As you may or may not know...oh wait, as you may or may not CARE, the Democratic National Convention will be held in the wonderful city I live in: Denver, Colorado.
It's pretty cool. Obama will accept the nomination at Mile High Stadium and will recieve an ovation far greater than the Broncos have deserved in the 8-9 years the stadium has been standing. If only the coach wasn't such a Bush loving Republican, maybe they'd give him a jersey. Maybe they should just let Obama play this season. They couldn't do any worse and he's probably a far better punt returner than that grizzled mummy he's running against.
It's pretty cool. Denver will be the sight where hopefully, jesus, mary and Broseph HOPEFULLY! the long trek begins to punish all those responsible for the last 8 years.
It's pretty cool. Except for the fact that the city will be an unbearable cluster fuck for that week. It's already been announced that major roads will be closed, light rail won't run to select areas of town and every Prius driving wanker within the borders of our country will clog the streets spreading a virulent strain of Obama-mania. I hope there is no cure.
It could have been worse though: The Republican convention could have come to town and every gay bar in Denver would have to be on high alert for dangerous, sociopathic closeted homos looking to score to some ass; meanwhile putting on their delegate sash (nothing gay there) and insuring gay people can't get married. Hell, you can't have the dude who just blew you in the bathroom at the Wrangler wanting to get married now can you?
But I digress.
The city will be crazy and that's to be expected. What's unexpected is how Denver will deal with the craziness. I work the odd night downtown (will be avoiding the city center that week of course)and while lugging my equipment down the 16th Street Mall (pedestrian mall in the middle of the city) I took a look around. I saw nothing but homeless people and roving bands of shifty teens (black, white and brown) clogging up the sidewalks. The random tourist couple would walk by on their way to the Hard Rock Cafe and look reasonably terrified. If this is how the city of Denver plans to be seen when literally the whole country (if not the world) is going to be looking in on us, we're going to have a big fucking image problem on our hands.
I know the convention is a few weeks away, but Denver needs to get on the ball. The roving bands of teens will spoil the party real quick. I was wearing work clothes and covered in some substance (I was invisible and/or no one would fuck with me because they didn't want to get what was all over me on them) and I was still a little gunshy to walk through a large group of black kids who had taken up most of the sidewalk. Can you imagine the dilemma that "guilty white liberal guy from California" is going to be in?
A few weeks ago it was reported that all the homeless were to be rounded up and taken out of the city. Not a bad plan. But every city has homeless so it's not like the delegates from Portland are going to show up and say "oh my god! what are these dirty people doing sitting on street corners holding signs? Denver sure is gross and backward." No. Everybody has them. Who cares. If I went somewhere and didn't see them I would suspect some sort of third reich chicanery. Maybe they could offer the homeless a bed for the night, a hot meal and a bottle of Thunderbird to stay out of downtown. Hey, it's better than a gas chamber.
The convention should be a gas....wait, strike that. The convention is going to be a wild time and can only mean good things for Denver. I'm sure the parking Nazis are saving their strength to march their fat asses down every sidewalk in town to write extra tickets in the coming weeks. Part of me wants some crazy shit to go down just because that's what we all really want. Plus I'll see loads of footage of Denver on CNN...Hey! there's Rockbar (
James Sharp's Regal Beagle every Tuesday night)And another part of me wants this to go off without a hitch because I want Obama to get down to business and put that scaly "war hero" in his place.
Just to be clear, I say "war hero" because while he may have been honorable in his captivity at the hands of the Vietnamese, he hasn't done too much lately to justify the title. It's like if someone saved a bus load of kids but then was arrested for molesting some of them...it kind of wipes out the first part right?
So, you can keep your closeted Republicans. I want my conventioneers to be fabulous and have an ever more fabulous time while in the Mile High city. It's what our late great homeless people would have wanted.
Coming soon: More on the convention from where's it's at!
JR
