All The Worst Humans (eBook)

How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons and Politicians

Phil Elwood (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | Main
272 Seiten
Allen & Unwin (Verlag)
978-1-80546-224-8 (ISBN)

Infos

A New York Times Notable Book A New York Times Editors' Choice A New York Post Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Biography/Memoir 'Hilarious and harrowing, and hard to put down' Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking 'Might be a career-destroying book... highly enjoyable' Daily Telegraph 'A spin doctor to the rich and corrupt spills his secrets... starts with the crack of a Jack Reacher thriller' The New York Times The man who used to pull the strings of the global media is now pulling back the curtain: a bridge-burning, riotous confession by a top PR operative who exposes the secrets of the $129-billion industry that controls so much of what we see and hear in the media. After nearly two decades in the PR business, Phil Elwood wants to come clean, by exposing the dark underbelly of the very industry that's made him so successful. The first step is revealing exactly what he's been up to for the past twenty years - and it isn't pretty. From helping win the Qatar World Cup bid, to a four-day Las Vegas bacchanal with a dictator's son, and helping to land a Middle Eastern dictator's wife a glowing profile in Vogue at the same time the Arab Spring broke out, Elwood reveals all his slippery tricks for seducing journalists in order to create chaos and cover for politicians, dictators and spies. But as Phil moved up the ranks, he felt worse and worse about the sleaziness of it all - and his role in it - until he received a shocking wake-up call from the FBI. This risky game nearly cost Phil his life and his freedom. Seeing the light, he has decided to tell the full truth about who is the worst human. _____ 'A rollicking, unexpectedly affecting story. . . It's going to be one of the big, buzzy Beltway books of the year.' Politico 'Phil Elwood has written a book about his Washington life that's part therapy, part cautionary tale ? and quite funny . . . What makes Elwood's story stand out from the typical Washington read is that his personal demons are so intertwined with his professional choices . . . Elwood's prose is zippy, even Sorkin-esque, and he relishes dark humor.' The Washington Post 'If Hunter S. Thompson billed clients by the hour, it would look like All The Worst Humans by Phil Elwood. The pacing and storytelling propel the book's epic sweep across the darkside of DC and global hotspots. Even the most experienced in PR will learn things they did not know, and Elwood's gripping personal story is an unexpected and wild ride.' Bill McCarren, former Executive Director, National Press Club 'A lively, often hilarious, blood-chilling tale.' Sam Kashner, Air Mail 'A redemption story about becoming a better human, a story Elwood tells with vulnerability, heart, and brutal honesty.' James Kirchick, New York Times bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington 'An exhilarating ride through the underbelly of global power structures.' Ben Smith, author of Traffic and editor in chief of Semafor 'I raced through this book and was gripped by every page.' Sophie Heawood

Phil Elwood is a public relations operative. He was born in New York City, grew up in Idaho, and moved to Washington, DC at age twenty to intern for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He completed his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, and his graduate studies at the London School of Economics before starting his career at a small PR firm. Over the last two decades, Elwood has worked for some of the top - and bottom - PR firms in Washington. He lives in DC.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

Of Marble and Giants

EIGHTEEN YEARS EARLIER, JULY 2000

The halls of the Capitol Building are empty this morning. The clinks of the liquor bottles in the hand truck I’m pushing are the only sound. I love being alone here, marveling at marble columns propping up carved ceilings. Under the massive dome of the Rotunda, paintings tell the mythology of early America. In Statuary Hall, I nod to a bronze statue of Huey Long, an assassinated senator who some consider a hero, others a criminal, and then enter a wood-paneled corridor. Spiral staircases of iron and marble materialize out of dark corners.

I maneuver the bottles past unmarked doors that lead to the hideaway offices of Senators Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Kennedy. Senators steal away to these coveted havens to host meetings they’d rather not have eyeballed by reporters or to nap after marathon debates. The booze is heavy, and I’m out of breath when I reach Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s hideaway. Vodka soda sweat leaks through my cheap, white collared shirt. We interns were out late at Politiki bar last night.

