 |
|
Totally |
|
|
|---|
|
American Politics Journal Atrios Barry Crimmins Betty Bowers Buzzflash Consortium News Daily Howler Daily Kos Democatic Underground Disinfotainment Today Evil GOP Bastards Faux News Channel Greg Palast The Hollywood Liberal Internet Weekly Jesus General Joe Conason Josh Marshall Liberal Oasis Make Them Accountable Mark Morford Mike Malloy Political Humor - About.com Political Wire Randi Rhodes Rude Pundit Smirking Chimp Take Back the Media Whitehouse.org More Links |
Fair & balanced 
POLITICS - HUMOR -
FINE TEQUILA - OUTRAGE
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
Links Contact Us Project 60 Demo Underground JFK Conspiracy BC Entertainment BartCop Sports MediaWhoresOnline Chat & Post BartCop Reader The Vegas Report New to BartCop? BartCop Books Online Journal Bart Cook Your Ad Here BC Astrologer BartCop Store Buzzflash Joe Conason Gene Lyons Julie Hiatt Steele |
|
Volume 786 - Carville, Conason & Steele
Click Here
May 6-7, 2002
It was awful.
It was terrible.
It was a disaster.
Nobody showed up.
I'd spent all that money and the place was deader than a cemetary
at night.
No, ...wait, ...that's my Hard Rock Island story
from 1987...
I have the Juliefest2002-DC story here somewhere...
Oh, good - I found it...
It was a spectacular success, thanks to Christian
Livemore.
There wouldn't have even been a Juliefest without her endless
hours of behind-the-scenes work.
Juliefest2002-DC
was nine days ago, and I couldn't take notes, so all I can do is
try to re-construct what happened that weekend. This isn't necessarily
what happened, it's what
I think I remember. This is important because I'll be quoting
people who won't want to be misquoted,
so this is my impression of what probably happened:
We landed in Baltimore about 4:30 and rented a temporary Bartmobile
with 44 miles on it.
That was an omen from Koresh that it would be a good weekend.
We got to DC about 6 PM, but we got lost because the idiots don't
label the highways with the same
names the maps use. The map says "I-95" but the highway signs
give you the slang name the locals use.
We finally located the spirits store with the Chinaco
and Julie's Grey Goose, but the only Goose they had
was $55 and the bottle probably weighed more than Julie so I
bought some Belvedere for her vodka tonics.
By this time, it was 7:30 and I had to use all my driving
skills to outwit the Georgetown traffic to get to the hotel by 9.
I couldn't reach anyone by phone, so I figured Christian and Julie
and the King of Israel were "holding court" in
the hotel bar. After a while, Christian called my cell phone
and came to our room. We tried to figure out a way
for me to meet Julie. I didn't want to meet her in public because
there was a chance I'd go all Bob Dole at
Nixon's funeral on her when the moment arrived. So Chriatian
went to get Julie in the bar to send her to
our room so we could finally meet.
Amazingly, I handled it like a man and kept my emotions in check.
Julie live is more of a tornado than Julie
on the phone, so it was a really big moment for Mrs. Bart and
me. I poured Julie a Belvedere tonic and a
tallboy Chinaco for myself while Mrs. Bart had
her Zinfandel. We chatted for a while and toasted the
so-far success of at least arriving in one piece and then Christian
called and said the kitchen was about
to close, so we went downstairs.
Unbeknownst to me, there were a dozen or so bartcop.com
readers in the restaurant. (By the way,
some call themselves Bartians, or Bartcoppers,
but we should probably agree to settle on a single name
if for no other reason than to save me a bunch of typing)
Somehow, they knew Julie left to get us,
so when she came back into the restaurant, they stood to great
her and then, I think it was Bob R from
Oklahoma looked at me and said, "So,
you must be BartCop..."
I was sooo busted.
I knew it was coming, but I didn't know when.
Shaken by the unexpected outtage, I said something really clever
like, "Am I under oath?"
From the stupidity, they knew it had to be me. It was the
last thing I remember clearly.
So we're standing there talking to Bob R, Atrios, Julie RB and
her husband, Onehandle, The Brew, a former
judge from Chicago who came to meet Julie, Zomar, and a lot of
people whose names I'm leaving out - sorry.
