I got back to New York at 6am this morning, after having spent the weekend with a huge group of passionate, intelligent, funny, radical, provocative women bloggers. What a treat. Usually when I’m told that I “get to” attend a conference I sigh a little sigh of the inevitable. I do love room service. But generally I reach critical mass of stranger contact far faster than the day’s events end. (Which is not to say I didn’t skip one part of one session to hide in the back of the parking lot and suck up a few chapters of a pure-pulp novel I’d taken along.)
I got to have a chat with blog rock star Dooce. You may not know who she is, but in San Jose this weekend she was as close as it got to Keith Richards. She’s delightful, and seems sincerely a little confounded by the adoration she inspires. If you haven’t read her, do yourself the favor.
I also got to reminisce with Arianna Huffington about the fact that she was a guest on the very last show I produced on CNN. She did indeed remember, because it was the show where Ben Stein flipped her off, live, and then stormed off. Oh, and Sarah Ferguson (the Dutchess of York) was there as well. And I had a guest host who was holding on by a thread already. Poor Arianna took it like a champ, and last night she held my hand, looked deeply into my eyes and purred, “That wasn’t your fault.” Truthfully, I never thought it was. I will stand by my assessment that it was a 100% unpredictable event perpetrated by BEN STEIN of all people. But that doesn’t change the fact that there was no surface in the control room under which I did not wish to crawl. Arianna is still a very active captain of The Huffington Post and she told us that they’re going to add a lot of lifestyle blogs to round out the political stuff come this fall.
If I had all day I couldn’t list all the other cool women I met. There was the tattoo’d and punky woman who is a nurse for the criminally insane in an Atlanta prison, the 16-year-old girls who do a science podcast, the woman who makes her living running 17 individual blogs, the woman who runs Mighty Good… And that’s just off the top of my jet-lagged head.
I left with a new commitment to acquaint myself with the virtual versions of these women, and to join the conversation rather than to just lurk. I’m going to start just as soon as I sleep for about 20 hours.
And ps — To the toddler who kicked my seat from San Jose to Philadelphia: I hate hate hate you!
jaysaint 
Posted by steakums on July 31, 2006 at 11:02 am
And ps — To the toddler who kicked my seat from San Jose to Philadelphia: I hate hate hate you!
We’ve taken flights where we’ve actually alternating holding Jr.’s feet down so he wouldn’t kick the person in front of him. Of course, there was the time when the seat was empty and someone made some sort of stink and demanded to sit there. Since he was a jerk, I let Jr. kick as much as he wanted, although R. did his best to restrain him.
Glad you had a good time. I’ve started reading the Dooce blog. Thanks!
Posted by steakums on July 31, 2006 at 11:02 am
And ps — To the toddler who kicked my seat from San Jose to Philadelphia: I hate hate hate you!
We’ve taken flights where we’ve actually alternating holding Jr.’s feet down so he wouldn’t kick the person in front of him. Of course, there was the time when the seat was empty and someone made some sort of stink and demanded to sit there. Since he was a jerk, I let Jr. kick as much as he wanted, although R. did his best to restrain him.
Glad you had a good time. I’ve started reading the Dooce blog. Thanks!
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:02 am
You know, if his parents had made any attempt, even an unsuccessful one, I would have felt far less venomous.
I love Dooce. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. It’s worth going back in the archives and reading from the beginning.
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:02 am
You know, if his parents had made any attempt, even an unsuccessful one, I would have felt far less venomous.
I love Dooce. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. It’s worth going back in the archives and reading from the beginning.
Posted by steakums on July 31, 2006 at 11:02 am
And ps — To the toddler who kicked my seat from San Jose to Philadelphia: I hate hate hate you!
We’ve taken flights where we’ve actually alternating holding Jr.’s feet down so he wouldn’t kick the person in front of him. Of course, there was the time when the seat was empty and someone made some sort of stink and demanded to sit there. Since he was a jerk, I let Jr. kick as much as he wanted, although R. did his best to restrain him.
Glad you had a good time. I’ve started reading the Dooce blog. Thanks!
Posted by electricrocket on July 31, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I want to hear the Ben Stein story. Why did he flip her off?
Posted by electricrocket on July 31, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I want to hear the Ben Stein story. Why did he flip her off?
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:07 am
Because he was being a baby.
The longer story is:
We used to do a free-for-all debate show where we would bring in political varied and interesting people and throw a different topic at them each segment. That day we had:
Arianna Huffington
Ben Stein
Kate Clinton
Sarah Ferguson
Arianna was a regular, Ben was a first-time guest. And whatever it was that she said to him to make him mad, it was so not out of line that it didn’t even fully register with me. But she did challenge him well, and he was FURIOUS. Not only did he make the obscene gesture, but then he ripped off his mic and stormed out.
Baby.
The first person to speak was Sarah Ferguson, who said, “Very mature Ben. Maybe we can get back to the topic at hand.”
Leave it to royalty to know what to do. I was still scraping my jaw off the ground and screaming, “Did Ben Stein just flip off Arianna Huffington?! Live?! On my show?!”
Posted by Anonymous on August 1, 2006 at 11:25 am
Wow.
You never hear of liberals storming off sets, do you?
Posted by electricrocket on August 1, 2006 at 11:26 am
That was me.
Posted by electricrocket on August 1, 2006 at 11:26 am
That was me.
Posted by Anonymous on August 1, 2006 at 11:25 am
Wow.
You never hear of liberals storming off sets, do you?
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:07 am
Because he was being a baby.
The longer story is:
We used to do a free-for-all debate show where we would bring in political varied and interesting people and throw a different topic at them each segment. That day we had:
Arianna Huffington
Ben Stein
Kate Clinton
Sarah Ferguson
Arianna was a regular, Ben was a first-time guest. And whatever it was that she said to him to make him mad, it was so not out of line that it didn’t even fully register with me. But she did challenge him well, and he was FURIOUS. Not only did he make the obscene gesture, but then he ripped off his mic and stormed out.
Baby.
The first person to speak was Sarah Ferguson, who said, “Very mature Ben. Maybe we can get back to the topic at hand.”
Leave it to royalty to know what to do. I was still scraping my jaw off the ground and screaming, “Did Ben Stein just flip off Arianna Huffington?! Live?! On my show?!”
Posted by electricrocket on July 31, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I want to hear the Ben Stein story. Why did he flip her off?
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:02 am
You know, if his parents had made any attempt, even an unsuccessful one, I would have felt far less venomous.
I love Dooce. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. It’s worth going back in the archives and reading from the beginning.
Posted by jaysaint on August 1, 2006 at 2:07 am
Because he was being a baby.
The longer story is:
We used to do a free-for-all debate show where we would bring in political varied and interesting people and throw a different topic at them each segment. That day we had:
Arianna Huffington
Ben Stein
Kate Clinton
Sarah Ferguson
Arianna was a regular, Ben was a first-time guest. And whatever it was that she said to him to make him mad, it was so not out of line that it didn’t even fully register with me. But she did challenge him well, and he was FURIOUS. Not only did he make the obscene gesture, but then he ripped off his mic and stormed out.
Baby.
The first person to speak was Sarah Ferguson, who said, “Very mature Ben. Maybe we can get back to the topic at hand.”
Leave it to royalty to know what to do. I was still scraping my jaw off the ground and screaming, “Did Ben Stein just flip off Arianna Huffington?! Live?! On my show?!”
Posted by Anonymous on August 1, 2006 at 11:25 am
Wow.
You never hear of liberals storming off sets, do you?
Posted by electricrocket on August 1, 2006 at 11:26 am
That was me.