Check back often for updates on next month´s First Friday, and occasional posts of news and commentary.
It’s First Friday returns to Union Pub this Friday, December 2nd at 5:30 pm for a very merry First Friday. Be there or be talked about.
Specialty drinks for FF-attendees only will include the following:
“Christmas Chaos”
“The Gingerbread Man”
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Cocktail”
“T’was the Night Before Hangover”
First Friday returns to Union Pub this Friday, November 4th from 5:30 – 9:00 pm. We’ll have an appearance from a “Big” special guest. Be there or be talked about.
Special Guest: Andrew Breitbart
Sign Upto RSVP.Partisan soirees are nothing new. But only those ideologues who soldier into the First Friday fete at Union Pub will be able to show off blurry, totally staged Facebook pics of themselves twisting anti-tax bogeyman Grover Norquist’s arm (for a change) WHILE sucking down frosty brews subsidized by the Washington Times.
The conservative happy hour — which now boasts similar booze fests in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boulder, Denver and Columbus, Ohio — tries to throw its politics-obsessed members a bone the first weekend of every month.
But today’s shindig marks the first time that someone else has offered to pick up at least part of the tab (God bless the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Oh wait, He already has.) FF Co-Director Rich Counts says the Washington Times bankrolled an open bar for the DC Young Republicans’ Aug. 8 meeting at the Capitol Hill Club and, having enjoyed the experience so much, volunteered to open its wallet again tonight. The open bar will flow from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. (Guess circulation’s gone up?)
Norquist will be on hand for either his third (or fourth — nobody’s quite sure) guest spot. And while the indefatigable coalition builder suspects talk of taxes/grass-roots activism/the 2012 elections will invariably bubble up, Norquist attempted to downplay the wonkiness of it all.
“It sounds like you’re going to a meeting when, really, you’re drinking with your buddies in a bar,” Norquist assures HOH.
House Republican Conference speech writer and FF Co-Director Thomas Qualtere, on the other hand, is bracing for conservative anarchy.
“Over the past year, especially for our ‘special edition’ First Fridays, we’ve filled the venue wall to wall. This one, needless to say, will come close to bursting it at the seams,” he predicts.
Check out the full article by Roll Call’s Warren Rojas.
This Friday October 7th, help us welcome “America’s Newspaper,” The Washington Times, in co-sponsorship of “DC’s Top Conservative Happy Hour.”
Yes, you read that right. The Washington Times and First Friday will be teaming up to present the most exciting happy hour experience of the year. The action will take place at Union Pub and begin at 5:30 pm. The open bar will be limited, and the crowd will be massive, so come early and be ready to kick off your weekend the ‘right’ way—with an icy cold beverage (or several) and guaranteed good company to go with it.
For this special edition of First Friday, we also welcome back famed TV commentator and activist extraordinaire, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist. As the man behind the anti-tax pledge Newsweek says “has transformed American politics,” Mr. Norquist is a longtime FF-fan and will be happy to chat, take a picture, or just have a drink with you.
*** PLUS: Pick up a special wristband from a FF host (Rich or Tom) while you’re at Union Pub and receive one free drink at George in Georgetown later in the night. In accordance with George’s door policy, you must RSVP on Facebook to attend. ***
Friday. 10/7. 5:30 pm. Union Pub. Be there or be talked about.
RSVP on Facebook.It’s First Friday returns to Union Pub this Friday, September 2nd at 5:30 pm. Be there or be talked about.
Sign Upto RSVP.First Friday returns to Union Pub this Friday, August 5th at 5:30 pm. Be there or be talked about.
Sign Upto RSVP.Here, on a red-brick block of Capitol Hill, are the people who want to steer the country after their bosses have worn out the clutch. Here are the people who let their livers and libidos lead them to the like-minded, who pursue connections that become coalitions that become movements that become presidencies. (After a mini-pitcher of sangria, anything seems possible.)
Separated by a salon, a sushi place and an ideological chasm are the dueling happy hours. One conservative, one progressive. One long-standing, the other brand-new. One in a hey-bro, populist pub, the other in a mod, sunken lounge.
Leave your prejudices at the door.
Find new ones inside.
Overheard at the conservative happy hour First Friday at Union Pub: “I’ll be over at the Faith and Freedom conference tomorrow. . . . They beat Notre Dame this year. . . . When Snowmageddon happened two years ago, I had a reservation at Minibar. . . . The Weiner jokes are overwhelming me right now.”
Overheard at the progressive happy hour First Thursday at Lounge 201 the night before: “I’m also a PhD student. . . . I’m a lawyer by day but . . . We lost the message war! . . . Libertarianism doesn’t make sense. How can you abolish everything? . . . How drunk do I have to be to say, ‘Hey, Ron Paul intern’?”
First Friday formed in 2006 when a posse of Heritage Foundation co-workers ambled across Massachusetts Avenue NE to Union Pub. They desired a social setting with no strings attached (no guest speaker, no book reading, no dress code or registration or cover charge), so they formed their own.
“At other events you’d be having a good time, mingling, having a beer, and then all of a sudden it’d get quiet and Dick Armey would stand up and pontificate on the future of America — that sucks,” says one of the First Friday charter members, Brian Phillips, 33, communications director for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). “But if Dick Armey wants to come hang out, that’s great.”
First Friday lassoed big GOP names (Boehner, Steele, Newt) for guest appearances — nothing formal, just: “Oh hey, there’s Grover Norquist” — and word of mouth buoyed attendance until it became a consistent safe house for conservatives adrift in a blindingly liberal city.
First Thursday began two weeks ago in reaction to First Friday’s popularity and to reinvigorate the idling movement that elected Barack Obama in 2008. The organizers of First Thursday have boasted that they can out-network the conservatives. Whatever that means. (How is networking prowess tabulated? By the frequency with which one uses the word “networking”?)
“We’re flattered,” says Rich Counts, 26, current co-host of First Friday. “Anytime you see someone trying to pattern after what you’re doing, it’s a sign you’re doing things the right way.”
At 7 p.m. during the inaugural First Thursday, its creator, Jim McBride, 36, stands on a leopard-print ottoman in Lounge 201 and shouts his stump speech over Britney Spears’s “Till the World Ends” in front of a giant flat-screen TV showing coverage of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
First Friday returns to Union Pub this Friday, June 3rd at 5:30. Be there or be talked about.
Special Guest: S.E. Cupp
Sign Upto RSVP.