We eventually pulled 2-3 tables together and ate and drank and
talked politics. The dump closed an hour later,
so we moved the party to Blackie's, next door. Blackie's
is a wild, swirling-lights disco place with screaming
speakers, so talk was tough. Some (like Julie) stayed till 3,
but I knew tomorrow would be tough so we split early.
Saturday there was so much to do.
We had to get the flowers, we had to get a second cake.
We had to whip Rude Rich's butt on a pool table.
First, we secured the flowers:
Bad picture
of good flowers
Julie said she liked irises, and we got the last five in Washington.
We had to meet Maria at Carville's at noon to go over last-minute
details.
Maria is a real charmer. She's smart, she's pretty and she knows
what the hell she's doing.
She showed up with the massive, primary cake for Julie.
She explained how things could
work and gave us options. We generally went with her recommendations,
because she was a pro.
She had already met with the calligraphy lady and signs were
already prepared.
She answered every question Christian and I had, so we felt ready
for the big party.
Christian went back to the hotel to join the Julie Lunch
organized by JulieRB.
Estimates say 40-60 lunchers were there, and since I don't know
Smirk about it,
maybe someone could write up a full report for tomorrow's issue?
Meanwhile, Lorena and I...
Sidebar:
I ...kinda, ..sorta, ...forgot to warn
Mrs. BartCop that she had that nickname.
This is jumping ahead, but later that night
we all had nametags on to lower confusion.
Mine said "Bart" and hers said "Mrs. Bart,"
so people were coming up to her saying,
"Lorena, it's nice to meet you. Bart
has told us so much about you..."
I got a stare from Mrs. Bart that probably
looked a lot like the one Hillary gave Bill
when he finally explained the exact legal
definition of "sexual relations" to her.
But she's a trooper, so she agreed to shelve
my punishment till later.
So we're cruising Georgetown looking for the same bakery that
made the BIG cake
to see if they can make a quick cake-on-the-fly. It was Furin's
Deli on Massachusetts Ave.
Can they make a good cake?
ha ha
We ate lunch there and ordered our specially custom-decorated
cake.
They said to come back in a few hours, so we had time to locate
a florist and she located
the last five irises in DC and constructed a nice arrangement
for Julie's room.
All I had to do now was kick Rude Rich's butt at pool, pick up
the cake and get dressed.
That happened. (plus I got to meet the lovely Elaine, AKA Mrs.
Rude Rich)
Note to Rude Rich - remember, there's no shame in losing to the
champ!
Sidebar:
Rich told me to walk to the pool hall,
but I'd already called them and they said they had
"plenty of parking," so I drove. And I
drove. And I drove. And I drove. I went around
that damn Dupont Circle about a dozen times
and couldn't catch 19th St NW going south
because it was one-way and all the adjoining
streets conspired against me to help Rich!
After 45 minutes of circular driving, I
parked the damn car in a $4 an hour garage and walked
FARTHER to the damn pool hall than it was
from my hotel!
After the bloodletting pool schooling , I picked
up the secondary cake.
Sidebar:
Julie had told me her prosecutor's name
was David Barger, and that Barger said,
"Your conviction is a piece of cake,"
which meant 40
years
for Julie, no less.
So how we gonna have cake and not mention that?
Can you imagine what it's like to have the rest of your future
life
reduced to a slogan to be scrawled on the top of a cake?
Everything seemed to be running like clockwork until someone asked if anyone had seen Julie.
It was 4:30, then 4:45 and there was no Julie.
The plan called for a high-rollers party from 5-6, then pictures
at Carville's from 6-7,
then party from 7-10 or whatever, but that's tough to do without
Julie.
As you know, she was an important part of the evening, and we
couldn't find her.
No answer in her room, no answer to a page in the restaurant,
I called every
cell phone number I had for the various BartCoppers, but nobody
had seen Julie.
You've heard of "Clinton Time?"
We were on "Julie Time."
I had a shot of Chinaco to calm my nerves.
Around 5, Christian located Julie in her room. Her phone was off
or not working
and she was getting ready for the big gig, so all seemed back
on track.
I remembered Geneva's
Juliefest Horoscope said all would work out, and it seemed to be....
I treated myself to another shot of Chinaco (medicinal
purposes only) and Christian
said she was tense, so she headed downstairs for a chocolate
fix.
