Formerly Piratz Tavern

Piratz Tavern, last seen getting some un-helpful aid from reality TV show Bar Rescue, is shutting down for good this weekend. Having eventually made good on my promise to give it another shot, I'm not too disappointed by that news, even if my second visit proved more pleasant that my first. The place was cleaner, service was quicker, the server remembered my orders (that seems like a low bar, but I was sitting at a table with fourteen other people, all working off separate checks), and the pirate-y banter was kept to a minimum. It may not have made for a great night out, but I didn't leave wondering what the hell I had just experienced, either.

The "if you don't like it, you can leave" arguments have persisted, among both staff and regular patrons. It's not a good look to cavil at this stage but self-restraint is not my strong suit and I'll never get this chance again: you shouldn't have to "just know" that most of the menu is best left ignored. And while a person may have a better time if they're willing to go with the flow until there's enough booze in their bloodstream that they can ignore the awkward interactions with the crew, it's not fair to expect anyone to know that going in. That is, you shouldn't have to show up tipsy in order to have a chance at a better time--it's not your cousin's dry wedding.

Lastly, the origin of "grog" is less appropriate than one might assume. It was named for a substance first brewed by the British Royal Navy (mortal enemies of pirates, basically) and introduced by Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, nicknamed "Old Grog" for the grogam coat he wore. Vernon started cutting his men's rum rations with water and lime juice to prevent spoilage as well as ongoing discipline problems among the men (and it was later found to prevent scurvy). Men who remembered the older, purer (and no doubt more satisfying) ration took to calling it "grog" and the name stuck long after those men were replaced by younger sailors with no memory of how good things used to be (scurvy-resistant though those new men were). Grog, then, is a slur for watered-down rum introduced by a well-meaning British naval officer. Not something I'd be eager to drink, but to each their own.

All that said, Piratz has gotten enough crap for wanting nothing more than to be a fun place to gather, with Bar Rescue being just its most public chapter. Looking back on that episode, I'm still not sure whether Jon Taffer was trolling the Piratz crew or whether, in attempting to air out the piratey-ness that he never quite comprehended, he had concocted the worst possible idea to turn the bar around. It's especially confounding when you watch other episodes of the show and see Taffer competently (if loudly) remaking bars without lurching from one gimmick to another. Or maybe having personal experience allows me a level of insight that I'll never be able to have with the few dozen other establish Bar Rescue has profiled. Corporate Bar was a thoroughly terrible idea--at least a Pirate gimmick is vaguely appealing.

Taffer sees bars as a money-making venture, full stop. Tracy Rebelo and her staff--along with their most faithful patrons--saw it as a place for fun. No gimmick was going to make the two sides understand one another. Cue reality television.

For my part, I'll never understand why a bar needs a gimmick at all. Its neighbor across the street never did, unless "noisy but with a good beer list" counts as a gimmick. But even if Quarry House never opens its doors again (and you can support them here), downtown Silver Spring is not losing its status as a bar haven. Because it never was one. It's a late-to-bed suburb with aspirations toward to an upscale nighttime destination. When its residents want to drink out, we take the minutes-long trip into the District. The bars lucky enough to survive here make a lot of coin as twenty-somethings become thirty-somethings and want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Goodbye, Piratz Tavern. You were never for me, but you never tried to be. You knew what you were and what you wanted to be, save for one brief, strange experiment. There's something admirable in that. I'll have a glass of (undiluted) rum in memory of that. And try to not remember all the other stuff.

Who Wants to Hang Out on Thursday?

Hey, everybody. I'll be reading live and in person at Upshur Street Books on January 22nd. That's tomorrow if you're reading this today, today if you're reading this tomorrow, and yesterday if you're reading this on Friday (in which case, you can ignore this and enjoy your weekend). We'll be starting around 7pm and going until they kick me out. Come talk with me, check out Nos Populus, and support a small, local bookstore. All in one crazy* Thursday night.

aois21 will also be in attendance, if you're a writer looking for some guidance.

Hope to see you there, hiding in the back, desperately hoping not to be noticed and called on to speak up or do something else potentially embarrassing, as I'm sure many of my readers will. That's how I'd approach it, anyway.

*The author will not be held responsible for the level of craziness to be found at the advertised event.

The Gaping Maw of Hubris Incarnate

The baseball gods are, as we know, cruel. And petty. And though their brains are composed largely of syphilis clusters, they are not like to forget slights. Anything from banishing a goat from a stadium, to taking a simple bribe, to trading away the greatest player of his generation. It's always a seemingly simple affair, but one tug on that string can render future decades of toil futile. None of this is new information.

