It's breakfast time at Dukem, the popular Ethiopian restaurant on U Street NW, but Thomas "Tommy T" Gobena orders lunch. In a city of red-eyed, Cinnabon-scarfing frequent fliers, he might be the most jet-lagged man in Washington.

Gobena lives in Alexandria but will spend most of this new year in the air and on the road, playing bass for Gogol Bordello, a merry band of self-branded "Gypsy punks" scheduled to hit about 200 stages across the globe in 2010. Days earlier, Gobena was wowing a crowd of 20,000 in Mexico City. In a few days, he'll be at it again in St. Petersburg, Russia.