Then, I felt an audible had to be called.
The purpose of the high roller's room was to reward those who
were able to give extra with
an advance audience with Julie, but the reports I'd heard from
earlier that afternoon said Julie
spent a lot of time talking to everyone so the bloom was a bit
off the "meet Julie early" rose.
Not wanting the high rollers to feel shafted, I called HR #1
and asked if I could come up.
When she opened the door, she introduced me to her husband and
HR #2.
Being Democrats, we only had the two high rollers, so I explained
our situation and they were
very gracious about the mixup. It would be the first of many
for me before the night was over.
We were approaching 6 PM - kickoff time, so Christian and the
King of Israel started the walk to
Carville's (two blocks) while I grabbed the temporary Bartmobile,
Mrs. Bart and Julie and we looked
for Julie's bodyguard, the third DC on-duty policeman. He wasn't
in the lobby as we had instructed,
so we jumped in the Bartmobile and the three of us headed towards
the Fest unguarded.
Sidebar:
Most of this was written during the warmup
band for Monday's Garbage concert.
The rest of the week will have to be in
Part 2 of this Trip report or I'll never finish.
When we got there, the valets took the car and we saw two cops
by the receiving table that Maria
had set up for us. They said Cop #3 was sick. The
weather was in the sixties and windy, so Julie
wanted to go inside. There were a few others there early, so
they went inside with Julie and we
got ready to receive the masses of Juliefans.
Within minutes, the sidewalk started getting crowded.
We were still not ready to receive people, so we suggested they
have a seat in the bar with Julie.
This is where another hueueueuege mistake was made, because
we knew we'd sold over 200 tickets,
and even a low-IQ Catholic with ADD should know that even if
it only took 30 seconds to check
an ID and issue a badge, with over 200 party goers that's a minimum
of 100 minutes.
(Chris Farley: I am so stupid!)
Inside, they were ready for the fest to begin.
..
Our
welcome banner with plates full
of
the best damn chocolate in the world,
donated
by our good friends at South's
Finest Chocolate.
Sidebar:
Someone told me when they walked in the
main room,
the smell of The South's Finest Chocolate
was overwhelming
and it's effect on one's nose was spectacularly
spectacular .
They said there was chocolate all over
the place, as in 600-800 pieces.
A few minutes later, I looked up and saw smokin' Joe Conason!
..
He
looks different in person
I said, "Hi, Joe, I'm Bart!" He seemed
very impressed as he stifled a yawn.
We talked for a moment, (Christian says he is very
charming) and Joe asked if I knew what
David Brock looked like and I said that I did. He asked
if we could whisk (my word) Brock
to the front of the line when he arrived, to avoid possible impomptu
10-on-1 debates out on the street.
(this is what I remember, not what Joe actually said.)
I spotted Ray C from Fort Smith, a bartcop.com pillar,
on the outer perimeter of the crowd,
so I wrote "David B" (I think) on a badge and gave it to Ray
and asked him to watch for Brock.
After a few, I saw Brock walk up and get in line. I didn't see
Ray, so I wrote a second
badge and made my way outside, but when I got there, Brock was
gone because Ray
had expertly and quietly whisked Brock up to the front of the
line - thanks Ray!
With about 30 Julie fans on the sidewalk, I heard a sudden outburst
of applause.
I looked up and saw a tall, bald fellow soaking up the applause
walking towards the Bart Door.
It was the restaurant co-owner and our host, James Carville.
He walked up to the receiving table and said,
"Who's in charge, hea..?"
So Christian and I said, "We are, and thanks for coming!"
James said, "I have a check hea...,
a donation for Julie, who do I make it out to?"
and I said "bartcop.com." And James said,
"Bart
...what?"
James musta been pulling my leg.
I mean, everybody knows bartcop.com
by now. (cough)
So James hands me this super-sized check from a couple whose names
I didn't recognize.
I asked him who these people were and he looked at me, trying
to decide how
much to reveal, and he finally said, "They
are good Democrats!"
Then Carville saw Conason next to me and said, "Let's
go talk," and I thought,
"How cool! I'm going to have a private talk with my new dawgs,"
but then Mrs. BartCop
grabbed me and said, "You weren't invited
anywhere, Einstein - he was talking to Mr. Conason."