Why, then, did the hubristic souls who run the Washington Nationals' fourth inning Presidents Race decide, on the cusp of their first ever division title, to overturn years of carefully planned sideshows when everything had been going perfectly well? That's when the gods strike you down: when you think yourself as a shaper of the baseball narrative rather than a passive spectator. And then, with the evidence whipped out for all to see, dangling in their faces, they continued the farce for a further two years. And just recently, with a second division title under their belt, with Teddy having topped the leaderboard for the first time, they chose to have him win during the first game of the NLDS (Nats lost), and then not once but twice during the eighteen-inning marathon that was Game 2 (Nats lost... again). And something tells me if they hadn't been finished off in San Francisco, the organizers would have displayed a similarly suicidal lack of pattern recognition upon their return home.

The Nats let Teddy win again this game in the 2nd presidents race. They foolishly mock the #teddycurse
— Chris Moody (@moody) October 5, 2014

Maybe it's not entirely fair to blame the PT Barnums of the world for giving the mob what they want. It was the fans, after all, who fast lined up behind Teddy, the underdog with the infectious smile. It was a natural fit: a franchise trying to forge an identity in a new city, with a new(ish) name, struggling to win--just as they had been in Montreal. People like saying that they like underdogs and with the President's Race--in the form of Teddy--Nationals fans had one. A guy you never expected much of and who never won, even though he really wanted to. Maybe not the best representative of one of the wealthiest, most insulated metro regions in the country, but well-suited to the look that a fledgling team and fledgling-er fanbase likes to imagine itself wearing. "Let Teddy Win," they demanded. "Teddy 2012!," they cried. Indeed.

It is at this point that I pause and wonder again just why Teddy was the loser-president for all those years. Theodore Roosevelt is, with no real exception, our most magnificent president. Not best, per se, but certainly the one that the others would be most terrified of being compared to. He could take every other president in a fight... and I don't mean one at a time. You've probably heard the story about the time Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin on his way to deliver a speech--and then went to deliver that speech before bothering to seek medical attention. If Theodore Roosevelt were a Batman villain, he'd be Bane, whose physicality makes you forget his nimble brain--he's almost too perfect. And yet, there Teddy was, for years on end--the butt of the jokes of the other three presidents (now four, for some reason). It's almost as though no serious thought was put into this mascot race whatsoever.

No longer. Teddy has been unleashed upon the Nationals' fortunes, carving their playoff stints into Panama Canals on two separate occasions (trust-busting was the better analogy there, wasn't it? Oh well, next time). And if his double-header win in Game 2 is any indication, the operators of the Presidents Race have stubbornly refused to acknowledge the gods' painfully clear signals.

So. Has it been worth it, Washington? Have the victories of your hydrocephalic god-king been worth this turn in fortunes for an emergent franchise? Will you continue to sacrifice promising young talent on this grotesque altar that you've built? Or do you now comprehend the needless horror that you've inflicted upon yourselves? Let him win no more. Wipe the record books clean. Only then may the gods see fit to smile upon Navy Yard.

Or maybe the Nationals just clinched the division too soon and went up against a still-loose Giants squad. I don't know. But it's definitely one of those.

America's Dump

America sends its garbage to Washington and then blames the city when the stench wafts their way.

This Washington Post piece has been popular with the "at least you don't have to live with them" crowd, but because it was run under the Post Local heading it's not getting much play elsewhere. Also because no one gives a shit about the human beings who, you know, live here. Actual Washingtonians are, as I said when this masturbatory exercise got underway, an abstraction to most of the country. Granted, people are often abstractions when they live far enough away, but at least it's kind of fair to blame Texas for Ted Cruz. The District of Columbia, for reasons both arcane and childish, has no representation for itself. The only advantage to that situation is that Washingtonians are the only Americans who cannot share in the blame for any of this.

Not that it enures us from the shutdown. Just the opposite. We're the ones who live and work here, either for a government that legally prohibits us from working, or for a business that's suffering because federal employees' cash is no longer flowing their way (each had been hit badly enough by the sequester). Even those of us not directly impacted know people who are: friends and family who are angry, bitter, and bored, and who will receive back pay... eventually. In the meantime, they get to deal with the psychic impact of being forbidden from doing their jobs. For an area that has a lot of people who chose to go to work serving their country, that's no small thing.

But it's, "Washington," sneered through the fat lips of the ill-informed, that's the problem.

Example: a group of truckers thinks it'll be a good idea to "shutdown the Beltway" this weekend. The plan, near as I can tell, involves driving slowly around the Beltway for the duration of the three-day weekend, blaring their horns and generally forcing all and sundry to listen to their loud irritation with the present state of affairs. For those not familiar with DC's geography, the "Beltway" is I-495, a highway that branches I-95 into a loop around (not through) the District. It's an important road for drivers in the area and we all hate it. Here's the kicker: the politicians to be protested aren't using it. Many of them stay here on weekends and those that don't have little use for 495, anyway (Reagan National Airport is inside the Beltway). Capitol Hill will not hear your sirens. And I promise Obama will have no use for the road this weekend, either: he has a helicopter. The only people this punishes are the people who live here and who will need to get somewhere. They are the ones who will bare the brunt of the frustration of people who, in line with the inconvenient realities of democracy, are at least partly responsible for our terrible, terrible government.

