“Folks, you need to get on the sidewalk,” orders an officer from the Metropolitan Police Department, who just arrived to determine why exactly a giant coach bus is clogging Dupont Circle.
Answer: To disgorge a bolus of B-list celebrity.
Observation: Washington is very good about not giving a damn while secretly giving a damn. The weekend of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner raises the fault lines of insideriness to the surface. It’s easy to ignore invite-only Washington every weekend of the year except this one, when limo lines and red carpets unfurl in the most pedestrian of places.
“What’s the event?” asks a guy walking his husky in front of the Washington Club.
“We don’t know. We’ve been trying to figure that out,” says a woman on her cellphone. (It’s a cocktail hour for the showbiz activist outfit Creative Coalition.)
“You’re star-struck,” says another passerby who has yet to pass by.
“I know. I’m a loser,” says his girlfriend, craning her neck at the red carpet, which, in capital fashion, is Cabernet-colored instead of red, and short.
Down the steps of the coach bus slinks TV star Alyssa Milano, who was in that show, whatever it was.
“Ms. Milano, Ms. Milano, will you sign this please?” says an older gentleman wearing baggy khakis and a beige baseball cap. He took the Metro in from Silver Spring with his wife, Judy, to stake out the event. Both retirees have a clipboard of celebrity portraits — alphabetized, with Patricia Arquette on top — so they can wrangle autographs for his extensive collection (10,000 signatures collected over 50 years).
“Larry King used to do his TV show from Washington and we’d call and they’d tell us who was going to be on and then we’d wait outside the door,” says Judy, who, like her husband, wishes to remain anonymous because they like being at the edge of the spotlight, not in it. “It used to be a lot better here. Now there are dealers, and celebrities have gotten used to seeing their autographs on eBay.”
Avast, the pathetic periphery! (Not being judgy; we’re here, too.) The inquisitive, slightly embarrassed borderline to import! Where the curious linger with their noses in the air, where glommers-on glom on — but only long enough to get a whisk of a Sharpie or a blurry digital snapshot with yesterday’s hot new talent.
The bus, clown-car-like, coughs up a semi-celebrity about every 90 seconds. Omar Epps. Cheryl Hines. America Ferrera. In binders in the den at home, Judy and her husband have the signatures of Lillian Gish, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert (whom they once chatted up in the lobby of the Watergate). Now they stalk Michelle Trachtenberg and the “half” from “Two and a Half Men.” Neither deign to sign their signatures as they move quickly toward the runty red carpet, which serves as a petting zoo for journalists.
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