The Fake World

Last night, I made it out to my friend Brett's birthday. Interestingly enough, an year ago at the same time, I had gone to his birthday trying hard to not smile or laugh because I might pop stitches from getting my wisdom teeth out (I actually did end up popping some stitches and it was not a pretty scene in the bathroom).

Brett had his birthday at a new establishment that had gone up in my ~10 months away from the city - the Public House - which was actually a really good find. The place is big, spacious and clean. It's trying to be upscale without being snooty which is a rarity in the DC scene.

About an hour into being at the bar, I start to see a procession of burly guys with AV gear making their way through. Then it clicked, I recalled hearing from some kickball friends that the Real World was filming in DC, and had approached the kickball league to set up some fake games to have the cast play and make it seem like they were actually in the league. The cast's outing in the bar went right along the lines of the fakeness. When you see three or four people people being followed around with an entire film crew - camera guy, mic guy, light guy, switchboard guy, and director - shouting orders and physically displacing people to get their shots, it's not hard to take a wild guess as to who is on the cast.

Of course, as soon as the camera's showed up, a circus ensued. The cast members got up on a table and started dancing, and guys and girls at the bar started trying their hardest to get up there with them. I even overheard some girls next to me negotiating with the film crew director if they could get up there. Jeez - people don't really act like this usually, and come on, with filming happening probably 18 hours a day, most of the footage is going to end up on the cutting room floor.

I may end up in the background of some shots as the camera seemed to be all over the place in the part of the bar we were at, but I found myself making it to the outskirts of the main area, along with a few other guys who were done with the madness. I went upstairs to the roof bar for a bit, and when I came back down, things had calmed down - the novelty of having the Real World there had worn off. It actually begged an interesting question - does the Real World film crew go in expecting the first hour to be craziness, and then getting in their shots afterwards? Who knows.

In other interesting randomness:

• My first friend ever, from pre-school, had made it to the party through a friend of a friend. I hadn't seen her in an year and a half.
  
• Some guy in an orange shirt in the bar was convinced that I was his long lost drinking buddy "Phil Perkins".
  
• Brett was starting some side ventures, and said that a conversation we'd had six months ago had been a factor in his taking the plunge to entrepreneuship. Sweet.