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Fright Night or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Washington’s Social Elite

November 17, 2009 by Jeff

all words: Jeff Jetton
all photos: Garai Rice and Sam Goldstein

Writing for a snarky blog and attending an event like Fight Night is probably similar to being in the press corps for the White House as a Mother Jones reporter during George W. Bush’s eight years. You have to be careful not to take the easy shots and you need to err on the side of subtlety, lest you be relegated to the loony bin (albeit on the other end of the spectrum from the cuckoos you’re writing about). For instance, it would be egregious of me to say that I’d rather be tied down, shirtless, to a park bench and have my nipples covered in sesame oil and bird seed with 700 hungry pigeons let loose to peck away than to be stuck at Fight Night for any longer than I was already there. I can’t say these things, it doesn’t help my case any.

I can’t focus on the fact that the main attraction of a charity event to raise money to stop the abuse of women is a bunch of dudes beating the shit out of each other while people cheer them on.  Since I realize that it’s just PRETEND violence, it would be silly of me to bring it up in this format. Just silly.

I knew exactly the type of no-holds-barred Gala that this was going to be prior to stepping foot in the ballroom. No cheap shots were necessary. I knew from the beginning that Michael Saylor would be there, as would every other Gordon Gekko in his forties, fifties, sixties, etc., in the metro region who doesn’t have a wife (or doesn’t have a wife ANYMORE, or DOES have a wife and just doesn’t give a fuck) and spends his weekend out on the town chasing tail at places like L2 (and whatever other horrible haunts dudes with millions upon millions of dollars and the makeup-addled women they attract hang out).

Shit, I already started down the warpath.

Okay, let’s try this again. Fight Night is the one Thursday a year when all of the nice, rich, old dudes that you never hear about in the Washinton City Paper, yet you always hear about in Washington Life Magazine, descend upon D.C. like some sort of Pied Piper led them here. But these aren’t rats, friends. And the only river that these cats are drowning in is one of ladies’ perfume and cigar smoke. And that sweet, sweet piper music? It isn’t Frankie Gammyfoot; it’s Joan Jett and some sort of new, reverse-aging Blackhearts.

It’s the one night a year where you’ll find defense contractors of all color and creed in one place, cooling their heels together after a long day of robbing the American tax payer. We are sorry you missed it if you weren’t there, but there’s no fretting, you have a whole year to start saving up the 500 clams that it costs to get in (assuming they don’t raise the price for tickets next year).

Seriously, though, I could go on and on about how Fight Night is just an excuse for old dudes in tuxedos to get laid while their wives are at some other event most likely bidding on laser lipo packages for themselves and 10 friends.

But we’ll just get a bunch of hate mail from angry readers who a) are so young and good looking that the thought of laser lipo packages is disgusting and frivolous or b) are pissed off that they didn’t know this event existed and want to find out how they can get in on the action next year.  I imagine that after the economy turns around this year, kids will be scooping up Fight Night tickets faster than you can say ‘Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel’.

Really, we wish Fight Night was the type of spot where you’d hear Monday morning rumours about how the Mayor took two Redskins’ cheerleaders up to his penthouse suite for a threeway that could be heard from the elevator banks down the hallway, even above the humming of the ice machine! But that’s just plain ludicrous. Fight Night isn’t like it used to be in the good ole Marion Barry days. Hell, we can’t even confirm that the Mayor made it to the event.

Hold on a second, though. Let’s just take a step back and analyze the whole ‘bidding on laser lipo packages’ thingy. ‘Really’, you ask? Trust me, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. This comes straight from the Washington Post’s kind-of, sort-of intrepid reporters at ‘Reliable Source’ regarding the other event going on over at the Ritz Carlton (for the ladies):

From 6:30 on, open bars kept the cocktail reception humming. Carol Joynt, Lisa Collis, Pamela Sorensen, event co-founders Cheryl Masri and Jill Sorensen and event chair Gina Adams, FedEx’s top lobbyist, mingled; rumored “Real Housewives” Mary Amons and Lynda Erkelitian were there, as was Paul Wharton, a local style-setter linked to the in-production series. Meanwhile, Marlene Cooke perused the silent-auction spread (an assortment of laser lipo packages, baby clothes and Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses, among other things).

The real spending started after dinner, live-auction style. First on the block: A real live shih tzu mix puppy. Sleeping, in a basket. Until a shirtless guy picked it up and held it aloft. Boom: $3,250.

It was rapid fire after that. Eyebrow-shaping party for 30 at Erwin Gomez’s Georgetown salon: $7,000. Private tango lessons with Robert Duvall: $3,000. Catered dinner for 10 at the D.C. Firehouse: $6,000.

And here are the firefighters, on stage in yellow “I Rescue Knockouts” tees, hoping to up the bidding. How about the very shirts off their backs? $500 a piece. Not many takers. “They sweated on them!” the auctioneer offers. A few more hands shoot up. A few more shirts come off.

