A few goings-on in the world of Radley y’all might (or might not) be interested in…

1) A week ago last Saturday I took a day trip to Annapolis, MD. While tooling around in the town, we found a little shop on a sidestreet that wasn’t quite open yet, but boasted a few Segways in the window. We went in, talked to the owner, and spent the next half hour motoring around the store.

Review: Very, very cool. Easy to learn. And all you’ve read is true. You simply think about moving forward, backward, or stopping, and the machine does all the work for you. It’s impossible to fall off of. Lose your balance one way, and the thing just rolls up under you and keeps you steady.

Once he officially opens, the owner plans to certify Segway riders with a one-time training run out to the Naval Academy grounds, about an hour-long trip. After completing that run, you’re free to rent them by the hour, and take them anywhere in the city. I’m really surprised someone hasn’t brought the idea to Washington yet, certainly a walking town, and a place with much more to see than Annapolis.

Very creative name of the store: Segs in the City.

For what it’s worth, they also teach Yoga.

2) Wednesday of last week I had lunch with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, the result I guess of the flattering piece I wrote about him for Fox.

I’ve never been all that enamored with meeting politicians. Or anyone famous or powerful, for that matter. My experience has always been that private personalities are generally less impressive than public ones. And there are two kinds of people in Washington — people who fill their walls with pictures of themselves with famous people, and people who think those people are rather silly. Sure you can guess where I fall.

That said, Sen. Fitzgerald was a pleasant surprise. Not full of himself. Not a windbag. And refreshingly aware of and wary of the Washington political game. He’s no libertarian, of course. I couldn’t sell him on Social Security reform, and his website unfortunately sings the glories of ethanol.

But he does have a pretty solid core set of principles. He’s a stalwart free trader. He’s pro immigration. And he told some pretty jaw-dropping stories of influence peddling and seedy incestuous relationships among Chicago and Illinois politicians, journalists, and power brokers. He seems to be a guy who managed to avoid catching the Potomac Fever that grips and transforms most folks in this town into Beltway zombies. Fitzgerald spent his one six-year term standing up to pork projects championed by some of Illinois most powerful interests, including Speaker Hastert, Mayor Daley, Governor Ryan, Boeing, and United Airlines.

And for that, his own party promptly ran him out of town.

Nice guy. Probably why he’s not coming back to D.C.

3) Friday night I went to see Flip Orley, the comic hypnotist at D.C.’s Imvprov. It’s’ the third time I’ve seen him. Generally, he brings about 15 people onstage, puts them under, then concocts various scenarios for them to act out which can range from amusing to just plain riotous.

In his first skit, for example, he tells this woman while she’s under that she will under no circumstances remember her name, which is Jennifer. When he brings her to, he asks her name. No answer.

“I’ll give you a clue,” he says. “It starts with a J.”

Nothing.

“I’ll give you another clue. It rhymes with ‘Jennifer.’”

Nada.

Usually, about half the people on stage are able to go under, then Flip looks to the audience and brings up a few more folks who were able to get hypnotized from their seats to join in the fun.

This time, after the induction, I look over to my date and see that, yes, she’s out! I of course pointed her out, and Flipped pulled her on stage. She was pretty much the star of the show for the rest of the night.

In one sketch, Flip had each person take a drag off a regular cigarette, which he told them was actually a joint, filled with the best weed they’d ever sampled. They were then to give a speech to us, the audience, who would vote one of them the new president of NORML. The speech was to explain why marijuana should be decriminalized.

My date’s pithy speech: “Y’all are doin’ it anyway.”

It wasn’t the best of Flip’s shows I’ve seen (there were only five people total who went under), but it was pretty cool to watch with someone I know on stage. Of course, my guy Flip had to ruin it all by making some casual comment to the crowd about, if only his wife would let him, how much he’d like to take my date home with him while she was in hypnotic sleep.

Pshaw. Didn’t work, Flip.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2004 at 4:55 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.