Booman Tribune

Back from Yearly Kos

by BooMan
Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:18:34 AM EST

I'm back from Yearly Kos. I have to find a way to fall asleep fast because I have to get up early and get on a train for Washington DC. I'll be at the Take America Back 2006 conference Monday-Wednesday.

Before I go to sleep though, I thought I'd just jot down some impressions and anecdotes of the conference in Vegas.

The first thing I have to mention is that I won about $700 in craps over the length of the conference (some of it with Joe Trippi at the table). Just before I left for the airport I won $497 on one turn of rolling. I couldn't roll a seven if my life depended on it. It was awesome. So that put a nice capper on a pretty good weekend.

There was a lot of fun times. Maryb2004, Boran2, CabinGirl, Kid Oakland, Brementown Musician, and I got to spend a lot of time together. BarbinMD and I kept running across each other every five minutes. We joked that we were stalking each other. We had the joint MLW/BT/ET party, and that was a lot of fun and I met a lot of members and lurkers. It's always fun to hang out with MSOC and her husband Adam.

Warner had his now infamous party. It was pretty cool as far as I was concerned, but it did cause a lot of controversy. My main problem was that I was so tired that I had a hard time socializing.

The panels were very strong. It seemed like Chris Bowers was on almost all of them. He's pretty burnt out. We just flew back together, and he was happy but spent. The funniest thing that happened at the conference was in the Blog Theory panel that Chris moderated. Some people saw CabinGirl and me on C-SPAN2 and sent me a note about it. Then I said we were trying to figure out a good way to heckle the panel. Omir the Storyteller suggested that I open Word, and type 'Smile, if you are not wearing underpants' in a huge font and turn around my laptop so the panel could read it. Since Tim Tagaris was so nervous that he was shaking the whole table, I decided it might lighten his mood. So, I followed Omir's advice. The only problem was the Tim wouldn't look at me. Then I noticed Rep. Brad Miller squinting to read my monitor, then a look of shock overtook his face. Pretty funny.

We had a lot of laughs like this.

I was very pleased to meet a lot of my favorite bloggers, including Jerome a Paris, Larry Johnson, mcjoan, emptywheel, Christy Hardin Smith, Bob Geiger, Mike Stark, SusanG, and many others.

I was concerned about the way the convention became a kind of near endorsement of Mark Warner, and I will probably have more to say on that later. But, by way of a quick clarification, I don't think Warner did anything wrong. I think Jerome Armstrong deserves a doubling in salary for the job he did for Warner. And I don't think Markos did anything wrong, either. I'll get into the details of what concerns me another time. Suffice to say, getting called 'low class' by Markos was something that will have to be revisited. But not now.

The biggest kudos have to go to the people that organized the event. They did a spectacular job.

I'm glad I went. I had a very good time as, it seems, nearly everybody did. It's a truly empowering feeling to get to take our blogworld into real life. There is a tremendous feeling of comraderie at these types of meet-ups, and as a conference it was a big success. The biggest coup of all was getting Bill Richardson to endorse Jerome's energy plan. Jerome is understandably elated. He deserves to feel that way. He's really making a difference.



Display:
Thanks for the post Booman, and I look forward to reading more as you have some more time to digest the weekend. I've been wracking my brain for the last two hours trying to find something to fill tonight's late night void, jumping between panda pictures and the Federalist Papers or some combination of the two and failing in the extreme on each occasion. Hitting refresh and seeing this nice post put me at ease. I can sleep now - I hope. Have fun in D.C.
by Chris on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:32:21 AM EST
Thanks for all your help over the last few days.  Some of your funniest stuff ever.  We were dying reading your posts out in Nevada.
by BooMan on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:36:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You have been a roll lately Chris...loved your posts this weekend!

"Little people are very stuff-intensive."
by CabinGirl on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:38:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I blush a very tired blush. Thank you. Anyway, you haven't seen anything yet. Steven and I have made a blood pact to write each and every one of our posts, while Booman is away in D.C., about the world's greatest sport, tetherball. This, I promise, will send earthquakes through the political blogosphere, forever changing how we view and use this emerging electronic medium. If not, it's all Steven's fault.
by Chris on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 02:13:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Tetherball?  Tetherball?  I was a champion tetherball player on the rough playgrounds of Westchester County, NY back in my day.

--
Albert Yee
Philadelphia, PA
http://dragonballyee.com/blog
by albert (dragonballyeeATgmail.com) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 10:11:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Arright you punk ass fumocrat- game on, any time, any where.

(N.B. above is trash talk, Albert is the man.)

