Banned in D.C. - Part 1 - July 12, 2007

Monty: She says I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble. I mean she's right, but what can I do? I got no... what's the word...
Nicky: Class.

- Easy Money (1983)

Litigation's as much about not losing as it is winning. If you've pled anything before a Court, you know sometimes you have to argue junk. The papers, the law, the rules - it all says your client's doomed. But you're paid to reply - to advocate something in opposition... Suspend disbelief and bark out the absurd with conviction, as forcefully as possible, as though it were credible, accurate and correct on every point... The sheer force of your argument compelling the opponent to engage you. Once you're engaged, you are credible. And once you're credible, you're past offensive or sanctionable - skirting legitimate - an advocate pleading an argument that just might win. You won't ultimately, but you've dodged sanctions, embarrassment and probably a few of the bigger claims against your client. A win of sorts, or at least a non-loss - all for acting impassioned and repeating yourself a lot.

It's a great all purpose strategy; works as well in or out of a courtroom...

It was Washington D.C. 1995. Stacy, a good friend from college was throwing a party the same weekend I happened to be in town visiting other mutual school friends.

"We'll stop by at 8:00 then." My buddy Les announced this to her over sandwiches outside Dean & DeLuca in Georgetown.

"Why don't you come at 11:00."

"11:00? The party will be half over!"

"Well I just don't think it'd be a good idea before 11:00."

"We have a handle of bourbon on ice. You don't need any extra booze! It'll just be Phil, ________, Bennett and me. You have some food there, right?"

"Really, I don't want you coming by until 11:00. I don't think it's the sort of crowd that... Well... I don't know if you should show up with a handle of bourbon."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Stacy excused herself.

"Good job. Now what are we going to do?" Bennett snickered.

"We're going to fucking go." Les was on a mission. "Who the fuck is she to tell me who I can and can't hang out with?"

Stacy had moved to DC after college, to save the world. She worked for a think tank, advocating some platform of amorphous progressive policies, regulations and initiatives. She'd told me about the work she was doing, but I can't recall any of it. I was a law student wasting three, sometimes four days a week wading in the residue of mental masturbation. I had no intention of paying attention to hers. I stared, smiled and said "Interesting" a lot (cue picture of monkey eating banana and scratching it's ass above my head).

DC's a terrible place for the apathetic... A lonely town for pragmatists, which is odd, since it only operates as it should when mired in absolute paralytic gridlock. Washington seems to be filled with "soft protestors" - people whose personalities' only weight is their current zeal for some position or issue that dominates everything they say. That's hardly surprising. DC's a stop-off city, a fifth year in college with a paycheck and a McJob. People work for nickels on the Hill or in some quasi-governmental organization for a time and, when their friends start moving and they decide they need to get paid for real, leave. Which kind of explains why the people you talk to at parties there know so much.

I've never known how to handle protesting or zealous types. They seem to get a lot more out of whatever "movement" they're flogging than the movement gets from them. The ones I met in DC are perfect Left Wing bookends to the warped fundamentalists they rip as troglodytes over crab-stuffed lettuce leaves and brie. Maybe even less credible. The soft protestors are incapable of uttering anything outside the parameters of what their college ethics professor preached. It's hard as hell to get a good drunk going in the company of people talking "rights" and "inequity" and "policy change." Being forced to drink somewhere else and show up late for a party full of them was probably a gift.

Les didn't see it that way. We showed up at 9:00, carrying cheese, red wine and the frozen handle of Jim Beam. Bennett, Les and Phil staked out seats in a sitting room at the front of the house. I snuck back to the kitchen and grabbed a shot glass, to start a proper "bourbon club." Stacy and I made brief eye contact as I was pushing through the crush of bodies in the middle room. Neither of us acknowledged the other. I brought the shot glass back to the front room. We started into the bottle.

Five or six shots in, Stacy cut loose from a conversation nearby and asked us what we were doing. "I see you're all very social."

"We're not allowed to socialize, are we?" Les laughed.

"You're so funny." Stacy smiled and walked into a conversation behind her. I followed suit, meandering through the crowd, looking for an interesting discussion.

A lot of the partygoers wore thick black glasses, the sort architects and interior designers favor. They leaned on the furniture and pursed their lips between exclamations.

"The rejection of Hillary's health plan was a terrible blow, but we soldier on..."

