1?Okay to use here too!
2?The AAPI community is a very large umbrella encompassing groups as culturally, financially, and economically disparate as wealthy Japanese American doctors, Hmong farmers, and Native Hawaiians; when I was President Obama’s representative to the Council on Native Hawaiian Advancement Conference in 2009, I became the first Executive Branch representative to ever visit the Papakōlea Homestead, in what was a very emotional afternoon for all （a homestead is like a reservation, except unlike Native Americans and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians still don’t have federal recognition, largely because of the US Senate）。
3?New York Knicks, 1947, in case you’re wondering.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN NASCAR AND CHILL
Why is NASCAR considered a sport? I mean, just look at it: A bunch of cars drive around a circle for a few hours, crashing every now and again while drunk fans hoot and holler at the carnage. Dodgeball is more of a sport than NASCAR. Or bowling.
As a northeastern elite, my interaction with NASCAR was minimal until 2010. That’s when, in the midst of my multifaceted DC social life—the kind I had hoped for in moving from the uniformity of Los Angeles—I met a very handsome, quiet guy at a bar. Our first date was a few days later at Townhouse Tavern on R Street, a dive by Dupont Circle. Josh is from a small, rural town in Mississippi. He has a distinctively southern accent and the kind of relaxed, laid-back personality that any high-strung northeasterner like me envies. I was looking forward to getting to know him, and had a good feeling going into the evening.
A couple of minutes after sitting down, as soon as his first drink came, Josh nonchalantly pulled a well-worn koozie out of his back pocket and slid his beer into it. Did this dude seriously bring his own koozie with him? I thought to myself. I was incredulous—I had never seen a human unironically bring a koozie anywhere before, let alone to a bar, let alone to a date at a bar.
The only other time I had even seen a koozie outside of a souvenir shop was at my buddy Michael O’Neil’s house. O’Neil has a collection of more than a hundred koozies. When you go to his place for a party, you are offered your choice of beer with your choice of koozie. When I was writing this book, he sent me a koozie emblazoned with the words “If you are reading this, I’m not writing my book.”
To me, a koozie is either 1） a souvenir or 2） an awesome party favor from a quirky friend. A koozie is not something you bring in your back pocket to a date. This was definitely not going to work out. It was time to make small talk while I finished my beer and bounced as quickly as possible.
“Do you always bring your own koozie to a bar?”
“Yyyyyep.”
“Cool, cool. Does it actually keep your beer cold?”
Josh took a sip and slowly shook his head. “Keeps mah hand warm.”
What a line. This dude was smooth. He didn’t pull that understated one-liner to make a move; this was just who he was. Once the koozie deliberations were over, we talked about other things: family, hobbies, food. Maybe I could look past his obsession with beer insulation for another beverage or three?
As appealing as Mississippi Josh seemed given his koozie-using nonchalance and my moderate beer-buzz, I had to be sure. A midweek second date would be the perfect gauge. I like weeknight dates because you can get to know a person and still make it home at a respectable hour for work the next day. （Also, if the dude turns out to be a weirdo, you have a totally reasonable way out. Oh, is it already eight p.m.? I have to get going, I have CrossFit at five a.m. tomorrow and then I gotta brief the president about this thing I can’t talk about. It was nice to meet you!）
For date number two, I arrived back at Townhouse Tavern before Josh and grabbed a seat upstairs. I was more nervous than I expected to be, which made me realize I probably liked him more than I thought I did. Looking to take the edge off, I ordered a vodka soda. That’s what Hollywood agents and celebrity personal trainers tell their clients to drink if you are going to drink anything AT ALL, Kal. Do you really want to be fat? An agent once took an Amstel Light out of my hand at a work event and replaced it with a vodka soda, reprimanding, “You’re shooting a movie in two weeks!” Amstel Light has like ninety-five calories. That’s how much they don’t want you to be fat.
Josh showed up, ordered his beer, and pulled his koozie out of his back pocket, sliding his bottle into it. He eyed my tasteless, colorless vanity drink. “Not feeling a beer tonight?”
Overthinking every move, I nervously blurted out, “Oh, I was just getting warmed up. I’ll have a beer next!”
He nodded. Awkward silence.
My next drink was a beer. The bartender put the bottle down in front of me and Josh smoothly reached into his back pocket and pulled out a second koozie. He handed it to me; I accepted. I wrapped it around my dumb beer and said, “Thanks for the handwarmer.” We had a third date.
Josh showed up at my door for date number three with his understated smile, an eighteen-pack of Coors Light, and two koozies. Points won. My TV was already set to SpongeBob SquarePants because I’m a romantic. As he sat down, I went into the kitchen to put the drinks in the fridge.
When I got back, there was a NASCAR prerace show on my television. At first I thought he had made some kind of mistake, or that the show he actually wanted to watch was about to start, but no. This dude had arrived, sat down, turned off my SpongeBob SquarePants, and turned on NASCAR, without even flinching. Points immediately rescinded.
What the heck was he doing? NASCAR? This was not part of the plan. If Josh had suggested watching NASCAR together, I would have pretended to have gotten called into work for something very top secret and important.1 I stared at Josh with a deer-in-the-headlights look, but he didn’t see it because he was already way, way into what was happening on the TV. I was stuck, so I did the only thing a nice guy could do in a situation like that: I tried to be a good sport and not DIE OF BOREDOM watching a NASCAR prerace show with some dude I had really only met twice.
Why is there even such a thing as NASCAR prerace? Watching my Yankees on the YES Network or getting some pregame stats before the Knicks hit the court made sense to me. What the heck is there to say about drivers in fast cars who are about to make left turns all day? Josh remained totally transfixed as a commentator exclaimed, “Hoo-wee, don’t forget that trouble Denny Hamlin had last week gettin’ loose comin’ outta turn four.”
What did these words mean? With the subtitles on, I’d have still been lost. On-screen, one commentator with ridiculously amazing hair and a Jon-Stewart-doing-his-impression-of-Lindsey-Graham flamboyance talked about whether driver so-and-so had an advantage on today’s track as opposed to last week’s track because today’s track was much longer. Huh. I didn’t know the tracks were different lengths. I guess that was kind of interesting, but not enough to keep my focus. The commentators turned things over to an excited man in a brightly colored suit with black square glasses and a ginger beard.
His name was Rutledge Wood. As I sat with Josh, halfway through a still-perfectly-cold-because-of-the-koozie beer, I found myself temporarily drawn in by the badassness of the guy on TV. Rutledge. Wood. That’s a pretty cool name, actually. And he’s articulate. Maybe this guy can make sense of what I’m see— Is that a talking doll?