My Dinner With clammyc

I’ve long been a fan of noted blogger clammyc.  He is a tireless and eloquent patriot blogging for the cause.  He is also a pioneer in the field of blog radio and a soon-to-be new father.  After following his writing for a year or more I finally met him face to face at YKOS in Chi-town this past August.  In the course of our conversations there he mentioned that he had a trip to Atlanta coming up in the fall.  I told him to get in touch if he had any free time.  

So he called recently and we made plans to have dinner.  He hit town back in mid-October and I’m just now getting around to writing about it.  Shows you how behind the curve I am these days.

Since he was staying at the Westin, I recommended the Sun Dial restaurant, which sits on top of it.  They have these exposed glass bullet elevators that zip you up to the top of the 73-story building in a dizzying flash.  I don’t know which is better, going up or coming down.  I guess I’ve always preferred going up in general.

Ritzy restaurants like the Sun Dial are not my favorites generally, but this one’s nice because of the extraordinary 360-degree view of Atlanta.  It’s fun watching as the sun goes down, the dark rolls in and the city lights up as you revolve in lazy circles in the sky.  Besides, I can handle any restaurant that doesn’t have a dress code.  

And for a place that’s so lax about letting in the riff-raff, the food’s pretty good, in fact it’s pretty great.

So we sat and sipped a dark Australian burgundy as the sun and the city swirled away beneath us.  We talked about blogging and bloggers and the blogosphere.  We talked of politics, fascism and war – of peace, love and the lost hopes of a generation.  We spoke of patriots and friends and people we both admire.  We talked about daily kos (of course), blogtalk radio, and ePluribus Media.  clammyc has been more involved with the ePluribus folks than I have but I have much admiration for that group.  I told him how much I liked and admired GreyHawk, how much I adore Ilona Meagher, and the high regard I have for people like Aaron Barlow and my good friend Land of Enchantment.

clammy told me what a great guy Jeff Huber is.  I told him I was not at all surprised at that having been a fan of the Commander’s for some time.  clammy mentioned nyceve, what a great person she is.  I told him she was a hero in my eyes.  Few people will ever do the good she does in the world.

We talked about our friend buhdydharma and his new venture Docudharma.  We both have high hopes for this new community and agree that with budhydharma at the helm it could easily become the next big thing in blogostania.  It is already full of passionate, intelligent and talented voices and there is a vibe there that many will appreciate.  I consider it home myself.

We talked about the surreal nature of current realities, the frustration of watching it all slide away and what prospects there might be for turning things around.  clammy thinks it’ll take at least twenty years to see any measurable change.  My concern is that we may not have that much time, what with global warming coming at us like a gathering tsunami of certain doom, and us with our heads firmly lodged in an inconvenient orifice.  I think the time to be patient is past.  But that’s just me.

clammy told me a bit about his life in New York City and shared that he is an expectant father.  I told him of the joy my son has brought me and of the joys of parenthood in general, but I don’t think I was telling him anything he didn’t already understand.  He is, in my judgment, wise on many levels.  

I wish him and his wife a good journey with their child.  May we all live up to our solemn obligations to that generation.

We talked about writing and books and the struggle to live meaningful lives in an insane world.  He told me of his serious interest in Internet radio and how much he enjoyed working with our mutual friend thereisnospoon.  

We spoke of the time I joined them for a session of blogtalkradio.

We spoke of our many other mutual friends like trashablanca, noweasels, dallasdoc, Possum, Ekaterin, claude, Got a Grip, lithium cola, ben masel, hekebolos, CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream, occams hatchet, kestrel9000, srkp23, pico, Erevann, OrangeClouds, toquedeville, sheddhead, VolvoDrivingLiberal, dday, SherriG, Brandon Freidman, Jerome a Paris and so many others.

We talked about all of you, bloggers, activists and lurkers alike.  We drank a toast to all those who still care about what happens in this world, about things like truth, fairness and justice.  We shared our hopes and our fears for the future.  We laughed, we cried, we cursed a few rat-bastards.  All-in-all, we had a big ole time perched up there as we were on the 73rd floor of the Peachtree Westin, smack in the middle of the city of Atlanta (a city once burned to the ground in the War of Northern Aggression).  

All in all it was a very pleasant evening, made perhaps more poignant by the undercurrent of our mutual awareness of the very serious circumstances we find ourselves and our nation to be in.  An overarching theme of our conversation was a shared desire to do our small parts in the best way we possibly can to contribute to turning this thing around.  We both recognize that this is a struggle worth dying for – and that we may not have any choice in the matter anyway.

“I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”

– Emiliano Zapata

Hokahey!  It is a good day to die.

Thanks for everything clammyc.