I had been selected by the editors of Reason as the 1997 Burton C. Gray Memorial Intern. Unlike previous summer gigs at free-market and libertarian-oriented organizations, I would be working beyond the Beltway -- 3,000 miles, give or take.
After I disembarked, I was met by
Reason's Managing Editor, Rick Henderson, whom I had met once or twice before when he was Reason's Washington
editor. Rick's proximity to Charlottesville
had made him an ideal speaker for Liberty Coalition events at the University of Virginia, where I attend school.
Rick drove us over to the Reason Foundation's offices on Sepulveda Boulevard and gave me the grand tour. I was introduced to a score or so of people whose names I promptly forgot, and would spend the next week or so relearning. At the end of the day, I moved my belongings to the room in the Westside house Reason had sublet.
I worked on some interesting articles for Citings -- teenage driving restrictions, drug war follies, the sustainablilty fad on college campuses. Some never really panned out, but there was always much to be learned. I spent two or three mornings wandering through UCLA's byzantine library sytem, finding articles for editors across the country. I even flipped through a 19th-century first edition of J. M. Barrie's "My Lady Nicotine" to check some facts for Reason's vice guru, Jacob Sullum. During downtime, I would explore Reason's own library-much smaller to be sure, but no less interesting.
Working so far from Washington, Reasoners view the world through a wider scope than think tanks in the Beltway. Discussions didn't always focus on the latest budget amendments or political faux pas. The new Microsoft-Apple alliance was the big talk in August. Brian Doherty helped catch me up on the independent comics scene. Half the office seemed to be fans of the excellent new series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Did I mention Reasoners' astounding taste in television? What more can you say about a place where the editor's favorite show is Babylon 5 and the managing editor's Mystery Science Theater 3000 video library is nearly as complete as my own?
The summer ended nearly as soon as it began, and I was on the plane again, headed from Los Angeles to New Orleans. As I gathered my belongings on the tarmac in the Big Easy, I glimpsed a familiar profile up in first class, one I had seen many times before, for 30 minutes a week. It was the only big Hollywood star I had seen all summer.