Day 2 - 4: F$*% It We’ll Do It From the Road

Sorry to all my readers for the pause in blogging these past two days. There has been a lot going on since we got to Austin, TX on Thursday:

• Heard Paul Krugman, Rick Perlstein, Joe Trippi and other politicos spout off at NetRoots Nation
• Sat in the C-SPAN bus and garnered my own personal pocket Constitution
• Over-indulged in Hendricks Gin Martini’s at the Huffington Post-GQ BBQ and Booze Party in downtown Austin, TX
• Woke up at 4 AM to get to the airport on Saturday morning and fly to San Francisco for BLOGHER 2008
• Arrived in SFO, got picked up from airport by doting parents, got dropped off at Westin St. Francis and started conferencing all over again
• Picked up BlogHer 08 bag schwag, which was filled with $20 T-Mobile Wi-Fi card, chocolates, Magic Eight Ball and other fun geek chic items
• Sat in on rogue DNC Prep Meeting with other female bloggers including my WIPT ladies - Myrna the Minx, Jill Miller Zimon, Morra Aarons-Mele, Shireen Mitchell
• Listened to a fabulous “Naked Blogging” panel where an amazing group of women - mommy bloggers, live-journalists, readers, lurkers, writers of all kinds - shared stories about breast milk, fugly troll commenters, the mysogyny of the blogosphere, and how to decide when blogging about your personal life gets to the point of shame, fame and no return.
• Trotted over to an open bar put on by Lisa Witter of Fenton Communications to promote her femme-fabulous book, “The She Spot” - which I am still reading and can’t wait to report back about when I’m done.
• Splashed through the Macy’s Blogher Reception and sipped on champagne while drooling over the new Marc Jacob’s handbag selection
• (Lost my only pair of flat shoes at the bar - left to strappy heels and stillettos for the remainder of the trip. Ow, my feet already hurt, but I look goood!)
• Cabbed back to my parent’s house in the Haight-Ashbury with my partner in crime, Ms. Bradshaw, and other renegade 2.0 ladies: Laurin Manning, Sara Porter and fellow NMS colleague, Kristin Montalbano.
• Hitched-hiked a ride (no cabs in sight, freezing 50 degree SF weather, we were desperate) with new friend Kenny on the corner of Baker and Oak and headed toward Orson, a new bar in San Francisco’s SOMA district
• Sipped on Cuban Mojitos at Orson and then found a real cab home; crashed in my own bed, it was glorious.

Phew. It has been a crazy couple of days full of interaction with wise-cracking politics, Momocrats, famous femme bloghers, tech savvy bloghims and even some time with my parents and old friends. Today, we woke up to delicious vol-au-vent breakfast prepared by Momma Nedeau and then ran back downtown to do some shopping and then attend today’s Blogher 2008 Unconference where I am currently typing out these absurd adventures in my venture toward becoming a social media starlet.

Day 1: High Heels, Punditry and Politics

Note: This was written after a very long day of conferencing, travel and celebration. Please forgive me for nonsensical narrative or strange tid bits of information.

We landed in Austin, TX last night around 11 PM. This was just in time to catch up with my old college friend, get some sleep and wake up for Netroot’s Nation bright eyed and jet-lagged on Thursday morning.

While I was ultimately confused by the one-hour time change (somehow worse than a three or five-hour time change) @leslieann44 and I awoke from our slumber on time and dressed ourselves in suitable outfits. Leslie wore a yellow sun dress with wedge sandals. I wore a tan pleated skirt, purple sweater and paten leather flats. We left the well, air-conditioned apartment and walked out into the 80 degree Texas heat, with big, black sunglasses and everything we thought we needed for the day of punditry, politics and partying.

The day kicked off with a bang and a broadcast. My attendance at the first morning session about “Political Punditry” somehow earned me a spot on Sirius Radio. This was mostly due to the fact that I left the session early and Indy Radio was looking for someone to pontificate on the concept of blogging that can lead into fame and shame on cable news, print media and YouTube. The experience on the show was amusing to say the least, and allowed me to plug this here blog on air, as well as my company and other political affiliations.

Phew. I must say that it was nice to get the obligatory press efforts out of the way by 11 AM Central Time.

The rest of the day consisted of various celebrity sightings, intriguing conversation, and visual stimulation:

1. We saw Wes Clark and Howard Dean, all before 2 PM.

2. I took part in a Feminist Blogging Caucus. My ideas about Sex (and the City) & Politics were about as well received as a shorts in a snow storm. Women are either for it, or totally against it. Sigh - no mass appeal (yet).

3. I watched several short films that were truly moving in content and creation by Media That Matters. You can watch the films on various social justice subjects: http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org.

