Late Night Shots: How the Other One Percent Gives

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The July 13-19 issue of the Washington City Paper takes us inside Late Night Shots, an exclusive social networking club that helps DC’s well-heeled party animals connect on-line and off.  “Think of a new generation of young Republicans getting trashed at St. Elmo’s, hooking up, then writing about it at 3 in the morning,” writes City Paper reporter Angela Valdez.

It’s not every wannabe who can party with the GOP.  According to blogger Wonkette, the club maintains “that special mix of date rape, shitty beer, and racial homogeneity that is the Georgetown nightlife.”

The liquor flows—in great torrents, apparently—but so do the charitable dollars, providing a kind of fig leaf for the general debauchery.  This past June, for example, LNS member Andrea Rodgers

attracted a crowd to the Courage Cup, a polo match in Virginia that raises money to teach disadvantaged D.C. youths to play polo. Although the charity receives a fair amount of scorn (several posters asked why anyone would teach poor kids to play a game they can’t afford), it was one of the early summer’s most popular events.

You can imagine that the eleemosynary veneer might begin to crack after some time, and it does, as in this online exchange between two LNS members:

D.C. Charity Addiction
Posted By: [v—] on 04-11-2007 1:23 pm
Is there a city anywhere in the world that has more charities than D.C.? I moved here about 2 years ago, and at first it seemed nice that everyone was invovled with and supporting local charity events. However now I am beginning to question a number of the charitable causes and find it annoying to pay $10 to $20 just to step in somewhere for a drink with friends.

Am I being a cold-hearted miser?

RE: D.C. Charity Addiction
Posted By: [N—] on 04-11-2007 1:27 pm
I am 26 and DC wasn’t always like this. Most people just threw parties to throw parties. Now they feel compelled to do a charity or feel it makes them more sophisticated.

To responders: Don’t give me any bullshit response about wanting to help a charity because I know all of you and you’re not that decent (neither am I).

What would you call this?  Does this strange paroxysm of honesty represent a moment of grace, a door opening to the infinite?  Or is it simply a flash of existential clarity before this young man is hired by some conservative think tank to restore moral order to this country?

I’m reminded of the story of a young girl who once murdered her twelve family members with an axe, and who immediately confessed her crime after the police arrived and made inquiries because she had always been taught that lying was a sin.

_____

Image source: Washington City Paper

Comments

[Phil]

Did you see that Conrad Black, now convicted, is on leave from the Board at Hudson. A dark day for Wealth Bondage Philanthropy.

[i.a.t.]

thanks for the wonkette link. they're not through with this story yet.