Housing the Party

Tamara and I hosted a Dean House Party last night and hung out with some terrific people. Janet Purdy told a great story, so I sent it along to the Dean Blog, courtesy of Joe Rospars:

House Party Reports

The conference call with Governor Dean, Al Gore, Tipper Gore and over 1,400 house parties across the country just ended — see the blog post below for the play-by-play and reactions. Reports are coming in from house parties across the country. See Halley’s blog for a report on hers in Boston; Britt Blaser sends the following report from New York.

I’m at a house party with Emery Davis, leader of the Orchestra to presidents from Roosevelt through Kennedy and Clinton: a man with standards.

Emery Davis, with Janet Purdy and Suzanne Frye, at a New Year for America house party

Emery is with us courtesy of Janet Purdy and Suzanne Frye, who have two great stories of their own.

Janet says: “I have a friend who is 84 and a former captain of the polo team at Yale. He told me, ‘I’ve voted Republican all my life. In 2004, I’m voting Democrat.'”

And Suzanne attended Columbia Pre-Med with Howard Dean.

A warm ‘Hello’ from our house party to all the others out there reading the blog. Keep contributing to push the bat!

Britt Blaser
New York for Dean

Musical Knights

Emery Davis is the noted leader of the Emery Davis Orchestra, a high society tradition since his father founded the Meyer Davis Orchestra in 1912. It took me until this morning to realize that Meyer and Emery are the same name after the remix. Emery is an elegant, charming gentleman who epitomizes that highest of compliments, “gentle man.”

After a few minutes of delightful conversation, I understood Emery Davis’ plan for me. I’m to devote the next year of my life to make sure he has a gig in January, ’05:

   Meyer Davis played his first Inaugural Ball for President Harding, in 1921. He played all of the parties for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When asked “what was Roosevelt’s favorite tune,” Meyer, wishing to be non political said, “Home on the Range.” When the President saw him at the next party he said” Meyer, I could Kill you! I hate that song!” The President was kidding!

    Emery played his first Inaugural Ball for President Kennedy at the Washington Armory. He has played the Inaugurals of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, at the White House for President Ford and the last two Inaugurals for President Clinton, playing the first one at the Arkansas Ball.

…Which explains the photo of him in front of the White House at emerydavisorchestras.com. It seems that George W prefers cowboy music, and besides, the Emery Davis Orchestra has never played for the Bushes and does not, I inferred, intend to in the future. So Howard Dean is Emery’s best hope for an Inaugural Ball engagement, as well as a better country.

Well, Emery, I accept your challenge! I will do everything in my power to ensure that you are leading the celebration, and Tamara and Suzanne and Janet and our other guests and I intend to do our part by dancing the night away.

Josh Koenig and Franz Hartl of MusicForAmerica represented the young end of the musical spectrum. I’d met Franz once before, when he stopped in the weekend Zephyr and Josh were here in July. He has a stunning statistic: more people download music than voted in 2000. I’m pleased that Franz is enthusiastic about my sense that the only sure way to take our country back is to instantiate a new political party, which I’ve given the working title of “The Great Centrist Party.” Josh and Franz and I will flesh this out next week before Josh returns to California.

Old Year

2003 was an amazing year for me, and most of the amazement is the result of the connections that blogging has brought about. Thank you for your attention to these rantings. In a year, we’ll have a new President and the beginning of an upgraded Economic OS.

That’s a promise.

12:00:01 AM