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The matt-man’s take on the convention, keeping me sane.
I’m going to try and sit through the ultimate corporate rock concert that this thing is. It’s very possible I’ll give up on this in the first five minutes and go stick my head in the toilet to do something more cerebral. God, I feel sorry for the residents of Denver this week having to live with these people in their fine town.
7:02 – I’m surprised to find that none of the broadcast networks are showing this except for PBS, which is where I’m staying.
7:08 – Someone actually made a documentary about Nancy Pelosi and I thought the movie about a spelling bee was impossible to make interesting.
7:11 – Nancy Pelosi has taken pictures with soldiers and black people. I think this is supposed to mean that she likes them or something.
7:15 – I haven’t seen public speaking this full of life and natural since George W. Bush.
7:17 - She just fucking said America is land of the free and home of the brave unironically. I think.
7:18 - Pelosi is trying to insult McCain by repeating the clever slogan “Barack is right and John McCain is wrong” by getting the whole crowd to go along with her like a youth pastor trying to get teenagers to recite a passage from Galations out loud with him. I need a goddamn drink already.
7:23 - On CNN Wolf Blitzer is talking istead of them showing Nancy P’s speech. That seems about right.
7:25 - Why is David Brooks dressed like he’s going to an Easter egg hunt at Elton John’s house?
7:28 - Judy Woodruff appears to be wearing a headset that she might have worn at the 1972 convention in Miami. I think she’s still working the same tan she got down there too.
7:33 - The Jimmy Carter film on New Orleans was actually good. And appropriate. It was nice to see attention drawn to it. I don’t know why the democrats haven’t hammered away on the Republicans for that more.
7:43 - If you were to have a drinking game that involved taking a drink every time change is mentioned I wonder how long it would be until you were shitfaced. I’m guessing I would have 3 sheets to the wind already.
7:49 - Jesse Jackson, Jr. seems like a pretty good speaker to me. But then again, I saw Nancy Pelosi talk a while ago and I’m pretty sure I’d think Britney Spears would sound like Winston fucking Churchill after that.
7:51 - One of my least favorite things to watch is stiff white people dancing but adding equally lame Lenny Kravitz music to that mix makes it oh so worse. How much longer until Jon Stewart comes on? If it weren’t for him and Colbert this would be even more unbearable.
7:58 - On C-SPAN they keep the camera on the convention the whole time unlike the cable networks who will squeeze any punditry time in they can like a cokehead will sneak in a bathroom break. Even PBS goes back to interviews during the musical breaks. Of course they seem to be doing it with way more class, but you can afford that when me and three other old people watch it. Oh well back to C-SPAN and Ellen-esque forced dancing!
8:06 - Time for the “common man” testimonial. A big dude with shoulders too wide for the camera to get all in one shot. I’m pretty sure his wife is a robot. I have yet to see a blink. Oh, there’s one! No, that was just a fly.
8:12 - I just spotted John Kerry in the crowd. Please for the love of god don’t let him speak tonight. Wait, I think I still have some Vicodin in the medicine cabinet. It might be ok.
8:17 - Caroline Kennedy seems like she’s uncomfortable and does not want to be up there. She’s not shy about staying out of politics as much as possible. Hopefully that will be my most obvious observation of the week.
8:21 - If the democrats are all about trying to move away from being seen as rich elitists I’m not sure showing footage of Ted Kennedy sailing on his yacht is the best way to do that.
8:33 - It just occured to me while watching Ted Kennedy speak that the democrats have had such a lack of leadership for so long and a lack of people for them all to get behind that it could explain why they’re so good at losing and being unorganized. So I guess I was wrong about that obvious observation thing.
8:38 - In response to my last post, I see Howard Dean up there and remember that he’s the guy in charge of this party, which explains a lot.
8:46 - Wow the Chicago City Clerk is speaking! With any luck they’ll bring out the South Bend, Indiana school comptroller!
9:00 - Tom Harkin is speaking in sign language. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s mute or just in a drunken stupor. I’m hoping that’s it.
9:02 - Damn, I was wrong. He keeps talking.
9:06 - Has Jim Leach or most of these other people on the stage tonight ever taken a public speaking course? Surely that was still a core requirement in college back then, right?
9:08 - Leach just broke out “country comes before party”. Then explain why Joe Biden is on your party’s ticket, sir.
9:12 - And now he adds “America needs new ideas, a new outlook, etc…” I agree, if only we could tell the party who controls the legislative body that.
9:14 - Claire McCaskill’s kids are encourging me to send some sort of text message. Are they aware 14-year-olds can’t vote? And the 80-year-old grandma he’s talking about doesn’t know what the hell a text message is.
9:16 - McCaskill says Missourians have an “abundance of common sense”. Really? Didn’t we vote to ban gay marriage four years ago by around 70 some odd percent? And didn’t we just vote here in KC to ban smoking from restaurants and bars but let the casinos keep it? And I seem to recall us getting on our knees every time one of our sports teams wants to renovate their stadiums but we voted down public transit 5 times in a row.
9:22 - What the hell is “g-chatting”?
9:28 - Michelle Obama’s father sounds like a very interesting man. I’d like to know more about him.
9:37 - Michelle didn’t come out draped in a flaming American flag or wiping her ass with a bald eagle. Fox News’ graphics deparment is going to have to work overtime tonight.
9:49 - It seems like Michelle has sparked the first sign of real enthusiasm here. I said it before and I’ll say it again, I think Barack should’ve picked her as his VP, she’s a hell of a lot more inspiring than Biden.
9:55 - Barack’s only 15 miles from where I’m sitting right now addressing everyone through a TV screen. And his daughter just had one of the few unscripted, real moments of the night.
9:59 - Who is this douchebag praying? Should I not even try to complain about any semblance of separation of church and state?
Well, except for the Robinsons/Obamas this night was pretty underwhelming. Those little girls were pretty charming though and it’s nice that for the most part they haven’t been whored out as you would expect them to be. I personally like the more unfiltered Michelle than what we saw but she was still pretty good. Now it’s time for the professional bullshitters to start fellating themselves for the next few hours on the cable news channels. So I’m going to go annoy Nicole now.
