Cathy Seipp‘s foe Eliot Stein is an internet pioneer, broadcaster, journalist, satirist, educator, visionary, entrepreneur, and courageous person who stands up against the right-winged poisoning of America.
On Friday night, he was also an eyewitness to history.
THE HOTTEST TICKET IN HOLLYWOOD FRIDAY NIGHT WAS AT THE LIVE BROADCAST OF "Real Time With Bill Maher" at CBS. The weekly nationwide HBO show in which Bill Maher holds a panel discussion usually goes off smoothly and represents the art of "Live Television," something which there is very little of in prime time except for "Saturday Night Live."
On Friday night’s broadcast, about 25 minutes into the show, a man goes crazy in the audience, starts ranting and raving and is taken out by security. Maher starts screaming as to where the (profanity) security is. Maher jumps off the stage into the audience and gets involved in the turmoil. When he returns to the stage and tries to start again, another person starts screaming at him. And another, and another, and another. A clear organized set-up. The protesters are upset with Bill because he doesn’t believe the conspiracy theories that the government was involved in the fall of the towers on 9-11. A wild night indeed. Already being talked about everywhere.
How did I spend Friday night? By TOTAL COINCIDENCE, I decided to come to the live broadcast. I am a baby boomer. I grew up with the wonderful art that was "Live Television."
Whether it was "Bozo’s Circus" on WGN or "What’s My Line" on CBS, this was a phenomenal art. Shows broadcast live. No digital censoring. Whatever happens–happens.
I shared the magical memories of live television with my fellow baby boomer guest on the way there. We talked about how ANYTHING could happen when it was live.
And we happened to pick the one show in which anything like this has ever happened to Bill Maher.
If you watch the rebroadcast, you can clearly see me in the first row, as Bill Maher runs up the aisle into the center of the dispute. I am waving my hands left and right–I had a feeling I would be right in the frame. I even got interviewed by AP as a key eyewitness to the action.
Eliot Stein emails me:
I had the story posted on my blog way before AP posted theirs.
And now the revelation–it was my contacting AP that got the whole ball rolling–they got the story from ME. They sat there actually writing the first draft as I dictated it to them. They wanted to be first with it before anybody else.
Including me as the only quote was their Thank You to me.
I never expected to be in every newspaper in America on Saturday from just attending a show on Friday night.