"I think we're making real headway on the bill. It's tough, though. It's an issue of worker empowerment, and I... I think that resonates. We've all worked, you know?"

"I'm really excited by the Senator's initiative. Solid waste is a huge industrial problem. I was walking to dinner at Perry's and the trash outside, I mean, most of it was just bulk. Boxes. Do we need that much cardboard? You think, 'how much of the Rainforest is in there?'"

A white wine crowd... And they all held their drinks the same way - bowl of the glass cupped in the hand, stem dangling between the fingers. If conspicuously sniffing, chopping and tasting a cigar between belts of an overpriced single malt is the cheap signaling of a self-envisioned alpha male, the hand-on-hip, wine-glass-between-the-ring-and-middle-fingers pose is the effete pseudo-intellectual's. It's an adult variety of the "Emo" look, but instead of angst, they offer you cites to last month's Harper's or Atlantic.

Everyone was trying to seem cutting edge, or what passed for it in think tank and policy wonk circles. Which made them all pretty much indistinguishable from one another. It was the usual fashion show of hipness you'd get in a New York or LA club except nobody was hot or had drugs, and James Taylor was playing instead of Prodigy... More a dog and pony show for people with ambitious vocabularies and fiscally unfortunate graduate degrees.

I fired back a couple more drinks, to reach the proper cruising altitude for mingling:

"I actually liked Ross Perot. It was just... I don't know. He was so short."

"The last thing I saw would have to be Dolomite. My buddy's obsessed with it. He watches it all the time now."

"Andrea Dworkin's still alive? The one who looked like Mama Cass? Remember when she used to do Morton Downey's show all the time with Curtis Sliwa? Head of the Guardian Angels. That guy was so annoying."

Stacy was irate that we'd arrived two hours early, but she hid it well. "Hello, ______. Have you met Chad and Marlin?"

"No, nice to meet you."

"They're lobbyists. They do a lot of work on 'alternative issues'." 'Alternative' was drawn out, offered proudly, as though it were exotic, or described something huge and important I knew nothing about. I knew what it meant. And if I didn't know the word, there was no way to mistake it in context. Chad eyed me like a steak and Marlin had Anderson Cooper's hair. Both of which were signs I'd finally stumbled into an interesting conversation.

It's a terrible stereotype, but as most stereotypes are, it's rooted in truth - gay men are usually the funniest people in any party. I've stolen tons of odd cultural references and jokes from them. Men's men run thin after a couple hours... Golf, scores, scotch, the stock market and embellished womanizing... It's a limited universe, and most of the dialogue isn't a conversation so much as an exhibitionist rant with a "Now Validate Me" ending. I try not to, but I find myself doing it a lot - it seems to be hard wired into the male animal. It isn't right or wrong and if you do it well it can be damn funny. Hell, it's basically half my cocktail party material... But it isn't as humorous as the stuff a really witty gay dude will flip off. They're like women, but with the balls to unload all the nasty, biting observations only women have but are too shit scared from social conditioning to offer.

If you're homophobic, you're a fool for two simple reasons. First, stealing their jokes will get you laid. Second, try to imagine how much harder it would be to meet women if every gay man suddenly went straight? You think she'd select your gut hanging over the pants, jorts wearing, wing-chomping, Budweiser Select swilling, hypnotized-into-a-coma-by-the-televison lard ass from the end of the bar if she could grab some skinny dude who cracked her up and knew how to dance?

Unfortunately, Stacy's gay friends hadn't a stitch of Paul Lynde wit. They were strident DC queers, relating everything in the world to their sexuality as a political issue and defining characteristic.

"Being a gay man in DC used to be awful. It's just now that things are beginning to change. We had Reagan here, so the 80s were a total loss."

"It's just now that the culture's being mainstreamed, with bars and clubs and places where it's accepted. Everybody had to meet everybody at parties in the old days."

No pop culture references. No pithy quotes. Nothing worth plagiarizing. It wasn't them. It wasn't what they were. It was the town. Unless you're an objective journalist or a cynical lobbyist, it's probably impossible not to wind up self important and humorless about whatever big movement you're involved in hanging around that swamp.

I offered levity to break the monotony:

"You think its easy meeting chicks? I wish I were gay. At least you know the playing field. There's always some guy in the bar who wants to fuck. You never know what a woman's agenda is, and most of them don't even know what they want. Plus, nobody ever gets knocked up on your side of the fence. And you never have to put down the toilet seat. It's a win/win."

