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Live From JulieRB: May 1 2002, 9:30 AM
Things here are unbelievably fun.
I so wish every loyal BartCopper around
the country was here! It is so great to meet
so many of the BC'ers, and have some friendly
faces to put with the screen names.
Julie Hiatt Steele is every bit as charming,
funny and wonderful as BartCop has told us all
over the last several months. She held
us spellbound at lunch today with information
about her trial, about Kathleen Willey
and about what's next for her.
It's time to get dressed for the big evening
out, but we can't wait to read
the narratives from others who are here
and whom we'll meet tonight...
Live From jasto: May 1 2002, 9:31 AM
Words cannot express, yet here I try, the
delight of sitting at a table listening to
Carville and Conason trash the Washington
Post, of bumping into a very gracious
David Brock, of seeing BartCOP and Mrs.
Bartcop, of checking in with Christian.
What a great gathering of wonderful people.
And of course, the guest of honor was as
delightful as Bartcop promised. Ms. Steele
was warm, funny, gracious, and humble.
(kinda like bartcop.)
The best, of course, was seeing all of us,
realizing how many of us there are, and dissing bush in public!
Beautiful job!
When I got home, my nine year old said I
was like a caffienated daffy duck.
It was the energy there! or the chinaco
anejo - which, forgive me, i had mixed in awesome margaritas.
In short,
It was a tremendous honor to have met you
and the "gang" and the event was even more
spectacular than I ever could have imagined.
You did a fabulous job and have my gratitude
and the thanks of everyone there...for
that night and for everything you give us.
Keep up the fantastic job.
Thanks,
sandy
From: Solarize May 1 2002, 9:32 AM
Carville's West 24 is a nice place...not
terribly large. It has a smallish dining
room with a bar area off to the site. It
was very classy. The food smelled great,
but I didn't get a chance to try it. The
chocolate that was provided was amazing
and the finger food was also great - the
sweet potato dumplings were awesome.
I'd say there were about 100 (not sure,
really) people there. It was fairly packed
...standing room only. Most were dressed
quite well - if you had come off the street
and walked in you may have thought it was
a republican gathering...hehe!
Everyone was exceptionally friendly and
mingling very freely. A lot of people
just came up to me and introduced themselves
and struck up a
conversation...it was very fun.
After about an hour of mingling, the main
event started with Carville being
the first to get up to the mic. He said
a lot of great things...what we come
to expect from him - Bush stealing the
election, the idiotic impeachment
and the horror that Julie had to endure,
giving props to David Brock for
showing up, etc. After a few more comments
he introduced Joe Conason to
a huge round of applause. Joe got up and
explained how he was making a
documentary about his book "The Hunting
of The President" and read a
prepared speech about why we were all there
(Julie and that horrid
impeachment deal). When he finished with
his great comments (sorry I
didn't transcribe anything...I was a bit
too excited to even really remember
what they said), he introduced Julie. She
got up to the mic and had to wait
for the applause and cheering to die down
before speaking. She is a little
firecracker - she is extremely funny even
when talking about all of this
serious political stuff. She said some
really good things - she talked about
how she has to make her story known so
that we can make sure this can't
happen in the future. She said too much
for me to put here...but its what
you'd expect if you've read her articles.
She finished off with a question and
answer session. Christian and Bartcop joined
her up at the mic, but only
Christian spoke.
Everyone screamed for to get Bart to step
up and give a speech, but thats
just not his thing. He is a humble, modest
man. He reminded me of one of
my high school friend's really cool dad.
It finished off with a cake in honor of
Julie and a raffle with signed copies of
Conason's book, Brock's book and Carville's
book plus copies of Hatfield's
book and some Bartcop Juliefest t-shirts.
There were a couple of photographers and
a videographer, so I'm sure there
will be plenty of pictures and video in
the near future for everyone to see.
Subject: My Take on JulieFest
The perfect day. That's
the only way I can describe the events of 4/27/2002.
The specter of that unelected, smirking moron
being in control of our country had been
hanging over my life for over a year. For one
day, though, a shaft of light came down
through the clouds, and an angelic choir seemed
to be singing,
"You are not alone. There's still hope. Is that
Joe Conason?"
Hit the Interstate, with handy
Mapquest directions at my side. Got turned around a
couple times in DC proper, but I had allowed
for a couple hours of "getting lost" time.
After an hour and a half of the bloody anarchy
that is Georgetown traffic
(those WALK/DON'T WALK signs...what a quaint
notion), I cried uncle,
found a parking garage, and made out on foot.
I must have looked like
such a rube hick, with my street map in front of me, sniffing
at something wonderful that was being done to
grilled onions, trying not to goggle at the
abundance of beautiful women our capital is blessed
with, laughing everytime I walked
by a full Moonie Times vending machine (and they
all were).
On to West 24. I was
a bit early for the main event, so I went to the bar.
Sierra Nevada---my payday beer---on tap! And
that glistening ovoid bottle on the back
shelf could only have been the legendary Chinaco
Anejo. With painful memories of high
school dances all too fresh, I tried to mingle.
Memo: when introducing
oneself to people that one only knows from the BartCop Forum,
the handle that seemed so crass and witty online
seems awfully juvenile in front of solid,
respectable adults. By about the fourth time,
I was inwardly cringing every time I said:
"Hi, I'm Gordon Guano." But nobody seemed to
mind.
Ah, the people!
It was great meeting forum posters and chatters
in person, and also good to see folks who
came in from all over the country just
because they were still pissed off about The Theft of 2000.
I didn't get to talk to anybody for nearly as
long as I would have liked, and I'm embarassed to say
that when I saw Zomar, my thought was, "Gee,
Carville looks a lot bigger on TV!", and then
proceeded to tell him how much I had enjoyed
hs book.
As far as our Guest of
Honor was concerned, I was awestruck. I don't know how that much class,
reserve, and dignity fits into such a tiny body.
I have a touch of claustrophobia, which I was able to quell
with my first-ever shot of Chinaco. I don't know
how Julie withstood being mobbed by well-wishers and
fans for three hours. I would have run screaming.
Sympathetically cringing, though, I had to work my way
through the line, and mumble something like,
"You're a real inspiration, ma'am. you showed us the bastards
CAN be licked."
After that, the only
thing left to do was to drive back to Mayberry, basking in the satisfaction
that came from having been able to do a little
bit of good for a very good person.
Now, get to work on that book, Julie!
From: Adamclymerfanclub.com
Hey, I know Zomar. I'd know that shiny pate anywhere
(and I figured it was him
when I read in the Bartcop Forum that he was
"James Carville's stunt double.")
The last time I saw him was at my father's funeral
in northern Wisconsin.
He goes to the same church my folks did (I'll
just call it The Church of the
Non-Religiously Insane.) We were sitting
in the guild hall after the service
when he told me that he read my name on the Bartcop.com
donor's page.
I told him about the Adam Clymer Fan Club and
gave him some buttons
and stickers. (How did those go over at
JulieFest, by the way?)
He's a cool guy. Glad you got to meet him.
Liz
Liz, yes, Zomar is cool, James thought so, too.
He drove allllllll the way from Sturgeon Bay, WI to be at Juliefest2002-DC
...about those buttons... you're going to kill me, but they were another
victim of the crushing crowds
at the jam-packed House o' Carville. I envisioned myself walking
between groups of people, saying Hi,
and offering the buttons for sale but the place was just wall-to-wall
and everything was Woodstock.
The good news? I still have them, so maybe JuliefestWest
will work better.
Thanks for donating those, I won't let them go to waste.
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