Slipstream; 30 Rock
I visited DC for the first time almost exactly 10 years ago. I was 26 and it was the first 'business' trip of my entire life, for BEA. I had a corporate card and a room at the Westin in Thomas Circle paid for by the major media conglomerate that then employed me. It was by far the nicest hotel room I had stayed in ever; the first, certainly, I hadn't shared with multiple family members. I was too scared to order room service. It was astronomically expensive and I thought I might somehow have to pay for it, which I couldn't. I didn't watch TV the whole time. When I was 26, I only watched the Sopranos and America's Next Top Model at Emily's apartment and it's possible I still used Coffee Mate in my coffee.
It's unclear why I was sent on this trip, since I was in editorial and BEA is mostly a marketing event, but the major media conglomerate was rolling in $$$ from LOST and Desperate Housewives, and in retrospect it's kind of nice they sent junior staff to this conference, like an investment in our future careers, or at least, a "this too could be yours" dangling carrot vis a vis rooms at 3-star hotels and free cab rides (to a convention center, but still). Or maybe they had so much money thousands of dollars were just not enough to care about.
On the last night of the conference, Emily and I went out with Nicole and Charlie from publicity and Laura from marketing, who had definitely worked their asses off over the prior three or four days, and their post-conference relief and elation was infectious. We all drank a lot and danced a little and at one point, "Such Great Heights" came on from Give Up, which feels like a DC record even though the Postal Service is technically from Seattle. I moved away from the group and towards the windows; "Such Great Heights" was the song I associated with the person I loved and he wasn't there, he was thousands of miles away, and would be for a long time. Right then I saw the Washington Monument for the first time, framed perfectly, just out the window of the Poets and Busboys location we happened to be at. I stopped thinking about my boyfriend for a second. This could be my life, I thought. Travel and a good job that I like and books and friends and hotel rooms and cabs and free drinks. This could be it. It was a pretty heady thought.
Too bad, I was already in the middle of ruining that life, even at BEA 2006 in DC, it was too late to stop what had been put in motion. I probably already had tickets. I was an idiot and I would spend the next two years learning exactly how stupid I was.
The next day I took the train out to Silver Spring where Emily had stayed with her parents. Her mom picked me up at the station and I went to a party her family threw for all of the Gould/Deshler/Delaplaine grads of 2006. I hung out at the house she grew up in and met her parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and almost everyone said "We've heard so much about you!"
"Several years full of unimaginable things later," i.e. a few weeks ago, I arrived in DC on a lovely 75-degree February day for AWP. I got off the metro at the wrong stop so by the time I dragged my luggage to my AirBnB I was unseasonably sweaty and tired. The Airbnb had a Keurig and Costco pods (insert "the scream" emoji here) -- unacceptable, even under normal weather conditions.
I changed into shorts (JK, I did ditch all my jackets) and walked to Slipstream a few blocks away. As soon as I entered I knew I would be spending a lot of money at this establishment. Avocado toast? Check. Bowls? Check. Cinnamon rolls? Check. Single-origin coffee with weekly variations? Check and mate. I looked on the menu for something cold. They didn't seem to serve regular iced coffee.
"Can I get the nitro iced coffee without the nitro?" I asked. In DC for an hour and already acting like a crazy New Yorker.
"Hmmmm, no," said the counterperson. "We could do an iced Americano for you..."
"No, that's okay," I said. "I'll just get an iced latte."
I can't tell you how many times I've spent $4-$6 on an iced latte and been served something like this:
Like, you spend $5 on a drink and it's not even stirred? What a world we live in. But at Slipstream, the barista pulled the shot, measured out the milk, and shook my latte in a cocktail shaker with ice before they served it. It was divine.
After coffee, I picked up my badge and puttered around DuPont Circle. Then I took the red line out to Shady Grove and had dinner at the Goulds' place with Emily and Raffi and her parents. Emily and I were both exhausted from our 5 hour train ride with a toddler but we couldn't bring ourselves to part ways after dinner and face either an extra-early bedtime or for long commute back to the city. So we flopped on the couch in front of her parents' huge TV and (re)watched the first three episodes of 30 Rock.
30 Rock, in case you have somehow managed to not see any of the 138 episodes in syndication, is a TV show about the making of a ersatz SNL late night variety show featuring Tracy Jordan and Jenna Maroney (Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski), overseen by Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), who reports to, and is eventually mentored by, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming at NBC/GE/Sheinhardt Wig Company, CEO of Kable Town. It is the last time Judah Friedlander regularly worked and, in retrospect, an epic and masterful longform takedown of collaborator (h/t Elif) Jimmy Fallon, in the guise of Josh Girard, a "featured performer" written out in season three.
In the last episode of 30 Rock I watched before letting it fall out of my Hulu queue (back in the days when Hulu was free! and you could watch reruns the night after they aired!) - Liz Lemon sees a plastic bag caught in a tree American Beauty-style, resulting in an unearned, out-of-character, hokey realization. The sheer volume of 30 Rock in existence, the inevitable trend downwards of the last two or three seasons, and Tina Fey's recent status as a "problematic" feminist obscures how strong and sharp and biting 30 Rock came out of the gate, especially the pilot, which is about Jack encouraging Liz to hire Tracy for the show.