I let myself in and head for the brass bar cart. Fifths of whiskey, gin, scotch, and Tio Pepe sherry, Moynihan’s favorite, get loaded in and lined up. When I’m finished, I sit on a leather couch dyed the same dark mahogany as the regal desk and spark up a Camel. Moynihan is a fellow smoker. His hideaway reeks of tobacco.

The hundred or so hideaways in the Capitol are passed down through handshake deals. Seniority rules, and sitting on the Finance Committee doesn’t hurt. Junior senators fight over windowless basement rooms the size of utility closets and furnished with cots. Moynihan has earned a view of Pennsylvania Avenue and space for ten people to sip cocktails. Standing under an oil painting, I pull back the cream-colored curtains and take it all in. I imagine the senator from New York in here, lighting up, pouring a tumbler of Tio Pepe, and telling stories about the presidents he has advised.

Sitting in the private office of a Senate demigod still doesn’t feel real. I’m a twenty-year-old college dropout whose only credentials are a job at a Mexican restaurant and a cocaine problem. The rest of my intern class are the kids of campaign donors and New York City’s financial glitterati. My dad is a pastor in the other Washington. He preaches to a congregation in Olympia.

Six months ago, I was a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh on a debate scholarship. Debate is about speed. Being able to talk fast was the prerequisite for entry. On weekends, I traveled to universities around the nation to argue about what policies would lead to nuclear war. Rapid-fire reading of news clippings scored points in a round. So did biting insults lodged at your opponent in an attempt to trap them in a rhetorical mishap. You won by manipulating the news and calling it “evidence” to advance your argument. I won a lot.

My grades were nearly perfect until I started working nights as a cook at Mad Mex. The waiters survived on a diet of wings and cocaine. One night, one of them noticed that I seemed a bit down and he offered me a pick-me-up from his bag. It worked. For fifteen minutes. Three months later, I was failing five out of five courses. I don’t believe I attended one.

The week before finals, I called my older brother in a panic. He jumped on a plane to Pittsburgh. We debated my options. I tried to advance the argument for my brother taking my finals. It was raining when we went to the registrar’s office and filled out the forms. The first Elwood to drop out of college.

My parents collected me at SeaTac airport. I deplaned drunk on whiskey and clutching a plush toy of Opus the Penguin, from Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip. My father shook his head and made me see a shrink. I snowballed my way through the sessions. Left out the cocaine use. The shrink informed me that I was suffering from “situational depression.”

“Since you are removed from the situation,” she explained. “The problem must be resolved.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

It didn’t. And the depression didn’t lift. A childhood friend, who I’ll call Preston, worried that I had no prospects after dropping out of school, threw me a lifeline. His college classmate Eric, a trust fund kid, worked in Washington, DC, as Senator Moynihan’s aide. If he liked me, Eric could get me an internship on the Hill.

I called Eric, and he told me to meet him the next Tuesday, at 10 p.m., at 1823 M Street. “Northwest M Street, the one near the White House,” he said. “Do you have a fake ID?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Bring it. You’ll need it in DC,” Eric said. “Your official interview will be on the Hill the next day. But this one is more important. I vet the interns for the staff.”

My parents bought me a suit at the mall, and I flew to Washington. Résumé in hand, I cabbed it to a redbrick building with blacked-out windows on M Street. My fake ID fooled the bouncer. Inside, Ice Cube’s “You Can Do It” played as a dancer sprayed Windex on the pole before taking off her underwear. A topless woman asked if I wanted some singles.

Eric wasn’t hard to spot. He was the only other guy wearing a suit in the strip club on a Tuesday night. He chugged a Bud Light at a table with a clear view of the stage. I handed him my résumé. He gave it to a dancer in a neon-yellow G-string.

