Amazing Feats

Photo Credit: HuffPost‘s Sara Kenigsberg

HuffPost reporter Elise Foley, an avid tweeter, is all smiles in the above photograph. But the painful reality is that she was texting and walking when she broke her arm.

Foley faces six weeks in the sling.

“Very slowly,” she remarked on Twitter on how she’ll proceed with her tweeting habits.

When we wrote to confirm that she really injured herself while texting and walking, she replied with what may be the shortest answer ever to FishbowlDC: “Yep.”

Considering her injury, we’ll leave it that. Be careful out there!

When you try to write about everything and cater to everyone everywhere in every language imaginable, you’re left with a breaking news alert that looks something like this.

One of the most entertaining stories we’ve read  lately was published this week by Roll Call’s John Stanton about tattoos in the U.S. Congress. Stanton let us know which members of Congress are sporting ink under their buttoned up suits. Some have small reminders of time in the service or of their heritage. Others, like Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) have half-sleeves that cover their upper arms. Stanton reports:

“So if, as lawmakers are so fond of saying, Congress is indeed a reflection of America, it would follow that some 60 Members of the House and 16 Senators have found themselves at least once under the gun, so to speak.”

Stanton revealed that he has ink of his own. He has a total of eight tattoos and he tells FBDC that his “right sleeve is almost done and my upper left arm is almost done. I have an ink well and quill tattoo, a tattoo of a harp carved from bog wood that my great grandmother brought from Ireland, among others.” Stanton’s stature combined with his well-known tattoos sparked plenty of instant reaction via Twitter on Tuesday.

Christina Bellantoni of PBS’ NewsHour says, “I’ve been waiting for this story for 2 years.” Mike Madden of Washington City Paper says, “File under ‘write what you know.’” USA Today’s Jackie Kucinich tweets, “It is pure poetry that @bigjohnrc wrote this story about lawmakers with ink.”

Yahoo’s Chris Moody wrote his own take on the Stanton’s piece and including that “he’s pretty much the perfect reporter to write the story.”

Say what you will about the competitive nature of journalism, we lost count of how many retweets and kind words were spread around the internet. It reached a feverish breaking point to where NY Mag’s obviously cantankerous Assoc. Editor Dan Amira snapped, “Ok, we get it Roll Call, you have an article on tattoos.”

While Stanton “outed” several members of Congress for having tattoos, it’s interesting to note that none of the lawmakers who admitted to having the ink would pose for a picture showcasing their body art. So, while these politicians will talk freely about their tats, they clearly still feel that there is a stigma attached to coming clean with their body art.

As some loyal readers know, FBDC’s Peter Ogburn has been full-on obsessed with doggedly covering Paul Wharton Style each week, intently watching the show with the veracity of a toddler with a new SpongeBob video or a hungry lion with a new piece of meat.

“I just made a giant pink martini to watch @PaulWharton Style. I’m 30 seconds in and I can tell this will be great,” Ogburn gushed on Twitter as he settled in to watch Sunday’s show. Wharton, a future AA member who makes a hobby out of drinking, took a liking to this, replying, “Peter- What’s in your cocktail recipe? I wanna put the recipe up on paulwhartonstyle.com! The Big Pink Peter !”

Just what is in that disconcertingly-named Big Pink Peter? Peter writes, “Paul Wharton, recipe for Big Pink Peter. I like mine EXTRA stiff: 3 oz gin 1 oz vodka 1/2 oz of Lillet Blanc 1/2 oz fresh raspberry puree.”

Stay tuned…we hear Wharton has scheduled drinks with Peter tomorrow night. We can’t even imagine what that means.

“The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish their story immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still underway. Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.”

Read the story here.

There are several reasons why The Avengers shattered box office records this weekend. We’d like to think that MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts is one of them. As TVNewser’s Alex Weprin mentioned last week, there is a cameo from Roberts near the end playing a TV anchor reporting that a group of heroes saved the planet from an attacking army of alien soldiers. Honestly, that doesn’t sound too far off from an actual newscast these days.

Roberts tells FishbowlDC that the shot was filmed at 30 Rock in February of this year. We just assumed Roberts was a comic book fan, but he tells us that he was always more of a “Super-Friends kind of kid.” Roberts saw the movie this weekend and says that he thinks that “the Hulk stole the show.”

In the same scene that we see Roberts, we see recycled footage of a Jay Carney press conference.

The case of Starbucks versus the White House reporter who only had a 50-dollar bill for breakfast is over. Earlier in the week, FBDC’s Peter Ogburn reported that Mark Knoller went to breakfast at Starbucks near the White House. But when he went to pay up, they wouldn’t accept his bill. So Knoller did what any self-respecting CBS Radio White House correspondent would do — he wrote to Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner over Twitter about the legitimacy of his money.

