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Edited on Tue Jan-15-08 03:23 PM by symbolman
But it sure seemed like I was kicking the bucket, got sick as hell - An Edwards update:
Left home here in Hawaii on Monday evening very excited after finagling a ticket to Boston by combining my wife's frequent flier miles and my own, took a short hop to Kona as the sun set here, after a short wait there I flew to LA, then on to JFK in NY City, flew from there to Boston where I rented a cheap car and drove 80 miles an hour to get to Manchester in time for the Edward's speech and party there at about 6 pm. Travelling time all told to that point was 18 hours straight. Four Planes and two cars later..
Rolled into the function, parked in a snowdrift near the building as there was no parking. Grabbed the camera, case, tripod and associated cables and flew in the door. I was "backstage", but they kicked me out into the crowd (though I was making my case, that I'd been sent to help spread Edwards media by Internet fans), and onto a secondary media platform. Set up the tripod, shotgun mike, with no place to jack in direct to the camera for sound. Hence the side shots of Edwards, Bonoir, Eliz, and Steelworkers Union - but there was a flat screen tv on the other side, so I had a dual shot going.
It was difficult to stay by the camera, keep all the equipment safe, and schmooze those near the "stage" curtain, but I spoke to as many as possible who were near the curtain, explaining my "mission", and handing out cards. Many of the Edwards people, while courteous, refused to budge or be of any help in getting me connected to the higher ups. I WAS able to press my card into Eliz Edwards hand as she left the crowd, and tell her I'd been sent by Internet folks, specifically the DemocraticUnderground to raise Media awareness of Edwards campaign. She's a Hell of a nice lady, I hope it helps.
After the event I ran outside with camera/case and tripod, and talked to anyone who looked like they were any kind of functionary in the campaign, even talked to the Edwards Bus driver, who said he was taking the bus to So. Carolina the next morning while John and Eliz & kids were flying.
I filmed some of the bus while waiting to see if John or Eliz were going to walk out to the Bus, try to catch them that way. Finally Eliz came out of the building, but was so surrounded by people, there was no way to get to her. The parking lot was empty and the bus pulled away with her, John may have already been on it. My wife, being mission control at home was contacting people for me, one of whom was in charge of rooms in town that had been blocked out for use by Edwards people - there were no rooms for a hundred miles available, so she hooked me up with one in Concord, at TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS! I balked, but after travelling and filming for 24 hours I was dead and half frozen, so I took it. These are rooms that the Campaign use for their people - and later while my wife spoke with a communications director on the team, he let us know that in order to travel with the team, that a plane ride was a THOUSAND dollars, or riding the Bus for the "Media" meant paying ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY Dollars A DAY!
Mind you, that doesn't include a room (can't be two hundred damn dollars in every town), and food..
At this point donations (all gratefully accepted with many thanks!) had added up to nearly $800... I'd not been able to get on Randi Roades show and canvass for donations there, due to time limitations when leaving Hawaii, still haven't, though my wife tried the next day, so there's still that option.
The car rental person wanted to see a return trip airline ticket, and so charged me for a week on the car, figured it wouldn't matter as I'd bring it back before then, and the remaining amount would be refunded (little did I know that they "blocked" off that amount $300 on a $35 charge on my debit card and it wouldn't be "unblocked" for at least three days, causing further anguish later). Rather than pay for the Campaign "media" bus leaving in a few hours (at $150 a pop, and the $1000 plane ride was out of the question) I dashed back to Boston the next day, turned in the car, hit the airport and flew to Charlottesville, North Carolina, and checked into a fairly sleezy (saving folks money) hotel near the airport, with the intention of renting a car the next morning, driving to the Edwards Event in So Carolina, which was in the early evening, and a 200 mile one way drive.
Then I began to get ill, very sick and could barely sleep, besides the noise in the hotel. When I got up the next morning it was pretty nasty outside, hailing, so I turned on the Weather Channel and saw that HUGE thunderstorms, complete with tornadoes, were wracking the corridor from Mississippi on up, a wave moving from West to East, and passing through exactly where I'd planned to drive. The wireless internet was down due to the weather, but I waited until past noon to see if anything was going to clear up, it didn't. Feeling more poorly and disheartened, I decided to make my way back to NY City, see how the donations were coming and check into making my way down to So. Carolina via plane.
