Convention Night Number Three: A Big Colorado-Style Welcome, With Menacing Cops
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
In honor of National Security Night, sixteen billion riot police were deployed outside Pepsi Center. We saw some protesters, too! They had the usual “No blood for oil” type signs, and many were shirtless. So of course we took a picture of the boring old police. Your editor has perhaps the worst seat in the house tonight: BEHIND the stage. A big screen showing the proceedings is cleverly hidden behind a massive rack of lights. And all around, people bitch endlessly about their terrible view, how they can’t see or hear anything, and how there is NO SAVING SEATS, not even for old people who had the temerity to get up and go to the bathroom. Jesus Christ.
In honor of National Security Night, sixteen billion riot police were deployed outside Pepsi Center. We saw some protesters, too! They had the usual “No blood for oil” type signs, and many were shirtless. So of course we took a picture of the boring old police. Your editor has perhaps the worst seat in the house tonight: BEHIND the stage. A big screen showing the proceedings is cleverly hidden behind a massive rack of lights. And all around, people bitch endlessly about their terrible view, how they can’t see or hear anything, and how there is NO SAVING SEATS, not even for old people who had the temerity to get up and go to the bathroom. Jesus Christ.
The most important thing to know about the Pepsi Center is that it smells like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies at the entrance. The reason this is important is that you will get lost a million times, because the whole thing is designed like a labyrinth for repelling enemy invaders: all hallways and floors look exactly the same. You walk by a bunch of weird chests full of “media equipment” (sex harnesses and meth) and you say, OK, the press area is on the right after these heaps of electrical wire, and then you turn around and there are heaps of electrical wire everywhere. Obviously, the only way to orient yourself is to follow the smell of baking cookies. 
Here is why we missed Ted Kennedy: after entering the Pepsi Center, it takes eight or nine hours to figure out where you are supposed to park your ass and start typing. Also, we were getting chicken fingers. How was Teddy anyway? People were clapping, the sounds suggested. Here is probably where we were supposed to go, on the bottom dungeon floor next to a room full of live rats: “The Blogger Lounge.” Doesn’t it look so opposite-fancy? Blogging, it seems, has arrived.
First, plans were made for the Republican convention in St. Paul during the first week of September, at the Xcel Center, starring John “Oh him” McCain. Then, wacky freedom-fighter Ron Paul and his Campaign for Literacy anounced a Paultard rally, a weeklong thing that would also take place during the first week of September, but at the Pepsi Center in Minneapolis. Oh and there’s also a socialist May Day rally of some kind, which we only know about because hey, free Steve Earle concert. But also: dirty hippies and laborists. And today we learn Ralph “Malph” Nader is having his secret rally in Minneapolis, too. 