Within minutes, the sidewalk started getting even more crowded.
We were still not ready, so we suggested the crowd have a seat
in the bar with Julie.
..
Julie with
Michele from Bart Cook!
I forgot to warn Julie about Michele - those West Coasters
know how to party!
I was afraid Michele might order an Open Grave for Julie,
but it all worked out OK.
Recovering my fumble, Onehandle (who you all know) stepped
in to help Christian and me
speeding up the registering process. Thanks to Onehandle
for being a smooth operator.
Smokin'
Joe, James and Julie
For the next while, everything was a blur as I met dozens and
dozens and dozens of Julie fans.
Some said, "Oh, ...you're Bart?"
Hey, I did my best to lower expectations - for weeks.
Zomar
put a smile on James
Pretty soon, the registering line was getting smaller, which was
good because it started to rain.
Next thing I remember, smokin' Joe tapped me on the shoulder
and said,
"Carville says it's time to start the
show." Maybe that's not what he said, but I'm doing
my best to recontruct what Joe probably said. I
looked at a clock and saw it was almost 8:30.
Koresh!
The gig was half over and we were still trying to register people?
Another rookie mistake by BartCop.
So, I went into the now totally-crowded party room.
The place was packed like a standing-room-only floor at a Garbage
concert.
There was this great rock show buzz in the air. So many people
smiling and
talking and laughing and shrieking when they talked to James,
Joe or Julie.
It was not quite a madhouse, but it was packed - wall-to-wall.
(Actually, it was all part of my Master Plan - to have 220 people play
a game
of Twister while we were setting up everything and waiting
for the festivities to begin)
Everybody had drinks. We had at least one doctor there, we had
at least one surgeon,
we had at least one former judge and we had Rude Rich in a hat!
One lady told me her Dad was gonna flip when she
told him she got to meet Ol' Bart!
I'm not sure she was very impressed, but she said her
Dad back in Arizona was gonna flip.
One poor guy had the bad luck to buy me my first shot o' Chinaco.
When the bartender asked what I
wanted, I told him "Shot of Chinaco - and make it a
double." I shouldn't have, but I was feeling kinda
weird about everything - coming out, hosting, shaking hands -
do you want to know something really strange?
Some people asked for my autograph! Didn't they
know there were heroes in the room?
So, whoever that was, sorry I got so tacky - I owe you a shot.
I'll bet a dozen people bought me a shot of Chinaco
that night. Good thing I respect The Miracle at Canaan
too much to get enibriated on it. If I wanted to get my load
on (that's what they call it on NYPD Blue) I'd use
whiskey or vodka, cause God's Best Miracle doesn't go
to my head. Hell, I made sense all night :)
ha ha
Not sure why, but my old friend Sabutai popped into my
head.
We lost him 18 months ago and he has missed out on so much.
Carville, Conason & Steele - all under one roof with
200 good friends.
Ol' Sabutai would've been real proud of this night.
(Thanks for the fumble, Dude)
The speeches
I looked up and saw James coming towards me and, guessing he didn't
remember me, I said,
"James, I'm Bart, one of the producers and
we're ready whenever you are."
So James, in the middle of the packed room, says in a very loud
voice "Listen up!"
I realized he was about to start his speech, so I quietly said
to him,
"We have a microphone and a camera and some lights over against
that wall."
As James walked towards the mic, I slithered into the safety
of the back of the darkened room.
I knew my loyal fans would hide me from the glare of the bright
spotlight.
(Remember, this is how I saw things. We won't know what really
happened
until the offocial videotape shows up - let's hope that's soon)
Incredibly, James opened with,
"Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar,
All for George W. Bush, stand up and
holler."
It was so funny - people started hissing.
I think it was the first time I ever heard multiple, sustained
hissing
from a crowd,
Everybody laughed, and then James got on a roll.
I don't know if he's ever worked a friendlier crowd than
the one he had that night.
The more feedback he got, the stronger and more outraged he became.
When James gets going, his speech can be very insend....incendy,
...inscendi... his speech can be very hot!
He sounded like an intelligent version of Ol' BartCop, as he tore
into The Washington Post,
he tore into the crooked Supreme Court, he tore into
the Unlected Fraud and the fact that
his Daddy bought the stupid elder Bush boy a toy called the Presidency
of the United States.
