Flying in the Blimp Above Baltimore, Mencken's home

On Thursday December 20 I was invited by the Ron Paul Blimp team to LIVE broadcast their flight above Baltimore, Maryland, for Ron Paul Radio. When I'm not lobbying, teaching kundalini yoga, or researching mysteries and ancient history, I volunteer for freedom causes, including the internet radio station (my show's every Thursday at 5pm).

It was very fast work getting on the blimp. It was only the day before that Daily Paul included a notice that the blimp then was over Norfolk, Virginia, near my childhood home of Suffolk. I called my sister in Norfolk, and she told me she saw what "appeared to be a blimp," but she had no clue it was Candidate Paul's. Tracking the blimp's flight north over the Chesapeake Bay, I saw from its flight plan that it would stay the night at Harford County airport. Being near my home in Washington, D.C., I decided to contact Katharine, the assistant named as the contact for the Blimp. She said $5K was needed to be a passenger, or you had to be media. Well, having tapped out my contributions on Tea Party Day, I wasn't about to fork over what amounted to the cost of a bad, used car, but my Ron Paul Radio connection was just enough to get me invited!

The next challenge was how in the world we were going to LIVE broadcast from a blimp. I learned the blimp had its own (weak) Wi-Fi connection, and that by flying just a few hundred yards above Earth, it would pick up other signals, particularly over Baltimore. A young man named Elijah was the "techie" on board the blimp, and he had a mounted camera inside, a laptop, and a videographer assistant named Daniel.

But the true Blimp organizer was none other than Trevor Lyman, the music entrepreneur who decided that the country was going to hell and he needed to get involved in the Ron Paul campaign to restore our constitutional republic. Trevor is the main instigator for the last 2 money bombs, on Guy Fawkes Day ("Remember, remember, the 5th of November") and the more recent anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (see my blog below on D.C.'s Tea Party). Trevor needs our help, to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each month, to keep the Blimp flying up to New York, and back down to Florida. Follow the Blimp's daily progress, at its BlimpBlog!

When I arrived Thursday morning at the airport, it was staggering to see this huge blimp in the middle of the rural setting. There wasn't room for me on the initial ride, so I hung out with Quinn and Dave from Jim Lehrer's PBS Newshour, and Chris Beam and Andy from Slate. I also interviewed Dan Campbell and Shelly Roche, local Meetup activists. (See Shelly's blimp pictures here). Quinn was good, asking one question, on camera, "how the blimp could avoid mid-air collisions with Baltimore's news helicopters, if Ron Paul had his way and abolished the FAA"? I'll let the candidate answer that one! ;-)

Here's Slate's blog on the Blimp ride. And here's the fabulous story and video from NewsHour's interview from the blimp, mainly of Trevor Lyman. On the initial Blimp ride was the Houston Chronicle, which posted a non-blimp Ron Paul story that day. (and here's a real nice Houston Chronicle Youtube of Ron Paul filmed last week).

When I finally got on the Blimp around 2pm, the take-off was intense, like a loud roller coaster rising at a very steep angle (here's an awesome, short YouTube of the takeoff). With the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky, immediately we could see the Susquehanna emptying into the huge Chesapeake Bay. As we coasted south towards Baltimore, we could see cars slowing down on the mighty Interstate 95. It was during this time that I LIVE broadcast interviews with Elijah and Trevor from the Blimp team, and we even had a few words from the other journalists. Unfortunately, the weak Wi-Fi signal meant repeated Skype and cell phone calls to RPR broadcaster TVMH (that's his name), so listeners were denied a smooth play-by-play with no interruptions. Sorry about that. Technology is great, and we certainly have room for improvement. (Check out Ron Paul Radio's sharp new website!)

It was not a warm, smooth or quiet ride aboard the Blimp. We had our jackets on, and the blimp swayed up and down with the wind. Things got really exciting, though, as we approached the skyscraper-filled downtown of Baltimore. It was spectacular, really, as the sun reflected off the large buildings, and as local news helicopters checked out this large "flying whale," as Trevor put it. Lots of folks saw us, as attested at Ron Paul Forums.

As we twirled around the Inner Harbor, over the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards and the Baltimore Raven's stadium, the wind shot up off the buildings to really sway the Blimp at steep angles, up and down. "Whooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhh." I'll load my pictures as soon as possible here.

A personal thought I had, in our steep banked turns around Baltimore, was that down below was the Enoch Pratt Library, home of the works of H.L. Mencken, the greatest social critic - and a libertarian one at that - in the early 20th Century. As his biographer Carl Bode called him, Mencken was a great "anti-statist" and "anti-puritan." No doubt he would be smiling on the Blimp!

Flying back north, we hovered over north Baltimore's beltway, letting the congested traffic get a good look at us. Here's a YouTube of that.

It was getting dark as we touched back down at the airport. I dined with Trevor and his gang afterwards, and it was clear those 4 were dedicated to making this Blimp thing work. But your help is needed, financially. Folks, it was truly unbelievable to be up in a Blimp, stared at by thousands of people in buildings, cars, houses, boats, fields, and local news choppers. The Ron Paul Blimp is priceless PR, and its success will redound to the benefit of all come November.

Good news: This Blimp Blog was linked by the great David Weigel at Reason Magazine. Finally, watch the fundraising machine in action, for the Blimp.