Dave Winer's pimpcast

The following is edited highlights of the one-hour podcast Dave Winer recorded at a dinner with lots of Web 2.0 peeps. Among the subjects covered were Dave's insatiable demands for female companionship (helped along by Sylvia Paull's recruitment drive), podcasting, John Perry Barlow, reading lists, marijuana, amorality and Dave's enmity with Tim O'Reilly.

Dave: And Mike, what are you doing in Berkeley?
Mike Arrington: The only reason I've come to Berkeley, Dave, would be to see you.
Dave: Well, there you have it.
Someone else, possibly Don Hopkins: That's sweet and gay at the same time. Amazing.

Sylvia Paull: I'm the only woman here, unless there's a tranvestite...

Dave: I was listening to Tim O'Reilly on a podcast, and he was making a fair amount of sense, surprisingly.

At this point Dave pauses the Archon, but then when it starts again he's with Kerry and Jane, two random women eating elsewhere in the restaurant whom Sylvia had recruited to talk to all these lonely single men (!) after Dave complained about the ratio of men to women.

Kerry (evidently pointing at the Archos): Shouldn't it be showing our words on the screen?
Dave: No, it doesn't understand your words.
Kerry: Oh, it doesn't?

As Dave gets further into discussion with Kerry about how lonely all these men are, he pauses the Archon again. When we resume (@12m), Dave is with Niall Kennedy from Technorati, Scott Rosenberg and Steve Gillmor.

Dave (to Scott): I think you've been hyped, basically, which is not your fault but shit happens, right?

Julia (a waitress): Anybody need sugar?
Dave: We need to get you to sign a release, because we're doing a podcast right now. Would you like to say hello to anybody, because it's actually recording?
Julia: OMG!
Dave: What's your name?
Julia: I'm Julia.
Dave: Would you like to say hi to your mother?

The assorted digerati then proceed to grill Julia (who is mostly off-mic) on her knowledge of Web 2.0 technologies. After she leaves, conversation drifts towards The West Wing and US federal politics.

Steve Gillmor: John Perry Barlow said Cheney was one of the two smartest people he ever met.
Dave: What does that say about John Perry Barlow?
Steve: Bill Gates was the other one.

We find out Niall Kennedy's little brother is serving in Iraq. Dave changes the subject, and tells a story about how he once turned down a TV interview in Nashville because he was in the middle of a podcast. Then Dave moves on to a very useful discussion of reading lists (@30m).

Dave (as Happy Birthday is being sung in the background): This is going to be the most interesting podcast if you can make out any words.

Dave: I've noticed that happens sometimes, you sell a site and all of a sudden the links don't work so good. Who am I to judge? If their check clears, never mind, shut up.
Niall: Should I mention Technorati is expanding?

Steve grills Dave about why he's living on the West Coast again (@35m), producing some worthwhile pontification.

Dave: If you haven't noticed, I bounce across the country, I hit a coast and I either stop there or I bounce off of it.
Everyone: Like a game of Pong?
Dave: Yeah, like Pong.

Kevin Burton (@42m): You remember those cracking machines, for DES? I came up with a name for that: Deep Crack. No no no no, it's not what you think, it's not what you think, no no! There's Deep Blue, the chess machine, and Deep Six, and a Deep Crack in the government's encryption policy.

Some guy comes up and drunkenly asks Dave is he's going to strip (!). Dave recounts his faded memories of Beavis & Butthead, and moves onto discussing marijuana.

Dave: We used to smoke a lot of dope, Steve. A lot of dope.

Some guy called Enric talks about toking it up with Harriet Miers (@49m). Someone else mentions Nicholas Carr's blog entry about the amorality of Web 2.0 (@52m).

Dave: I read Nicholas Carr's thing, and for once I agreed with Tim O'Reilly. It's like: "Fuck you Nicholas Carr, who the fuck are you?" I even posted as much in his comments. I thought bloggers, we were going to at least try not to turn into the whores of the mainstream media. Present company excluded, of course.
Someone: We're in the grey zone.
Dave (laughing): I say that with all due respect.
Someone: And love!

Conversation quickly turns to podcasting.

Dave: I actually listened to Tim O'Reilly on NerdTV, and he was great. Tim O'Reilly should not write, okay, he's really not a very good writer. I swear to God, when he writes his blog posts they come off as whiny, like a really bad undergrad term paper type stuff. But he can string together a set of sentences when he's talking and he makes a lot of sense.