"Excuse us for a second." Stacy asked me to accompany her to the kitchen.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"What? I thought that was a compliment."

"That's the problem. Just stay in here and drink."

To Be Continued...

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 2:17 PM

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Sadly, this scene is only too easy to visualize. All you need now is an ex-girlfriend to show up and the bad party experience will be complete.

Posted by: Matt at July 12, 2007 11:49 PM

I'm kind of torn. There are the funny, cool ones who just happen to be gay and if you get along with them, can hook you up with their female friends.

The problem is that there's also the extreme ones who embody all of the negative aspects of a female (shallow, bitchy, functionally retarded, etc.) without the big boobs or sweet ass to make their rants tolerable.

From the looks of it, you've met the latter. I'm excited to read the rest, as well as your book.

Posted by: John Smith at July 13, 2007 09:26 AM

"That's the problem. Just stay in here and drink."

That one line summed up almost every party or gathering my "politer(word?)" friends have invited me to over the past 5 or 6 years....

It's both depressing, and comforting at the same time..

Posted by: Conor at July 13, 2007 12:43 PM

DC is fucked, I live here and can't wait to leave. Senor has summed it up quite well. Luckily i backed out of the fiscally unfortunate graduate program before getting in too deep.

Posted by: Andrew at July 13, 2007 03:41 PM

Banned in D.C. with a thousand more places to go.

The 'Black Dots' version, I hope.

Posted by: backwards7 at July 13, 2007 04:33 PM

Isn't this the "automatic" story you wrote earlier, but then edited out a ton of the details for the second part?

I do hope you revert back to the earlier version. Masters, like Jimmy Page, often had their best work on the first or second take.. I find your overly edited work to lose the power and "incredible" factor.. just keep in mind Page did his Heartbreaker solo as a second take..

PL: I am no Jimmy Page, but thank you.

You're right. There are "Dead" listeners who want a 20 min. "St. Stephen>Eleven>Alligator" and there are 3:30 pop song listeners. I am actually more in your camp than the other.

We're searching for the middle. You can only fit 74 min on the cd...

By the way, "Heartbreaker" is great, but Zeppelin I crushes Zeppelin II in my opinion. "How Many More Times" is the heaviest rock track ever recorded. And if you like that crazy loose guitar Page used to play, buy the BBC Sessions. There's some amazing shit on there. And "How the West Was Won."

Best,
PL

Posted by: long time reader at July 14, 2007 01:33 AM

pffff, nothing is heavier than pantera. :P

PL: I think we're using different definitions of "heavy."

Posted by: Jeffy at July 14, 2007 12:26 PM

"We've all worked, you know" Spot on characterization of the guaranteed party conversations - people managing to find it in them to sip expensive wine as they regroup from the war that is their daily life.

Posted by: Tim at July 14, 2007 07:43 PM

Beside the fact that I really enjoyed reading this, just like any other PL-story I've read so far, there was one thing pretty much jumping at me:
"bowl of the glass cupped in the hand" - excuse me, a WINE glass? I don't drink wine that often, and am basically not what could be considered 'classy' (please, who is that at 17?) but even I know better than THAT! You may hold your Cognac like that, but wine should have room temperature (though that of a Norman castle, so in fact lightly chilled), there is absolutely no need to warm it with your hand.
Sorry for that (quite pointless) little rant, but I don't like posers, and posers who don't even know what they're doing anger me even more.

Posted by: unclassy at July 15, 2007 07:18 PM

I'm only gay on the internet.

PL: And ecstacy.

Posted by: Shape at July 16, 2007 01:41 PM

Have to agree that you're spot-on with regard to Led Zeppelin I being better than Led Zeppelin II. Plant's voice was so much leaner and more feral before he started singing about Hobbits and knob-goblins and shit.

All things considered, though, I'll take Led Zep III over both of the above. "Celebration Day" + "Out on the Tiles" = Rock 'n' Fuckin' Roll.

PL: Oh, "Out on the Tiles" is great. the drums are nuts on that track. But on the balance, I find III uneven.

But III is the contrarian's favorite Zeppelin record, so you're in good company.

I fucking hate the Hobbit lyrics. "Raamble On' is an unlistenable piece of shit.