As if it wasn't bad enough getting bullied by the self-serving, under-qualified, assclown members of Congress who manufactured the problem. Members sent here entirely by other people.

We, as a nation, have to live with the mistakes of the American voter. Some more intimately than others. Washingtonians don't ask for an apology (apologies mean more when they're volunteered); just an acknowledgement of that fact. And for everyone else to stop lumping them in with the other people's refuse.

Shutdown

Mrs. Half-Drunken Scribe is a non-furloughed federal employee. So she gets to keep working, probably for real money. Too many others aren't so lucky. That includes a lot of friends.

If congressional Republicans want to strike Obamacare from history, they need to appropriate funding to build a time machine, and use it to get Mitt Romney elected president. Obamacare may not be the most popular legislation (though it becomes less unpopular when referred to by its proper name), but it was installed by a democratically-elected House and Senate, and backed by a president who ran on a platform to improve access to healthcare. It survived a Supreme Court challenge. And when that same president, who banked his job on this very law, won reelection, that was end game. That was the signal from on high that this law, warts and all, must be allowed to go forward. To aim for anything less is cheap, cowardly, and unconstitutional.

And those were the appropriate adjectives before a government shutdown and a default crisis got thrown into the mix. But, after all, this is the Tea Party: the self-important, half-informed, thin-skinned, cosplaying, paper patriots. People for whom the democratic process becomes moot as soon as it coughs up a result they don't like. People who love America so much, they're willing to kill it before anyone else... gets access to healthcare.

They're not fighting against something that was rammed down America's throat, as they would have you believe; America's had ample opportunity to shut this thing down. Sure, the law isn't great, but when Republicans make every effort to block the thing, it's not because they have a better idea. They didn't have an answer for preexisting conditions and the subsequent millions of uninsured aside from "get a job." They didn't have--and still don't have--an answer for healthcare's abominable costs, only part of which will actually be addressed by Obamacare (again, not a great series of laws, just the best one possible (apparently)). They keep flogging free market approaches, cheerfully forgetting that the market is in no way capable of handling healthcare costs. They've got nothing. And they know it. Or they'd have had something substantive to add.

Now we get no government. For anyone or anything except "essential services." No one who matters seems to care about the blind-spots that will impact even the still-operating agencies. Or how the national economy will be impacted.

And then there's the $200 million that the Washington area could lose every day. Whenever you hear someone talk about DC, it's never about the people who live here. These people are abstractions, even the ones who don't work for the federal or city governments. But we feel the impact when spending gets cut, because we all know people getting furloughed, going without paychecks. There's a word for people who threaten livelihoods to prove ideological points. I'd tell it to you straight, but it'll stick better if you figure it out for yourself.

This will almost certainly hurt Republicans in the short and medium terms. And it probably won't affect the Affordable Care Act too badly (it may even give the program a crutch if people can blame any holes on a lack of government). But it's hard for me to care about either of those things right now.

I just want my friends to go back to work.

Thank You For Riding Metro

Ever run to board a train before the doors close, only to have the person in front of you inexplicably slow down as they pass into the car? As though the "door closing" chime is a signal sounded just for them, telling them they've made it and can relax? Not even because the car is packed--the car may, in fact, have ample standing room and a few single seats to spare--but because they can?

Good news: it turns out you're allowed--nay, encouraged--to push them. Just shove 'em out of the way! Kids, too? Sure, kids love to learn. Old people? Of course! After all, if anyone needs to hurry it along, it's those with pressing time constraints. After all, you have places to be and you'd have been there quicker, but you really needed to rub one out before you left your house this morning and that's other people's problem now.

So remember to push the douchebags and thank you for riding Metro.*

The DC Metro system sucks. I spent a long time trying to defend it in a country that sorely needs better public transport options, but I gave up that ghost a while ago. The delays, the single tracking, the myriad safety issues, the rising costs; indefensible. I won't catalog all of the infrastructural failings and institutional incompetence/apathy. There's a perfectly good blog already doing that. Although: the green line meltdown last week? Metro cares not for meltdowns.

And the riders help nothing. It's not just the anecdotal incidents I've witnessed, such as the tourist family posing for a photo in front of open train doors at Metro Center during rush hour. Or the group of a dozen or so grown-ass men and women (we're talking mid-to-late forties) taking turns indulging one another with their horrifying, music-less, pole dancing techniques. It's the little things, the things that should be eliminated through basic observation and consideration and yet remain universal.

For example, people sitting on the outside of the 2x2 row seating when both seats are empty. And then, when that person is asked to move--a rarity, it seems--they simply swing their legs around to allow the new person some ten inches of maneuverable room through which to access the inside seat, only to be squashed in by Lazy McSelfish-Ass' freely swinging legs.

And then there's the blatant disregard for the Escalator Rule. Most of you immediately know what I'm talking about because you've likely seen an escalator in action. For the rest of you, the Rule works as follows: on two-person wide escalators, the left side of the escalator is reserved for people walking up or down. One may also walk on the right, assuming no one is occupying that space, but standing on the right is acceptable, so one may need to move around them. Once practiced, it proves remarkably simple.