And then he basically refused to say anymore. He said he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. Writing to the Secretary of Treasury is, of course, not a big deal thing to do.

Today the hullabaloo concluded with Knoller hearing back from a Starbucks “official.” Does Starbucks have officials or just in Washington? Nonetheless, here’s what the official had to say. Ever the teddy bear type, Knoller thanks Starbucks for the call. Shouldn’t he at least get a triple espresso strawberry mochachino for this?

“Just got a call from a Starbucks VP who says their store should have “absolutely” accepted my $50 bill the other day. The Starbucks official was courteous and apologetic over the episode and said its employee should not have turned down my fifty. Thanks for the call, Starbucks. Much appreciated.”

Consider this the irony to end all ironies.

Washingtonian Editor Garrett Graff, a man quick to take to Twitter to talk about such Masterpiece Theatre-esque topics such as his love of scotch, or perhaps boudoir stories or The Old Meeting House in Old Montpelier, put out a dazzling example of lack-of-self-awareness Monday with this tweet:

“I don’t normally crow about media elitism, but the WaPo‘s condescension of @JoelOsteen’s rally is disappointing.” He was, of course, referring to WaPo‘s coverage of TV evangelist Joel Osteen‘s visit to Washington where he performed and prayed at Nationals Park.

See samplings of Garrett’s elitist snob tweets after the jump…

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This dark gray leather couch may seem like an innocuous piece of furniture found at last night’s Funny or Die/Atlantic/NJ party at 1800 L St. Sponsored by Volkswagon, they somehow fit actual cars inside the party space. As you can see from the photograph at right, even a potential romantic hot spot. But downstairs in the darkened vast bar area was this gray piece of furniture that matched the carpet maybe a little too perfectly and caused a fair amount of trouble.

Needless to say this became FishbowlDC’s home base.

Early on in the party, a man walked by and completely wiped out, sprawling all over the couch. He managed to get himself upright rather quickly as people watched. No one really had to help him but some inquired if he was okay. Later in the night, a woman wasn’t nearly so lucky — she fell backwards onto it. And still later, in the thick of the alcohol-soaked party haze, a woman tripped over it to the point where her necklace was up over her face and she was entirely splayed on the floor. We tried to snap pictures, but the whole thing happened so fast and Eddie ( who was laughing and yelling at me not to take pictures of this) prevented me from getting the shot in time. About four people helped this last woman up.

By the end of the evening there should have been a team of medics standing by this thing.

At one point we anticipated that NYT Washington Bureau Chief Carl Hulse, who stopped by to chat with the Fishbowl team, might topple over it (horribly Peter said he had his camera ready just in case), but Hulse, after talking with us about music, his band and reporters, walked smoothly past the danger couch and made his way to the bar.

Among the perks of a journalist covering the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the events surround it are the gift bags that are doled out at select parties.

Last night we collected our first bag of the weekend, and what a delight it was. A big fat thank you to Elle, Lanmark Technology’s Lani Hay and the Creative Coalition for assembling a collection of items we never knew we wanted so badly. This was awaiting us on our chairs inside a banquet room at The Ritz to celebrate female journalists. Who the hell says there’s a war on women?

Contents of the black bag:

1. Beautiful bright orange hair ties from South Moon Under.

2. The latest Elle Magazine with Rihanna on the cover. If you don’t know how to pronounce Rihanna just ask CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

3. Skinny Pop Popcorn. Only 100 calories per bag. Guilt free, cholesterol free.

4. A creamy yellow box of chocolates from Largess Affair.

5. Liz Earle face cleanse & polish in a pretty mint green container.

6. Kate Somerville intensive exfoliating treatment and a separate bottle of dermal quench Liquid Lift.

7. Glo Therapeutics skin revitalizer bronzer.

8. $35 toward perfume at Lafco in New York.

9. A diamond in the ruff Radiance Micro-Oxygen facial at RPS Medspa.

10. A delectable lemon flavored Georgetown Cupcake.

11. Free training session with Laurant at YaLa Fitness.  Uh oh. Who’s Laurant? Who knows? But it’s free.

12. Lip gloss. The color: luna (a dark peachy pink).

13. An absolutely luxurious turquoise eye mask from Kumi Kookoon. We’re in the cocoon as we speak.

14. Burt’s Bees lip shimmer in the always necessary array of plum, cherry and strawberry.

15. Burt’s Bees daily moisturizing cream for sensitive skin. It’s hypoallergenic.

16. Promise Me by Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan. G. Komen for the Cure.

Who showed up?

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