Posted by: Harris Sterling at July 16, 2007 03:05 PM

Spot on Phila. Conversation in this town is less a dialogue than a soliloquy, albeit a limited one concerning the infinite pleasures of single-malt scotch (always advocate the cheap blends), who's going to win what meaningless political race, and what stupid thing did some paunchy vulgarian say on the Sunday morning talk shows. Sorry, my hero is not Tim Russert or some other vanilla lard ass with a lantern jaw who talks about sports yet last saw his toes when he was twelve. My heroes play guitar and can rip through a flawless rendering of "Eruption" after guzzling half a bottle of JD, and that's Jack Daniels not Juris Doctorate.

Posted by: Silent Id at July 16, 2007 08:27 PM

this is the automatic story, isn't it? I urge you to use the earlier version before you re-edited it. Remember how a lot of the master's best stuff was in their earlier takes.. for example Page's heartbreaker solo was a 2nd or 3rd I believe. Your writing is great, and very much reminds me of other master's of their respective crafts (such as Page)

Posted by: long time reader at July 17, 2007 12:34 PM

I never got why people think led zeppelin is the number one rock band of all time. i think they blow by definition of being more overrated than the beatles, although I say that as a contrarian of (zeppelin) contrarians. :P

btw, props for the bad brains reference.

Posted by: Jeffy at July 17, 2007 01:54 PM

"the hand-on-hip, wine-glass-between-the-ring-and-middle-fingers pose is the effete pseudo-intellectual's."

Why is it that when people describe other's they refer to them always as pseudo-intellectuals? Why pseudo? Aren't there any actual intellectuals?

Posted by: Horus at July 17, 2007 03:38 PM

Wow, I haven't had to spend any significant time in DC, but from the quick glance I've had, it seemed to be exactly the fake, boring, post-college pseudo-leftist circlejerk that you described. Thats why I love my hometown, Baltimore, its trashy, its dirty, its dangerous, but it is an honest town with internal beauty. DC is like the annoying, hot, trendy bitch, Baltimore is her fun, raunchy, less attractive sister.

Posted by: First time reader at July 19, 2007 03:33 AM

The ones PL describes as "pseudo" ... I get the impression that he does so because they do not demonstrate original thinking. At least when I use the term, that's what I'm typically referring to. The guy who parrots whatever party line that he's adopted today, or some sound bite from CNN without knowing what it's really about. The type of person who quotes the headline from a story without having read it. Big words without context or substance. Just my take on it, anyway.

Posted by: Rico at July 19, 2007 10:23 AM

Nice title, Bad Brains kick ass. Are you a fan of the Stooges? "Funhouse" would be a great soundtrack for your more debauched stories.

PL: I own the remasters of all three of the Stooges original records. You can't do better than the Stooges and MC5.

I even like the strange John Cale mixes on the Stooges discs.

Posted by: Dan at July 20, 2007 08:43 PM

What is a "frozen handle"?

PL: Jim Beam 1.75 liter bottle has a handle on it. It's cheap bourbon and should be drunk mixed or in shots. The colder it is, the easier it is to tolerate.

Posted by: Sean at July 29, 2007 10:48 PM

The last time I was in DC I woke up naked on your friend's couch. Talk about bad brains...

PL: This is her place, dude. The bourbon was being passed around on that couch.

That's where I met that crazy chick with the huge bush and I'm told you went "shopping" in some park.

It's all such a fucking mess.

Posted by: Rosie Palmer at July 31, 2007 06:46 PM

No! Self control... I got no self control... You think I got no class? No Monty, you've got plenty of class!

Posted by: Rosie Palmer at July 31, 2007 06:48 PM

d00d, wtf. write us up some more ill shizzzn1zzle.

PL: Book issues are holding things up. Sorry.

Posted by: el jefe at August 2, 2007 02:55 AM

PL, a little off the subject but what's your opinion of Velvet Underground? Considering buying the box set and wanted to get your input.

PL: They live up to every bit of hype and legend around them. Every one of their records is great. Lou Reed is in the Cole Porter category of songwriter. Simple, but so damn good.

My favorite Velvets discs are late issues, "Vol. I and II" live. I don't own the box because I have a lot of it already. But I'd say you can't go wrong. The expanded version of "Loaded" is also great.

Oh, and Reed's "New York" is a great, mean record.

Posted by: phillies fan at August 2, 2007 01:08 PM

Just a quick note to say thank you for kicking ass and providing me with lots of great reading at work! Cheers mate

Posted by: PattyO'Brien at August 8, 2007 03:35 PM