Hanging Out in DC

I don’t care who you are, the Washington Monument is inspiring.

I’m in DC until Thursday on a business trip, and I had to schlep a camera and a tripod with me. Since Delta only allows two checked bags, I had to put everything in one big honking suitcase, and it weighed over fifty pounds. So I had to take out a pair of Levis and two pairs of shoes to save eighty bucks extra in weight overage fees. So I’m lugging around a camera case, and a pair of jeans and four separate shoes, and then the line through security was backed out to the parking garage.

Rage was building. Pure, Languatronic rage.

Early in the day, this was going to be the sum total of my post – how much I hate to travel, how airline security blows, etc. etc. But I’ve already done plenty of that on this blog, and, much to my surprise, the flight was actually pleasant.

Why, you ask? Three words: personal video monitors.

I fly Delta more often than not, but this was the first time I’d been on a Delta flight with JetBlue-style monitors. It was heaven! I bought a movie and three HBO shows for $11 total, and it was more than worth it. No commercials, no airline favorite recipes/waterparks/wine tasting festivals videos, and, best of all, I could watch good stuff the whole flight.

And it was good stuff indeed – for the most part.

Is there a better, more reliable, more versatile comedic actor working today than Steve Carell? My wife and I are well into the third season of Netflixed DVDs of The Office, which never fails to have us laughing out loud. Yet the first movie I watched on the plane was Dan In Real Life, and Carell’s character couldn’t have been more different from the smarmy office boss he plays on TV. He’s made a career out of playing smarm – and playing it well, I might add – so it’s surprising when you see how disarmingly genuine he can be. He’s perfect in this role as a struggling single father facing an awkward romantic dilemma, and I tried to imagine what the film would have been like with Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell in the lead. Actually, Ferrell can do sweet – he was great in Stranger Than Fiction – but Carell has him beat by a mile. He’s not just a comic trying to act – he’s an actor. Who would have thought?

I then watched two episodes of the Ali G Show, with appearances by Borat and the fashion guy that Sacha Baron Cohen does so well. As a budding documentarian myself, I’m stunned how this guy gets away with ambushing his guests – luring prominent Christian conservatives like Pat Buchanan on to ask them ridiculous questions about why incest is really all that bad or why everyone with pubic hair shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

The segment where Ali G is interviewing a veterinarian and keeps confusing veterinarian with veteran was pretty funny, too. You can only take so much of this, though, as Cohen delights in mocking his “guests,” and it eventually becomes more cruel than funny. The poor veterinarian didn’t deserve the aggravation.

The best, though, was the fashion Nazi character, who was interviewing two vapid fashion magazine editors and showing them pictures of celebrities to get their comments. After they rip someone to pieces – Paris Hilton, say – Cohen would, supposedly off-camera, tell them he needed to suck up to Paris, and could they please do it again with positive comments. Which they did, without batting an eye. Suddenly Paris was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Fashion magazine editors don’t get my sympathy.

The last thing I watched was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a show I’d heard great things about and which, frankly, I didn’t like very much. Larry David is the real life George Costanza, and the fictional one wears better.

I got off at Reagan National Airport and hopped right on the Metro to my hotel. I don’t have anything going here until tomorrow, so I went running.

I got off the Metro at the Smithsonian station, and then I ran to the Capitol and back to the Washington Monument, and then past the World War II Memorial and the Reflecting Pool to the base of the Lincoln Memorial, on past the Korean War Memorial, across the street to the Tidal Basin and then through the FDR Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial, and then back to the Smithsonian Metro. Over 5 miles. I’m a man.

And now I’m eating pizza and blogging. Overall, a pretty dang good day.