"That's What She Said" Moment

While I'm thinking about it, I was attending a seminar yesterday about internet and direct mail fund-raising.

Intern: "Do you think dragging the Dem nomination all the way to the convention is good or bad for the party?"

Speaker: "Well, after Carter was nominated, he spent a long time chasing Kennedy around the country trying to get him to shake his hand and he refused, so you had a fellow Dem embarrassing the nominee publicly on TV and stuff. That really hurt the party. So I would say, the length isn't what's important, it's the elegance of the ending."

Me: "That's what she said."

Gonna Sip Bacardi Like It's My Birthday Part 1

Thank y'all for the birthday wishes. I had a blast. Speaking of "y'all," I was just debating someone over the proper spelling of the phrase. I believe the apostrophe should take the place of the missing letters "o" and "u." My friend argued that the contraction should be written out how it's pronounced (ya'll). He ranted on about how the "Yankee grammar Nazis" from the north should have no say so in dictating the spelling of a phrase they never use. My friend has a point, but he is from Texas, and his elitist "everything's bigger, don't mess with Texas" attitude is the reason why we should build a wall around everything in Texas except for Austin and isolate them from the rest of the country. Interesting to note: This person was in the national spelling bee on ESPN when he was younger.

The "Birthday Tour" Kicked off Friday night (March 14) with Cowboy Mouth at the 9:30 Club on V St. in Washington, D.C. Cowboy Mouth is from New Orleans, and they made a career primarily touring across the south. The person I was originally going to the show with backed out at the last minute. As a result, I spent most of the day trying to find someone to take the ticket that was already paid for, and it was more difficult than it sounds. I found a fellow intern who had never heard of Cowboy Mouth, but had nothing better to do and decided to go.

We pre-gamed at a bar down the street from the 9:30 Club called DC9, a small venue for local music. After briefly scanning over the menu, I noticed they carried Schlitz in a can, which is about as hard to find in D.C. as interesting people and bars with character. I instantly became a fan of DC9 and proceeded to get Schlitz-faced. Several shots of whiskey and a few beers later, we stumbled into the 9:30 Club.

Cross Canadian Ragweed opened the show. I had never been a fan but they were impressive live. Regardless of any preconceived notions, it's hard not to get caught up in the overall vibe when there's live music and people are having a good time. The crowd was very diverse and ranged from Virginia rednecks to G.I.'s and frat boys. It's very rare that you're fortunate enough to experience such a diverse group of people that are so happy to be in one particular place at one particular moment in time. Moments like these are what people should live for, and I feel terribly sorry for anyone that's never experienced this.

We made several trips to the downstairs bar during Cross Canadian Ragweed (which I almost abbreviated as "CCR" before asking the person next to me to kick me in the balls for the thought even crossing my mind) to shoot whiskey and cool off. When Cowboy Mouth took the stage, I wanted to be in the front and I wasn't going to want to leave for drinks. My goal was to get as belligerent as possible before they came on, and I succeeded.

The closer it got to Cowboy Mouth, the more LSU T-shirts and Saints jersey's I saw in the crowd. I was in heaven and I wasn't going to let anything bring me down, including the intern who didn't appear to be having a good time and already told me that she didn't like "this kind of music." When Cowboy Mouth takes the stage, everyone around you becomes your best friend. It's not about the music as much as it is about a large group of friends and strangers leaving all of their negativity and preconceptions at the door and having the time of their lives with people they've never seen before, and probably never will again. Cowboy Mouth channels these moments very well, but I don't want this to turn into a concert review, I just hope my guest got a taste of this. After the show, I talked to the lead singer Fred Leblanc. He told me I needed to quit whatever I was doing and come back to Louisiana. I didn't argue.

I ditched my guest after the show and met up with some friends in Adams Morgan. The whiskey had taken hold long ago, and my minutes were numbered. We stepped in to a bar called the Asylum around 2:00 A.M. I try really hard to like the "rock n' roll lounge." I've given it several chances but something always goes wrong. The last time I was there, I was thrown out for arguing with a bouncer about the technicalities of a law that prevents you from leaving the bar with an alcoholic beverage (I never left the building, but I walked out the bar door into the lobby). This resulted from them not allowing a friend of mine re-entry for being "too drunk." I threatened to sue for false advertising, because in my opinion, strictly enforcing already unreasonable laws is not very "rock n' roll."

So I'm back at the "rock n' roll lounge" and I order a beer around 2:30 A.M. They immediately make last-call, and A bouncer approaches me. He informs me that if I didn't immediately down the beer that they just sold to me, he would snatch it from my hand and throw it in the garbage. That was a problem.

A minute later, we're walking down the sidewalk trying to find food while I was being fussed for getting us kicked out of the bar. I don't remember much after this, but we found a 24-hour diner close by. Apparently, we had to leave because I was throwing toast at someone.

