The Inaugural Stampede Is On at Capital Ranch

Rick Meyers hates turning down money--especially the $25,000 corporate checks he’s had to return, along with his regrets, to party-hopping hopefuls hankering to get into next Friday’s Texas Black Tie & Boots Ball, one of the hottest Washington, D.C. fetes planned to celebrate George W. Bush’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Deep in the heart of political partyers, an invite to the Lone Star State’s barbecue shindig--whose confirmed guests include Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Robert Duvall--is the most coveted.

“People are begging to get in but we’re at our limit at slightly more than 9,000 guests,” says Meyers, co-chairman of the ball, which is spread out over five ballrooms and other areas totaling 100,000 square feet of space at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. “There’s just no way we can take 10,000 people,” adds Meyers, noting that’s twice the population of his hometown of Muleshoe, Texas.

Still, with scores of events planned--official and unofficial, public and private--there is something for everyone to celebrate Dubya’s arrival--receptions, galas, cocktail mixers, breakfasts, brunches, lunches, candlelight dinners, a boat show, an L.A. fashion show and nightclubbing with wrestling superstars Kurt Angle and Debra at the World Wrestling Federation’s “Smackdown Your Vote!” celebration.

Socialites will mix with corporate sponsors who will rub shoulders with politicos who will boogie with celebrities. The official four-day program, called “Celebrating America’s Spirit Together,” will kick off Thursday and end Saturday with eight balls. Ticket prices for some official activities range from $125 to $2,500 per person. The tab for the inauguration will be an estimated $30 million, about 30% of which has been raised, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

With the party stampede in full force, finding a hotel is becoming as difficult as getting a ticket to the Texas ball which, by many, is being dubbed the ninth ball even though it occurs before any of the official eight.

“Just about every room is gone,” says Phoebe Robinson, a hotel booker with Washington D.C. Accommodations, a free hotel advice and reservations service for tourists. She has been averaging 100 inquiries per day--compared to her usual 35 to 50--from “lots of very desperate” callers. “You can sense their desperation,” she says. Those who do manage to find a room will pay dearly. Hotels are doubling rates--for example, $175 to $350--and will not provide refunds for cancellations or changes.

Some Washingtonians are getting out of town and making extra cash by renting rooms, apartments, even entire homes to out-of-towners. Jerald Newberry, 52, is renting his three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,000-square-foot penthouse condo located six blocks from the White House--and with views of downtown Washington--for a total of $4,500 for three days.

Newberry placed a $24.95 ad on a presidential inaugural Web site last week and five days later got a taker from “a vice president of a major corporation from Michigan” who has arranged his own maid service, a driver and bartender. Newberry, who directs a national health education program in D.C., will camp out at his mom’s home in southwestern Virginia and watch the festivities on the tube.

“This is the first time I’ve done this, so it’s an adventure for me, too,” Newberry says, adding he’s looking forward to his “fun money.”

Robert Saunders, manager of Zbest Limousine, a car rental service, says business has been “beyond busy, especially in the past week.” He adds that the chances of getting a car come next week will be “very slim, especially for those trying to get in at the last minute.” For Texans used to Suburbans, a fully loaded Hummer might be appealing, which is about all Saunders has available--at $225 an hour, plus gratuity.

For fashionably sensible Washington, there is surprising buzz about a Hollywood-style fashion show to be presented Thursday as part of a luncheon hosted by the California State Society and L.A.’s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

Norine Fuller, executive director of FIDM in D.C. and also a board member of the California State Society, is expecting 600 guests--and counting. Fuller, a native Angeleno, says the event has garnered “a lot of press interest because it’s something different for Washington. Fashion here tends to be more conservative and since this is a show from L.A., everyone knows that California style is always cutting edge.”

Wrestlemaniacs 18 and older are expected to pack the World Wrestling Federation’s “Smackdown Your Vote!” celebration on Friday at the hip night spot Club Insomnia, where WWF superstars Kurt Angle, the federation’s current champion, and the one-named wrestling femme fatale Debra will be on hand to greet and meet fans and boogie, says WWF spokesman Gary Davis, also vice president of corporate communications. “This is our way of supporting the political process,” Davis says, adding that other WWF talents have been invited, including The Rock and Chyna, as well as Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota.

The Texas hoedown, which will be attended by Bush and his wife, will feature country stars Clint Black, Lyle Lovett, Lee Greenwood, Tanya Tucker, Mark Chesnutt, Gary P. Nunn, Asleep at the Wheel and Aztex, as well as the Kilgore Rangerettes, “plus, the president!” says co-chairman Meyers.

“When the election was final, the telephones erupted” with interest for the party, which will include more than 50 vendors displaying their products from retail wares to high-tech gadgets in one of the hotel’s exhibit halls, billed as the Texas Fair.

Meyers says selling the party to corporations was a done deal back in May when he nailed down seven corporate sponsorships of $50,000 each, among them Nokia, Reliant Energy and Raytheon and dozens of others that contributed $25,000 and $10,000 each. Meyers would not reveal how much money has been raised.

After Bush was declared President-elect, “we reopened our corporate sponsorships to make the party bigger and sold out a second time. We literally had corporate sponsors coming in so fast that when we reached our cut-off time we had to return checks of $25,000. A bunch of them.”

Those who get into the party will feast on 2 1/2 tons of grain-fed beef and smoked ham, 600 pounds of peach cobbler, 60,000 pieces of jumbo shrimp, 100,000 hors d’oeuvres and 40,000 pastries, plus unlimited guacamole and Tex-Mex salsa.

There will even be a Lone Star Sports Bar set up in the hotel with mega-star athletes Troy Aiken, Roger Staubach, Ben Crenshaw, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clements, Darrell Royal and Zina Garrison mixing and mingling with revelers.

“We’ll be the only inaugural ball to give away a 2001 Chevy Suburban. We call that a Texas Cadillac, you know,” Meyers says. The ball can also boast to being the only one to have Texas Longhorn steers on hand for guests to be photographed with. Southwestern Bell Long Distance kicked in $20,000 to get the animals to Washington.

Texas, Redneck and Milkbone are the names of the three Longhorns, each weighing about 1,600 pounds, coming to mug for the camera. The hefty trio will be joined by Casper, a gray Brahman Bull, at 2,300 pounds.

“We’re on our way to the capital,” says Ralph Fisher, owner of Photo Animals of La Grange, Texas. Fisher, 56, has been a professional rodeo clown for the last 33 years and has run his animal photo business along with partner Sandra Reddell for the last 20, he says via cell phone while standing in his corral.

“Adults can sit on the saddle for photos,” Reddell says. “But if anyone weighs over 200 pounds they have to stand next to the steers.”

And Meyers guarantees that a crowd pleaser will be “Old Pete,” a fiberglass mule replica from his hometown. The statue is a regular fixture on U.S. Highway 84, which goes through Muleshoe.

“He’s our national monument to the mule,” Meyers says. “ ‘Old Pete’ is coming to D.C.” The mule will be the main attraction in a space dubbed the Muleshoe Martini and Cigar Bar. “I’m trying to get him in the inaugural parade, too,” Meyers adds.

Will guests, particularly non-Texans, think the ball is over the top?

“All these things are part of our Texas culture, our history, our traditions. It’s about a party, the hottest ticket in town. It’s not about stereotypes. Hell, I didn’t know I had an accent till I moved here to D.C.”