The rest of the day-evening consisted of several Long Island Iced Teas (eek, don’t have too many of those before the sun goes down); a great dinner at an Italian restaurant with my BFF and some much needed lounging time at a swanky bar that had a lovely outdoor patio seating.

The rest of the journey here in Texas will continue tomorrow. Until then - Goodnight, and Good luck.

The 2.0 Jetstream: Netroots Nation, Blogher 2008

Three cities. Five days. That’s my absurd agenda as I head to two major Web 2.0 conferences this week: Netroots Nation in Austin, TX & Blogher in San Francisco, CA.

After receiving the kick-off email for Netroots 2008 titled, “F#@% it, we’ll do it live!” - I have to admit that I am just a tad bit excited for what the next few days will bring. Not only will I be surrounded by some of my favorite online political operatives, members of Women in Technology and Politics, and friends from New Leaders Council - I will also be accompanied by the lovely Leslie Bradshaw, a colleague of mine at New Media Strategies and fellow social media starlet. Together, Leslie and I will traverse over 6,000 miles in five days and all the while be blogging, tweeting, uttering and strutting our stuff, probably while wearing cute stilettos.

Additional fan favorites attending the conferences this week will be: Not Larry Sabato, Jill Zimon, Tracy Russo,  Myrna the Minx, Pundit Mom, Morra Aarons-Mele and many other fabulous ladies and gents of the political arena slash femme fatal blogosphere.

I will try to blog and share my impressions of the speeches, panels and parties on a daily basis, but in case you need immediate 411 on the trip, you can follow my twitterstream via @HumanFolly.

A Question for Speaker Pelosi

Netroots Nation, which will be occurring next week in Austin, Texas, has secured Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Key Note Address on Saturday. My partner in crime, Leslie Bradshaw, and I will be attending as a diva duo at Netroots on Thursday and Friday and then flying off to Blogher in San Francisco for the rest of the weekend. We will unfortunately miss the address by my hometown politica powerhouse, but was asked by executive director of Netroots Nation, Gina Cooper, to at least submit a question that could be posed to the Speaker. I, of course, had to follow up on my high heeled political theories and ask: Can female leaders be elected to office without completely subscribing to male paradigms?

Make sure to vote for my question if you’d like to see it asked to the Speaker next Saturday at NetRoots Nation. If you are going to NetRoots or Blogher and would like to meet up with Leslie or myself, please let me know!

“WHY do American dogs wear clothes?”

That was the question posed to Elizabeth Davis, the Executive Director of Amani Africa, by the President of Amani Africa, Gasana Mutesi, during a recent U.S. tour. It was Gasana’s first trip to the U.S. and apparently there were several moments of cultural irony as Gasana observed the stranger elements of the U.S. society.

The U.S. tour served to promote and fund raise for the grassroots organization which strives “to establish sustainable peace in Central African post-conflict communities by engaging young leaders in cross-cultural dialogue and providing opportunities to orphans and street children through education and training.”

Pretty cool, eh?

After a successful tour in the U.S., Amani Africa raised over $60, 000, a lot of which is going toward development of the Amani Village.

The Amani Village will serve as a place for those orphaned by the genocide in Rwanda to develop and grow in safe, healthy environment, in addition to “have access to education and extracurricular opportunities, and to be empowered to make independent decisions for their future.”

After a friend passed on the news about this organization I just had to give them some blog love - after all what they are doing is absurdly wonderful and who can’t appreciate that?

Help build the Amani village online (and off in Africa) by joining the Group Site or donating to their cause.

San Franpsycho

Well, I made it to San Francisco. Before arriving in SF last Wednesday, however, I left San Diego for a quick trip through rush hour traffic to Los Angeles to visit an old friend. I walked along the beach in Santa Monica and did some much needed outdoor shopping along the 3rd St. Promenade. Once my friend got off work, we hit up MAO’s - a BYOB Chinese food restaurant in Venice Beach. After dinner, I scooted down to Long Beach to stay at a friend’s penthouse apartment in attempts to avoid morning L.A. traffic patterns and be a little closer to San Diego. I arrived in Long Beach around 10:30 PM and was hoping to hit up a Latin Salsa bar, but the surf city had already gone to bed.  Instead, I spent the evening with my friend playing “F*ck the Dealer” and drinking 100-year-old aged tequila from the Patrón Agave Farm in Mexico. This would be the second, out of three nights that I got to know the lovely taste of the Agave plant a little too well. Please, if you see me, do not offer me a lime, salt, or anything resembling the liquor - I might vomit. 