The audience was soaking up every syllable, too - bet heavy on
that.
James kept whipping the frenzy hotter and hotter.
He said "we got robbed" in Florida in 2000 because the right-wing
thugs didn't like the results of the
1996 election, so they just up and robbed us in 2000 and the
crowd was screaming approval!
Damn, I can't wait to see that tape.
He also said a whole lot of really, really nice things
about Julie.
How she sacrificed everything for the sake of integrity, how
she withstood the Starr assault
of trying to take her son away from her, how the courage of Julie
and Susan McDougal made
all the difference in the world and how much he appreciated both
of them.
Much of it sounded like what you've been reading for years right
here at bartcop.com
except that James Carville isn't some Internet flunkie wannabe
with a goofy web page.
He's responsible for electing the best president we've ever had.
I don't remember how long he spoke - I know he could've gone on
longer, but James is a busy man and
he probably had places to go and things to do. As he finished
his remarks, he introduced smoking Joe Conason
by revealing that Joe has been ostracized from many in the journalistic
community for speaking out
Hey, Joe, if the whores of the American press shun you for telling
the truth, I say
wear that as a badge of honor. If they can't handle the truth,
I say "fuck 'em."
Sidebar:
Nobody knew (if I didn't, how could they?)
that James was going to speak.
After the plan was established (Carville,
Conason & Steele) James basically
just grabbed the mic and began without
any warmup or into of any kind.
But smokin' Joe had the benefit of a "warm up" act, and
now this crowd was 
..
James hands the mic to Joe
By the time James said, "Ladies and gentlemen, my good friend
Joe Conason," the crowd was
stomping their feet and chanting, "Joe!,
Joe!, Joe!, Joe!, Joe!, Joe!, Joe!, Joe!"
It was like a mini-convention!
Eventually the roar subsided and Joe was able to be heard. He
mentioned that'd he'd only met
Julie once before, [at her condemned (my
words) house about six weeks ago when he & Gene
Lyons went there to film Julie's part in
the soon-to-be-released The Hunting of the President
documentary] but he's known of her
tremendous bravery and integrity for years (mega hoots
from the crowd) and that he was glad to be here to introduce
her tonight..
Joe also mentioned the tremendous financial hit Julie sustained
when she lost her beautiful home
and had to move into what Joe said polite Southerners call "reduced
circumstances."
I didn't find out until later, but I'm told when Joe said those
words,
James made his way to Julie and put his arm around her.
..
What does this mean?
Logic tells us that James didn't know of Julie's "reduced circumstances"
until that night.
I mean, besides bartcop.com has anyone
told the story of her incredible sacrifice?
America doesn't know Julie's story because America doesn't read
bartcop.com
If I got the hits Matt Drudge gets, we might've had to rent the
MCI Center for three nights
to accomodate all the well-wishers that surely would surface
once they knew, right?
Poor Julie - stuck with the 37,000th most popular site on the
world wide web.
So if YOU get a chance to tell someone about Julie and
what YOUR government did to her,
when they knew for a FACT that she was telling the truth, TAKE
that chance, would you?
Joe continued to speak, thanking David Brock for coming. Some
of you might think Brock
was an odd choice to be at this party because arguably,
if not for Brock, Julie would still
be unfamous and living in her home with money in the bank.
So think about this:
1. There's no way Brock could've known his actions would,
years down the road, have a
deleterious (I looked it up) affect
on Julie's life
2. Joe Conason wrote that everything Brock has told him
since they've become friends
turned out to be true, and Joe's opinion
holds a lot of weight with Julie and me
3. For me, the biggest reason to welcome Brock was that
he left the side that was paying him
a million dollars per book to come to
our side and be slandered with the hateful lies
of the people he used to run with. That's
the opposite of a whore.
Joe also brought the crowd down to Earth by reminding them why
we were here
- to help someone who was almost destroyed by the government
we pledge allegiance to.
(My words - you can tell, because a preposition isn't something
Joe would end a sentence with)
Then he introduced her -Julie Hiatt Steele!
I never intended for this to be a serial but it's
just too big for one issue.
Tune in tomoro,
same Bart time,
same Bart channel.
Read the Previous Issue
It had everything.
Copyright
© 2002, bartcop.com
Shirley,
you're the best!