinking coffee when I want to take photos and drink coffee. I had to sit on a park bench.

The Coffee Bar on S St NW
The Coffee Bar

5. Del Ray

Date: November 4
Distance: 15 miles
Bike: Specialized Sirrus
Coffee: St. Elmo’s

I have two bikes: a belt-driven, three-speed Brilliant Cooper (aka Belty) which I use for short trips and a Specialized Sirrus (the real bike) for longer ones. I took the Sirrus to the Del Ray neighborhood in Alexandria, VA. I love this route for it takes me down the Mount Vernon Trail, which was absolutely peaking with fall color.

the Mount Vernon Trail is a fall dream
The Mount Vernon Trail

6. Rock Creek Park

Date: November 10
Distance: 26 miles
Bike: Specialized Sirrus
Coffee: Firehook

The Capital Crescent Trail – Rock Creek Park Loop is an incredibly popular one among DC-area cyclists. The Capital Crescent Trail is a rail trail that runs from Georgetown to Bethesda. From there, you take city streets down to Rock Creek Park, which winds its way back to DC. During the pandemic, the National Park Service closed Beach Drive in the park to cars. They recently announced that it would remain closed – a victory for the people!

bike in Rock Creek Park
Rock Creek Park

7. Downtown DC

Date: November 19
Distance: 6 miles
Bike: Brilliant Cooper
Coffee: Puro Gusto

Free is the most beautiful word in the English language. Pure Gusto, an Italian cafe, sent me a coupon for a free drink. Perfect timing. On a frigid day, I biked by the Downtown Holiday Market and then got a cappuccino.

Untitled
Me with a new friend.

That’s a wrap for Coffeeneuring 2022! Here’s to another great year of biking and drinking coffee! It’s a great way to stay busy during these cold months and discover new coffee places.

Revisit the hope and despair of 2020 with the Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence

Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence

Revisit the hope and despair of 2020 with the Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence Artifact Collection at the MLK Library in Washington, DC.

If, during the dark days of summer 2020, you had told me that the protest signs covering the fence around the Trump White House would one day be in a museum exhibit, I would’ve been surprised.

Surprised that we were still alive, that museums existed and dissent was permitted.

None of which seemed certain in June, 2020, after Trump had Black Lives Matter protesters beaten in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC.

Trump Builds a Fence

I had seen the fence go up. Trump felt afraid, even after flooding the city with thousands of paramilitaries, so a fence was built. Not just around the White House, but the whole complex, stretching from 15th to 17th St and from H Street down to Constitution Avenue, putting public spaces like Lafayette Square and the Ellipse behind chain-link.

As the fence was constructed, armed yahoos faced off against BLM protesters on 16th St.

Armed yahoos – I have no other way of describing them, for they were men in riot gear, but no identifying badges or IDs, clad in a mish-mash of khaki vests and jeans.

To this day, I have no idea who they were. The city was full of mysterious armed men in a variety of uniforms. Supposedly for security. Unlike January 6th, the National Guard protected the Capitol and the city’s monuments and memorials. Blackhawk helicopters thundered over my apartment building, making it feel like I lived in Baghdad.

On June 5, 2020, Mayor Bowser painted Black Lives Matter on 16th St in yellow letters so large that they were visible from space.

The Fence Becomes a Memorial

And the fence along H Street, built for Trump’s protection, became a platform for expressing opposition to the regime. Soon it became covered in signs, every BLM march adding more, until the signs were so thick that you could no longer see the White House.

scene outside the White House

It was known as the Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence. BLM protest groups gathered here before marching up 16th St, led by a go-go band on a truck. Victims of police violence came to memorialize their losses. Americans who grieved for what their country had become attached their hand-made messages to the fence.

Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence was a tourist destination, a place for solemn reflection, our version of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes, photographers would bring stepladders so that they could peer over the fence and get photos of the dictator trapped in a prison of his own creation.

As documented in the exhibit at the MLK Library, Trump mobs tore down the signs on several occasions. They were replaced. During the “stop the steal” rallies in November and December 2020, Proud Boys vowed to destroy the fence. When the police blocked off the streets, the thugs attacked random people and vandalized a church.

toasting Biden Harris

When Biden’s victory was announced on November 7th, it was where DC came to celebrate. I had been at the Wharf at the time and by the time I reached BLM Plaza, it was jammed with thousands of people. I watched people drinking champagne and taking gleeful selfies. On the spot where I had seen armed yahoos face off against demonstrators, a shirtless man stood on a bus platform, leading the crowd in chants. It was one of the greatest days of my life.

The Fence is History

After Biden’s inauguration, the fence came down. DC had Lafayette Park back, as I wrote in The Washington Post.

The signs that covered Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence were preserved and are now on display at the MLK Library in Washington, DC.

They look so neat and clean in the quiet, climate-controlled library. When viewing the exhibit, the outcome seems so certain, that Trump would lose, possessing the quality of inevitability, like other civil rights struggles.

But it was anything but certain, as anyone who lived through 2020 can tell you.