The Center of the Universe

In which our man in Washington dines with dairymen, ponders politics with gay Republicans, and investigates interns.

Michael W. Lynch from the October 1999 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Date: Mon, August 9, 1999 9:39:00 AM
From: [e-mail]
Subj: Mentoring Session

I figured it would be a tough assignment when I saw the bouncer guarding the door. I'd been to the Capitol Lounge many times, and had never before needed any papers to get into the Pennsylvania Avenue watering hole. Sixty-seven bars have been cited for serving underage patrons this summer, "this being one of them," the full-faced fellow at the door said no less than three times when I inquired about the reason for his employment.

I was on hand Friday to observe interns in action. Congress had just adjourned for the summer, and Washington's legions of interns had all been working long enough to form deep thoughts on this city, government, and the role they play in it. It would be tough to get the youngsters to talk: A Roll Call story at the start of the intern season had caused their Hill bosses to issue a universal gag order. I expected I'd have to wait until they got drunk. The bouncer made my job all the more difficult.

Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on complete strangers. My summer sidekick, Jonathan Block, had rounded up some colleagues. We sat down over happy-hour pints and two orders of hot wings in the basement cigar and martini lounge.

"So are you having fun?" I asked. A woman working for a legal group said she wasn't. "They are working my ass off and not giving me any respect," she said. She worked all day while the rest of her office practiced their golf game in the hallways, hitting her in the feet with errant putts and chips. "It was hell," she said.

Note to organization presidents: Don't leave the office for extended periods of time. When you take a vacation, so too does your staff, except they take theirs on the clock. I was regaled with tales of Fridays so casual that most people didn't show up for work, and those who did left early. Said a leggy 21-year-old in an Ally McBeal skirt, "If someone leaves early on Friday, everyone else has to leave also." She'd been at the bar since early afternoon.

The staff of another research organization whose president was on vacation spent the portion of the day not dedicated to a three-hour lunch playing "sardines," a version of hide-and-go-seek. Said one intern, in what I assume was a figurative expression, "The office has gone to pot."

As the evening rolled on, the $2 pints started to establish themselves. The Violent Femmes' "Add It Up" blared from the jukebox. My own intern announced that it was time for shots. I declined at first, citing my advanced age and my Lovely Wife. But I was quickly humbled into it.

Block soon took to dancing around, and then on, the pool table, with a fellow intern who managed to keep her feet on the floor. Academic looking--short straight hair, cut to no particular style, and "I read serious books" wire-rim glasses--Block's dance partner is no introverted intellectual. When her summer stint is up in D.C., she's not flying back to California. She's going Greyhound to see the country from the ground. (See "Road Trip," March.)

The Weekly Standard's Tucker Carlson claims that nobody rides the bus any more. That's just not true. She wasn't the only one. A Cato intern with a buzz cut and long sideburns told how he recently Greyhounded from Wisconsin to Salt Lake City to see a girl. He met the "neatest people" on the bus. Two of those people, an orange-haired guy and his purple-haired girlfriend, each amply pierced, were fleeing the deadening boredom of Chicago's suburban "sprawl" for the old "new urbanism" of San Francisco. They planned to live on the streets.

The interns seemed to like D.C. A fellow from Hawaii said spending a summer in Washington meant "being in the mainstream, the center of the universe." The bus bound dancer agreed. "Who could ever want to leave D.C.?" she asked.

After the shots, a fellow from Claremont McKenna College and I proceeded to thump my inebriated intern and his partner at pool. By now, the leggy intern was skillfully working the room for free drinks. She was temporarily wrapped around an athletic-looking fellow who'd recently made the transition from Hill committee staff to a p.r. firm and therefore could afford the tab.

She slinked over to check in. She didn't care if I quoted her, but wanted to be sure I described her as "leggy," a word she had earlier seen me scribble in my Looney Tunes notepad. A student at the University of Southern California, she was also interested in an internship in REASON's L.A. office. That's the spirit. You're exactly what the L.A. office, or any office for that matter, needs, I told her, as she rewarded my kindness with a hug. I said Associate Editor Jesse Walker would certainly have something for her to do, and I promised to put in a good word.