Livestock auctions have come along way since the stockyard days of Chicago.  As my little brother would say: “motherfuckers be auctioning off puppies!”

I feel sorry for that shih tzu puppy. And for Robert Duvall. Not everyone wins at Fight Night.

Okay, fuck it. Time to be honest. If I was old and rich and my wife were at some horrible charity Gala with all of her old, rich friends bidding on stupid shit like a SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLAR EYEBROW SHAPING PARTY FOR THIRTY, you know where I would want to be? Probably exactly where all those dudes were: smoking cigars (DC smoking ban be damned), watching boxing, hitting on ‘models’, eating steak and drinking whiskey.

A lot of whiskey. So much whiskey that I would need to take a cab (or limo) home. And hopefully enough whiskey that I would pass out in a drunken slumber before the sound of my wife telling me about how she just dropped three grand on a god-damn tango lesson with Robert Duvall registered in my cerebral cortex as an actual event that took place earlier in the evening. Seriously, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

We can’t blame these guys for doing what they’re doing. They don’t really want to be there. Their wives are driving them into this sort of insanity with all of this uppercrust nonsensery.  For christ’s sake, they hate the fact that they are there. They hated themselves from the moment they walked in that dirty, dirty door. In fact, I’m willing to bet five hundred bucks that if you took fifty of the dudes who attended Fight Night and asked them six months ago if they wanted to go see Joan Jett in concert, all fifty would give you a range of answers from ‘no thanks’ to ‘why in God’s name would I want to see Joan Jett?’. I am quite confident that none of them would want to bid on a hideous, shark-shaped motorcycle, too. Let alone bid that lame-ass, piece of shit up to $110,000, even if it is for charity.

Note to guy who paid $110,000 for the motorcycle: get it repainted.

You are talking about dudes who scraped and clawed and gnashed their way to the top.  That pile of money which they sleep on at night didn’t just embezzle itself.  So it’s got to be painful for them to know that they’re pissing their hard-earned cash away on a bunch of shitty memorabilia and overstock items that they wouldn’t have purchased on their own accord and that they’re only buying now to show up their fellow cronies in some sort of a weird, modern-day, chest-beating ritual.  You’ve got to show ‘em you’re still boss, even in an economic downturn.  Never reveal vulnerability, Buddy Fox.

Alas, this event was for charity. And these folks are a charitable bunch. You have to be charitable to buy a picture of Alexander Ovechkin that’s this bad. He’s not even playing, he’s squirting himself with water on the bench.  Even if it is autographed, it’s still shitty. This may be the worst face that Ovy has ever been caught on camera making. In fact, it’s almost as bad as the face that the guy who just bought it is making. Art occasionally imitates life. Or vice versa. I feel like that’s the face of bidder’s remorse.

Rumour has it that Reed Landry, of Late Night Shots fame, bid that autographed Mario Lopez poster up to 1200 bucks. I have it from a reliable source that Reed got in a bidding war over said poster but had to drop out when it got to be out of the LNS’ coffers price range. To be fair, though, it didn’t come with a frame.

Let’s stop all the hating for a minute to point out some of the bright spots of the evening.  Fight Night isn’t just about infidelity.  It’s also about the clothes, people.  The award for hottest couple of the evening went to Harold & Maude Potter.  We caught them in the throes of passion on the stairwell and interrupted their makeout session long enough to snap some candid pics.   

Every detail of their outfits was well thought-out.  From his tie matching her jacket to her shirt matching his suit, they screamed haute couture.  We’re hoping they have lots of fashionable children.

And what’s fashionable for men this year?  Aside from black being the new black, apparently not smiling for photos is so hot this year.  Teeth are so 2008.  Guys, hide those pearly whites.  Anger (or apathy) is flying off the runways of Milan, remember that you heard it here first. 

Even Sugar Ray Leonard’s jumping on the frumpy bandwagon.  We hear he had that frown custom-made by Louis Vuitton!  We love the picture below because not only are the two main subjects not smiling, the dude in the background is also pissed off ALONG with the pictures of old dudes on the wall.  We couldn’t fit any more unhappiness into this photo without using photoshop.  Grrr!

And what about the ladies?  Ball gowns, ball gowns, ball gowns.  Or cheerleader outfits.  Wha?  We’ll keep this article classy and focus on the ball gowns rather than the cheerleader outfits.

Maybe just a couple:

Okay, I’ve spent enough time writing this article.  If you didn’t get the Harold & Maude Potter joke, please scroll back up and read it again, btw.  Gold.  It’s time to let the pictures do the talking. 

P.S. Nothing screams “I just paid $500 a pop for a ticket to Fight Night” like bottle-shaped, aluminum cans of Bud and Bud Light.  I’m just sayin’.  I really hope somebody at the Fight Night planning committee reads this and contacts our good friends at Flying Dog Ale.  If there’s one thing the uber-rich, high-society folks of Washington DC love it’s a fine, locally-crafted, independent brew.  Well, that and tango lessons with Robert Duvall.

now for some actual fight photo by Sam:

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