THE FROHN ON LOAN

Finally. But first, this:

1. My computer is really, really broken and probably not worth fixing. That's going to limit my ability to blog for some time. I'm working on the purchase of a replacement -- another iBook, of course. (Could I really be so fanatically devoted to this one brand? Yes. Haven't I heard that line that starts, "fool me once, shame on you..."? Lalalala, I can't hear you!)


2. I will be flying out of the District and heading to the great state of Oregon for a week and change to get intoxicated with old friends at old haunts in Portland and Eugene, so that will limit my blogging even further.

So there you have it. And now, what you've all been waiting for:

[ahem]

Uh... so Dave Frohnmayer came to town. That's about it. I guess he was in town to yak it up with his cronies on the NCAA board and maybe get around to thinking about some changes to the (tyrannically oppressive) BCS system. While he was here, the great man himself deigned to hang out with some local alums, but please not in any location more decorative or pricey than a ground-floor meeting room waaaay to the back of the Rayburn House Office Building on a Tuesday evening. But the Alumni Association did throw in a hosted bar, which was nice. Then again, my Jack and Cokes (Jacks and Coke, like Attorneys General? Consider your opinion solicited!) had to be Beam and Cokes. Rayburn, like all the other House buildings, are what your high school would be like if it was five hundred times bigger and made with dull granite marble instead of brick, although the teachers lounge -- i.e. the offices and committee rooms -- are at least carpeted. I never snagged much more than long-forgotten oddities from the prop room at my high school, but if anybody remembers anything about a House Agriculture Committee gavel ... I should stop typing about this subject right now.

The few people I know well in this town weren't coming to this thing, so I was basically expecting to be a wallflower through most of this, until I built up the courage to go introduce myself to the Frohn -- hoping he wouldn't recognize me but sort of afraid he would, and would scowl. (Oh, who am I kidding? I was hoping for the scowl.) Why scowl? Basically it's all about this.

Instead I ran into a few people I knew through other people and separately, who it turns out knew each other. Then I saw a couple people I knew through watching Ducks basketball games at a nearby bar, then somebody else who happened to work in the office of my congressman (I'm still registered to vote in Lane County ... who's running to replace Torrey?) and had led my sister and me around the Capitol Building last September. Then some student senators from my time as a student journalist/gadfly at the University of Oregon. So it turned out I had some conversation with my booze, and a relatively easy time getting an audience with Frohnmayer, who was on pretty good terms with my other fellow recent graduates.

"I don't know if you remember me, I edited the Commentator, sat on [unfortunately-acronymed student advisory committee] ... I was pretty much the only conservative in there." Note: This is true even though Dave is a Republican.

"Of course, who could forget?" To some degree of surprise, he laughed as he said this; we shook hands, but at the same time he glanced to my fellow ex-ASUO types, who were at least a little curious about this confrontation, in a manner I couldn't quite judge. But seriously, this guy meets with people he doesn't like for a living -- this was pretty much nothing, I'm sure.

I explained that I worked for the online division of a prestigious-though-esoteric non-partisan news magazine in town, and that I pretty much embodied the ultimate in narrowminded Beltway thinking, even though I come, of course, from a swing state.

"Okay, so how about a quiz?"
"You bet."
"Will the D's take back the Senate?" Yes, "D's." At least it's better than calling them "Demos."
"No. All the Dem-held Southern states are likely to go Republican, even though they've got some decent candidates. I'd say 40-60 chance."
"Okay, how about Bush's ads, are they working? Are his numbers going to stay up?"
"Hard to say. He did bounce back, but as long as it's this close, it could come back. And that's never good news for an incumbent."

That was pretty much the end of it; some older person who surely had made far more donations to the university than myself (not hard to do) was there to chat about this or that. A few minutes later the Frohn took the podium to make a few remarks on the state of the school. He threw out a few impressive numbers -- enrollment is over 20K for the first time, far more money comes in from federal grants and private donations than the state general fund, etc. And he gave a long-winded "virtual tour" of the campus aimed primarily at the two or three people in the room who hadn't been back in a decade. (Really, if you haven't been back since they built the extension to the Knight Library, what are you doing at this event?)

Predictably, there was no mention of the failed basketball stadium project. I wanted to go up afterward and ask if he'd consider my plan -- i.e. take the roof off Mac Court, add two levels and put the top back. But there wasn't the time.

Afterward, I went out to Capitol Lounge (better known as Cap Lounge) to pour more mixed drinks down the hatch and bullshit my way through baseball talk (having just finished "Moneyball" made this substantially easier) until I had to stumble back home, stopping only long enough to pick up some 7-11 Taquitos for dinner. The next day I took a cab to work, and I was hating life all day long.

There! It took me a week to put this post together, but I actually came through! Coming soon: The Michael Kelly book event, and the thing about the aforementioned congressman! I swear it's coming. But you may have to wait a week.

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posted by WWB at 4:17 PM |