My Cocktails With Stephanie

For those of us on the left side of the aisle, this past week has basically been one long celebration. A lot of us are still giddy about kicking the corrupt bastards Republicans out of the majority in Congress; not one incumbent Democrat lost his or her seat. And Don Rumskull is gone -- not to mention likely to be charged with war crimes very soon. Heh. Anyone who has read this blog even semi-regularly knows how I feel about all of that (and if you don't, what the hell are you doing here?).

Personally, I plan on celebrating this week's momentous occurrences with many of my fellow Bay Area bloggers tomorrow at Zeitgeist in San Francisco (come hell or high water -- there is rain predicted), but I started the party early tonight by meeting nationally syndicated radio host Stephanie Miller at O'Reilly's Holy Grail, a very nice (and historic) bar and restaurant right here in my own neighborhood.

Stephanie, who hosts a fabulous syndicated morning radio show out of Los Angeles -- and appears regularly on many of the talking head news shows on television -- was lively, funny and very receptive to comments and questions. She spent a couple hours engaging in conversation with her fans, signing autographs, posing for pictures, enjoying a bit of wine and the delicious hors d'oeuvres and joining us all in a bit of post-election gloating and schadenfreude. Appearing with her was local comedian and activist Johnny Steele, who in the next couple months will be a featured performer on local progressive radio station KQKE (The Quake -- 960 AM, the former Air America station that carries Stephanie, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, and Mike Malloy, among others).

Unfortunately, the one picture I took of Johnny Steele was far too blurry to post here -- but I did get to converse at some length with him and his wife, both of whom are quite entertaining individuals. I look forward to seeing him perform some time in the near future, especially when he starts his regular shows at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley this coming January.

I also got a chance this evening to talk with plenty of like-minded individuals from all over the Bay Area, which was very enjoyable, and I even had my picture taken with Stephanie in a moment of star-strickeness. I am happy to report that she was quite gracious about posing with me, even though I kept talking through the photo-op, and thus ended up with one of the worst pictures of me ever put out in public. She, of course, looks beautiful, just as she does in real life. I attribute that to her familiarity with the photo-op exercise, and, of course, to the fact that she is just so very good looking in person. In fact, this picture really doesn't do her justice -- maybe it's because she's standing so close to me.

Stephanie, step away from the blogger!

All in all, it was quite an enjoyable evening. How could it not be, when you end up with a picture like this, of a beautiful progressive radio talk show host snuggling up next to you, celebrating the end of rubber-stamp Republican one-party rule? Major props to Stephanie for just being there, and to Myles O'Reilly, proprietor of the Holy Grail, for hosting the event. Let's hope we have many more moments like this to celebrate in the years to come.