I left Long Beach at a painfully early hour (7:30 am) and drove back to San Diego in my brother’s beat up SUV that had a malfunctioning gas gage and tended to shake a little if you turned a corner too quickly. When I finally arrived back in SD, I grabbed my bags and heading to the airport. I arrived in San Francisco that afternoon and I have been enjoying my lovely hometown for the past five days. In true absurdity fashion, I decided to share some thoughts about this crazy city by the bay:

#1: Weirdos, weirdos, everywhere. I swear SF is home to some of the strangest, but often coolest people I have ever met. Everyone is in their own crazy world - and we, the “normal” ones are just supposed to sit back and be amused with it all. More often than not, I really enjoy the hilarious and random interactions with SF folk - it always keeps things interesting. Today, for example, I was wandering through this Cambodian Buddhist shop on Haight St. This really tall dude, with a long gnarly beard and thick black framed sunglasses and a bowling hat was following the Cambodian shop keeper around and asking if he could translate things from English into Cambodian for them (why would he ask her that?). Once she politely said “No, honey,” he then said, “Gosh, I really love the music in here,” and started bouncing his heels and singing along to the music which resembled some kind of Buddhist chant. The dude was peaceful and chill - but seemed totally lost in life. He just kept wandering in circles around the store. I wondered what he would do after he had completely annoyed the cute Cambodian shop ladies (and then also how many different drugs he was on). 

#2 - The produce is amazing. People used to ask me what I missed most about California - and I always said, “the produce.” Not my family, not my friends, but the freaking tomatoes and avocados and yummy greens that are so readily accessible everywhere you go. This was also when I was still a vegetarian, so maybe it was a weird survival thing. But in general, the food in SF is superb. This past week I swear I’ve gained five pounds because of constant consumption of everything delicious. I really think that between the excellent Asian, Mexican and healthy California cuisine - the food on the West Coast just beats the East Coast plate in every single capacity. Oh, except for New York pizza - SF can’t beat that.

#3 Creativity Rules. One thing I do miss about living in SF is how freaking creative and cool the people, things, and places are. Everywhere you go there is a diversity of fashion - punks, tattoos, red hair, purple hair, dread locks, mohawks, converse sneakers, stripper heels, wild earrings, etc. People in SF are a unique breed and at least in my neighborhood, the Haight-Ashbury, there isn’t a duplicate person in sight. Throughout the city there are also beautiful murals, buildings, shops, bars and random acts of art. One building downtown has all the furniture bolted to the outside. One restaurant, Cafe Gratitude, is a raw food joint where their menu options are presented as affirmations such as the “I am Beautiful! (Sandwich).” The waiters then serve you your meal and say, “You are beautiful!” I’ve also already shared on Absurdities! my appreciation for the fabulous pirate store at 826 Valencia - another SF gem - and the pillow fight on Valentines Day. Additionally, the Bay to Breakers just occurred about a week ago and some of the stories made me wish I had planned my trip West a little earlier. A few of my male friends created a “Mustache Ride” for the race where they all grew foo manchu mustaches, wore tiny cut off jean shorts with no shirts and then roped themselves together for the 7 mile run. If only I had been there to witness it - and potentially run alongside with some other sort of atrocious outfit on. (Or, in true Bay to Breakers fashion, no outfit at all).

Sadly, I leave tonight to go back to the East Coast and continue my absurdity observations from the 202 area code. It has certainly been fun to switch it up and report on the fun traveling adventures over the past week from the West Coast. Cheers!

Californiabsurdities

Well, it is about time that Absurdities! hit the road and went on gypsy-diva rejuvenation. After surviving the long winter, this Dionysian Princess decided to pack up and return to her roots: the great state of California.

For the first leg of the trip, I am in San Diego, CA visiting my debauchery-loving, younger brother. After a few days in SoCal, I will then hit up my hometown, San Francisco. I thought it fair to offer my readers an update from the West Coast, to mix it up a bit.

Now, I’ve lived in Washington, DC for about five years (gasp!), but I still consider myself much of a West Coast breed. So far, my trip has proven to me that I have been away for much too long.

Here are the following notes I have taken as a East Coast convert visiting the SoCal society:

# 1 - Everyone here is far too happy. Yes, that may seem like a weird statement. But as someone who enjoys the pure schaudenfreude in life - I feel like I have met my match here in San Diego. Literally - everything appears to be perfect. And as a result, everyone appears to be very happy, relaxed and strangely satisfied with life. It is making me quite nervous.

# 2 - No shirts, no shoes, all good! Now, I may have grown up in California and went to high school eight blocks from the beach - but that was in San Francisco. Lots of fog and well, it rarely got past 75 degrees. Clothing was never really optional. In fact, we used to laugh at tourists who wore shorts and then had to scramble to buy an overpriced novelty sweatshirt when the fog rolled in. But down in SoCal, the land of the sun, I have seen more bare skin than at a strip club. Nearly every room I walk into is full of shirtless men. The women either wear a bathing suit with some sort of qualifying “clothing” such as cut-off jeans or a tank top that stretches just past their bottom. It is semi-alarming, but may also encourage me to start running a bit more.

