All Roads Lead to [a Pseudo-]Toad's

I love U Street. I love concerts at the mainstage at the Black Cat. I love that the doorman at Cafe St. Ex calls me Shorty because I am as tall as he is. But just when you think you've found a place where people vaguely resembling grown-ups (i.e., people I aspire to be) go to drink, you find yourself in the midst of another Toad's.

I have been cataloging the existence of pseudo-Toad's long before I ventured to the legendary Spoad's one fateful week in May 2007. As a member of that most-reviled breed of human-- the D.C. summer intern-- I spent many a night reveling in the sketch that befell my favorite Red Sox bar every Saturday at 11:00. Who knew that once all the guys in jerseys cleared out, all the guys in striped shirts would move in for the kill? But alas, part of the charm was lost when I returned only to realize that D.C. interns had been replaced by Georgetown students and that I was now the sketchy older chick. No way that is okay.

So I moved on. P.S., baseball season, please begin again so I can go back to Rhino. I miss it. One night, Laura and I wandered into The Front Page. We were after a cheap bourbon and ginger, but soon we heard the thumping of a bass line and the words "in da club." Could it be? Our Thursday 5:30 source of buckets of beer loosening its Vineyard Vines tie and getting low? Apparently.

But sadly, we were not quite pastel-clad enough. And I love a pastel, so that is saying something. Don't these people realize that the sketchy dance party is the raison d'être of Forever 21? They are putting an entire industry-- the cheap, hoochie "clothes" industry, I know, but still-- out of business.

So when Marie suggested the Bliss dance party at the backstage at the Black Cat last weekend, I was full of guarded optimism. Okay, that's a lie. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be very good. Or it would be fine, but not like Toad Sweet Toad.

It was amazing. There was a stage. Nay, there were multiple stages. Obviously, we picked the highest and most prominent and charged up to our pedestal of dancing glory. And the DJ was playing songs directly from his iTunes. How great is that? There were girls with Coach bags wearing $11.99 tops rife with oversized sequins. They played "Call on Me." It was perfect.

And-- clinching backstage's place as the premier pseudo-Toad's-- vaguely skeezy guys befriended us, securing our place as not the sketchiest people there. A good night indeed.