Untitled Document

09 November 2010

Eight Searchlights From Amsterdam

(Willow Bar, 1652 Local time, Ballston, VA. Photo Socotra.)

OK- I have this great narrative from Mac about the Naval Intelligence School back in 1953, the year we overthrew the elected government of Iran, and arguably, the current mess began.

The school was housed in a splinter-ville of World War Two-era temporary buildings, and I wasted an hour on Sunday trying to find a picture of the facility that threatened to fall down around them, just like the big buildings behind the formal headquarters at Arlington Hall Station where the super-secret Y-1 organization plied it’s clandestine trade. It was not the kind of place you would illuminate with searchlights, you know?

It was part of the great struggle with Communism, of course, which is what they paid Mac to do after he vanquished the Empire of Japan, and they paid me for most of my career to do the same thing, except of course right from the git-go of my career in 1978 we were engaged with the Revolutionary Guards and the Mercedes Mullahs.

It has just got stranger from there across the decades, the struggle with the snakes that slithered out of the woodwork as the Soviet empire fell and ancient quarrels were resumed. Strange stuff, and backward time travel to a place where the West was not supreme.

I have to say that last night was right there on the strange-o-meter, though not in a bad way. Just strange. It started out innocently enough. One of our new hires was up from Tampa, arriving late in the day, and we had a session scheduled to go over the contract I attempt to manage with indifferent success.

He was running late, and texted me that we should just meet up at Willow and go over a few things.

As you know, I am never averse to that. I intended to make it quick and business-like. Monday is, after all, the most school-night-like of the week, and this had been a particularly strange one.

So, with the darkness coming on an hour early due to the time change, I wandered over to the bar with my associate and partner in crime. The new guy was there, along with Old Jim, who anchored the bar from his usual seat.

(The senior of the Jims at his customary place. Photo Socotra.)

So was the rest of management, clustered deep in conversation. This transformed the conversation nook by the front window into a sort of corporate function, and the noise began to increase and Old Jim was forced to stop doing the crossword puzzle and engage in a systematic critique of corporate culture.

One of the Mikes pulled up, Both Johns- the one with an “H” and the one without, made appearances and actually joined the discussion about how the quarter was going and what’s up with the bonus pool anyway?

Everyone comes in pairs here- the Jims, old and young, the Mike’s, buzz-cut and full foliage, the Johns and Sarahs, H’d and not. It is hard to keep it all straight, and like the elder Jim, I have given up.

It came as no surprise when I looked down the bar to see Mary Margaret and Joe from the Ornamental Concrete Workers were enjoying a glass of discount happy hour white, and Jon-with-no-H actually had a business interest to discuss with Joe, having come fresh from a session with the Boilermakers Union, something about clean coal, I think, or maybe it was about the kind of boilermaker you construct dropping a shot of whiskey into a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I was happy to facilitate. This town is about networking and helping people connect. I made some introductions and was sliding back down the bar where Elisabeth was pouring more wine. She has actually passed the bar, at least in New York and New Jersey, and shouldn’t be working behind it, but as she says, “All things in good time.”

My phone went off in my pocket. The number shining on the smart pad was not one I was familiar with, but this is not uncommon since I have way more business cards floating around, and discovered to my horror what you can find out if you Google up your own name and look at one of those social network sites that I don’t pay any attention to.

“Hello?” I said, stepping toward the door so I could hear better. The smart phone is a great computer but a really crappy phone.

Of course, it was another associate on a rented GSM phone on the continent, who had just returned to the room in Amsterdam after a disastrous session with several Norwegians in the Japanese restaurant downstairs. “There are eight searchlights out there. The city is illuminated, and I can see the Dam from hear. The Norwegians are still drinking downstairs.”

I looked at my watch. I can’t tell if it is five or six hours difference now that the clocks don’t work properly. “When I lived there, the Norwegian idea of a party was to drink a bottle of Akavite, throw a couple punches and go to sleep in the corner.”

“Things have not changed. I don’t have a good feeling about the meetings tomorrow. Eight Searchlights out there” said the voice from Europe. I commiserated about the ambient light in Amsterdam and went back into the bar. Things were continuing to heat up, the office, bar and Big Pink crowds merging into a very strange group. I liked them all, and marveled at the interactions between the worlds.

This is probably my favorite bar, though if it was not across the street from the office that might change. I used to like Ramparts, a great watering hole over in Shirlington. Apparently they have raised the Jolly Roger on Virginia’s smoking ban, though I am not sure how they get away with it.

(Ramparts Grill and Wine Room. Photo courtesy Ramparts.)

Anyway, like I said this town is about networks. My phone went off again. There was an incoming text, from another of my clandestine sources which I read in amazement:

“At Ramparts. John Boehner, the current minority leader and prospective Speaker of the House and three guys with earphones just walked in. Crisp white shirt and yellow crew neck sweater. John is a smoker, as you must know. Future Speaker used the micro head (it's a phone booth - the smallest bar head in America) accompanied by one of the Secret Service dudes. Now he is chillin' A parade of older dudes is trickling in to join him. Looks like he's resting up for the shutdown of the government! Lot of bright lights outside from the motorcade. I chose not to ask him about the $9.3 trillion debt given to us by virtue of failed supply side voodoo economics. Black Suburbans and Cadillac’s are filling the lot. They took over the private party room shut the door and pulled the blinds to the outside windows. I went outside to peak in. Lots of ashtrays in the room. Libertarians! I hope.”

(Prospective Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Photo AP.)

I did not know what it all meant. I was amazed at all the keystrokes on the iPhone, which must be better than the awful Droid phone in my pocket. On the whole, I was glad I was at Willow, where I think we tend toward the Independent side of things, and not in Shirlington with the incoming Republicans.

Motorcades make me feel claustrophobic and there are way too many searchlights.