And yet many never master it. See the group of teens who can't bear to be apart for more than a few seconds and so cluster into tight, inward facing packs for the length of the ride (one wonders how restroom visits work). Or the lone fighter of uniformity, leaning against the left handrail, like the American Hero his mother told him he was. Or the ill-advised, if merely unfortunate, soul who, having missed the elevator, brings luggage onto the escalator, inconveniencing everyone, including himself (extra points if they're on the Wheaton, Rosslyn or Dupont escalators).

I've been on subway systems in seven cities on two continents and the Escalator Rule works the same in all of them. Amazingly, it's the same rule that's used by malls, museums, hotels, government buildings, and other large, public and private structures that have escalators. And even if you've never personally experienced a ride on these automated miracles of sharp, interlocking metal teeth, it's easy enough to understand this rule just by watching. As you step on, simply look up/down and study the natives. If you follow their lead, you'll be in the right 99% of the time.

As with most societal niceties, most people have no problem following standard Let's Try Not To Kill Each Other Today procedures. The rules are only in place because a very few people can't or won't put the brakes on their Special Snowflake train for the few minutes it takes to get from one place to another with other human beings. And because those few simply cannot help themselves, the rules become overarching laws, governing us all to a degree that no one really wanted, but that we all asked for. This is basic John Locke Social Contract shit.

If you visit the District of Columbia, or any city with a public transport system (however faulty), please follow the procedures your fellow passengers are quietly demonstrating. They know what they're doing, have places they're trying to get to, and have done this before.

*I've seen this happen. And having been at the would-be pusher end of the engagement, I understand the urge. But it's a helpful reminder that there are just enough thoughtless people riding the Metro during rush hour that there are very few win-win scenarios.

In Brief: NFL Rivalries

I'll address my pre-season NFL picks next week, when all the results are in. They're looking okay so far, but that's what happens when you pick chalk in the NFL. As for this weekend:

The talk in town is all about Sunday night, as it should be, since Cowboys-Redskins is by far the most interesting match up in Week 17. I can't tell you how much I threw up just typing that sentence (hint: my monitor is visible, but streaky). See, there is a persistent belief among Redskins fans that the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry is special. It's not. The Redskins have exactly the same relationship with the Cowboys that the Eagles and Giants do. And what the fanbases of the NFC East frequently forget is that everyone hates the Cowboys. You could move them to any division tomorrow and they'd be the most hated team in that division by the end of the week. This is a testament to the instant, reliable unlikability of the franchise, its players, its fans, its continually fawning media coverage, and its ownership (an ownership that remains only marginally more detestable than Redskins owner Dan Snyder). Anyway, I, like the rest of the nation, am calling for a Redskins win. Let's say, 24-13.

Turning to a better the best rivalry, I want to get this on the record: as a Bears fan, I'm not thinking of it as cheering for the Packers. Rather, I'm cheering for the Vikings to shit the bed, something precedent should bare out. But, mostly, it spares me the cognitive dissonance of having to cheer for State Farm reps, giving their spoiled, nothing-else-to-live-for fans the satisfaction of being a booster for their over-saturated, nationally beloved franchise that, historically speaking, does nothing more than win a lot while playing in an anomalously small market in which every citizen is literally invested in the team, forcing you to wonder if your large market, underperforming, one or two amazing years in the Super Bowl Era franchise isn't actually the bad guy of the division.

No. No, it's Packers fans who are wrong.

The Teddy Curse Begins

I take no pride in having pointed this out. I was cheering for the Nats, I really was. I might've enjoyed seeing the Cardinals get denied, anyway, but for Washington to do so would make it extra sweet. I know how horrible it is to lose this way. But by giving into the mob and allowing Teddy to win on the final day of the season (and then each home game of the NLDS, taunting the gods that much more), the Nats opened the door for this possibility.

Most laugh at the idea of a curse until it hits them square on this chin, repeatedly, for decades; evidence needs to build. The trouble is, once evidence builds, the curse is self-sustaining. As soon as it's big enough for no one to laugh at, the damage is already done, the weight too much to bear.

So go ahead: search for some other superstitions. Sacrifice chickens from now until Spring Training. That's already one step closer to admitting that curses are possible. But before next season, before the losses begin to mount and the curse becomes the defining feature of the franchise,consider this: what else do you call giving up four runs in the ninth--one run for each Teddy win--in an elimination game at home?

Teddy Wins

I'm happy for Teddy. I really am. It always seemed unfair to me to make our most badass president the joke of these races. It'd be nice if they had let him win clean, though.

That said: I know baseball curses, Washington. And I hope Teddy's win was worth it.

Meanwhile, the Cubs clinched their first 100-loss season since 1966. But just three years after that, the Cubs had their epic 1969 season that ended in... historic collapse...

