Whether he’s getting his entire head eaten by actress Gabby Sidibe at a TIME/PEOPLE party at the St. Regis, or hunting down Washington D.C.’s Clark Rockefeller (the Bahamian Ambassador Nelson Lewis), Matt Dornic has been an unforgettable force at FishbowlDC for the past three years. Sadly, we say goodbye as he moves on to a new adventure at CNN. What some may not know is how adept Matt is at smoothing things over, whether it’s alleviating Ed Henry’s overreaction to me making fun of then-CNN staffers helping him into his blazer or dealing with HuffPost’s resident genius Jason Linkins telling us to die in a fire.  He also knows how to stir the pot – take his recent impromptu moment with Jack Abramoff on a couch at Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson’s home when he told the convicted felon that he was dating TWT’s Emily Miller. He explained how rough the past few years have been (Miller served as a witness against ex fiancé Michael Scanlon who was enveloped in the Abramoff scandal.) People often ask, what’s it like in the Fishbowl – do you two get along? We’ve spent many hours brainstorming features – some panned out, some did not. Au De Weigel perfume never made the cut but we spent days crying laughing as we came up with names for perfumes and aftershaves for various journalists around town, describing in excruciating detail what they’d smell like. That isn’t to say we don’t ever disagree — tension escalated during a recent war of words involving the Friday penis picture. In the end we came to a happy, framed conclusion. Dealing with Matt often means the unexpected – he’s sweating at Tammy Haddad’s famous brunch, he’s stuck in an elevator, he’s locked inside QGA, a life size George Bush cutout left leaning outside his door makes him scream like a schoolgirl, and a bird produces a shitstorm on his car. Matt – you will be missed. I speak for many FBDC friends and readers, we wish you well. Enjoy!

The infamous question you created that has tortured many a journalist in this town:  If you were a carbonated beverage, which would you be?

Ginger ale.  I’m generally sweet with a strong ginger spice flavor* (see: Jackie Kucinich).  A classic, natural beverage with European roots.  And I mix well with bourbon.

Who would you rather have dinner with – WaPo’s Ezra Klein, Michaele and Tareq Salahi or Nelson Lewis? Tell us why.

Nelson Lewis, without a doubt…especially if I could persuade Kate Michael and Ebong Eka to join us for a very special edition of the District Dish.  Why?  He’s the rarest and most exquisite creature Washington has ever produced.  It’s not every day you get a chance to dine with a congressman turned Rolling Stone writer turned Bahamian ambassador. That kid has lived.

What swear word do you use most often?

F*ck.  But I plan to tone that down for my new job.

You’re walking down a dark alley and you run into DCRTV Dave. What do you do? What do you say? And do you activate your mace?

I’d be relieved.  Dark alleys are dangerous, you know.  And despite his outward hatred for FishbowlDC I’m fairly certain he’s in love with us. So I’d probably ask to see his lower back, where I’ve heard he has my initials tattooed. And then I’d braid his beard.

When you pig out what do you eat?

Rarebit from Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown.  It’s essentially beer-doused Velveeta with white toast but the fancy name makes it okay.

Now for a really serious moment: What will you miss most and least about writing for FishbowlDC?

Fishbowl has served as my personal Prozac for almost three years.  Sure, there have been side effects but the daily dose of laughter and smiles gained through working with some truly incredible sources, co-editors and friends have made it worth the trouble.  And I’ll miss the hilarious and sometimes nonsensical email exchanges between Betsy and me. The anonymASS tipsters who cowardly use the tips box to trash FBDC’s writers will not be missed.

How did you come up with the ingenious phrase, “Sox News?” Any parting words for the glamour gals over in Sox News PR?

“I wish them well.”  They’ll know what I mean.

What is your absolute favorite item of clothing in your closet? We want the fabric, the brand, the store and the price if possible. If it’s a certain kind of underwear we don’t want to know about it.

A pair of brass-studded Fiorentini + Baker motorcycle boots I purchased at Barney’s for an obscene amount of money last year (see attached photo).  I rarely wear them because they make me feel a little “Adam Glambert” but I like the possibilities they represent….plus they keep all my driving loafers in check.

Pick one: Kim, Khloe, or Kourtney?

