Thirty years after I first set...

Thirty years after I first set foot in the Royal Palace -- the first club I ever visited -- I stopped in again on a recent weekday afternoon, just for the hell of it.

The club has been renovated since I was last there. Gone is the knee-high stage in the middle of the room; the stage is now waist high along one wall. Whoever designed the lighting failed at the job; the stage is just as dark as the floor. What's the point of going to a DC club where all you can do is look if it is so dim you can hardly make out the details in the dancer's body?

The floor is packed with tables; it would be very difficult to walk if there were even a dozen people there. But as there were only three customers there that time, getting to a table wasn't so hard.