The Dumb and the Restless

I'm involved in a love triangle. I discovered this over Sunday Brunch with James, who woke up that morning with ripped pants and sweatshirt and bloodied palms resulting from misadventures of the night before. James and I met up with some of my intern friends for a pub-crawl on U St, which almost ended in a disaster. We were watching the tail end of the Duke/North Carolina basketball game upstairs at a bar called Stetson's. James was belligerent and using other patrons to hold himself up. After closing his bar tab, I noticed he was exchanging far-from-kind words with a female. I use this term loosely- her short hair, nose ring, and 200 lbs. brick wall stature reminded me of a San Diego Chargers linebacker or a gorilla at the San Diego Zoo. Trouble was afoot and I rushed as quick as I could to his rescue. I apologized to her for whatever my roommate had done, but it wasn't enough. After shoving me back and slapping the drink out of my hand, she told me what she thought about us and my apology, and what I could do once I got home. She was obviously looking for trouble and I couldn't let that go.

I snatched her by the front of her shirt and pinned her back against the wall. She had already created a scene. I would never hit a girl, but spitting in her face crossed my mind. It didn't matter, because we had already won. The look on her face let me know that that was the last thing she was expecting to happen. She obviously gets away with this sort of behavior on a regular basis. No one at the bar seemed surprise. I informed her that her gender just saved her from a broken jaw, and that maybe she should stop taking it for granted. Hopefully she thinks twice before doing something like that again.

As I carried James down the stairs, he warned people of "an anrgy bull-dyke causing trouble at the top of the stairs." I threw him in a cab and gave the driver some money to take him home. The ripped clothes and bloody palms are still a mystery.

Back to the love triangle. I still believe everything I said about Reggie in my last post. However, Reggie is a coke-head, a coke-head that apparently takes anti-depressants. The chemical reaction creates a gumbo of mad dillusions and bizzare paranoia when mixed with alcohol and sleep deprivation. It exposes a dark underbelly of the human mind that should never see the light of day, or night. In other words, Reggie's been geeked-out lately. He's developed a conspiracy theory involving Ros (our landlord), whom he apparently has feelings for, and myself. It goes something like this:

Reggie thinks Ros and I are sleeping together, which isn't true. I may see Ros once or twice a week. Anyway, he believes we're sleeping with each other every chance we get, in spite of him. So, he's on a mission to catch us in the act. This includes Reggie peeking around corners in strange parts of the house when I wake up at 5:30 in the morning. I'll shake my head at him while he mumbles to himself and returns to his room. This also includes Reggie accusing me of bizzare things that would ultimately prove, in his mind, that I'm sleeping with Ros.

Sunday afternoon, I was taking a nap in my room. I was awakened by Reggie swinging my door open. "GOTCHA!" No Ros, so he returned to his room. He came back in moments later with a condom (still in the wrapper) in his hand. He showed me a tear at the top of the wrapper and accused me of stealing his condoms and replacing them back in the same wrapper with new ones. And the plot thickens... I told him I didn't know they even made those things anymore. "Don't insult me like that," he said as he walked back to his room, defeated.

Confronting him about the subject has failed. You'll never convince a coke-head of something he doesn't truly want to believe, so I will start convincing him of what he wants to believe. In other words- fucking with him. I'll start by leaving condom wrappers in the bathroom trash can and strategically placing panties around the house- probably in the corners he likes to hang out at when I wake up for work. More on this to come.

Where I Lay My Head Is Home

I ate out last night with my roommate/landlord Rosalyn, her sister, her sister's boyfriend, and her girlfriend. Rosalyn is bisexual, and she owns the house I live in. Sexual orientation isn't an issue with me, but hers is noteworthy because it contributes to the diversity of the household. It is also noteworthy because I'm constantly surrounded by gorgeous females whom I don't stand much of a chance with. Rosalyn and her family and friends are from the "dirty south (southern Maryland)." I rarely see Rosalyn because she lives in the basement (not like the "Gimp" from Pulp Fiction- it's a basement apartment with a bathroom and kitchen).

My house is in the very northeast corner of D.C., almost in Maryland. I found the listing for the house on Craigslist. After 50-75 e-mails and only a few responses, I went with the first thing that sounded good. What really sold me was the house was advertised as being located a block from the red line metro, which covers just about all of D.C. After my first trip to the metro, I realized the distance was probably over a mile (25 minute walk). I think the nightly romps with beautiful lesbians have started to affect my roommates depth perception for the very worst. She has a GPS system in her Chrysler 300 that I would have smashed to pieces a long time ago. It's usually off or far ahead of itself, and sometimes doesn't even recognize the roads it's traveling ,but she's completely lost without it. I have a soft spot for it, however, because an ex-girlfriend said the exact same things about me.