Despite her Chewbacca-like physique, Khloe is my favorite Kartrashian.  Sense of humor trumps appearance every time.

Have you ever had a tarot card reading?

Yes, the same night Kiki Ryan, Christine Delargy and I ordered a pizza to Martin’s Tavern (the kitchen was closed…).

Favorite item in the TIME/People WHCA Dinner gift bag:

The Bosch Tassimo coffee maker.  I use it every day. But I thought the bizarre baby-teething necklace was a solid addition this year.

On a serious note for a moment, what is your favorite Wendy Gordon photograph?

I studied French in high school and college so I’m a sucker for Wendy’s french maid/baguette photo.  C’est magnifique!

What scares you?

Pleated pants, the dark and pleated pants in the dark.

When and why did you last lose your temper?

The last time (and every time) I was in a cab.

Do you have a me-wall? If so, who’s on it?

No, I don’t really like pictures of “me” so I usually contribute to friends and family members’ me-walls by snapping the photos.

Tell us a secret not many people know about you.

Because I received so many questions after you outed me about Dawson’s, I’ll admit that I used to have acting aspirations.  Throughout college I worked on a number of film and television productions as a day player, extra, and actor – Dawson’s Creek, Summer Catch, Stateside, A Walk to Remember, and Black Knight to name a few.  And I did a national “back to school” ad campaign for American Eagle Outfitters.  It’s funny now but it sure beat slinging lattes at Starbucks. 

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

On December 1st of last year Marc Adelman was named D.C. editor of SELF magazine, a Conde Nast publication focused on women’s fitness and well-being.  But after eight months and no byline, we were beginning to think Adelman’s SELF gig was about as legitimate as Nelson Lewis‘s role at Rolling Stone.   So you can imagine our surprise this week when we received a link to Marc’s long-awaited first piece: “Thank you, Betty Ford.”  You can check it out here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Week hosted its 8th annual Opinion Awards at the W Hotel last night.  Held to celebrate the year’s top opinion writers, the event boasted a potent dose of press and political power.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory emceed the event honoring The Week‘s Cartoonist of the Year Tom Toles of WaPo, WSJ‘s Peggy Noonan who won Columnist of the Year, and Blogger of the Year John Sides, the voice behind TheMonkeyCage.org.  Mixing with The Week’s winners were guests like Sen. Lindsey Graham, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” WaPo‘s Roxanne Roberts,  Debbie Dingell, Diane Danner, WaPo’s Jonathan Capehart, Grover Norquist, Gene Robinson, Terry McAuliffe, Robin and Austan Goolsbee and Margaret Carlson.  Representing The Week were EIC Bill Falk, Publisher Steven Kotok and Jessica Sibley.

But the evening’s most interesting “guest” may have been His Excellency Minister Plenipotentiary for Artistic Endeavors for the Embassy of the Bahamas – you remember good old Nelson Lewis, right?  The 26-year-old Fox News and “Laura Ingraham Show” alum who was exposed late last year for impersonating a Bahamian diplomat, Rolling Stone writer and Rep. Jack Kingston, somehow managed to make his way into a picture with Roxanne Roberts and John Sides (check it out in the slide show above).  Organizers confirmed that His Excellency was not on the guest list and therefore did not attend the dinner. But that didn’t stop him from mingling on the rooftop terrace after the event.  One guest recalls hearing Lewis tell another party-goer that he works for PBS. Perhaps he’s taking over Newshour for Jim Lehrer?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

His Excellency returns to the social scene by posing for pictures over the weekend at Fashion for Paws, a fundraiser for the Washington Humane Society in which well-dressed, high-heeled women walk the catwalk with dogs.

If your memory is fuzzy on what His Excellency did, read here and here and here. For the most comprehensive post on His Excellency read here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ezzy from the block.

For the past eight months or so, FishbowlDC has been engaging in a special prayer time led by WaPo‘s religion blogger Julia Duin. Every day around noon, Matt and I bow our heads, join hands and pray for one thing: the chance to interview WaPo‘s liberal blogger Ezra Klein. We’ve watched sullenly as he shared his insights and intellect with anyone and everyone…except us.  He showed up and showed everyone up on Maher, MSNBC, and even McLaughlin.  But hell hath frozen over, the seas have parted and a miracle has occurred — Ezzy called FishbowlDC.  Hello?  “Listen class, where the fuck is my face time?” a voice on the other end of the phone snarled. “Whoa,” we thought. We didn’t expect him to be so, well, rambunctious. But we’re game. We’ve come to expect the unexpected in the Fishbowl. We gathered our fresh figs and our wits and said: “Alright Ez, what do you want to do?” He said, of course, “the FishbowlDC interview.”

