THIS IS AN ADAPTATION OF THE SLIDESHOW
I DID ONSTAGE AT USEDWIGS LIVE IN PHILADELPHIA.

UPDATE: See my May 2010 WHCAD “Crash!” photos on The Huffington Post and D.C. Outsiders!

“…

I cringed along with the rest of you during the holidays when Tareq and Michaele Salahi got busted for crashing a state dinner President Obama held for the prime minister of India.

But for me it was personal. As the pictures of the outlaw couple posing proudly at the White House flickered across CNN, I said to myself, “Oh, man. The jig is up.”

______________________

Fact: I go to the White House Correspondents Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton every year. It attracts a unique mix of glamourous celebrities and top administration officials — as well as boring numbers-crunchers, B-list pundits, local journalists… the type of people Wonkette has termed “famous for D.C.”

People assume that because I’ve blogged for Arianna Huffington, I must be sitting right at her table at the dinner, 20 feet from the President.

And until today I have let them think that. People email me and say, “How on earth do you get in to this thing every year?” I don’t answer their emails.

The secret I am revealing to you now is: I crash. I perpetrate a similar fraud to that of the Salahis, appearing all dressed up where I don’t belong.

Yet they have more nerve than I do, they are more desperate, they take things further. I would never attempt to gain entry to the inner sanctum, the dining room where the President is, which is guarded by Secret Service agents in suits with little curly cords coming out of their ears and wrist cuffs. The people standing at the metal detectors/entrances (there are two) definitely check your ticket.

So I chose my words carefully above: I “go to” the “dinner.” Why? To take pictures of famous people. For fun. For something to do. I don’t delude myself into thinking I really am any kind of Washington insider, as the Salahis do.

The hotel is a public place, and schlubby tourists wander around the corridors right along with the celebrities. I fit somewhere in between: No more important than the tourists, really (though I live right here in the neighborhood), and no less entitled than the official, invited attendees.

I play the game of dressing up in order to get slightly better access and better pictures than a tourist in flip-flops would. I wear a “ghetto tux,” a dark suit with white shirt and white tie, and I just act like I belong there. There are no nametags or badges, luckily. My suit is my “ticket,” my protective coloring that keeps the security guards from hassling me as I venture onto the wrong side of the velvet rope.

It’s acceptable to have a camera out, because this whole affair is informally known as Nerd Prom. (All the big media outlets buy tables for the dinner and invite random celebrities, who only come because they want some face time with the President.) Even the invited guests carry cameras so they can get their picture taken with Larry King or whomever. The lavish pre- and after-parties make this easily the biggest night for Washington socializing besides inauguration nights.

Almost right after I arrived at the 2008 WHCAD, there was a buzz going around the hotel that Pamela Anderson had gotten bored of the program and was leaving early. I wasted no time finding her (she’s tiny, but I found her) and impersonated a paparazzo by following her into the parking lot and yelling, “Pamela! Over here!” I got this shot.

This is just feet away from where Ronald Reagan was shot (with a gun) by John Hinckley in 1981. We neighborhood people call the hotel the Hinckley Hilton.

When I went back inside after my Baywatch moment, I noticed two people who looked a lot like Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt sitting in the hotel bar, watching TV – not the closed-caption simulcast of the dinner, which is on some of the TVs – just some show. Nah, I thought. Those are just some young Republican assholes from the eastern side of Georgetown here to see Mr. Bush. Well, later they resurfaced in the crowd and it was Heidi and Spencer (in happier times).

I enjoy impersonating paparazzi, too! There are only two ways out for the attendees. When the dinner ends, they flood out both ends, and I actually run back and forth, like a hunter looking for the biggest game.

For a homemaker like me, it doesn’t get any bigger than Martha Stewart.

I have found that drinking alcohol helps loosen you up, as a photographer…

Some old fat guy was blocking my shot of Padma Lakshmi. It turned out to be Henry Kissinger.

I took a couple more pics of Padma, but I had never used a point-and-shoot digital camera before, and there’s that annoying beat between when you press the button and when the flash goes off. So the pictures stunk.

I tried once more as she walked by me, but this time I said, “Padma Lakshmi!” She looked over and did this demure move with her hand, and held it until I “got my shot.” Like me, she used to be a model.

At the top of one escalator exit, there was a guy parked in a big elaborate motorized wheelchair, basically demanding autographs. They all stopped for him, because, for all they know, he’s a disabled veteran. Don Rumsfeld talked to him for a minute. My friend with me said, “This is the guy, we’re staying right here.” And we stood behind him, almost like we were his caretakers, and got great shots of Ricky Schroeder, Joe Scarborough and many others as they stopped to pay their respects to the ostensive war hero.

I love MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But I have never liked to play the “fan” role, I’m too proud, and in my mind I’m as famous as they are. And I was tipsy, so I just walked up to him, reached out and shook his hand and smiled, but didn’t say a word. Like a deaf mute. He smiled back at me quizzically, still shaking my hand, and we had a rather long moment, with no words. A rare occurence for him. And me. Even Patrick Kennedy was weirded out.

A couple of martinis from the hotel bar later, I thought it was a good idea to grab Warren Buffett and ask him for stock tips. Or maybe I was trying to kidnap him. I don’t remember. Just kidding, Secret Service!

Here is Wolf Blitzer, with Demi Moore over his right shoulder and Janet Napolitano in front of him. Photo taken by the official photographer INSIDE the dinner, where I’m not allowed.

OUTSIDE the dinner, Wolf and all of them are fair game. And the bathrooms are out in the public part of the hotel. I took this photo of the Quarterback of the Best Political Team on Television with my sidekick Sarah, who was like the Michaele to my Tareq that night.

Finally, the irony of an amateur “stalkarazzo” getting my picture taken with Glenn “Fatal Attraction” Close was not lost on me.

So, Michaele and Tareq, will I see you at the dinner this year? Can I pencil you in? Obama will be there! He’s like crasher nip for you two. Besides: You’re famous in your own right now. I’ll want my picture taken with YOU!

That is: If between your reckless actions and my public slideshow here, we haven’t permanently ruined gate-crashing in D.C.

Oh, it feels so freeing to come out publicly as a crasher. The jig of pretending to all of you is up. I’m relieved to have it exposed. And when I post my pictures from (just outside) this year’s dinner on May 1, or if you see me on C-SPAN lurking around the velvet ropes, you won’t need to email me asking, “How do you get in to this thing?” Now you know.