Maybe hook up with Mark Crispin Miller and grab an interview with him - he was interested in interviewing about Freeing Don Siegelman, the ongoing investigation by web folk over New Hampshire DIEBOLD VS Hand Counted Ballots issue, and his views on the Media brownout on Edwards. Made an appointment to meet with him the next morning to film an interview, and got ready to get a room somewhere (by this time in was 8pm) in the City to prep for meeting him, still getting more and more ill all the time, at the same time.
Unfortunately, after checking on the donations (and please don't feel affronted by this), there just weren't enough dollars in the kitty for me to get a room, or even make it to and from any room I could find (we tried for a cheapie, the Americanner, at $100 +. where you share bathrooms between four rooms) only to also find that the car rental place and Edwards campaign hotel room had "locked up" the money for the rest of the week, AFTER I'd returned the car, using it for only a DAY!
I had no choice but to cancel with Mark Crispin Miller, and spend the night in Terminal 4 in the JFK airport guarding all my bags (which weigh a ton) like a bag lady, pushing a cart around all night, unable to sleep so I didn't get the camera, tripod, etc, stolen - while I searched for a free plug to charge my cell phone and keep in contact with my wife. It was a long night. As I was getting sicker, and the money was running low I decided to change my parameters on my ticket, and head back to Hawaii to regroup, reorganize, and heal.
My flight to Washington, DULLES, then LA, and Hawaii, was to leave at 6am, in more of that rocky weather, even the pilot sounded frightened as lightning bolts tore up the sky, so that flight was late in connecting. This led to a horror chain of events, still running from plane to plane without a rest, not able to grab any food along the way (actually, I think I lost about ten pounds, which is fine with me, only being able to eat a sandwich a day the whole trip), and I grew progressively more ill as the flights went on, east coast flu I guess.
I kept getting stuck at the back of the plane, where I'd try to sleep, burning up with fever, and the plane got longer and longer each time. When I arrived in LA I literally fell out of the gangway, holding both of my bags, telling folks to get out of my way, I was going to toss some cookies on them. I was actually having difficulty seeing, and was extremely dizzy, so much so that once I'd made it to my gate to fly to Hawaii, and it got cancelled, they very nearly called the Paramedics, but I refused, just needed to get my ass home and heal for a few days. My wife had to shovel me into the car once at the home airport, and for two days after that I was unable to leave the couch to even walk across the room, with a temp over 102 I'm only now capable of typing, and concentrating at all.
It was a set back, and unfortunate, a series of circumstances that kicked my ass. Doesn't mean I'm going to throw out the baby with the bathwater, the best must be yet to come.
So I'm asking folks to hang in there with me, keep the faith, like Edwards, I'm not done yet - HE'S "in for a Penny, in for a Pound", and I think he's got designs on the Denver Convention, VEEP? Pulling the rug out from under Hillary? Stay tuned, I AM working the phones, gonna leave here more organized, and with more antibodies, and donations from getting some Radio gigs, hit Malloy and others.
Can't let this Edwards Blackout Stand. The other thing I need to convince the Edwards people of, is that I'm NOT THE MEDIA, I'm there to TAKE IT BACK.
Even though I have a Video camera and I'm right there at the Event, I'm there to HELP Spread the word, The MEDIA is there to get what they need to Marginalize him, or attack him. The Edwards Campaign needs to be convinced that I shouldn't be paying $150 a day to ride their bus, when all I need is access to help them get the word out on the WEB. But, if I can get the needed amount of donations rolling in, I'll ride the Bus, if only to figure out a way to get closer and convince them personally of the WORTH of spreading his message all over the web, instead of just at his site, and AP Reports, etc.
It ain't over yet, and I want to thank you all for your patience, one thing I always admired about my father is, no matter how many times he got knocked on his ass, he always pulled himself back up again by the bootstraps, and got right back into the game. And that's the only way to fight.
I'm even thinking of putting together a sort of resume that I can show to The Rolling Stone magazine, and see if they'll bite, gonna call Larry Flynt, lot of options. And I want to thank you all for getting the ball rolling.
Still alive and well :)
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