It's Not Easy Being Green(stone)

Dee Snyder, Gloria Steinem, and green champagne make for one inspired evening.

Last night’s launch of Greenstone Media, a sparkling new approach to talk radio (think less hostile, more humor and open forum, or as I like to think a la NPR Fresh Air), was a bustling soiree in Midtown, held amidst canapés and celebrities at the Museum of Television and Radio. (As in Jane Fonda, Diane Sawyer, etc. to name a few. And for a minute I thought Vincent, recent Project Runway cast-off, but really, it was an intern. An older intern.)

First off, if you’re wondering how I got invited to such a thing, well, so am I. I was included with a group of ten jaw-droppingly prolific bloggers who had a private call with Gloria to ask the hard questions last week prior to the party/launch.*

Two glasses of green champagne later (get it, Greenstone, green, eh, eh?) and I was laughing too loudly at co-hosts Mo and Shana’s jokes and getting my picture snapped with a button on my shirtdress undone (Wooooo! Cooooooollege!) alongside wave makers new and old.

Unfortunately, the party collided with class, so I traded the former for a few hours of me laughing too loudly at my own terrible jokes with a button on my shirtdress undone at the latter. (Wooooo! Cooollege!).

Snafus aside, the whole evening gave me a fresh perspective. Changes are happening all around us, and for our generation, it’s easy to think that the milestones are finite. That the world is as perfect as it will ever be. And while it is possibly today, the best it ever has been in the very, very grand historical scheme of things, the endless realm of could-bes
for the future has barely been seen.

Sure we regard these older pioneers making the strides we hope to someday. But even us, just a bunch of kids really, are making a difference. So much so, that I was included in the launch of this new media. And I think it’s because the things we do as semi-young’uns, the trails we blaze on the internet, our myspace pages, buying power, furious opinions, and our grassroots marketing of our dreams not possible ten years ago, are altering the world.

That’s what I’m believing today, anyway. That we’re waging our own subversive revolution against journalists who may believe we’re worthless, parents who think we’ll never amount to anything, bosses who don’t see our potential…

We’re fighting the good fight and most of us don’t even realize it.

*My question was “I’d like to address the term ‘feminazi’ which you so aptly described in your Keynote address. Why do you think it is that those still pushing for equal rights for women have gotten somewhat of a bad rap in that they’re perceived as searching for sole dominance, even in today’s educated society, while activists for other equality movements such as civil rights have not?”

A little heavy for lunch hour, but we talked it through, and Gloria was, as always, an absolute model for understated brilliance, grace, and brazen hilarity at once. And she was so amiable, she asked us to follow-up with more questions via email. This woman, living legend, wanted to learn more from us, because she thought we had the pulse on today’s media marketplace and future. Us!

This was, by far, one of the coolest things I’d ever been involved in, and I’m counting on you not to blow it by telling anyone that I didn’t deserve to be either on the call or at the party (once I sell my book, er, make that write and sell my book, I’ll give you a dollar in exchange for your silence).