“Relax,” he said, sliding me a beer. “You met me at Camelot on a Tuesday night. You passed the test.”

In Moynihan’s hideaway, I kill my cigarette and flush it down the toilet. I lock up, push the empty hand truck past Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s office, and ride an elevator down to the basement. I flash my badge to a guard, cut through the crypt under the Rotunda, and head into the Capitol Hill Tunnels. I love these underground passageways, that feeling of special access.

I walk the pedestrian pathway alongside a miniature subway trolley modeled after the Disney World Monorail. A group of congressional aides are taking the two-minute ride, briefcases on their laps. To my right, I spot Sen. Fred Thompson.

“Good afternoon, Senator,” I say. “Die Hard Two was on TNT last night.”

“Was it really?” he replies in the deep southern drawl that was so out of place when he played a New York district attorney on NBC’s Law & Order. “Walk me back to my office.”

On the twenty-minute trip to the Hart Building, Thompson asks whether I think DC or Hollywood is the more terrifying place. I argue in favor of Hollywood. The Capitol doesn’t frighten me. Just the opposite. From the moment I set foot in DC, I knew I was home. The Hill is a real-world version of debate team. Everyone talks fast, and there are winners, losers, and nukes. Last week, I had a drink with Sen. Russ Feingold, who told me stories of working with John McCain and Carl Levin on trying to pass campaign finance reform. I’ve gone from bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh to rubbing elbows with senators. I never want to leave.

I weave through redbrick-walled tunnels back toward Moynihan’s staff office in the Russell Building. Discarded and broken office furniture lines the bowels of the Capitol Hill office buildings. I pass the Senate barbershop, where I recently got a bad haircut sitting next to Majority Leader Lott. A quick elevator ride up from the basement takes me to Russell’s fourth floor, where I drop off the hand truck and head down a flight of stairs to a private parking lot.

Two interns are already out here smoking. The senior senator from Michigan Carl Levin’s beaten-up blue Oldsmobile sticks out among the rows of luxury sedans. I smoke another Camel and watch Kit Bond of Missouri climb out of a black town car. Kay Bailey Hutchison struts by, followed by her “purse boys,” two young, attractive male aides who carry her luxury bags around Capitol Hill. When senators bum a smoke before hustling to their next meeting, I feel like a young Henry Hill parking cars for Paulie’s crew in Good-fellas.

It’s almost four o’clock. In this town, the most important hour is happy hour. I head back out into the muggy city, down First Street, passing the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, where 3,700 boxes of Moynihan’s personal papers have been kept for posterity. It’s the largest one-man collection in the library, Moynihan’s legislative director recently told me over whiskey and Cokes at the Capitol Lounge.

At Pennsylvania Avenue, a helicopter buzzes across the sky. The pilot shadows a motorcade of black SUVs careening downtown, lights flashing and sirens blaring. When the street clears, I duck into the Hawk ’n’ Dove. I nurse a vodka soda, holding a good table with a view of the TVs, tuned to CNN. Just like the hideaway office system, this place runs on dibs. Soon the bar will be teaming with staffers from both sides of the aisle. They will drink, party, date, and sometimes put together bipartisan legislation. Tables are valuable currency. As an intern, I take it as my sacred duty to make sure the staff doesn’t have to stand at the bar.

At five o’clock, Moynihan’s staff trickles into Hawk ’n’ Dove in ascending order of the food chain. Legislative correspondents arrive first, along with the rest of the interns. An hour later, the legislative...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.7.2024
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: best books about current affairs • best books about Gaddafi • best books about politics 2023 • best new memoirs • best new memoirs 2024 • best new non fiction books • best new nonfiction books 2023 • books about dictators • books about Gaddafi • books about political pr • books about pr • books about public relations • books similar to empire of pain • books similar to wolf of wall street • gripping books to read • political pr • top new memoirs
• ISBN-10: 1-80546-224-5 / 1805462245
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80546-224-8 / 9781805462248