Enjoy your playoff run, Nats fans. Cherish it. These things are so fleeting. So fragile. As doomed to obsolescence as each precious flower that achieves beauty and fullness only to wither and die as the relentless autumn marches in. At least in my experience.

Here's to a Nats vs. O's World Series.

Political Ad Nauseam

For the first time in my life, I'm living in a media market inundated by presidential ad campaigns. I suppose that Virginia proved to be a bellwether late in the 2008 race, but I don't recall all that many ads at the time. Or perhaps I wasn't watching as much TV. The real kicker is that I don't even live in any swing territory; neither Maryland or DC are up for grabs. Obama and Romney are fighting over the handful of counties on the other side of the Potomac that just happen to share airwaves with the rest of the DC Metro area.

Initially, I refused to keep track of the ads that popped up during the Ravens-Eagles game on CBS yesterday (couldn't even flee to Fox since there was only the one game on at 1:00). But before long I realized that I was subconsciously keeping score ("keeping score" being one of those sicknesses that poisons modern political thinking and why people like me shouldn't be allowed to comment on politics). Here a Romney ad, there an Obama ad.  They seemed to be coming one for one. As the ads continued, and the game itself became more and more absurd, and I began to succumb to a migraine that I will assume is unrelated to the nonsense on my screen, I left the room altogether to take a nap. I've since happily forgotten how many ads I endured during the first half and the fourth quarter. But I can--and will, despite myself--try again next week. And the week after. And every week until the election, through Week 9: over half the regular season drowned in political ad nauseam.

I think I understand some of what the undecideds and un-interesteds have been griping about all these years. If you don't care about the election, there's a decent chance that your only exposure to the candidates and the issues are through these ads. And if you only know the election through the ads, you have every right to hate everything about politics. One guy says the other is lying; the other hurls back the same charge, with slightly different sinister music. One guy makes a claim that you know can't be verified but sounds good; the other makes a very similar-sounding and equally vague claim. Without context, politicians really can start to blend together in the mind's eye, giving rise to the very false common wisdom that "they're all alike." Even the positive ads grate, unrelenting and legion as they are--and because they remind us that we haven't yet seen the last of this campaign. It's enough to make a sane and decent person swear off the institution altogether.

And if I were slightly more cynical, I'd theorize that this is exactly the game plan--shake off the interest of everyone except the die-hards, who are so much more reliable and easier to control. Eventually, those are the only people you're talking to until political discourse on the airwaves is indistinguishable from the Internet.

Bar Rescue, "Piratz"

Piratz was--and is again--a bar in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. It is pirate-themed. And it is not doing well. Owner Tracy Rebelo is, we are told, $900,000 in debt and living with her teenage daughter in her parents' basement. Hence the bar being featured in an episode of a reality TV show (if it had been thriving, Piratz could've gotten a nine-episode deal for its own show).

Spike TV's Bar Rescue pits bar expert and nightclub consultant Jon Taffer against bar-owners and their failing businesses. Taffer is a self-aggrandizing asshole, who yells far more than should be necessary for an adult. But nice, reasonable people don't usually get reality shows, so there you go. And we quickly see that, despite his flaws, Taffer generally knows what he's talking about and that he has the connections and resources to give struggling bars anything they might dream of.

As soon as the episode begins, Taffer is hung up on the idea that a pirate bar is an innately awful idea--especially in Silver Spring. I think he's half-right. A pirate bar could feasibly do well in places like St. Petersburg, Florida, or Nassau, Bahamas, where people might reasonably be looking for piratey kitsch. Keeping it in DC, a friend remarked to me that a place like Piratz--albeit toned down--might perform well in an area like H Street, where quirkiness is rather more likely to be embraced. But what Rebelo has is a building in downtown Silver Spring, where office workers dominate the lunch and happy hours, and the nighttime crowd isn't so gung-ho about donning their pirate gear, either.

Taffer rightly decides to target the office workers. He less rightly decides on an office-themed establishment, complete with motivational posters and While You Were Out notepads. Because everyone wants to go drink and have lunch in the same atmosphere in which they were just working. He also renames the bar: "Corporate Bar and Grill" (for all that Taffer is good at, he has trouble with names. In another episode, he re-christens a California dive-bar "Racks." Did I mention that this was in an attempt to differentiate the bar from the strip club next door?). Before the makeover, Rebelo pleas to Taffer that she doesn't want her bar to become just another soulless enterprise. Taffer replies that businesses don't have souls. And that's true. But in the bar business, it seems to me--and I have no claim to the knowledge or experience that Taffer has--the successful businesses are the ones that can project the veneer of a soul. Ostentatiously removing any trace of that seems to invite only the ironic visitors, looking for a quick larf at the idea that they're sipping PBR's at a board room table. 

But any of these solutions (moving the bar, changing the bar) assumes good management to see them through. Piratz real problem is that neither Rebelo nor her staff know what they're doing. Worse still, they don't seem to know that they don't know what they're doing. I visited Piratz with some friends a few years back and it wasn't until watching Bar Rescue that I was able to identify exactly what was wrong. I owe Taffer that much credit.

