So I spent an hour on this blog writing yesterday. It was a long story about my attempt to gain acces to a VIP party for the Olympic swim teams. It was beautifully crafted with perfectly subtle foreshadowing in the introduction and humorous nuance in the body. Admittedly, the ending was a bit anti-climactic, but I thought that the emotional drop-off that the reader incurred fromed the sudden stop was brilliant. Think No Country For Old Men scaled down in size to fit the blog world. Unfortunately, when I clicked the "post" button, I was met with a "Sorry, you cannot navigate to this page." Devastating! All my writing, lost. I'll rewrite the story today because it was pretty cool, but you won't recieve my masterpiece of yesterday that is forever lost to the dreamworld of cyberspace. I am the only one who saw my glorious text. Instead, you get the Pepsi One (does that stuff still exist?) of The Olympic Summer Party, because as you can see, it is abridged.
During the evening diving sessions that were the same day of Michael Phelps' eight gold, and NBC producer told me about a Speedo sponsored party at Club Bud for the swimmers who had finished competing. A list had gone around the previous day, but I should try to show up and maybe I'd be able to get in anyway. Honestly, I didn't want to go. I don't want to sound like a baby, but I was tired and I wasn't really feeling a scene of drunk journalist and can't-touch-this athletes. However, the true Olympic spirit of non-athletes siezed me (ie. "Screw it. When am I going to have an opportunity to go to THE party to be at."). I rounded up three friends when I got off of work and we made our way down to Club Bud. We made the effort to look like we belonged and got shut down at the VIP entrance. Then we were escorted to "the list". "The list" is the most powerful document in all of nightlife, and just as I knew they wouldn't be, our names were not found. We walked about twenty meters away and stood around with post-rejection syndrome. PJS can be identified by the symptoms of staring off into space, exhaling loudly, head nods, saying "OK" resolutely but without action and frequently looks at the wristwatch. The Olympic spirit of non-athletes again overwhelmed me and I decided I was going to talk to the media liaison (ML). I though, "What the heck. I'm going into sales, I'm suppose to be good at manipulation--I mean charm. I meant charm." ML was an average sized, good-looking white guy from America. At least I wouldn't have to use my now well-honed charades skills. Instead I approached him with absolutely no plan whatsoever (probably a mistake) and just start talking.
DR: "I was told that you're the guy that can help us out concerning media acces."
ML: "I'm the guy. Who are you with?"
DR: "I'm with [contractual edit]. We're the [edit] broadcaster" I pointed to my accredidation for proof.
ML: "OK, so what kind of coverage are you guys going to do?" At this point, I start stammering. I wasn't going to do coverage. I was just going to try to kick it with some swimmers and celebrities.
DR: "Uh, well, we're going to go in there. We're just, uh, going to go in there and experience the atmosphere and the club's experience, and then we're going to report on it tomorrow." At this point, I knew we weren't getting in, but then ML asked me one more question. My brain had time to catch up and I understood what he was looking for.
ML: "So what kind of reporting are you going to do?"
DR: "Well I'm an internet writer for NBC. I heard about this from an NBC producer that works at the venue I work at, but since I'm officially contracted with [edit], I wasn't around the compound when the list made the rounds. The producer told me that since this was a last minute thing, she didn't think you'd be too up-tight about it." ML liked the story, but he wasn't sold yet. I needed something legit that would finish him off.
ML: "OK cool. What website was it that you write for." Perfect! This was going to sound so official, and he wouldn't be able to turn away an NBC writer at the door of an American-oriented scene like Club Bud. I said it with a strong emphasis on the front-end acronym.
DR: "NBC Action News [pause to let him write] dot com."
ML: "And your name?"
DR: "Dustin Riedesel" He writes all the info down and seals the deal.
ML: "Alright, we'll get you right in. We'll get your name on the list ahead of time so that next time we won't have to go through all this."
DR: "I would love to be on the list ahead of time."
And in the most magical of moments, we crossed the velvet rope onto the first red-carpet, VIP party of my life. And that's the climax. The club was absolutely awesome. Everything was free and the swimmers were all going crazy on and off the dance floor. There were some cool sightings though. I'm not looking to besmirch anyone's name, but suffice it to say that most of the swimming crowd is still in their early twenties and they aren't afraid to embrace their true age. Honestly, I thought that was the coolest part. Seeing that they're all regular people despite their irregular abilities. But there were no magical interactions with anybody significant. It was too crowded and a little too loud. It was more of a meet-and-make-out kind of place instead of a meet-and-greet kind of place. Still, I had a high from talking my way into the whole night. Looking back, I sure that ML was just looking for an excuse to let me in, but I don't care. For one night, I was in a party exclusively for very important people. What does that make me? A guy who occasionally writes about very important people.