If you were a carbonated beverage which would you be?

“Clearly Canadian” for obvious political reasons.

What’s the best advice you’ve received in the course of your career?

Keith Olbermann once told me to “fake it ‘til I make it.”  It worked for him and so far it’s working out pretty well for me.

Who is your favorite working journalist?

MSNBC contributor Ezra Klein is my favorite – because of his on-camera presence.  But WaPo’s Ezra Klein is quite profound too. And then of course there’s Ezra Klein from the Internet Food Association blog.  Now that guy is witty, intelligent, good looking…and have you tasted his pomegranate reduction – Amazeballs!

Do you have a favorite word?

My favorite pronoun is “I.”  And while we’re at it, my favorite sentence type is declarative.

Pick one: Leno, Letterman or Conan?

Really? Three middle-aged white men? Typical.   I pick George Lopez, Arsenio Hall and that lesbian on Chelsea Lately.

Where do you shop most often for your clothes?

I go to Penney’s for my Dockers pants, sports coats and wrinkle-free dress shirts.  But I get most of my ironic tee shirts and accessories from www.snorgtees.com and Super Hero Stuff is cool for underwear and pajamas etc.

Which movie best describes your journalism career?

Can’t Hardly Wait.

When and why did you last laugh so hard you had tears in your eyes?

Last weekend in Second Life, Dave Weigel and I got bombed on Zimas and tried to T.P. Tucker Carlson’s house.  It was awesome.

Who would you cast as Ezra Klein in a film about your life?

Already in development.  And duh…James Franco.

*Find out Klein’s dream date, favorite food and his most embarrassing career moment after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

L to R: Nelson Lewis, actress Rose McGowan and Mankini

I wish we knew how to quit you, Nelson…but the wild web of  fake titles, stolen identities and lies just keeps growing.

We told you last week the wacky story of W. Nelson Lewis (26), the former Fox News guest greeter and Laura Ingraham Show producer who was recently arraigned in District Court for allegedly impersonating 55-year-old Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA).  Sporting a congressional pin, Lewis was arrested by the Capitol Police on November 17, 2010 after claiming to have been assaulted.  He later admitted that the claim was false.

FishbowlDC’s Betsy Rothstein contacted Kingston who described a long friendship with the Lewis family and a past internship for Nelson in his office. But the Congressman denied any connection to the congressional pin Lewis was wearing when arrested.

“My thinking is it’s one of those youthful indiscretions that just got out of hand,” Kingston reasoned with Rothstein. “It was a one-time event, harmless in intent. I’m friends with him. I don’t know the circumstance of this, but my impression is he’s out drinking one night, running his mouth, unfortunately the hole got a little bit deeper. There’s no ill intention.”

Unfortunately for Nelson, the story didn’t end there.  Over the next few days, a slew of other Lewis-fabricated titles and identities surfaced.  In a recent interview with Kate Michael‘s “District Dish” video series, Lewis referred to himself as a Bahamian diplomat – “His Excellency” - and entertained Michael’s co-hosts with stories about his activities as a features writer for Rolling Stone.  Both the Bahamian Embassy and Rolling Stone have adamantly denied any connection to Lewis.

“He shared with me that he had been named Minister Plenipotentiary for Artistic Endeavors for the Embassy of the Bahamas, giving me his new business card and e-mail address and inviting me to cover artistic events he was co-hosting, including one at the OAS,” said Kate Michael. “At no time did we have any indication that his claims might be false.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Sultry starlet Rose McGowan and Nelson Lewis

FishbowlDC tracked the steps His Excellency Nelson Lewis, Washington’s own Clark Rockefeller, may have taken to pull off a fake identity as the Minister Plenipotentiary for Artistic Endeavors at the Embassy of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas (The Hill‘s Christina Wilkie confirmed the fraudulent title with the embassy  here).  *Lewis has also allegedly posed as a congressman and Rolling Stone writer but his diplomatic title is by far our favorite.

