Marion Barry, On the Town

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Photo of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry dancing at a party for newly inaugurated D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, at left with wife Michelle Cross Fenty, by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, Marion Barry still knows how to score the big party invites — and he isn't afraid to show off his dance moves. The former District mayor and current Ward 8 D.C. Council member was a man about town this weekend, making appearances at both the inaugural celebration for new D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday and a shindig at Love on Friday to celebrate the 25th birthday of Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas.

On Friday, Barry was just one of the famous faces that were sprinkled among the 7,500 or so guests who came out to honor one of basketball's rising stars. Arenas, with all of the accolades he's been earning of late, is kind of a big deal right now, so, appropriately, his birthday party was, too — one that cost somewhere in the $1-2 million range, as The Post's Teresa Wiltz reports. The party was hot, but Arenas was cool — or at least an ice sculpture carved in his likeness and plunked outside the club was (before it melted in the unseasonable heat, that is). Wiltz caught up to Barry as he was scoping the craps table. "It's a great party," he said. "Right here in D.C."

As you might expect, Fenty's inaugural affair was slightly more modest, but not without its own degree of glitz. Just take this dispatch from The Post's Libby Copeland:

[U]p on stage, while Fenty shook hands with the crowd, Barry and [At-Large D.C. Council member] Carol Schwartz boogied. Then [D.C. Council Chairman] Vincent Gray and [D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes] Norton boogied. Then Barry came over and tried to cut in.

"I wouldn't let him," Norton said a few minutes later. "I told him he wasn't born in D.C. I said, 'Look, Barry, you country boys don't know how to dance.'"

But the real thread that tied Barry's appearances together was, well, the threads tied around his neck — specifically the Council member's fondness for red accents. At Arenas' birthday, he went with a wide horizontal red-striped tie, echoing the vertical red-striped tie he wore at Fenty's public swearing-in last Wednesday, pictured at left. Saturday night featured a red bow-tie (how very Anthony Williams).

Could it be that the former mayor is more of a night owl than the new mayor? After all, Fenty doesn't have much time to party these days.

» "Poll Center: Is Arenas Basketball's MVP?" [Poll Center/Express]
» "From A-List to Zero: Arenas's Celeb-Rich Bash" [WaPo]
» "It's Fenty Time!" [WaPo]
» "Fenty Introduces New Cabinet to Area Familiar With Violence" [WaPo]