Several weeks back I posted a quick little bit of mental flotsam which concluded in expressing my preference for Washington DC over New York City. A few days ago, Peter Suderman over at Culture11 expressed similar preferences. Overall, I second his rationale.

But it’s not like everything is peachy-keen in Washington, land of the nerd and wonk. There are vapid socialites here too, people whose transparent attempts at climbing would make a New Yorker blush. Michelle Cottle at TNR reports:

…in the waning days of the presidential race, [former DNC finance chair Beth] Dozoretz found herself at a dinner party with Michelle Obama. Not one to miss an opportunity, Dozoretz slipped Mrs. Obama a note from Melanne, in which the precocious fourth grader urged the Obamas to enroll their two girls, Malia and Sasha, at D.C.’s prestigious Sidwell Friends School. Shortly after Election Day, she and her husband, health care mogul Ron Dozoretz, popped up in the press talking about the note-passing and elaborating on their pro-Sidwell lobbying. … It was remarkable how naked the status anxiety became at all the schools under consideration, recalls one dad from Georgetown Day School (a runner-up in the First filles sweepstakes). Parents would just chatter away, he recalls, about “‘Oh my God, wouldn’t it be just amazing if’—their daughter, fill in the blank, Zoe or Chloe or whatever—‘wouldn’t it be amazing if they had a sleepover at the White House!’ Then they’d envision themselves having to pick up their child and telling people, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go over to the White House!’” He harrumphs, “People would actually say this stuff out loud. It was just embarrassing.”

Indeed, it is. Read the whole thing and feel worse about Washington as a whole.

Shamelessly ripping off Tyler Cowen, I present today’s sentence of the day:

“The more money that was paid, the more men that were laid, the more ladies that were made.”

It comes from this here article from the NY Post on the waning prospects of snaring a sugar daddy in Manhattan during the downturn.

The article, which was starting to seriously annoy me until I reached today’s felicitous phrase, has nevertheless reminded me why I don’t much care for New York City: I prefer people who’re obsessed with power rather than those that are obsessed with money. Yes, there’s a difference. And yes, it matters.

The aforementioned band was The Clean. I raved about David Kilgour the other week, so when I heard that the band that originally made him a cult hero was reforming for three gigs in New York City, I had no choice but to go.

On the way there, my bus got stuck in the most impenetrable traffic jam for about three hours, during which time I became intimately acquainted with The Clean’s Anthology album. It’s a pop masterpiece, this greatest hits comp, and I’ve been highly recommending it to just about anyone within earshot.

It was extra disappointing, therefore, to find the reunited Clean barely able to play their old material. A friend was explaining to me that their muddling incompetence was a testament to their honesty, a tribute to their humble roots as a muddling punk band. Hogwash, sez I. Those early songs aren’t nearly as amateurish as all that. “Tight as a duck’s ass”¹ springs more readily to mind than “sloppy”.

Yet the show was somehow thrilling despite the slop. It must be the time travel aspect of it: I probably spent most of the show imagining what it must’ve been like to be hearing these songs in 1978. And though David Kilgour seemed rather sour, his brother Hamish, he formerly of Bailter Space, and Robert Scott of The Bats, seemed to be having a grand old time.

In conclusion, go buy Anthology and revel in gems such as these:

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And if you go see The Clean live, be sure to keep the original versions firmly in mind. That way you too can pretend you’re listening to a young group of pop geniuses rather than three aging men not even trying very hard to relive the glory of their youth.