The house has a kitchen, living room and four upstairs bedrooms. My room, the master bedroom, has its own bath. I live in a very poor part of town, but I think crime, with the exception of people selling pot and cocaine on the street corners, is fairly low compared to the city. My room came furnished with Internet access.

Reggie, my other roommate, is a 32-year-old black male. He bar tends at the restaurant we ate at the night before- Cafe' somethingoranother. I really like Reggie, but we operate on completely different schedules. He's usually going to bed when I wake up in the morning for work. We spend a lot of time together on the weekends. Reggie was born in D.C. and has lived here all his life. Reggie takes the time to appreciate the present and the people around, and isn't too self-absorbed or concerned about the future. He seems to enjoy life, and he takes advantage of the situations it puts him in. It's really hard to find people like that around here. We talk a lot about women and sex. We tell funny stories involving things we've done in the past with regards to the two- typical male bonding stuff.

James never talks about women. James is my other roommate, whom I won't waste much time describing in detail. He's well-deserving of his own post, completely dedicated to him and his complexities. I think James may be gay. Either way, he actually works for Mary Landrieu in the Senate building. James graduated from Alabama and went to law school at Ole Miss. I see him more than my other roommates and have gotten to know him much better. He has a habit of drinking whiskey by himself at night and then passing out on the couch, spilling the contents of his glass all over himself. My first time to meet James, he was stumbling around the living room on a head full of whiskey. He would run outside and curse the car that was blocking the driveway, then step back inside and ask me the same question over and over again. I like James.

The empty bedroom next to mine was occupied my first week here by a rich Republican from Orange County named Brent. Brent is a rich Republican from Orange County. I only spoke with him a few times, but I believe living with a black person bothered him enough to find another place with "likeminded" individuals. For the record, he never said that. Living with my father for 18 years is enough experience to certify me in the art of sniffing out pompous bigots.

Rossalyn and I are going to the strip club tomorrow night- to find a new roommate. I can't wait. Rossalyn says that strippers are always up-front, they always pay in cash and they're good to have around the house in general. She's tired of dealing with "wishy-washy motherfuckers" on Craigslist.

National Press Foundation Awards Dinner, Tony Snow and Beats Work

On Thursday, February 28, I had the privilege of attending the 25th annual National Press Foundation Awards Dinner. 

More about the Awards Dinner and the NPF here:

http://www.nationalpress.org/info-url_nocat3523/info-url_nocat.htm

Six tickets worth $300 a pop were donated to the WCPJ by Microsoft. After reading about the dinner from the above URL, I immediately wrote it off as a large gathering of people who have mastered the art of kissing ass while constantly looking over shoulders for someone more important at the same time. An open bar was almost a necessity for something like this. It was the Oscars of print journalism with a pre-dinner reception and an after-party featuring Tony Snow and his band, Beats Work. 

My date (a fellow intern) and I arrived in time for the reception. It was only the second time I wore my suit. Earlier in the week, I brought it in for alterations because I ripped my pants legs from walking on them after my first day of work. The other four interns were not to be found, and we stopped worrying about them after a minute or so.   After the reception, we walked across the hall to the ballroom where the dinner was being held. We met the other interns at the Microsoft table, which was on the front row. 

Before the ceremony began, an elderly woman took her seat next to mine. She spoke a few words to me, but I was too distracted by her mustache to pay any attention to what she was saying. The woman began to get very upset over the fact that I wasn't listening. She pulled me to her and shouted in my ear, "I'm... (Evelyn something)." After I responded with a polite smile, she pulled me back to her. "I'm famous," she said. "Google me. You'll see, I'm famous." I wasted no time and responded in the only way one should respond to someone like this. "I'm famous too, probably a lot more famous than you'll ever be. Just Google me. You'll see." I wrote my name, Michael Jordan, on a napkin and handed it to her.  

I scooted back towards my date while the woman began digging through her gift bag. She grimaced at her free umbrella, and shoved it in the hands of the gentleman sitting next to her. "I don't want this thing," she said. A few minutes later, she snatched it back from him, shouting that she had changed her mind. After she finished eating her salmon, she disappeared. 

Meanwhile, an old woman seated across the table had fallen asleep. She was so slouched it appeared she was on the verge of falling out of her chair. On top of that, her big black hat was completely covering her face. She was dressed for a funeral and now she looked more like the honoree. I tapped my date on the shoulder and whispered, "look at the old woman across the table and try not to laugh." We started giggling and could not stop. 

When her head slumped to the side and her big black hat fell off, we absolutely lost it.  People at the Rolls Royce table became annoyed. Some looked on in disgust while a few others caught on an began laughing themselves. Meanwhile, Washington Post's Dana Priest and Ann Hall were accepting their award for their famous Walter Reed military hospital pieces. My date stopped laughing and looked at the gentleman across the table. She slammed her fist on a saucer dish and demanded that he hand over the last bottle of wine. 