Follow along and you too could move on from your job at Fox News and into an embassy in five easy steps!

Step 1 ) Purchase a URL that seems somewhat official.  Lewis’ business card reads http://mfabahamasdc.org/- registered on June 24, 2010.  Seems legit enough.

Step 2) Register the URL to the country’s embassy you’d most like to represent…but don’t get too flashy.  Lewis claimed to represent the Bahamas.  Good choice – small, humble, minimal international policy exposure and hard to validate.  Create a fake contact and fake address for the URL – who’s going to check that out anyhow?

The URL on Lewis’ card is registered to “Eduardo Johnson” from the “EMBASSY OF THE KINGDOM OF THE BAHAMAS” at 224 Eye St NW (address doesn’t actually exist).

Step 3) Set up your email address using the  faux URL but forward the actual web page to something legitimate.  The URL on Lewis’ card http://mfabahamasdc.org/ is auto-directed to  http://www.bahamas.gov.bs/ but Nelson’s email address remains lewisn@mfabahamasdc.org.  Clever!

Step 4) Have some flashy business cards made.  We showed you the snazzy, embossed cards Lewis dropped all over town.  Check them out to the left.

Step 5) Let you inner sociopath shine and lie, lie, lie!  Do interviews, attend parties, make special appearances, mingle with celebs…nothing can stop you now!

*Note: this post has been updated to reflect the information gathered from the URL registry and business card rather than actions taken by Mr. Lewis.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If that’s not enough, we’ve since discovered that no one at Rolling Stone has ever heard of Lewis and rather than working with Ingraham for the ten months he claims, he was actually terminated after only 15 weeks.  Weirder.

But this last little nugget takes the cake.  A reader directed us to this gem of a video where Kate Michael‘s “District Dish” interviews His Excellency Nelson Lewis, Minister Plenipotentiary for Artistic Endeavors at the Embassy of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.  In the video he explains how he took the diplomatic role to get out of thousands of dollars in DC parking tickets, his wild life as a writer for Rolling Stone and how FNC’s Greta Van Susteren jokes that her viewers of “On the Record” are likely in wheelchairs or a nursing home (note: we don’t believe this either).  Wow. 

My B.S. meter just exploded so watch the video below for yourself.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to the Examiner‘s Scott McCabe, Lewis was arrested around 1 am at the 100 block of Independence Avenue SE on November 17th after Capitol Police responded to a call that a member of Congress had been assaulted.  When they arrived, they found the 26-year-old Lewis sporting the pin and claiming to be 55-year-old Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).  Lewis later changed his story and said the pin belonged to a deceased uncle.

According to Lewis’s Facebook page, he is a currently a classic rock features writer and columnist for Rolling Stone.  FishbowlDC contacted the magazine’s HR department who could not verify his employment and a web search produced no Lewis-penned articles for the magazine.  Another source at the mag said, “never heard of him.”

In the meantime, check out McCabe’s piece for more info.

Note: We updated the original version of this post to reflect Nelson’s actual length of employment with Laura Ingraham.  A spokesman for the program contacted, saying “Nelson Lewis worked as a producer for the show for approximately 15 weeks before being terminated.”  Lewis’s Facebook profile claims employment from January to October of this year.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ginuwine and Redskins running back Clinton Portis

Friends and family prep for the big surprise.

This past weekend, Tonya Lumpkin, a.k.a. rapper Sole threw a surprise birthday party bash for hubby R&B sensation Ginuwine at D.C.’s newest rooftop bar Eden. The couple celebrated with close family and friends, including Redskins running back Clinton Portis. Media in attendance included NBC 4′s Teneille Gibson, Rolling Stone’s Nelson Lewis, Washington Examiner‘s Nikki Schwab, and Metromix.com’s Dorothy Redmond.

Ginuwine plans to drop his newest single “What Could Have Been”, off of his seventh studio album “Elgin”, in early February. Ginuwine’s book, entitled “My Ride”, as well as his reality show, are also scheduled to release in 2011. Most importantly…in the next couple of weeks, Ginuwine plans to give away his own Range Rover to a lucky Twitter follower. (Follow him at @ginuwine09.)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.