Scenes From Santana Moss's 30th Birthday Party

I didn't go to Sunday's pool party and barbecue that capped off Santana Moss's 30th birthday weekend, but I did make a brief appearance at Current on Connecticut Avenue Saturday night. A few observations.

* Maybe I'm crazy, but if a star of the Pittsburgh Steelers was doing it up outside a club in a crowded downtown Pittsburgh neighborhood, I've got to believe the young crowds arriving to go to other spots would stand around and gawk. Instead, we got a few gawkers, a lot of indifference, and a few people asking us who Santana Moss was. Or just not noticing the Moss part at all.

"Like, Carlos Santana?" one reveler asked me. "That's the only Santana I give a crap about."

* Biz Markie was the DJ, fulfilling his role as Official DJ for every D.C. athlete birthday party. I've lost count, but he's definitely done birthday parties for Caron Butler and DeShawn Stevenson. I'm pretty sure he did Joe Gibbs's most recent birthday party, but I lost my invitation to that one.

"I just know everybody," Biz said, when I asked about his athletic ubiquity.

This time, there was some sort of dispute when Rock Cartwright's group got ushered into the club before Biz's group. Sports are all about the drama.

* That particular block of Connecticut Avenue has several nightlife options, and the stretch limos with the hordes of angry young men and chattering young women kept arriving all night. Moss's first load of friends, though, came in one of those shuttle buses used by wedding parties. Nice change-up with that one.

Also, there were at least three bachelorette parties on the block. None, sadly, was there for the Santana affair.

* Among the Redskins I spotted: Clinton Portis, Cartwright, Stephon Heyer, Devin Thomas, Chris Horton, Kareem Moore. Heyer didn't want to discuss Jon Jansen's release in that setting, which was fair enough. Thomas was happy to discuss Moss, whom he called his mentor.

"He's my big brother," Thomas said. "I've got to show him some love here because he's shown me the ropes."
I asked Thomas what he'd be doing when he turns 30.

"Hopefully still tearing up the football field like he does," Showtime said. Then he remembered something. "I got a birthday present for him," he said. "A wheelchair and a cane."

As for the party, "he does it big," Thomas said.

* It wouldn't really be a party without an ice sculpture, now would it? Every year, I plan on getting one of those for myself, and every year, it somehow slips my mind. Slip. Ha.

* There was some foot traffic from the goth industrial crowd, there for the dance party around the corner at Midnight. I'm sure there are two social groups that are better opposites than goth industrial dancers and NFL football players from the U., but you're gonna have to suggest them.

* Edgerrin James turned 30 last Aug. 1, 10 months to the day before Moss. (Today is Moss's actual birthday.) So I asked him what it's like, not that I don't know myself.

"When you get to be 30, you already know exactly what you want," Edge told me. "Life kind of mellows out. It's trial and error."

* So is Santana old? "Nah man, he's not old," Andre Johnson told me. "I mean, we all wish that we could stay young. He's 30 years old now, and he still goes out on the field and performs well. Everyone says 30 years is an old age in the game of football, but you can still go out and play and produce on the field, and he's a guy that can do it."

"We don't age, we just get better," Edge said of the Miami crew.

* I'll go ahead and give the fashion prize to WKYS's Jeannie Jones, who was wearing nothing but a Moss jersey, slightly altered into a dress-like shape. "I love everything about Santana," she said.

* While I didn't see any other football jerseys turned into evening wear, I saw plenty of other outfits that fit the same aesthetic, said aesthetic being wear as little cloth as possible, to minimize the amount of flammable fabric on your body in case of a raging fire, I'd guess.

"It is so freakin' competitive, and the girls have such butts and such boobs," said April Jones of the April Jones Show. "It's serious. These girls, they invest their life savings in their hair, their breasts and their butts. It's a whole different ball game."

(voices.washigtonpost.com)