She beat me there, and we each had cell phones, so as I got near,
she described herself and what she was wearing. I pulled in and there
she was.
You guys in chat ever wonder what Sam looks like? She's very
attractive!
Oklahoma Bob met us there, too.
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Click to order
Ladies First:
The meet and greet had wine and cheese basics.
Dinner:
Mixed field greens salad with walnuts and raspberry
vinaigrette
Crab cakes and chicken breast with hollandaise
sauce
asparagus, rice and baby carrots
Raspberry cheesecake
coffee
cash bar
We walked through the wind tunnel of hell five
or so times before finding the event.
Once there, it was pretty much an older ladies'
luncheon environment.
Memorable moments included the very fine southern
charm of a older lady who
walked up to us at the meet and greet and said
"Hi,
I'm Eleanor Roosevelt".
We all shook her hand and introduced ourselves.
After she left we all immediately
looked at each other to indicate we'd just met
someone who was completely delusional.
As it turned out, she was an outstanding fundraiser
with the organization sponsoring the
event who happened to have the name Eleanor
Roosevelt.
We got to speak with Tekla (last name?), the former
prison warden turned author,
for quite awhile. She was very passionate about
the need for women's prison reform,
and volunteered that she realized after being
a warden and maximum security prisons
that she couldn't change a thing from the inside.
One got the impression she could talk
all day given an audience.
Susan's a great big ball of southern charm and
energy. She whisked through the room,
shook our hands and apologized for not talking
more, saying "I really just need to go
think about what I'm going to say" and
promised to talk to us more later at the
after-dinner reception.
Susan was showstopping -- outstanding points were
the story of Pat Buchanan's brother
trying to assassinate a man he mistakenly thought
had warned Kathleen Willey, and the fact
that not only does OK have more women in prison
than any other state in the nation, but that
we have more women in prison than any other geographical
land mass in the WORLD.
Stunning.
Other topics she covered with passion included
how much education, prison reform,
job training, etc. could have been paid for by
Bush's tax cut/the surplus we once had.
How convicted felons can't get student loans,
don't qualify for public housing, etc.,
how prison is the only place available for the
mentally ill. Particularly moving was how
she stated she used to feel we needed to focus
on lobbying our government and changing
policies, etc. Now she feels things are way too
out of control for that. We need to basically
get the mother-effers out of office pronto.
I ducked out early because her escort was having
a bad day and she didn't want to subject him to
having to be cordial any longer when she could
tell he really wasn't into it. And we had been there
for about 3 hours already. So though I missed
the discussion, I'm eternally grateful for the ticket - thanks.
Sam.
Sidebar:
Special thanks to Crzycajn70
for paying our way in to see Susan McDougal.
Crzycajn70 is a pillar in high regard, and would be awarded a medal
if
we had medals,
but we do have shots of Chinaco, so shot of Chinaco Anejo
to Crzycajn70
I can't add a lot to what Sam has told you, but we will have some ultra-chilling
soundbites
from Susan's speech in the super-hueueuge BCR
Show 36, which will probably drop
tomorrow night. No telling, but it could be our first triple disc radio
show.
After meeting up with Sam and Richard (D-Atty) we arrived at the gig.
I asked the lady with tickets if it
was OK to record the audio for my lil' radio program. She said
"I have no idea, you'll have to ask Susan."
They had wine and stuff in the room as we waited for Susan to arrive,
but I was driving - so no alcohol for me.
We all met Eleanor Roosevelt and the former prison
warden lady - and Oklahoma Bob was working the room
like you wouldn't believe. Like Sam said, this
was mostly grandmother types, and Bob is going around the room
making friends like crazy. When the warden
lady introduced herself, Bob filled in some details about her which
shocked her because they hadn't yet met.
She gave Bob a hug for knowing her story before she could get it out.
Then we heard that unmistakeable Arkansas twang
behind us.
My mother's family comes from Arkansas, so Susan
sounds like a family reunion to Ol' Bart.
Now comes the weird part.
The room was small, maybe just 25 people in it,
so getting to Susan was no problem. Some fella was
semi-hogging her attention, and I sensed that
she wanted to be rescued, so I got at a ninety degree angle
to her right and a few seconds later, she glanced
at me and did a double-take. She stopped talking to
that guy and looked at me and said, "I
know
you," and gave me a big, giant hug.
This is strange for a few reasons. Yes, we had
met before in 1999, which is a quite a long time ago.
Plus, I was clean-shaven back then and my closely-cropped
beard obviously changes my appearance.
She and I have talked on the phone several times,
but she had no way to connect my face with my voice.
I gave her a BartCop business card, which takes
severe advantage of "white paper," meaning all it says is
bartcop.com in very small print
with Political Humor in even smaller print.
She suddenly remembered all of you
who gave her bartcop.com stickers
and smiled real big and said, "Thank you
for that," with more hugs
I didn't want to take up any more of her time,
but I did ask if it would be OK to tape her.
She said, "Honey,
you can tape anything you want and you can write anything you want."
Then she was off to prepare for her speech, which
was dy-no-mite.
I've heard her speak at two functions and both
times, it was the same story.
When she speaks, the room is absolutely totally
dead and quiet.
If someone ever drops a pin while she's speaking,
it will sound like Big Ben.
You talk about riveting - the stories she tells are a little like watching The Sopranos.
It's part horrifyingly chilling brutality and
part laugh-out loud funny as can be.
She told the story of being totally naive about
what "going to prison" meant.
She called the prison the day before she was
to report and asked of there was
a list of things she was allowed to bring with
her.
They told her: 1 Bible, 2 pairs of cotton panties and 2 pairs of cotton sox - that was it.
Slowly, it dawned on her that this wasn't a walk in some country club park.
She was understandably terrified. Then, minutes
after being taken into custody for the first time,
they handcuffed her, which she expected, then
they attached a steel chain around her waist and cuffed
her hands to her belt. She said that was terrifying
because when you're scared, you naturally want to be
able to put your hands in front of your face
in case you trip or whatever, but before she could complete
the thought, they shackled her legs, too and
she had a whirlwind of emotions going on inside her head,
and she thought to herself,
"I'm glad my mother's back home and not here to witness this humiliation."
Then, she was shackled to two giant linebacker-types
who were going to prison for bank robbery.
They marched the three of them down a long, doorless,
windowless corridor and when they door opened
she saw what seemed to be every satellite truck
in the world, with lights everywhere and TV cameras
everywhere and dozens of reporters were shouting
questions at her - your basic media circus of madness.
Seconds later, one of her shacklemates said something
to her and when she told us what he said, the entire
banquet room burst out laughing and Susan said,"What
he said was so damn funny, I thought to myself
for the very first time that I might be able
to get thru this ordeal if keep my sense of humor."
That's one of the clips I'll play in BCR Show 36.
If you ever get a chance to hear her speak - do
it.
You won't believe how good she is with
a microphone.
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