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Sam Seaborn, Deputy Communications Director
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| If you could live anywhere, where would you and why? |
[Apr. 21st, 2004|07:35 pm] |
I don't think there's any way I can discuss this without sounding like I've torn a page out of some Harlequin romance novel. It's lucky that I'm extremely comfortable with my masculinity.
When Will and I were together, we spent a lot of time discussing the French Riviera. Nice, specifically. Okay, we only had one actual discussion about it, but I assume he spent as much time thinking about it afterwards as I did. If not, well. It's also lucky that I'm comfortable with my, you know, being vaguely pathetic in general.
Despite the removal of the boyfriend from any mental tableau, the idea remains pretty appealing. I could find myself a little villa or chalet... mostly because I enjoy saying those words. Possibly even a boathouse. I think it's safe to say at this point that sailing isn't the healthiest hobby for me, but I'm confident that I could manage to not fall off a boat that was basically stationary. Probably. I mean, not more than once. |
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| How do you handle confrontations? |
[Apr. 5th, 2004|04:38 am] |
That depends, I think, on the pervading level of hostility.
If it's one of those meetings where we've known exactly what the outcome would be weeks in advance and the actual discussion is, at that point, superfluous? I can do that. Superfluous discussion is one of my specialties. If it's a situation wherein Toby will most likely turn excessively vociferous or Josh might be prone to violence, I can usually be trusted to mediate. If matters of legality are going to come up, I'm usually a good person to have in the room, considering that unlike most of my close colleagues I graduated law school actually retaining knowledge of, you know, one or two of your more basic laws.
But if you come after us?
If you stage an unprovoked attack on this administration, if you impugn the character of one employee in this White House, rest assured that I am coming after you, and I will not sleep until you, your agenda, and anyone involved with either is finished, on the Hill, in the press, in this country, as wholly and interminably as it is within my power to cause. |
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| What is the most important decision you've made in your life, and why? |
[Apr. 5th, 2004|04:37 am] |
Things had been going well for me in New York. I had made partner at Gage Whitney; I was making close to half a million dollars a year. I had a fiancée who tolerated me a decent forty percent of the time. My life was on track.
I stood up and walked out on it. All of it. In the middle of a meeting, because he showed up (soaking wet from the rain, looking like he'd spent the night in the subway station, god only knows how he got into the building).
All because he showed up, knocked on the conference room window, and.
Smiled. Just smiled.
I walked out on all of it, for a job that barely paid enough to cover my old dry cleaning bills, for a writing partner I had never met who preferred (vocally, at a truly awe-inspiring volume) to work alone, for a candidate who didn't know my name and who at first seemed genuinely repulsed by every phrase I turned.
Still, I don't think I'd ever realized that I would be allowed to enjoy what I did for a living as much as I loved working on that campaign, despite any early setbacks. |
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| What do you want on your tombstone, and why? |
[Apr. 5th, 2004|04:34 am] |
There's a good chance that this is a wildly inappropriate request. At the very least, it's morbid to a personally troublesome degree.
But, really, you're not supposed to write your own epitaph, are you? I mean, 'beloved son', 'devoted husband', 'all around terrific guy' -- how pompous would you seem on your death bed, dictating your own accolades? No matter what showed up on your stone, you'd still be remembered as that megalomaniacal jerk for all time. Unless your loved ones are more indulgent than mine. Which, I suppose, isn't totally implausible.
That said, if I end up being buried -- as opposed to, I don't know, cremated or cryogenically frozen or stuffed and mounted in some Republican's den -- I'd like it if the inscription on my headstone was authored by Toby.
Yes, really. Yes, I do realize that I'm probably asking for some sadistic measure of eternal mockery.
The best I've ever had to offer anyone, the reason that I've gotten any place I've ever been, has been words (written, rather than spoken, to clarify the value I'm placing on them to those who have... met me). The best of those words have been written with Toby. That collaboration has been the most inspiring, most fulfilling professional relationship I've ever... one of the most significant friendships that I...
Right. I'm going to have to stop now, otherwise he'll really have no choice but to hang himself directly after reading this, and I'll be forced to develop a tombstone B plan. Probably stealing some panegyrical and rampantly undeserved line from Dickens. 'Tis a far, far better thing I just accept that I'll never be a tragic literary hero. |
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| What makes you laugh? |
[Feb. 20th, 2004|04:00 am] |
Republicans. Yes, all of them. Their flawed agenda and their irrational arguments and all the reasons that we make them laugh. "Every time the federal government hands down a new law, it leaves a little less freedom for the rest of us." Yes, because amendments to guarantee equal rights, equal pay, equal protection under the law for women and minorities, or laws that would keep guns out of the hands of neo-Nazi would-be assassins, those are some real soul-chokers.
Republicans make me laugh. Particularly the ones who get tipsy on Pink Squirrels and dance around the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue in their bathrobes. (Joe Quincy, I'm looking at you).
Watching the Lakers beat the Knicks when Toby is in the room makes me laugh. Provided that everything throwable has been thrown without hitting me in the head.
