Saturday at Club Levels
Club Levels, 1960 Montana Av NE, Washington, DC 20500

When I first arrived, Godfather stood outside. I talked with him briefly then headed in. Thomas was there, setting up with his nephews. I watched the end of the overtime of the Redskins preseason game against the Panthers. Donnell arrived: he and Dwayne went to the Prince concert earlier in the evening. Over time, the members of Familiar Faces arrived. I asked Doc how work was (he had to work only a few hours after the end of the Safari performance); he said, "He was still burnt." Godfather and DP asked the staff for permission and then turned off the fan since it was really cold inside. I talked with Mike, saying "The rain wasn't as bad as it was supposed to be." He said, "What are you talking about, it rained all day!" I said, "Yes, but they were talking about 50 mile an hour winds, my parents brought their trash cans inside." A number of regulars arrived: Michelle, Nita and a number of Michelle's family members.

Familiar Faces
The opening line up was: Mike, Adia, Donnell, DP, Dwayne, Doc, Godfather, BJ, and Pooh. They sort of warmed up with some performing while the DJ still played. When the DJ music was cut off, they went abruptly into performing an Adia-led song. Donnell apologized for starting late, saying that "They had technical difficulties." Bojack arrived a little bit into the set. They cranked hard, but the crowd was small. Since both of their previous Club Levels performances I attended had big crowds, I assume that the weather and the Prince concert explained the small crowd. Toward the end of the set, they performed Alicia Keys' Diary and worked on fixing technical difficulties before going back into the crank.

Then they went into the break, with Donnell saying they were switching to "Flava on the wheels of steel. Actually, Flava, what should we call that (laptop) computer you use." DJ Flava (aka GoGo Rudy) responded that he didn't know either. Telando was there as well. I sat back with the band during the break and talked with Godfather.

The second set really cranked. Toward the end, Keta was the only one dancing right in front to the band. They performed a long version of Rare Essence's Take Me Out to The Go-Go, then they closed as usual with Prince's Purple Rain. Then Donnell really went into it, teasing Keta and particularly her sister Michelle: "Look at her (Michelle) sit down." Then he sang the chorus to Morris Albert's Feelings. Michelle laughed. Telando recorded this performance and handed over CD-Rs to Donnell. Then Donnell said, "Sorry Keta, we had a little thing going, but I'm going back to Michelle. I'll sign her to a six-month contract. Now that she makes more money, maybe she can pay for some of our meals together." Michelle went over to Donnell and hit him with a purse. She went over to me and said, "Don't you do it (but didn't tell me what it she was referring to)." The first and second purse-whipping (or her giving him the finger) didn't stop Donnell and Bojack from continuing to tease Michelle, up until she left, including talking about her "dancing on bar stools over at the Eastside." During this, Godfather and BJ played Stevie Wonder's Superstition together on a single keyboard. A guy who worked at Levels named John grabbed one of the conga mics and said that "There was an outstanding warrant in Atlanta for Godfather killing a horse (use your imagination as to how) named Doublemint, it fell out of a parade." John and another employee named Skinny did more joning back and forth. I left together with Donnell. He asked me when I'm going back to school, I told him Thursday.