Why am I not surprised?
______________________________________
October 5, 2003
Good Morning, Senator! You Rocked on `K Street'
By JENNIFER 8. LEE - NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON
THIS is a city that craves validation. Politicians chase the media for validation of their power. The media establishment reports on itself to validate its influence. The city even runs ad campaigns to validate it as a place to live.
No wonder that the city has latched onto "K Street," the new docudrama series that merely by being in HBO's Sunday lineup, lends the profession of lobbying a bit of the frisson previously associated only with organized crime and funeral home management.
"`K Street' has hit Washington like a bat hitting a bee's nest," said Mark McKinnon, a political consultant. "Everyone's talking about it. They are either intrigued or they're horrified. But they're talking about it."
A big city with a small-town soul, Washington has become a bit weak in the knees. Politicians are maneuvering for walk-on roles, restaurants and hotels are sending e-mail messages and letters in hopes of being used as backdrops, and people accustomed to rubbing shoulders with prime ministers and Supreme Court justices are jostling for a glimpse of George Clooney, one of the show's producers.
Even as Washingtonians were preoccupied last week with the investigation of the leak of a C.I.A. agent's name, the "K Street" crew decided at their Monday morning meeting to push the show on a different track, focusing on the California recall race for tonight's episode.
"There is a lot of talk among the senators," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who was featured in the third episode, which was broadcast Sept. 28, criticizing Saudi Arabia. "The No. 1 question is, `Is it scripted?' The No. 2 is, `Will the public like it?' Those are the two questions that I get asked the most," he said. (The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second has yet to be determined.)
No matter that the show has gotten such tepid reviews that its ads in Variety are reduced to using quotations like "invigorating" and "kept up a steady source of tension." No matter that viewers outside the Beltway would need a Congressional face book to follow scenes with Don Nickles, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, or David Dreier, a Republican congressman from California. "K Street" may be more buzz than substance, but that has never held anyone back in either Washington or Hollywood.
The fact is, Washington is all a-chatter because new television cameras are in town. And not the earnest cameras of C-SPAN or the invasive ones of network news. These are the cameras of prime time, and they are wielded by the Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh and Mr. Clooney, a former "sexiest man alive" in People magazine.
"As powerful as people in Washington can sometimes be, it's this gene that people have that makes them go gaga when anyone from Hollywood comes to town," said Ed Henry, a columnist for Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, who has written many an item on Mr. Clooney in the last few weeks. (He was the one who alerted readers that Mr. Clooney plays pick-up basketball at the Ritz-Carlton.)
"I'm definitely the cool cat now," said Tamara Haddad, the longtime producer of "Larry King Live" who now works for MSNBC and was featured on Episode 2 as herself. A recent party at the restaurant Red Sage brought the extent of her newfound celebrity home. "To look up and have George Clooney wave to you and tell you that you did a great job — that's a moment," she said, almost giddily. "People actually got me drinks, and it had never happened to me before. I'm not kidding, it was very exciting."
Not surprisingly, Mr. Clooney is a magnet for estrogen wherever he appears. At the Ritz, the exercise machines overlooking the basketball court are in great demand as women time their workouts with Mr. Clooney's basketball games, said one gym member. When he was shooting across the street from the Capitol office building at the restaurant La Colline, "they must have had three or four hundred ladies out of the office building trying to get close to him," Paul Zucconi, a co-owner of the restaurant, said. Mr. McKinnon, one of the hosts of the recent party at Red Sage, said that at that event, "girls went wild; we had to pick a bunch of them off the floor with a spatula."
And, this being Washington, the score-keeping of who's been on and who hasn't began immediately. The capital's favorite political tabsheet, The Hotline, has even added "Your `K Street' Summary" to its daily news roundup, alerting readers to the lucky few who made cameo appearances on the show that week.
The fact that "K Street" cameras are showing up unannounced at embassy parties, establishment restaurants and Washington institutions means that every foray out is a possible brush with Hollywood. The crew filmed Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, for an impromptu scene when he happened to share a train car with the crew on a trip to the Baltimore debates. (The scene was cut.)
"There's a lot of folks who want to be involved in it," said Richard Gold, a top lobbyist with Holland & Knight. "There is a criticism — `That's not how it really happens. They should have asked me. I could do this better.' — which comes off as panning, but it's jealousy."
In addition to Senator Schumer, only five senators have made cameo appearances on the program. "I was on all three national news networks that night — the same night — and I got 20 times the feedback on `K Street,' " Senator Schumer said.
Which leaves the rest of them waiting to be asked, like singles at a high-school dance. Because in addition to its impressing their friends, politicians see "K Street" as a vehicle for pushing their pet issues like prescription drugs, the food pyramid and the tobacco buyout to a mainstream audience. To this end, about two dozen Senate press secretaries hobnobbed with the actors and producers of "K Street" at a wine and cheese reception at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday.
"It feels like D.C. is much more savvy in terms of p.r. than even out in L.A.," said Grant Heslov, one of the producers of the show. "Everyone's got a spin on everything. Everyone's working an angle."
Not least of which is the city itself, which has recently started running a campaign called City Living D.C. Style. Retailers, too, are eager to shed the impression that Washington is a square, stodgy backwater. For the last seven years, several neighborhoods have been trying to create hip urban zones like the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With "K Street," Washington may be at its coolest since John F. Kennedy made public service something young people aspired to do. Indeed, the show's Web site provides guides with the names and addresses of all the restaurants, stores and offices where the episodes are shot.
"I think it makes Washington more `Sex and the City,' " said Joseph Smith, a co-owner of Bobby Van's Steakhouse, a restaurant north of the White House where one scene was shot.
"It gives Washington a little edge," said Michael Gilman, the owner of the Grooming Lounge, an upscale men's salon that was featured on the first episode of the show.
After "K Street" was broadcast, Mr. Gilman said, sales increased at his salon's Web site, which offers items like a $32 nose-hair trimmer. And, he added, men from San Francisco and Dallas were coming into the salon because they had watched the episode and asked their hotel concierges for directions.
As for the locals, the show's presence makes politics as usual just a little more interesting. Last Wednesday night, three women who work in public relations sipped drinks at the Chi-Cha Lounge on U Street as part of a Howard Dean meet-up and swapped Clooney intelligence. McCealaig O'Clisham, 32, said she heard Mr. Clooney had been at the restaurant Olives twice. Koren Bell, 26, reported that female interns and television cameras had packed a press conference on the 211 telephone information line. Tammy Gordon, 31, said that "K Street" was shooting at Bobby Van's Steakhouse when she was there for a business lunch.
"Everyone in the restaurant was neck turning, looking for Clooney," Ms. Gordon said. "I had no idea what my boss was saying that day. I was thinking, `Clooney, Clooney, Clooney.' " Sadly, he wasn't involved in that shot, she said.
nytimes.com |