When a couple of Taffer's acquaintances sit down to do some reconnaissance (while wearing pirate gear because--and this is true--such attire the only hope for quick attention from the servers at Piratz), they are greeted by would-be episode stealer One-Eyed Mike, who slurs "just gonna seat yerselves wherever the fuck ye like, are ye?". This is roughly the level of awkward that I recall. And we haven't even gotten into the more important aspects of bar hospitality. Taffer soon sees that the menu is too long, that the atmosphere is more distracting than it is enchanting, and that the staff manages to be both inattentive and intrusive. I can confirm all of these from experience. It's little surprise that the food and drinks are lousy; what kind of quality comes to mind when you think of the authentic pirate diet?

I won't even get into the push-back from the Piratz staff. Their attitude is that this is a pirate bar and that anyone who doesn't like it should leave. It's a twist on the "haters gonna hate" logic that's so insidious because it's simultaneously wrong and irrefutable.

When Rebelo asks her staff at the new Corporate Bar, "How bad do we just want a vat of grog right now?" it's genuinely depressing. She never wanted a bar. She wanted a place to dress up with simpatico Renn Faire dorks whose passion would be perfectly acceptable (healthy, even), if they could put it aside long enough to acknowledge the damage it was doing. What Rebelo has is an insanely expensive hobby. She knew enough to call Bar Rescue and set up the potential turnaround, but couldn't be bothered to look at all the problems Taffer loudly pointed out to her. She didn't need a streetwise consultant; she needed an intervention.

According to the episode's postscript, the pirates reclaimed Corporate Bar within days of Taffer's exit. I considered paying them a second visit, just to bookend this post. And I may yet do that, just for the curiosity of what Yelp tells me is now a disconcerting hybrid of the old Piratz and the former Corporate Bar. But curiosity is what led me to Piratz the first time. And if Bar Rescue has taught me anything, it's that you need to learn from your mistakes. Otherwise, Jon Taffer will yell at you a lot.

Nos Populus and American University

I have a complicated relationship with my alma mater.  I met my wife at American University (off campus, but still).  I met most of my current friends either at AU or through friends from there.  The education I got has granted me opportunities I never could've dreamed and though most of those dreams were deferred, it's hard to blame the lousy economy on one college.  On the other hand, Ben Ladner.  And while I'm convinced that my present distaste for politics stems directly from my experiences there, I'm not sure whether that would've happened otherwise.  Or whether that was necessarily a bad thing. 

One thing I can say for sure: if I don't attend AU, Nos Populus never gets written.  The writing classes helped, of course.  Ditto the lit classes (I nearly could've minored in lit).  And my poly-sci major expanded my then-fairly shallow understanding of policy, strategy, theory, history, and all the other vague, indefinable aspects of political studies that make sensible minds go numb and turn decent people into overly-ambitious, image-obsessed, wanna-be pols.  See, for Nos Populus to be possible, I had to understand its targets. 

That's what primed me for the writing of the book: my fellow students--often it seemed the entire student body--who could shotgun whole seasons of The West Wing without irony once shaking them by the shoulders for their own good (none of them wanted to be Jed Bartlet, by the way--they all wanted to be Josh Lyman).  The 19-year-olds studying poly-sci at Washington DC's third most renowned college, convinced they'd run for president one day (and in an awful parallel universe, I'm sure many of them will).  The posturing ideologues, huffily turning class discussions into recital competitions of Democratic or Republican talking points that had been emailed to them that morning.  The way Democrats so far outnumbered Republicans as to make it kind of disgusting, until young Republicans learned how to be louder and more obnoxious--mistaking their minority status as proof of their persecuted righteousness, the way teenagers will.  The way a select few of them always managed to take it further than the rest, procuring the business cards and polished resumes listing one summer job and misinterpreting this behavior as "maturity."  The way I was very nearly one of them. 

Of course, most of the student body tended to shake this off toward the end of freshman year; those who were still in the throes of the culture through sophomore year were terminal cases: future Tucker Carlsons, on their way to the big, wide world, which they were already prepared to make vomit on impact.  But some of the scars remain.

It was natural fodder material.  Ozzie Vega, one of James Reso's right hand men, is straight out of the place.  His backstory--bizarre though it may seem--is a true story from AU (identities changed to protect the innocent-ish).  He's granted a shot at a redemption of sorts, as these stories require, and his choices are his own.  But I sometimes wonder how much my negative feelings toward too many of my fellow students impacted Ozzie's ultimate chances.  It's probably why I created Deacon Bell, another of James' aides and my own version of a genuine DC native: not a naif, but neither one of the bustling hoards, ever-scrambling for the attention of someone who can help move them up the ladder.  Someone who never had a chance at going to a school as good as that.  Someone who wants to make a real difference and for whom ego is a little more than a byproduct of end results.  The anti-AU.

