Friday at the Safari Steakhouse
I was sick with a cold, so I missed Familiar Faces' Wednesday performance at Takoma Station and Thursday performance at Xcalibur. However, I have basically kicked it enough to attend tonight.

Safari Steakhouse 9430 Annapolis Road Lanham MD 20706

On the drive over, I noticed the moon was red! As I walked up in the parking lot, a guy in a Terrell Owens (49ers) jersey said, "Hello, here for your regular Friday" and shook hands with me - I didn't recognize him, but he obviously recognized me. The bouncer at the door felt no need to card me, as he recognized me, but he did frisk me. I sat down at a table shortly before they started up.

Familiar Faces
Their first set was what they call their happy hour or Jazz set, initially the line up was - Adia, Donnell, Doc, Dwayne Lee (I talked with him during the first break), and Pooh. The rest of the line up for the first set was - BJ, DP, Godfather, Mike Muse (the percussionists usually don't play in the first set, tonight there was Bojack, Packy and Telly). Also during the first set, Donnell called up Bryant "Luther" Roberts (or Big Lu as his friends from his table, which was right next to mine, called him) to sing. (Before FF started performing, people from his table asked that the lights be turned off in the audience area, the air conditioning was not working and we all sweated right away). During the first set, my arm was grabbed - the three girls who had sat in my booth last Friday were back and they said hello. After the first set, they asked me if this (the happy hour set) was how it was going to be all night - I assured them that they switched to GoGo for the rest of the night after the first set.

During the break a number of the members of FF danced along with audience members, the DJ, Super Dan, kept pointing out D-Floyd's dancing. At one point there was a line dance and a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a black sleeveless shirt, with a yellow fishnet shawl? over it and blue jeans went around getting both men and women to come on the dance floor. She grabbed my hand to pull me out, but I begged off - she frowned at that. Later in that break, the DJ played Terror Squad's Lean Back (from the album True Story due to be released on July 27th) - that same girl danced back-to-back with another girl (obviously a friend) and she leaned back on her friend incredibly far!

During the second set, Samantha? (it's hard to hear during the music - she is the girl who sat next to me from the three last week) asked me to sit in their booth and save it while they went outside for a while. I obliged - they missed some crankin' music. They came back later, and the other two sat on the other bench of the booth, and Samantha sat at an adjacent table.

The second set was briefly interrupted due to technical problems, DJ music played during that time, but not until after the DJ called out to Nephew asking what was up with D-Floyd (I guess razzing him about his dancing), Nephew just raised his arms in a shrug. Tara arrived late in the second set. The three girls really started to dance with each other starting the break between the second and third sets - they clearly had fun and did not take themselves seriously with the way they danced together. A girl in the booth next to mine (adjacent seats) chided me for not dancing, but I told her the truth - that my left knee was bothering me (the last couple of days it hurts especially when I walk downstairs, so I was dancing in my seat). She said "That's just an excuse; you'd better dance next week." Also, one of the DJ songs had the verse "Shake it like a picture" - a girl (I later learned her name is Allison) from the other adjacent booth (the one my bench faced) with long curly brown hair and a light green sleeveless shirt with a butterfly pattern in front and blue jeans (who danced by herself for periods the entire break right next to her booth) shook her behind, during this, one of her friends, a voluptuous brunette girl with a black shirt felt her behind playfully while she shook it. That same girl in the green shirt leaned back quite far when Terror Squad's Lean Back played again during that break. She and the above mentioned girl with the yellow fishnet shawl could definitely do well in playing limbo.

Tara came by and sat in the adjacent booth (right next to me) and said how tired she was, coming from working. I said, I understand, last Friday, in that very same bench, there was a guy who kept sleeping (or more likely passing out) - the waiter kept bugging him, threatening to throw him out.

During the third set, Tara got up and together with Jay Gotti, the guest rapper from last Saturday, rapped during some songs. The three girls danced directly by me during the third set. As usual, this set cranked the most. The lights came on around 2:40 AM. Donnell said "Jauhar is furious, they don't want to pay extra for security, they don't like me to play so long. Jauhar is furious!" Most of the people walked out during this time, but a number stayed and FF peformed on. The girl in green was one of the few people still dancing, Donnell called her out as Allison and told her "To stop leaning back so far, BJ will fall out." He also said, "Turn around, my man Jordan's head is bobbing up and down." (referring to me of course). They continued to perform for a while then finally stopped.

Samantha asked me why I didn't dance and I told her about my knee. Mama Chelle came over and said hello, and told me how she read my article (this blog). This was the second most crankin' performance, after Club Levels (even better than the Market Lounge on Saturday). After they finished, the girl in green, Allison, and her friend in black walked by my booth to theirs - the girl in black felt my forehead and said, "You were partying, you're sweating." I sweated profusely.

Donnell did their usually performance announcements, in particular talking about next Friday's Denim & Lace Affair, the Allen Iverson Celebrity Summer Classic Official Kick-Off Party. He went over the line up of celebrities appearing, including Tracy McGrady, Magic Johnson (my favorite non-Terp NBA player of all time, the reason I'm a Lakers fan), DaBrat, and Trina (some guy said something to her being mentioned, to which Donnell said, "you'd better get her last name first"). Finally, there's going to be "the 'Bama of the Year", Roy Jones, Jr. He said, "We're going to present him with a pillow, since he's still asleep from getting knocked out. He's doing Tylenol commercials 'cause he has a headache from getting knocked out. He lost to a guy who has a name like a guy working at Boston Market, Anthony Carver, Tarver..." A guy in the audience was obviously a Roy Jones fan and kept responding to what Donnell said. Donnell continued, "I knew something was wrong with him when he had that shag in the back of his head, 'Bama! People in DC don't do that. He's going to fight again against a guy who knocked him the f*ck out. I heard he's going to fight Tyson, I'm a Mike Tyson fan (incidentally, there is a PA Tape I'm aware of of EU doing Tyson's Release Party on March 25th, 1995). Roy Jones is looking for competition in the yellow pages." The Jones fan said something about Tyson being gay, to which Donnell responded, "Roy Jones' shag in the back, that's not DC-style, more San Francisco-style". Finally they turned off Donnell's microphone a little before 3 AM. Quite an evening! The moon was white (as normal) on my drive home.