Liz: "Isn't he, um...crazy???"
Jack: "The important thing to remember," is
Jack makes Liz take Tracy out for lunch to discuss including him on her show, The Girlie Show, because "you're missing men between the ages of 18-49."
Liz: I'm not missing them. They're just not there.
So Liz and Tracy go to lunch.
Tracy: You know how pissed off I was when Us Weekly said that I was on crack? That’s racism. I’m not on crack.
Then Tracy goes into a monologue that all of us should tape on our mirrors and read every day before going to work.
Tracy: See me and you, we play the game. We know how to be acceptable...This show is our chance to break the shackles. Cause the white dudes want to see us fail. (emphasis mine)
Liz: What white dudes?
Tracy: All of em! Jack Donaghy, General Electric, George Bush, KARL ROBE!!
Liz: ...
Tracy:
TRUER WORDS. And before you write off the "AIDS in our chicken nuggets" line as mid-00s hyperbole, just remember that Donald Trump has yet to confirm a Secretary of Agriculture, and also, right now would be a good time for the left to abandon the circular firing squad as a resistance tactic.
Then, Tracy offers to give Liz a ride back to the studio, but first he has to make a "quick stop," which Liz thinks means the bank or the store, but Tracy means at a strip club. Liz is annoyed.
Tracy: You know why I should do this show, Lemon?
Liz: I really don't.
Tracy: To get you rich. Because you know that if I'm on that TV show, it's going to blow up.
Liz: How do you know I'm NOT rich?
Tracy: Because of your teeth. You gotta think like these strippers, Lemon. They know the window of opportunity is only open for a second. You gotta get in while you're young, get the money, and get out.
Liz: Well, I'm not a sex worker, Tracy.
Stripper: Neither do we!
Awww, look how close Tina Fey got to not denigrating strippers!!
Some other early moments:
(Jack's assistant Jonathan shows Jack a post it.)
Jack: Ah, I'll call her back. Is she at the White House line?
(Jonathan nods. Another post it.)
Jack: Tell them I need a 4am tee-off time.
(Jonathan nods)
(I used to own both of these shirts)
Tracy learns via paternity test he was descended from Thomas Jefferson and is genetically mostly white.
Tracy: That's ridiculous. l can't be white! My whole persona is based on an in-depth analysis of the differences between black and white people!
Then Tracy has a dream in which his father's identity is revealed in the style of a Maury Povich daytime show. At the climactic moment, Alec Baldwin as Thomas Jefferson appears on the Maury set.
"America, which I invented...[crowd boos]...WHICH I INVENTED...
cash me ousside howbow dah
is a great country because we are not burdened by our pasts. Embrace who you are, Tracy Jordan."
It's so easy when you're looking for it (which I of course am) to find in 30 Rock the move from surrealist but sharp political critique to the emergence of "ironic" racism in "post racial" (LOL) America, and then the rise of liberal complacency under Obama. There is Alec Baldwin's performance as Tracy Jordan's parents in Rosemary's Baby (great episode for the most part, features Carrie Fisher as a "Liz plus 30 years" ghost of Christmas Future type) which isn't blackface EXACTLY, but uncomfortably close to the vocal equivalent of it. There is the Stone Mountain episode, which features Jack and Liz visiting NBC page Kenneth's hometown of Stone Mountain, Georgia, to scout out "fresh" talent (in the form of racist puppets a la Jeff Dunham), and ends up being both a caricature of east coast liberals and a prescient look at "divided" America. "All God's children are terrible!" Liz screams, as she and Jack flee an angry mob at the Laugh Factory.
Then in Season 4:
"Old school racism is back," Tracy says, after Toofer is called a "biggledeboo" on the subway.
Toofer: How can racism be back when we elected a black president?
Tracy: Barry Obams is the one who brought it back.
This episode also hinges around the plot reveal that everyone on staff is an affirmative action hire so:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I went to Slipstream many, many times over the course of AWP. I had avocado toast and many coffees. I hung out at the convention center and met friends and talked about books and persuaded people to write them. I took cabs, most of which I paid for, but I did have some free drinks. On the last day I went to Slipstream one final time and got a cinnamon roll to go. I took it on the train and shared some of it with Raffi. When I got home I watched a couple more episodes of 30 Rock and for a few minutes, I felt a semblance of kindness for my younger self.
Until next time,
Ruth
In other news:
"A delicious love letter to readers and co-conspirators everywhere." -- Kirkus starred review for Barbara Browning!
(check out those similar books! some illustrious company)
"...charming, erudite, and often devastating...an exceptionally graceful page presence: loony and profound, vulnerable and ingenuous..." --PW featured and starred review for The Gift!
coming so soon; preorder now!!
Sharp and hysterical review with Jade Sharma at The Rumpus
Problems is available here and at a bookstore near you.
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