As announced earlier this month, I had been invited to a conference titled "Under the Radar & Over the Top: Online Political Videos in the 2004 Election" put on by institute for Politics and Democracy on the Internet at George Washington University. They had brought together a few acedemians and political wonks together to discuss the topic, and they wanted me, and the guy who runs CrushKerry.com to serve as voices from the field.

I was honored by their invitation, and even more honored that they were willing to cover travel and lodging. Any chance to get away from my keyboard for a day, travel, and have a chance to mouth off in front of a camera- I'm there...

Now, it seems that, everytime I've travelled, in recent months, be it to Boston, DC, or wherever, the trip never starts off on a good foot. Twice before, it was gastrointestinal episodes that don't merit being recounted in detail here. This time, it was scheduling. I got into NYC, and found out the tickets were screwed up- then I realized I had left my photo ID back at home (I was unused to getting up early- I live the hours of a freelance vampire.) After getting back to Jersey, and (sorta) straigtening things out with the folks at GWU, I got a 4:00 train outta town (a mere three hours late, but still a moderate pain in the keester.)

On the way down, I read America: the Book, the much-hyped offering from the writers at Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." While it had its moments, overall, it was a dissapointing read.

I get into DC around 7, and find my hotel, and check in around 8. Fortunately, there was a fair-to-middling thai place up the street, so I engorged myself on the first solid food I've had all day (I had been living on fruit smoothies and such all day.) Strangely enough, the place was called, simply "Thai Place". I got the red curry, which was a tad sweet, and skimpy on the bamboo shoots, but decent, nonetheless.

(I told you this would be dissapointing.)

I retired to my hotel room, and watched a crappy Owen Wilson action movie on FX, until the Daily Show was on. Then there was nothing left worth staying up for, and as I had to rise at 6:30, I figured it was time for lights out.

Wake- breakfast, walk to university...

Now- I must say something about Washington DC- many foreign friends of mine who have visited the capitol of this country say that it is a perfect snapshot of the country as a whole. And I concur- but- when we say this- we're talking about ALL of washington DC- not just the glorious, romanesque facades of the government buildings, and the newer glass-and marble interior of the city. I'm talking about what you see, if you go off the beaten path. It's a spectacle- I wish I had brought a camera, the times I've seen this...

Go a few blocks outside of the city's manicured interior, and you find sepctacles of third-world squalor and poverty that are shocking, when you see the washington monument, or the dome of the capitol building, looming in the distance.

About a year ago, I had to take a greyhound down to Richmond, Virginia, which passed through DC. I'll never forget the sight of a row of dilapidated, boarded-up and burnt out buildings (all still inhabited), puntcuated by the burnt-out or demolished rubble of buildings which had not stood the test of time and neglect. The empty spaces left by these buildings gave occasional glimpse of the capitol dome, so close that you could pick out the colors of the flag that flew at its apex..

I am reminded of the Capitol Cities of the Eastern Bloc, during the height of the cold war. In an effort to present the propserity of the glorious state, they would keep choice routes kept spotless, and lined with stores that were well-stocked. These were the only streets down which the few visitors they would allow in would be allowed to walk. The rest of the city was an economic basket case, where people lined up in their hundreds to spend their last few Klopniks on a rationed loaf of bread.

There's a parallell there, folks- I could explain it to you, but I haven't the time. I trust you're intelligent enough to see the writing on the wall....

The conference was being held in the same auditorium that CNN's "Crossfire" is filmed in. Pretty cool- but I was surprised at how small the place is- if it can seat 200, I'll eat my hat. Them wide-angle lenses they use on CNN make the place look like the roman collisseum.

By Now, it had been made known that the guy who runs crushkerry.com had cancelled, and had been replaced by some private media polity analyst of some sort that was a fundraiser for republican candidates for high office. (At least, that's what I think he did- I'm still a tad hazy on the details.) Suffice it to say that I was the only hands-on web developer/designer, in attendance.

Now- beyond that, I was the only one there that didn't have a masters degree, with probably a few associates degrees in orbit, along with a professorship/chaimanship/corporation. I was also the most poorly-groomed. Just about everyone else on the stage was coiffed with hair that had the designer's touch, and wearing suits that cost more than I make in three months. I, on the other hand, was unshaven, wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and a ratty shirt. I had forgot to bring a comb with me, and after sleeping through a humd night, my hair was a tangled mess. I felt sorta outclassed, but what the hey- they were all friendly folks....

