How will you be spending the final hours before the U.S. Government defaults on its debts? Watching Wolf Blitzer and the “Best Damn Political Team in the Solar System”(TM) search for new ways to describe the crisis, as the countdown clock ticks away in the corner of the screen? Taking inventory of skids of canned foods you’ve stored in your basement? Refreshing every 90 seconds the browser showing your how fast your stock portfolio is losing value? Re-reading “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy (as depicted in the photo above), just to acclimate yourself with what you might be facing in the near future?

Friends, I have a better option. Join me and jazz pianist Oren Levine at the Black Fox Lounge, 1723 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, October 16, 8 to 11 p.m., only moments before the debt ceiling deadline. Look at it this way, if we all going down, why not go down together?

And as we do, you’ll hear Oren and me perform old standards whose time-honored messages will shed new light on the current crisis:

• The Gershwins’ “How Long Has This Been Going On?”, which reminds us that we should have seen this impending cataclysm coming a long time ago
• Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” attempting to keep us from freaking out about the volatility we will see in the global economy
• “Sometimes I’m Happy,” recalling days gone by
• “I Wanna Be Like You,” a song from the movie “Jungle Book” in which apes kidnap the young protagonist in hopes of gaining control of the most powerful weapon in the world (connect your own dots to the current situation)
• “Caravan“, about the wandering in the desert we have ahead of us
• “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Bill Withers’ prescient prediction (in 1971) of what the post-October 17 landscape will look like
• “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” which states, “It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phoney as it can be….”

So come by on October 16 for a bite and some drink. Oren and I will be on the main level of the Black Fox, right in the window as you come off the street. This is the first of a regular series of engagements there, every first and third Wednesday of each month.

And don’t forget to join me at Bistro Bohem on Sunday, November 3, 8 to 10 p.m. More on that later.

See you soon,

Jeff