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Tonight, I headed to the Billy Goat Tavern looking for rowdy Chicagoans. Billy Goat is the D.C. outpost of a famous Chicago dive chain. I thought it was a new spot in town, but I quickly learned otherwise: The place has been around for three and a half years.
When it came to rowdy Chicagoans, the Billy Goat disappointed. There were none. I did, however, find two very pleasant Oklahomans, who were staying across the street at the Washington Court Hotel at 525 New Jersey Ave NW. And guess who else was staying there, they claimed? The Boss! They said people at the hotel had told them that Bruce Springsteen had a room in the building, and was going to be playing at the 2009 Garden State Inaugural Gala, also held at the Washington Court Hotel. I could confirm one of those details.
The New Jersey state gala is going to be held at hotel on January 20. The announcement claims “top notch live musical entertainment by the ‘B Street Band,’ the number one Bruce Springsteen tribute band for over two decades…as well as surprise celebrity guests.”
As for the Oklahomans, they had a unique distinction to share themselves: They were Democrats from Oklahoma, a state in which Barack Obama didn’t win a single county. Seriously.
“We held signs up for Obama,” recalled Terry Day from Oklahoma City. “You can’t even imagine the names people called us.” He would not further describe the names.
Day, who was joined by his co-worker Carl Dahms, works for the local union of the American Federation of Government Employees.
“I worked overtime to pay for my ticket to get here,” he said.
The Boss, I’m sure, cannot boast the same.
Image by envisionpublicidad, Flickr Creative Commons