I don't know that I'll ever be in a position to donate money to my former school.  But, if Nos Populus ever achieves any kind of financial success, well, it would seem rude not to pay back some credit to its most integral influence.

D.C.: On The Other Hand...

A few months ago, as part of Andrew Sullivan's "Ask Anything" series, Wired writer/blogger Spencer Ackerman had all of this to say about Beltway culture:

I try to refrain from effusive praise and don't know where to start with this, anyway, so I won't say much.  From the pointed differentiation between "Beltway culture" and "D.C. culture," to the way people from the culture--whether themselves guilty or not--are never allowed to escape the image, Ackerman gets it done nearly flawlessly (I forgive the brief sidequest into "suck my New York dick" territory as a matter of policy, because that's a disease for which science has not yet discovered a cure).  It's so satisfying and bang-on that it nearly makes me rethink my stance on D.C. Statehood. 

And it was apparently off the cuff.  For something that was planned out (though perhaps not as viscerally pleasing), see the excerpt from Nos Populus about Washington. 

D.C. Can't Have Representation Because

A couple of weeks ago, days before the Supreme Court made the Internet explode, Sen. Rand Paul was spending his obviously valuable time shutting down another bid by the citizens of the District of Columbia to get a slice more autonomy from the federal government.  This might seem confusing, given Paul's reputation for demanding less federal involvement in local affairs, especially fiscal affairs.  But considering this dichotomy for too long gets us into the weeds of the ideology of a man who (in addition to having a weak grasp of civics) doesn't care so much for originalist readings of the founding documents as much as he does political power and his right to set poor people on fire.  In fact, he admits outright that he doesn't have a problem with D.C. autonomy, per se:

“I think it’s a good way to call attention to some issues that have national implications,” Paul said in an interview Tuesday. “We don’t have [control] over the states but we do for D.C.”

Translation: "The federalism I wholeheartedly support in some instances is aggravating in other instances, so I'm gonna spit on these people over here until the country sees how mad I am about this situation."

Clearly, Paul's opinion on this matter (as so many) isn't worth whatever he pays his barber to do whatever it is he does.  But it does beg the question of why this has gone largely unnoticed outside the District (and even within, what with the heat wave).  Or better yet: why is this even a discussion we're able to have?  As with most questions, the answer lies with some jerk-off squatting in the middle of the road, pants crumpled around his ankles, insisting that traffic cannot move until he successfully takes a shit and stop all that honking, I can't concentrate! 

The most solid constitutional argument against representation for the District is that it was never originally meant to have any.  And, like any intellectually lazy deferment to a half-considered constitutionality, this argument made sense at the time, but has since begun to erode.  Used to be, the city where Congress met was just that: there was nothing here except congressmen, senators, presidents, judges, and the slaves servants they brought with them.  And it would be absurd to give federal representatives their own additional representation.  But as the government settled in here, it--like any government will in the place where it resides--encouraged its own economies: restaurants, bars, bordellos, hotels, hospitals, brothels, social clubs, laundromats, whore houses, etc.  And as the government expanded, especially in the 20th Century, those businesses continued developing, bigger and more numerous, bringing both government and non-government employees into the city to work and, in many cases, live.

It didn't take too long for Washington to become a real live, grown-up city--an industry town for an ever-growing industry.  Accordingly, it was granted a few of the niceties enjoyed by other towns: city government, electoral votes... and that's about it.  All because the city was at one time in a weird situation and now it's not so much, but it's now infested by people who are black vote Democrat work for the government have different concerns than many congressmen do and would have to be put on the same footing as the rest of the country.  Certainly, congressmen shouldn't have their own representation outside of their home districts--they are their own representatives--and government employees shouldn't have extra representation beyond what other Americans get.  Those who choose to live in Maryland or Virginia have representation in those states and the same should apply for those who chose not to, along with those thousands of Washingtonians who are born here, live here, and pay federal taxes here, without a day spent working for the federal government. 

That argument is usually followed up with a lazy, twenty-year-old crack about Marion Berry (HA!  Get it?  Crack.  Marion Berry?!  Oh, the relevance!). See, Berry is a convenient short-hand for anyone who wants to get out of the conversation quickly by pointing out that voters of the District have not always made good choices; Kwame Brown would probably make for a more timely example, but he's not nearly as colorful.  This is the "they haven't earned it" argument.  And a good argument it might be, if other constituencies had ever been required to earn their right of representation.  But, of course, none have (unless you count former Confederate states in the 1870s, but if the District ever withdraws from and goes to war with the Union, I'll switch sides on this issue).  If we applied that logic to the rest of the country, there are several congressional districts that should probably have their representation rights stripped, or at least be made to sit quietly in the corner for a few election cycles.  Just to name a few: the NY-15, the CA-50, the TX-22, Alaska, and all of Louisiana.  But notice how those districts not only maintain representation but will also return the same clowns, thugs, and lunatics to Washington every election, as though to rub it in our faces. 

