Santana Moss at the Portis Inaugural Bash

I got to the Clinton Portis-Antawn Jamison All Pros and All Stars Inaugural Celebration sometime around 11:30 on Sunday night. My credential was good enough to get me in to the $125 common folks room, but I didn't make much effort to cruise into the VIP, so I was just kind of standing around.

Then I met K.D. Wright, owner of a custom-tailored men's clothing company from Charlotte, who figured we could strike some kind of deal. She'd become part of Sports Bog, Inc., for the night, in exchange for talking my way into the better parts of the party.

So a few minutes later, she was leading me through the upper reaches of the VIP section, around a corner and to a little roiund table where Santana Moss was sitting by himself, drinking a pineapple and Grey Goose, in front of a window peaking out at the gleaming Capitol Building. I told K.D. she might as well continue her roll and ask the questions, so she started asking Santana about the inauguration.

"To be honest with you, when he first decided he was running for president, I felt like this time and age, what we're going through, we needed that," Moss said. "We needed for everybody out there to have hope, to have HOPE. It started with hope, and it started with belief, and now we believe we can have what we have today, a Black President."

"For me," Santana continued, "I look past just the black and white thing, I look at what the guy's gonna do for his people."

K.D. asked who Obama's "people" were.

"His people is US," Moss said. "Everybody that walks the earth. I look at it like this, and this is just my perspective: when you look at what has happened for us this year, Barack Obama, a black man, no matter what you all him, that's a celebration for all minorities. That's a celebration for anyone who's seen what he's gone through.

"My family isn't living the life I'm living. This thing is a celebration, showing that maybe one day you CAN get to where we've got to. [Black] kids growing up, you were told you could be anything, but never the president."

The party was being emceed by "Lifestyle Specialist" Kenny Burns. Clinton Portis walked around, surrounded by gawkers, wearing a mohawk, lavender shirt, purple tie and some shades, as my colleague David Malitz reported.

An assortment of football players came through: Shawn Springs, Lorenzo Alexander, Leigh Torrence. So, too, did media personalities: spotted dancing were Comcast SportsyNet's Chris Miller, Kelli Johnson and Lisa Hillary. The music mixed 21st century hip hip with the Bar Mitzvah and wedding rap classics of the early '90s. I never saw Jamison or any other Wizards, but Raheem DeVaugn and Delroy Lindo were around. The week's buzzwords flashed on the walls--Change and Hope, for example--and one of Clinton Portis's guys walked around with the word "Change" shaved into the back of his head.

Moss wore a Nats baseball hat over his customary bandana thing; he told me about his son's prodigious Little League baseball career, and how much he loves being in D.C., and how I should probably drink a pineapple and Grey Goose since it would help my writing. I asked what he thought about a party at Union Station; "I almost asked what was Union Station at first," he said. "I don't ride the train that much."

Before I left, I asked him about the week's mixture of parties and politics.

"This is what it really boils down to, D.C. is gonna party regardless, whether it's an inauguration or a Black President or whatever," Moss said. "They just tagged it something different. Everybody has a place to go linking them to the celebration that already exists. So it's gonna be done regardless. A good time is a good time."

(washigtonpost.com)