If you seek peace and fulfilment rather than wealth and power you must take up the reins of government or else you will be ruled by tyrants

by Cicero on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 05:43:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's great to have you back, but while the cat's away, the mice did play!  :>)  

Chris and Steven were awesome.  Did you convince Cabin Girl to become a frontpager?

by Kamakhya (onyx at earthlink dot net) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:39:04 AM EST
Nice going, BooMan!  You'll have to explain craps to me.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-
by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:59:44 AM EST
Havent you been following Bush's foreign policy the last 5 and a half years?
by donkeytale on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 10:03:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
perhaps I will be known more as the guy who got BooMan to surprise Miller than for any of the other worthwhile thing I've done online.

Strangely, I'm OK with that.

Glad you had a wonderful time, BooMan. There needs to be a way for those of us out here in Blogland to participate. Maybe we can set up some kind of open-source videoconferencing setup. I'd buy a webcam and do my best Max Headroom imitation.

I for one welcome our new Twitter overlords. @Omir55

by Omir the Storyteller (omir.the.storyteller -CAT- gmail -DOG- com) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 02:31:06 AM EST
I gotta say something...
Getting called low class by Markos is like being called short by a midget.
Shit

Green Grass and High Tides Forever
by supersoling (colorsplash62@optonline.net) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 06:08:08 AM EST
I'd say having Markos bark that kind of shit at you is definitely a compliment.

Don't let small minds keep you from your truth Booman.

If these folks trying to vault themselves onto the national stage can't handle constructive criticism they will be very short lived public lives or at the very least little respected ones.

by wilfred on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 10:30:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think for a soldier it was very reassuring that those of us who are serious just aren't easily bought off with fine free drinks, elaborate chow, and t-shirts.  After he was done reading it he told me that that was he loved about all of us who join up her, we just don't fall for much.

PMS Purchase More Shoes
by Militarytracy on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 06:49:12 AM EST
I am literally laughing out loud, so I could type "lol" and be honest about it.

Then I said we were trying to figure out a good way to heckle the panel. Omir the Storyteller suggested that I open Word, and type 'Smile, if you are not wearing underpants' in a huge font and turn around my laptop so the panel could read it. Since Tim Tagaris was so nervous that he was shaking the whole table, I decided it might lighten his mood. So, I followed Omir's advice. The only problem was the Tim wouldn't look at me. Then I noticed Rep. Brad Miller squinting to read my monitor, then a look of shock overtook his face. Pretty funny.

I was soooooooooooooo nervous.  Thank the Lord I did not look at you, I had a microphone turned on infront of me and would have ended up bursting out laughing.

Wish I had your luck at the tables this weekend, and great to meet you!

Tim

by ttagaris on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 07:04:00 AM EST
Jerome was SUPPOSED to be taking a vacation from blogging after he detonated on a diary at DKOS on an oppponent of a paid client.

He's not though, is he...

"[new] Re: Talking with Governor Mark Warner (1.00 / 1)

This is starting to be the troll meme from the opposition, that's for sure.

by Jerome Armstrong on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 04:46:57 AM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This |"

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/4/19/181325/196

Jerome called a guy a troll on a comment thread for quoting Mark Warner's own words in a LA Times interview.

This IS exactly what Mark Warner is going to do to the 2008 race. This is exactly what Mark Warner did to Virginia when he was in power in Virginia. Anyone who dares to disagree with Mark Warner is going to smeared with ugly leaks to a press corps more thazn happy to print unproven dirt from "anonymous" sources about Dems.... and this is the type of behavior we can expect from the Jerome and Kos for the next 2 years.

"...Dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure?..." -Al Gore

by afs on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 10:07:50 AM EST

It is going to take me days to catch up on all that went on while we were out there.  I only went online a little bit - just to catch the frontpage posts, recommended diaries, and a few random comments here and there.  That's about it.

I did miss the CIA leak investigation panel as I went to see the Energy panel instead.  I hope to be able to find a place to see the streaming video.

by ericy on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 03:28:05 PM EST
airamericaradio.com/yearly-kos/schedule.php?day=2

You have to pay the 10 bucks. (Disclaimer- I have been unable to view it on my Mac)

Join the European Tribune, Booman Tribune's European cousin.
In the long term, we're all dead.
John Keynes

by Jerome a Paris on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 05:51:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"On behalf of meself and the band I hope we passed the audition...."

Good to have you back. Now we can get back to More Important Blogger topics like the War against Kos and which of your guys will come in 3rd or 4th in the primaries....

While this ongoing sniping between the two of you is pretty funny, it is also increasing your readership (I hope). Good show!

Beat the Reptublicans! Its our turn at the spigot...er I mean the helm!

by donkeytale on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 10:01:14 AM EST
When you get a chance, I would really like to hear more about panels, all the gossip you can dish, and how your seven repellent works.

All Progressives need to become ardent supporters of the Second, as well as the , First Amendment
by phronesis (swwiener@gmail.com) on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:24:36 PM EST
Low class???

What buttmunch that dude is. Consider it a compliment.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

by Damnit Janet on Mon Jun 12th, 2006 at 01:34:13 PM EST


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