The arguments against Statehood deteriorate further: the finisher is almost always a succinct bon mot along the lines of "if you don't like it, move."  A brilliant and simplistic little nugget, eh?  And I know what you're thinking: such an easy fix must have more universal applications.  That's right: I just found a solution for Israel-Palestine.  

Some will point out that Rand's torpedo was only effective because supporters of the bill (D.C. officials among them) decided it better to pull out for this round, rather than swallow some extremely bitter pills just to satiate a few petty partisans.  That's true.  And it brings to mind a previous attempt to bring congressional representation to the District that was crushed because it would've required less stringent gun laws than the city would prefer.  Many (including myself) believed that that was a situation of the city cutting off its nose to spite its face.  The problem is that many of those who criticized the decision (including, again, myself) don't usually live in parts of the city where guns are an enormous problem--and where guns mean something very different than they do to the many rural members of the House and Senate.

And therein lies the problem: not necessarily racism (though it often appears that way) or elitism (D.C. has plenty of its own elite on its side) or even the shifting sands of temporary transplants who are unable and unwilling to fight for D.C. Statehood for more than the few years during which they have employment here.  It's the refusal of leading politicians to consider proposals that don't immediately benefit them and, in the case of a party ever-more insistent on eating the federal government and any goodwill it has remaining, to do a relatively simple thing like let the city that they live in for most of the year be a real part of America.

Imagine a chunk of rural Tennessee or sub-suburban Arizona suddenly not having their usual representation in Congress and think of the shit storm Republicans would brew about Real Americans(TM) not having their say in Washington.  And why would it matter then if it doesn't now?

Nos Populus excerpt, II

A little Friday pick-me-up, with another except from Nos Populus.  This from a little further on in the book, with a reflection on my hometown.  Enjoy. 

The District of Columbia is composed of two distinct, occasionally nebulous cities.  In the first are the souls of the city—the men and women who are born, pay taxes, fall in love, raise families, and die between the Potomac and the Anacostia.  Born sometimes with no curiosity or knack for politics, they are often compelled to force the illusion, either for the tourists eager for interaction with the colorful locals, or for mere survival, begging the federal government for a slice more autonomy.  They are the inconvenienced, under-represented Americans who, through unlucky happenstance or poor decision-making, share elbowroom with official Washington.

It is into this Washington that hundreds of otherwise sensible Americans enter with the waxing and waning of election cycle.  They rush in, high-chinned and self-important, and then spend the next two to forty years collecting dues from and writing guidelines for the people back home.  Eventually they vacate; a victorious few of their own will, others by scandal or, worse yet, electoral defeat.  The well-connected ones usually wind up with better-paying gigs on K Street, where they can walk and talk like they still have legitimate business in Washington and get away with it solely because their former colleagues in government don’t disagree.

The city’s infrastructure is distinguished by lead-seasoned water and frenzied, ill-marked traffic circles that thoroughly undermine the logic and precision of the Enlightenment era grid pattern, to say little of the equally intrusive state streets.  A well-meaning zoning ordinance designed to preserve the majesty of the Washington Monument keeps the other buildings short and squat, resulting in sprawl and soaring property values that rival those of much larger cities.  Hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists make their home here and when they get home from a long day of setting policy and laws for the nation, they proceed to do the same thing within their communities and neighborhoods, because that’s a switch that has no off position.  The winters shuffle between mild and perniciously cold and back again, after which the nation’s capital briefly opens up its cherry-blossomed beauty for a few tourist-ridden days in the short spring months before summer arrives to remind residents that the city was built on a swamp.  The autumn conditions are a mystery—national election coverage tends to obscure the changing foliage.

In official Washington, all activities take a back seat to electoral activity having little to nothing to do with the District, which—lacking serious representation—matters little.  The voting patterns of cornfields and eighteenth-century New Hampshire parishes take precedence over the debates of the city council.  And, when the election banners are ripped down, the city hangs on every move C-SPAN’s cameras record, making boasting, valueless bets on what happens next.  Intermittently they look ahead on the calendar, making predictions for the next election.

New York is the center of the known universe.  Boston and Philadelphia trade off the “Cradle of Liberty” moniker.  People talk about the couple of days they spent in Chicago or San Francisco, New Orleans or Miami for years afterward and how they need to get back one day.  At least Los Angeles gets the attractive celebrities.  It is Washington—the town whose part-time inhabitants believe that a handshake can shift continents and a press conference can birth or eliminate whole modes of thought—that is talked about like an embarrassing relative; the word itself slurred past the lips of Americans whenever they deign to think of the city: Washington.  Not that this can ever be adequately explained to the players in the high-stakes farce.  Whatever happens, inside or out, it remains an effectively blameless, shining island unto itself.  Washington’s myriad absurdities and curiosities remain untouched, gleefully unaware of the slings and arrows of outrageous critique.

It is to this three-ringed circus of derangement that tens of thousands have flocked in search of fame, power, and glory, if not necessarily fortune.  In October of 2009, James, Conrad, Meghan, and Kara added their names to that list. 

Happy weekend, everybody.