With the passing of Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Christopher Hitchens came an outpouring of personal stories by journalists about their relationship with their friend, their mentor, their hero and in one case, someone they had met just once. We rounded them up for you here with a poignant line or excerpt.

Portrait by Patrick Ryan.

The Weekly Standard/Daily Caller’s Matt Labash writes for Slate on traveling with Hitchens in Iraq. “After a protracted tussle in which Yacoub demanded Hitchens’ press badges, then after a cooling off in which he gave them back, then after a resumption of hostilities when Hitchens decided he didn’t want his Kuwaiti press badge back as the Kuwaitis were proving themselves the tramplers of liberty, Yacoub screamed that Hitchens would ‘leave Kuwait tonight!’ It’s pretty hard to get kicked out of a war. But Hitchens almost managed.”

David Frum writes about the man he couldn’t resist even after meeting him.

Washington Photographer Patrick Ryan once spent a morning smoking and drinking with the great writer. “He came over to greet me wearing socks and we immediately started talking as though we’d known each other for years.”

Townhall columnist and WMAL’s Derek Hunter writes about the pitfalls of Hitchens’ literal interpretation of everything. Like vodka for instance. Or toads. “Speaking of emails, I remember one that he signed, ‘Wishing you well in this toad-filled season.’ I thought, ‘What the Hell does that mean?’ I Googled it, I asked everyone. I found nothing to explain it. Finally I asked Grover if he knew what it meant, because I didn’t want to ask Hitchens and risk looking stupid. Grover looked up from his desk and said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s just some place with a lot of toads.’”

WaPo syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote about how she “devoured” Hitchens’ writing. Eventually she met him one day in the makeup room of NBC. “To say I was a friend of Hitchens would be an exaggeration, though I did enjoy the pleasure of his company on several occasions. But one needn’t have known a writer to mourn his passing or to feel profound sadness about all the silent days to come. No matter what the topic, I always wanted to know what Hitchens thought about it and, lucky for the world, he seemed always willing to end the suspense.”

Christopher Buckley‘s was fittingly among the first eulogies to emerge on Hitchens in The New Yorker. He starts out, “We were friends for more than thirty years, which is a long time but, now that he is gone, seems not nearly long enough.”

At this point GOP Presidential contender Herman Cain‘s Chief of Staff Mark Block is as famed for his smoking as he is for anything else. Today Washington photographer Patrick Ryan gets a few closeups of Block doing — what else? — SMOKING outside the National Press Club, where his boss was speaking today during a sold-out luncheon.

Block told Ryan, “You know what funniest thing is since this started? Yesterday somebody asked me to autograph their cigarette.”

See the post here.

Snarkinfested.com’s Patrick Ryan, a freelance photographer around town, snapped this classic shot of Tareq and Michaele “Look at my Michele Bachmann expression” Salahi at last night’s Roll Call/FamousDC soiree at Cava. If that doesn’t satisfy your Salahi fever, there’s more where this came from. See here.

Local freelance photographer Patrick Ryan snagged this shot of Comedian Stephen Colbert leaving the Federal Election Commission Friday afternoon. It was his birthday. He turned 47.

See here for more.

Late last night D.C. Freelance Photographer Patrick Ryan of SnarkInfested.com took to Layfayette Park in front of the White House to take in the celebration of the death of Osama bin Laden. See more here.

QUOTES of the DAY

The Cherry Blossoms by Washington freelance photographer Patrick Ryan, whose blog is www.snarkinfested.com.

Political director wants spring to meet its deadline

“Dear spring, you are so NOT #winningthefuture” — ABC News’s Amy Walter in a weekend tweet. But Media Matters Communications Associate Tyrone Gale begs to differ this morning, saying, “High in DC rumored to approach 85-90 today, highs of 60 and 70 all week. #SpringHasSprung.”

In a weekend tweet… WaPo columnist Gene Weingarten went on a quest to make new friends by sharing this: “‘Please don’t follow me unless you have at least 500 followers.’ #mostobnoxioustweetever.”

What your DVR says about you

“I think your DVR says a lot about you. For example, I record: The Golden Girls, Murder She Wrote, E! Fashion Police, House Hunters International, Law & Order CI/SVU, Chelsea Lately and Degrassi. Clearly I have TV Bipolar Disorder (not in the DSM IV)” — CNN.com’s Ed Hornick in a weekend Facebook update.

Host gets stopped by stranger

“A lady in Georgetown just stopped me on the street and asked if people who live in DC get to vote. I said ‘For what?’” — Tim Corrimal in a weekend tweet. Corrimal produces a radio show on Tim Corrimal.com MeatFreeRadio.com.

FNC host and anchor hang out in Sin City

“In Vegas. Going to meet Bret Baier with OTR staff.. Bret is here w/ friends so we are meeting.” — FNC “On the Record” host Greta Van Susteren in a weekend tweet.

Inskeep getting hooked on Miley

“Five words describe driving 6yr old lately: Miley Cyrus song on ‘repeat.’” — NPR’s Steve Inskeep in a Monday morning tweet.

Aussi-born reporter is huge Ke$ha fan

“Ke$ha deserves a lifetime achievement award for music that simultaneously works for both time-outs at an NBA game and a strip club #wizards” — WSJ video reporter Neil Hickey in a weekend tweet.

The Prognosticator

“I hear Al Gore will be getting fat this week.” — TPM‘s Brian Beutler in a weekend tweet.

The Critic

“There is no coherence to a NBC ‘Meet the Press’ roundtable.” — The Daily Caller‘s media writer Jeff Poor in a  weekend tweet.

When the book “Hollywood on the Potomac” was recently released in Washington, long-time DC publicist Janet Donovan bit her tongue. But she’s talking now to FBDC…

Donovan writes about celebrities and happenings around town on her blog “Hollywood on the Potomac” and for a Washington Life column by the same title– she even owns the Trademark rights. So she was a bit surprised, to say the least, when Jason Killian Meath‘s photo book was published with that name.

Tell us about how you came up with “Hollywood on the Potomac.”

When I first came to Washington some of my friends would show up on movie sets as extras to make some money. Occasionally I went with them. I think I even showed up in something with Burt Lancaster but probably ended up on the cutting room floor. Because I live in Georgetown, many films have been shot here including right outside of my old house on O Street. The amount of work that goes into these shoots is staggering and it was fun interacting with the crews. I have always had a great respect for the movie industry. Imagine life without Sesame Street for children, old Betty Davis movies for folks in retirement living, Disney family night at the cinema…

Around 2000 I started thinking maybe there is Hollywood on the Potomac and started following it. Now, of course, it is a mega attraction for the industry, not only in the film business but lobbying for various causes. Ironically, all of my children ended up in this creative world. My oldest son became a film producer, my youngest went to USC Film school and is now on staff there, my daughter went to journalism school at NYU and is Senior Product Director Interactive One LLC, a Radio One Company.

What makes you “Hollywood on the Potomac?”

I got there first. I also took it to the conventions a few elections ago where I did a daily column for CQ and covered the stars in Boston and New York.

Donovan photograph by Patrick Ryan and with Matt Drudge.

Continued after the jump…

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