After the dinner, I spoke with Tony Snow. We talked about music and his band, but he did say that he "enjoyed every minute" of his former job as White House press secretary. The interns went home, and I stuck around for the after-party. Tony Snow and Beats Work rocked the house with and entertaining but predictable set list (Brown Eyed Girl, Margaritaville, Take it Easy, etc...).  I danced, met a few girls and got a few numbers. The night was a success, until I got lost in my own neighborhood trying to find my house. 

Thanks to Kristen Daum for the pics. I hope she wasn't too embarrassed.

Puddle of Mudd and The Hotline

When I woke up this morning I wanted to kill myself. After a night of heavy drinking and a mile walk home from the metro, 5:30 A.M. has a way of sneaking up on you like a venereal disease after Spring Break or a trip to Tijuana. It's probably for the best that my Ruger .357 Magnum stayed under my bed in Pineville. For a long time, handguns have been illegal in D.C. The logic behind banning handguns to reduce crime never made much sense to me. D.C. continues to have one of the highest crime rates in the nation. It probably cuts down on suicides, though, and D.C. offers plenty of reasons to drive someone to suicide, or homicide- mainly the Georgetown bars and the people who go there.  

Puddle of Mudd played at the 9:30 Club in NW D.C. last night. I'm not a big fan of their music, but when I found out my old schoolmate's band (from Shreveport) was opening, I shot him an e-mail and he put me on the guest list. I'll go into more detail about the show in another post.

So, I've been sitting at work all day deciding how I could tie last night's shenanigans into something insightful, and I can't. I concluded that this would be a good time to talk about The Hotline, since you're probably wondering why I'm not busy right now.

The Hotline is an online magazine published by the National Journal. From their website:

"Combining original, bipartisan reporting with coverage from over 2,500 media sources, The Hotline gives readers what no one else can: a comprehensive picture of the political landscape, from the president to your own local mayor."

Our office is on the 3rd floor of the Watergate 600 building in the Foggy Bottom area. I wake up at 5:30 every morning to get to work by 7:00. For the first part of the morning, the staff (15 people or so) searches a database of over 2,500 news sources (newspapers, blogs, transcripts, etc...) for any coverage of statewide races, White House '08, Bush, ex-politicians or anything funny or scandalous about politicians, etc... Once the search is complete, We "rewrite" the stories by condensing the important information into short paragraphs. Everyone works as an editor, in that sense. The Hotline is usually published online at noon. I spend the next few hours eating snacks, watching youtube, surfing ESPN.com, doing stories for the House Race Hotline (published at 2:00 P.M.) and reading the Hotline.

For the most part, The Hotline staff is young. It's overseen by Editor-In-Chief Amy Walter, a regular panelist on CBS's Face The Nation and contributing editor for National Journal. She's very casual and easy to work for. All the fancy shirts and ties I bought before I came up here are taking up space in my little closet because there is no dress code at The Hotline. The office is fairly quiet during the day. Everyone watches Youtube with their headphones on and laughs to themselves. My desk is between the other two interns' in the front of the office (intern row, as it's called). They're from Ohio and Minnesota, and i believe they're both around my age. 

This post is dragging on more than originally planned so I'm going to stop here. But, in case you were wondering, I really like my job and the people I work with. I'll discuss my co-workers another time. 

Fear and Loathing at the Center of the Universe

I started this blog under the impression that most of its material would be conceived between the hours of two and six in the morning. I also had no idea I would be waking up at 5:30 A.M. (ET) every morning to make it to The Hotline for 7:00 A.M. So, I'll blog whenever I can while staying true to my title. And, I'll get to The Hotline later.

This city is incredible. Everyone has a very important place to be and not much time to get there. And they run. People sprint down the sidewalk to catch buses and taxis. I'm expecting to turn the next corner and see the Cloverfield monster climbing up the side of a building and destroying monuments. People run up and down escalators to the metro, even when it's clearly visible that the metro hasn't arrived, and I catch myself doing it now. It's like Mardi Gras on Bourbon St (minus the booze, vomit and transvestites). Once you get caught up in the sea of people, you go with the flow or you drown.

Thanks to Michael Silver and Dr. Lee and her wonderful family, I'm picking up my guitar from her brother in Virginia today. I am forever in debt.

A preview of posts to come: Exorcism at 30,000 ft., The Mighty Chewbacca, Staying Crunk in the ATL, Meeting Ron Paul, The National Press Foundation Awards Dinner, DC Bars and People, The Hotline, Roommates, Interns, etc...

A few links:

My Internship Program
http://www.wcpj.org

The Hotline (where I work)
http://nationaljournal.com/about/hotline/

National Press Foundation Awards Dinner
http://www.nationalpress.org/info-url_nocat3523/info-url_nocat.htm