just got back from the nation's capitol yesterday after spending the week doing the lobbyist thing, working what were once smoke-filled corridors of congress and doing the power dinner with lots of red meat, hired guns, senior legislative staff, and an assortment of trophy wives.
taking up substantial portions of the nation's headlines this week was the code red emergency that resulted from the wayward pilot of a cesna. while we can all laugh at the folly, it was a bit harrowing as i was lunching in the rayburn house office building when the PA announcement came down that we were to evacuate. staff people were running past me in the stairwells and streaming out of the exits and i had one of those 'is this how it ends?' moments. and the truth of the matter is that if the shit were to hit the fan in a big way, no amount of running would have saved me or the thousands of other people that were on capitol hill that day.
once order was restored, everybody went back to their business of legislating the needs of the nation. i had a full day of meetings and was surprised that chairman of the house intellectual property subcommitte lamar smith remembered meeting me two years ago. and the representative from my home district henry waxman remembered meeting me from last year. i guess being a corean-am porn defender tends to stick out in the minds of even the busiest and most powerful of legislators.
the highlight of my time in the district occurred during a reception the coalition i was representing hosted on tuesday night. it turns out that the reception that was going on at the same time in the next room down brought in some performers from nyc. congressman jerry nadler invited a quartet headlined by wynton freakin marsalis (!!!) to play for about an hour.
i did my grip-n-grin at my reception for a little while before sneaking off to go next door for what was a once in a lifetime type thing. how often do you get to hear the greatest jazz trumpet player of a generation play, non-amplified, in a room with less than 40 other people? three days later and i'm still stoked off the performance. i walked out of the performance feeling like mohammad come down form the mountian, having acheived enlightenment and nirvana, having received the sacrament that is great jazz.
taking up substantial portions of the nation's headlines this week was the code red emergency that resulted from the wayward pilot of a cesna. while we can all laugh at the folly, it was a bit harrowing as i was lunching in the rayburn house office building when the PA announcement came down that we were to evacuate. staff people were running past me in the stairwells and streaming out of the exits and i had one of those 'is this how it ends?' moments. and the truth of the matter is that if the shit were to hit the fan in a big way, no amount of running would have saved me or the thousands of other people that were on capitol hill that day.
once order was restored, everybody went back to their business of legislating the needs of the nation. i had a full day of meetings and was surprised that chairman of the house intellectual property subcommitte lamar smith remembered meeting me two years ago. and the representative from my home district henry waxman remembered meeting me from last year. i guess being a corean-am porn defender tends to stick out in the minds of even the busiest and most powerful of legislators.
the highlight of my time in the district occurred during a reception the coalition i was representing hosted on tuesday night. it turns out that the reception that was going on at the same time in the next room down brought in some performers from nyc. congressman jerry nadler invited a quartet headlined by wynton freakin marsalis (!!!) to play for about an hour.
i did my grip-n-grin at my reception for a little while before sneaking off to go next door for what was a once in a lifetime type thing. how often do you get to hear the greatest jazz trumpet player of a generation play, non-amplified, in a room with less than 40 other people? three days later and i'm still stoked off the performance. i walked out of the performance feeling like mohammad come down form the mountian, having acheived enlightenment and nirvana, having received the sacrament that is great jazz.
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i had to read that first sentence aloud to the lady - it was so well constructed.
i've never heard the term "high cheese" before. this is what i found when i looked it up: high cheese
which still didn't answer much. is that a term for baseball in general?
apparently there's also a lot of high cheese prices, and High Cheese recipes. and, of course, when i was in high school we called that extra-High-staring-at-your-shoes feeling "feeling cheesey".
did you happen to catch the Daily Show's take on the cesna in D.C. incident? pure genius. and that's why i download tv shows.
xox
L.