The saga of Toby and Andi makes me laugh, if only because I'm wholly certain it will end well. In the meantime, though, I'm thinking of writing a folk song. And maybe one for Charlie and Zoey, while I'm at it. What the hell, CJ and Danny, too.
The moments when it really hits me that I work for the President of the United States. That I write down words on a piece of paper and he says them to the nation. When it hits me that when people quote Josiah Bartlet one hundred years from now (and they will) they may on occasion be quoting words I wrote. When that hits me, I have to laugh about it to keep my head from exploding.
Whatever makes Leo laugh. It happens infrequently but when it does there is always a damned good reason.
CJ, Josh, Donna, Charlie, Will -- there's no place to begin. Them, being themselves. Ginger and Bonnie, too, whenever they manage to get a word in edgewise. Margaret and her exquisite randomness.
Surprising the hell out of Mallory was usually good for a laugh, especially since it happened by accident more often than not.
Lionel Tribbey and his cricket bat. Maybe Babish would be funnier if he had props.
Sending Mandy to Toby's office with completely asinine requests. Elsie's jokes. The Laurens.
Big Block of Cheese Day. I've heard the speech six times now, I'm getting good at it: Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a two-ton block of cheese. It was there for any and all who might be hungry. (You know, in six years it's never been specified whether a cracker or even a knife was also provided. And, frankly, now I'm incredibly curious, because, speaking for the Bartlet administration only, we are not in the habit of handing out knives to anyone who walks into the building). Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened the doors to anyone who wanted an audience. (Which apparently had something to do with the cheese -- he handed out the cheese to these audience-seekers, or the cheese is some kind of metaphor, or something -- I've never quite pinned that part down). In the spirit of Andrew Jackson, Leo, from time to time, asks the senior staff, including myself, to sit down face-to-face with representatives of organizations which usually have a difficult time getting our attention. Josh, bypassing the cheese metaphor entirely, has dubbed the occasion "Total Crackpot Day". For the past several years, I've met with Bob Engler, representative of the United States Space Command, to discuss UFOs, and to discuss discussing UFOs with the President. I assume further elaboration is unnecessary.
Those are what I would call the basics.
Although.
Sometimes things outside of work make me laugh. I mean, I'm sure it must have happened at some point. I do leave.
It's just that the things that happen between two a.m. and five a.m. generally aren't all that funny. Or, if they are, you don't remember, anyway. |
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| If you could have dinner with anyone in all of history, who would it be and why? |
[Feb. 20th, 2004|03:57 am] |
I'd like to have dinner with Horton Wilde. Not the author of The Skin Of Our Teeth and Our Town -- that's Thornton Wilder. Hornton Wilde was the Democratic candidate running in California's forty-seventh district two years ago. The California 47th is in Orange County. Orange County, if you weren't aware, is overwhelmingly Republican. Horton Wilde had had four heart attacks and zero support from the White House -- zero support from, well, anyone, really, aside from a pretty extraordinary guy named Will Bailey, his stepsister Elsie Snuffin (still the best name I've ever heard, although one guy I've seen around this place comes close) and the limited campaign staff they scrounged together.
Horton Wilde was a joke. Literally, I heard jokes about him. The seventh-term Republican he was running against was a card-carrying member of the NRA, who extorted campaign funds from businesses he regulated and had once challenged a fellow congressman to a fistfight on the House floor. I failed to see the humor.
Due to complications from his fourth heart attack, Wilde passed away a few weeks before the election. It was over, anyone with the slightest modicum of sense would have cut their losses. Will stayed in it. Against the urging of the White House (exhibiting more interest in the campaign than we ever had when the candidate was breathing) Will stayed in it. I heard him speak at a press conference, and I was sold. I was inspired. I asked him to tell the widow that if Wilde posthumously won the election, I would run for Congress in his place. It wasn't -- it's not -- I don't mean to make it sound like a noble sort of thing. It wasn't a good moment. I never, for a second, believed it could actually happen.
Suffice it to say, the DNC, the RNC, the 47th district Republicans and the weather conspired against me.
I'd like to sit down with Horton Wilde. I can't tell you how much I regret not flying out to California earlier and doing just that.
I'd like to shake his hand, and tell him about Will. I'd like to tell him about the top one-percent tax hike, Toby and Charlie getting arrested, the perfect storm on election night, everything.
Mostly, though, I'd like the chance to apologize.
I should have won it for him. |
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| What is your favorite guilty indulgence? |
[Feb. 20th, 2004|03:54 am] |
I flirt. To a fault. It's a vice. A nervous habit, mostly. It would be a mistake for you to assume that I believe it's a talent.
I started in high school. Well, that's when I consciously started, anyway. There were girls. I liked them. I attempted to convey that. It went poorly. I was polite and respectful. I complimented their hair and their shoes. They smiled and called me sweet, then tried to fix me up with their brothers.
After a few years, I began to suspect that bluntness, to an extent, might be in order. The only problem being that -- ask anyone who knows me -- I don't tend to go halfway with things.
Sadly, no one is safe, aside from those people who work directly for me (for which I am sure Bonnie and Ginger are very grateful).
