So my favorite moment of the conference --
I'm at the Daily Kos party, introducing the comedy segment of the evening, and I ask, "Be honest, how many of you thought Pittsburgh was a shithole before you came here?" And just about everyone raised their hands. I assume those who didn't were mostly locals. Then I asked, "So what do you think now?" And everyone cheered wildly.
So congrats to Pittsburgh for 1) being such a great host city for the conference, and 2) to the conference attendees for recognizing that the Pittsburgh of perception has no basis in reality.
Thanks to Jen Bruenjes (Scout Finch) and Will Rockafellow (my business manager) for putting together our party, and thanks to Netroots Nation for finding the rocking venue (not to mention putting together the best NN convention yet). Thanks to our live entertainment -- Spiritual Rez -- for bringing down the house. They were insanely great.
I did have a moment of heartache: Thanks to a logistical snafu on my part, David Cross wasn't able to make the party as planned. I screwed up big. Yet Sam Seder took charge of the situation and spent Saturday afternoon with Andy Cobb putting together a riotous hate mail video compilation, which we'll soon have available for posting. Cross participated remotely, and we had some unexpected and brilliant cameos by John Amato, mcjoan, and Jim Dean. You'll die when you see the video. Thanks to all those guys, especially Sam and Andy, for bailing me out of my own incompetence. Finally, comedians Katie Halper and Lee Camp truly brought their "A" games to the party.
I'm already making plans for next year's Daily Kos bash at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas, and Cross has already promised to attend. I'll have more competent people handling the logistics this time around.