Back in the day, when my second marriage was imploding in a drug-addled haze (not mine) and the owners of my first website were doing everything in their power to make me regret selling my baby for Blue Cross bennies, I suffered from combat level stress. Now, after hitting reset, I’m good to go. Well, I thought I was good to go. And then last night Lola begged me not to leave and I forgot that I hadn’t taken my Zolpidem and didn’t get to sleep until 3am (after sleep eating God knows what) and Philly held the Barbie plane on the tarmac in Providence for an hour until Mitt Romney’s ride could piss off and I (eventually) discovered that the Hyatt’s rooms didn’t have a Mac compatible cable or WiFi. So here I am in the fourth room where I can pick-up Orlando Airport’s free Internet breathing deeply. K? Right. Gun Rights Policy Conference. First impression . . .
I’ve never seen so many SMFVs (Shoot Me First Vests) on OFWGs (Old Fat White Guys) in one place at one time—outside of a salmon fishing competition. Not that I hang out at salmon fishing competitions. But I am hanging out here on your behalf. There will be plenty of coverage–now—of George Zimmerman’s lawyer, John “Death by Stats” Lott, Emily “T2 Arms” Miller and the rest of the zany crew of gun rights advocates.
Tonight it’s a reception to which I am headed in T-minus fifteen. Just long enough to be thankful my red green color blindness precludes me from seeing the disco-era carpet in its full glory. And wonder why I didn’t get a FL carry license before coming here. Packing heat in a room overlooking the TSA’s disarmament process would have been quite a treat.
In fact, the Florida Appleseed Project managers Janet Smith [above] and her husband promised to bring their M1 Garand to breakfast tomorrow (bangs and mash?) and pose in front of the same window. Meanwhile, I asked him if his “this is our rifle this is my gun” education efforts attracted people of color.
“We’ve had a couple,” he said. “Everyone’s welcome . . . I mean I haven’t gone into a black church recruiting people, but I haven’t gone a white church either.”
I reckon he should. SAFE = Share Americans Firearms Equally. Stoli makes me creative that way.
So, watch this space. And a big shout out to Kate, a woman with the greenest eyes I (haven’t) ever seen who says she’s going to write about guns for TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia, whose shared iPod bridged the generation gap and made the flight seem short and sweet. Unless, of course, I dreamed the whole thing.