I've flirted with the Chief of Staff's daughter and his ex-wife. While she was still his wife. Same with Congresswoman Wyatt. I have reason to believe Toby's planning to kill me before his daughter turns eighteen.
I've flirted with the President's wife and all three of his daughters.
I met Charlie's sister once. I may have been excessively complimentary.
I flirt with C.J. and Donna and Carol and Margaret and Debbie and Nancy McNally. I flirted with Ainsley, Amy, Mandy, Joey, Jordan, Connie, Elsie... if I see a woman on a regular basis, the odds are excellent that at one point or another I have made some remark for which she probably could rightfully sue me.
Confident, smart, beautiful women make me nervous, and you couldn't throw a rock in the White House without hitting one. (Tomorrow, the conservative press will say I advocate stoning women). When I get nervous, I rely on my charm. I have been told on many occasions that I am at my most charming with my mouth closed or otherwise occupied, but I can't help it. I say things. It's what I do.
It's not limited to women, either, although the reasons sometimes differ. Most days, it's the only way I can end an argument with Toby (not win -- end). |
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| How did you lose your virginity? |
[Jan. 27th, 2004|11:26 pm] |
I was supposed to lose my virginity at sixteen. That sort of thing doesn't stay under wraps for long among high school sophomores and Janice -- that was her name -- had already told her friend Missy who had told my friend Peter who then loyally reported the news in the boys' locker room before sixth period phys ed. I had a date with Janice that Friday and "if I wanted to" she was prepared to "go all the way".
I was sixteen. I would have wanted to go all the way with a willing lawn ornament.
Now, Janice still had braces and mousy brown hair and was taller than most of the sophomore boys, including myself. But she had a pretty face and a nice figure -- my friends rated her a solid seven, pretending that that sort of thing would have mattered to them, had they been in my position.
At this point I need to say a few words about my mother, and for this rather unsettling aside I apologize. My mother is Southern California born and bred -- a true granola and tofu type. She insisted on a natural childbirth and refused to allow her baby boy to be subject to any unnecessary medical procedures, which resulted in me... retaining a little bit more in certain areas than most of my males peers. It became clear to me at an early age, and was later reaffirmed in the aforementioned locker room, that I was different, but, well. People are. I genuinely gave it very little thought.
Janice, on the other hand, turned out to be surprisingly opinionated on the matter. "Oh, gross, what's wrong with you?" certainly is music to a naked, nervous teenage kid's ears.
Needless to say, things didn't go exactly as planned that night and it was a while before I worked up the nerve to try again.
Princeton women proved less easily fazed. I lost my virginity a week after orientation, to a political science major named Dana or Danielle. There was a party, I had been drinking, she was a junior and her hair smelled like green apples. There was little internal debate on my part. I wasn't presumptuous or intelligent enough (depending on who you ask) to carry a condom around with me at that point but fortunately she had one in her purse. We did it standing up in the laundry room of -- whatever house we were in. Well, I was standing up. She was sort of on the washer. She patted me on the ass on her way back out to the party and I proceeded to obsess over her for a month -- a mostly fruitless exercise, the highlight of which took place in three seconds one afternoon in the commons. I caught her eye from a few yards away and she blew me a kiss before returning to her conversation. (Dayna, that was it. Dayna with a "y".)
Two years later came Gregory, rather horrific pun unintended. He was the vice-president of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, who seemed to assume solely based on my affiliation with the club that I had partaken of similar activities before. I never told him otherwise. His only reaction to my, ah, additional feature was to grin and ask if I was familiar with docking. The 1964 recording of The Yeoman of the Guard was playing. It was an educational evening.
(Toby, I will give you ten thousand dollars if you manage to refrain from commenting on any part of this entry.) |
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| Which is more important -- self-preservation or forgiveness? |
[Jan. 23rd, 2004|02:00 pm] |
I once knew a call girl named Laurie. That isn't the first line of a dirty limerick.
This girl -- she had everything going for her. Gorgeous, funny, very sharp. She was putting herself through law school on her own. It was more than I could have done.
A part-time job at a minimal salary wouldn't have made a dent in her tuition or cost of living. After one full year of daily financial panic, she learned that a friend with whom she shared a few classes had gotten into the escort business to make ends meet.
It was a high-end thing. Discreet. As safe as that sort of situation possibly could be. And she would be required to do only... basic things.
Laurie felt that it was the best option available to her. She knew she could do better things in the world with a law degree than without one, and she was willing to do whatever it took to preserve her future.
I'll admit it, I wanted to save her. I thought I could be the white knight type. I thought she needed that -- to be rescued, to be forgiven. Believe me, the egotism doesn't escape me now, and I wish it hadn't then. I knew that any relationship with me, platonic or otherwise, equated a relationship with the White House, and a relationship with the White House always equates publicity. But safeguarding her privacy, at the time, seemed less important than... redeeming her, whether she wanted it or not.
Whether or not one is principally more important than the other, the choice between self-preservation and forgiveness is personal and ought to be respected. |
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