And I wanna emphasise that- they were ALL friendly folks- even the conservatives. It seemed I was the only one there with an absolutist agenda- I had a conversation with one republican there who was amazingly complimentary of my work, knowledgable about Kucinich, and also shared my criticisms that the right hasn't taken much of an initiative in web media. My "Opponent' on the panel, Phil Anderson, was a longtime political animal, steadfastly and loyally republican. But, in and outside of the panel, he was gentlemanly, self-depricating, engaging, and an all-around decent guy.

DRAT!

This sucks- I was looking forward to meeting the guy at Crushkerry.com, who was a down-and dirty propagandist like myself, and, instead, I'm confronted with LIKEABLE REPUBLICANS? I mean, talking with them, I could almost forget that these people were the purveyors of the most poisonous ideology seen on earth, since Pol Pot decided that people with glasses look a "tad too brainy to live". Damn, Fie, and poo..,

The conference, itself, was classic c-span fare. It was moderated by Carl Cannon of the National Journal- one of the most dry political publications in the biz. There were no sparks flying, no zingers, nor retorts. All three panellists were given equal time, and then the rebuttal from the acedemicians came in...

Now, the panelists I was alongside, as I stated earlier, were folks that moved in levels of power and money so distant from my experience that we might as well have been from different planets. They got up, and made very good presentations, and I was awed by their mastery of the facts at hand, and their ability to draw parallells in ways I hadn't thought of...

I guess you can pull that sorta thinkin' off, if you finished college...

Eventually, it was my turn to speak.

Now- one thing I haven't mentioned until now was that for five days previously, I'd been having serious sinus problems- dunno if it's an allergy, or what, but my sinuses were itching in ways that made me wanna ram a screwdriver up into my sinus cavity, and stab out all the parts that were itching like crazy. In anticipation of the discomfort would bring me, when I spoke, I had taken a sudafed, and a tylenol sinus nondrowsy an hour before the conference started.

I get up, and start rambling incoherently about media consolidation, flash as a medium, the myth of the "liberal Media", Bushflash, and the venue of the internet being one of the last remaining (small d) democratic forms of media left in this country. About five minutes in, I get the worst dehydration I've ever experienced. My mouth dries up, and I can barely talk. I sound like a mental patient with a speech impediment. I struggle through my last sentences, haltingly, about how I fear consolidation of ISPs and hosting companies (which fall under the purview of the FCC), and limp back to my seat.

There isn't much to say about the rest. I can't recall exactly everything that was said- I'm rarely in the company of such levels of education. It's not that I couldn't follow it- it's just that so much ground was covered, in so many directions, that it would take me a book to cover, in detail. If I were to sum up what was said- well- it ranged so far over the map, that no conclusions were really reached. Being a relative newcomer to the area of mass media, I lack the background to comment fully on such matters. One thing that struck me, though- everyone was tossing out a lot of dots- citing precedents, examples, etc, regarding this new medium, but no one bo6thered to connect them all into a cohesive picture. Maybe such is impossible, given the vagaries of the internet, as it now exists. The only constant that applies to the internet is constant change, and obviously confounds better minds than I.

I've been told that the video of the conference will be up at the IPDI website, sometime, soon. I'll let ya'll know when it's available...

Afterwards, I ran out of the hall, in desperate search of a restroom- I had drunk about four bottles of water, to counter the antihistime drymouth, and something had to be done about it. When I got back to the auditorium, it had emptied out, but there was a reporter from the Washington Post there, who wanted to interview me. Cool.

The less said about the trip back, the better. I picked up a Joe Haldeman paperback to read on the train, which turned out to be a sorry, plodding bore. (Note to sci-fi authors out there: When I buy a science ifction novel, I wanna read about post-atomic wastelands, spaceships, and aliens- not 200-plus pages of drivel about a closeted homosexual musician's unrequited gay love affair with an Iraqi expat cop.) I got back in time to go out and have a cheap japanese dinner, and recoil in the face of the 100-plus e-mails that had been sent, since my absence.

If there was one remarkable aspect of the event- I doubt that the word "A**hole" had been spoken so many times, in such a short period, in that auditorium, since its construction.

(I told you this would be dissapointing.)