# 3 - Making a fortune with Fortune Telling. It is quite a mystery as to how people actually afford to live around here. There isn’t a very visible business district in any of the coastal towns and knowing that the housing prices are unreasonably high, it makes you wonder how exactly people make enough money to live. Especially, since the majority of people seem to spend their time in a life of leisure - surfing, running, or tanning. The only prominent businesses I’ve seen so far surround the psychic-fortune telling-astrology industry. In the past three days I’ve seen four fortune tellers, three psychics and crossed paths with dozens of astrology books. My only thought is that seeing into the future, must bring prosperity for the citizens of Southern California.

# 4 - The sun is indeed stronger than the fluorescent lights in my office. Perhaps the most noticeable difference between SoCal and Washington, DC is the weather. After surviving yet another East Coast winter and torrential Spring rainstorms, I felt the need to spend some time outdoors upon arriving to the 80 degree dry heat, beautiful San Diego weather. What I did not realize, however, is that since I spend a majority of my time under fluorescent lights, my skin was not prepared for the sun. Within the first twelve hours of my visit, I incurred a serious sun burn, a bit of a shock to the system. My lack of time outdoors lately made me forget to apply sunscreen to my pale Irish skin. I should have known better, but I was also under the silly impression that being outside during the hours of 9 am to 11 am would somehow be less offensive. Unfortunately, when it comes to the sun, being ill-prepared will cost you. I currently resemble a distant cousin of the pink flamingo. I guess I’ll just call it a “base tan.”

A Silver Lining to DC Metro

Thanks to a friend for showing me the silver lining to the future of the Washington, DC metro and pointing out Greater Greater Washington’s WMATA fantasty map:

Personally, as a DC resident, I’m not sure how I feel about the grand Metro extensions out into the ‘burbs, but I guess as long as I can get to work everyday - more love for Washington, DC and less cars on the road is a plus. I do wonder, however, whether the popped-collar mafia in Georgetown will object to a Metro stop (gasp) within their cobble-stone paradise?

Only time (and a lot of tax payer money) can tell.

How To Lose 100 Nepalese In A Day

The state of Alabama has a whole new problem on its hands: 100 missing Nepalese workers from the Cinram Factory in Hunstville. I heard about this story a few days ago on CNN and I couldn’t believe the eye-witness accounts - nearly all the local citizens and the Cinram Factory managers basically just shrugged their shoulders, and said, “I don’t know where they went. They just disappeared.” HOW do you just miss the train full of Nepalese heading out of town with furniture, family and life’s belongings? The report claims they were in and out within 24 hours. Kind of spooky. Anyone seem ‘em?

Plant’s workers from Nepal missing

HUNTSVILLE — About 100 people who came from Nepal to work at a north Alabama factory seemingly vanished from a pair of apartment buildings, along with a lot of furniture and appliances, and can’t be located, officials said Tuesday….

Obama Fried Chicken

I have yet to really discuss my recent trip to South Carolina this past weekend where I volunteered for the Barack Obama Presidential campaign. I think I am still exhausted from nearly eight hours of “GOTV” (get out the vote) efforts where I knocked on over 200 doors and participated in what turned out to be a landslide victory for Obama. It was definitely worth the long drive and the strange stay at the chain-smoking, divorcee, bandit headquarters: Extended Stay America.

South Carolina, among other things, is a very quirky state. While only eight hours from Washington, DC, it has enough foreign elements to make you realize that you are not inside the beltway any longer. My first observation was at 2 AM on the drive down, when I saw “South of the Border” - the most politically incorrect Mexican amusement park right off Highway 95. It was complete with fake cacti and “Pedroland Park” which boasts of rides named Quadzilla, Wild Sombrero, and The Red Baron Airplanes.

In addition, I just read that one fine establishment in South Carolina started accidentally promoting the “Obama Special” - a two piece mixed chicken plate with white and dark meat - on its menu during the primary season. The NAACP, for one, is not a fan of Obama Fried Chicken.

Restaurant customers order Obama special; NAACP sees a problem

Posted: Jan 30, 2008 08:02 PM EST

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - The NAACP says a sign on an Aiken restaurant mentioning Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the same line as a dark and white meat chicken dinner special was either a gross error or insidious racism.

Bullseye Big Chicken owner Bruce Pierson says he didn’t realize the sign might be racially charged until customers started ordering the Obama special.

He says the sign initially said “Welcome Bill and Obama” as a greeting to former President Bill Clinton and the Illinois senator.

It all couldn’t fit on one line, so Pierson put Obama on the second line of the sign along with the two-piece “mixed” dinner.