I
never thought that I'd find myself at two o'clock in the morning,
hanging solo on a corner in uptown Charlotte, having two kind older
black women telling me to stop preaching about war and the prison
industrial complex. Yet there I was, one block from the Charlotte
Convention Center, hailing a taxi for two sixty-something Georgia
peaches who had missed the shuttle back to their motel. They were
right about two things: 1 – I had no business pontificating to
either of them, particularly in the middle of Barack Obama Bliss
Fest, and 2 – my main concern should have been getting my own sweet
little ass home. I was annihilated.
How
did I get there? That's the story that I've come to share.
After
two weeks of covering political fiestas without writing about what's
popping inside of the actual hall – in Tampa at the Republican
National Convention, or in Charlotte at its Democratic counterpart –
for my last night on the job, my editors thought it was a good idea
to enter the arena, among the hysterical partisan masses, and far
away from beer and alcohol. That sounded fine to me, but considering
the lack of booze, I began to chew through some acid that I had left
over from the RNC. Years ago, a writer friend explained how he always
found that the best way to glimpse a conservative's soul, or lack
thereof, is with a noggin full of LSD. He didn't mention what I might
find around comparably obsessed lefties, though, so I set out to do
some soul searching of my own . . .
ONE
HIT
I
swallowed the first pop on my way to the bus stop near my crash pad
in West Charlotte. All week, I stayed with an amazingly cool host who
rented me a room in his apartment, which is in one of the few
gentrified buildings in the scruff of what more than a few locals
told me is the city's foulest pocket. If we're talking experience
points, I could not have picked a better spot. Instead of riding
shuttles with delegates, or cabs with my damn self, I rolled the
public bus – with real North Carolinians, most of whom wanted
nothing to do with me, my press pass, my lame questions, or the DNC –
back and forth to the convention zone.
Thinking
back, I'm pretty sure that it was Don Winslow from Louisiana who
activated my buzz; he was outside of the convention center leaning
through his trademark banger, “The Obama Shuffle,” which I hear
synchs up perfectly with the Wizard of Oz if you're tripping
hard enough. I wasn't – not yet at least – but was certainly
thrown deeper by the rhinestone Obama merch being slung right next to
Winslow, the lot of which amounted to more bedazzled junk than Fran
Drescher keeps in her dildo drawer. Good times were up ahead. Even
the nuttiest Jesus freaks weren't bothering me, which I took as a
divine cue to level-up . . .
TWO
HITS
Since
she's already written about her throwback teen hippie experience at
the DNC, I suppose that it's alright to say I stomached hit number
two with Wonkette – the only person in Charlotte who was brave
enough to indulge along with me. Together we kicked over to the
regularly scheduled Politico bash, where I'd been sipping
complimentary beverages and enjoying good conversation all week. The
party was sweet down to the passed appetizers, but I ultimately got
turned off by the glowing “America's Natural Gas” ad on the news
desk. I could care less about the shameless placement – we all need
to keep this journalism thing going, somehow – but I could only
ogle gasbags in front of gas ads for so long . . .
THREE
HITS
So we
show up outside of the hall, and there's the biggest pile of
umbrellas that I'd ever seen. Still despite my gut instinct to frolic
in them like Scrooge McRomney in a pool full of bullion, I instead
got in line for the metal detector. This was it – after two weeks
on the road, I was finally about to report from the floor. The
prospect was exciting, or at least it was until the fire marshall
shut shit down with just two people left in front of me. I waited for
five minutes, then decided to split for a bar. But not before having
my way with the Guinness Book-worthy mountain of umbrellas.
After
making a slight scene at the gate – telling other journos who were
shut out that there's little to see inside anyway – I assembled a
small but fierce ad-hoc team of convention rejects and headed to a
nearby party hosted by the good folks from the United Nations. Free
drinks were poured, beer cans were cracked, and after watching Sandra
Fluke deliver the only speech of the week that packed not a bit of
bullshit, I popped another blotter and ran for the door. We would
have stayed, but the UN party was wrapping for the night, and I
thought that it was time to spread my wings a little anyway . . .
FOUR
HITS
It
took four hits of acid and a spot in front of the MSNBC stage for me
to sort of buy into the donkey show. For a few scattered moments,
during speeches by Elizabeth Warren and then Bill Clinton, I finally
understood the official DNC motto for the week: “Americans Coming
Together.” I was covered in it. Amazingly, I barely puked as all of
the imbeciles around me – apparently complicit with Obama's failure
to neuter healthcare profit mongers – applauded Bubba's half-sense
about “donut holes,” as if they had a clue what he was singing
about.
I
watched Chris Matthews closely in Tampa as well, including during
Paul Ryan's speech, when he gorged on a warm sandwich, the melted
mozzarella stretching from his wedge to his chatter box like gum
under a shoe. Between his unmatched political knowledge and
unapologetic southpaw, Matthews was already my favorite pundit –
even before the sandwich incident. But he earned my utmost affection
during Clinton's speech, when someone shouted, “GEORGE BUSH SUCKS,”
and he leaned back in his chair to let out a hearty chuckle.
None
of this, of course, means that I completely let my guard down. I'm
engineered to hate crowds, and that goes double for blind patriots,
and triple for when I'm spun. I'll also blame the MSNBC camerawork;
in the heat of Clinton's slam dunk, as he spit his line about how
broken clocks are right twice a day, some slick producer flashed to
the Democratic party's most severely damaged timepiece of them
all – Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. Like that, I snapped right out of
it, screamed something about the wars on drugs and in the Middle
East, and proceeded to polish off my stash . . .
FIVE
HITS
Actually,
it was four-and-a-half hits. I split my last notch with a wasted dude
from California who was shooting a reality show about some North
Carolina family with “the craziest redneck hotdog shop you ever
heard of” (not to mention the only one). The two of us had an
enlightening conversation, as I paid forward my writer friend's
knowledge about how important it is to eat LSD at these functions.
There's a metaphor to all this trippy nonsense, I told him, which is
that attending the DNC – even not on hallucinogens – is actually
a lot like being on acid. You're at the center of the universe,
rendered completely unable to consider the perspective of those
outside of your bubble.
From
there, I slugged some more drinks, bought an artist-autographed poster of Obama and Tupac on horseback, and headed back to the apartment I was
crashing at in West Charlotte. The effects of the high were waning,
though the décor at my crash pad – old Calvin Klein posters of
diesel dudes with bulging dicks – was a little strange. I never
thought I'd end up on the tail end of a political bender, staring at
giant cocks and shaved chests. But then again, I also never thought
that I'd find myself at two o'clock in the morning, hanging solo on a
corner in uptown Charlotte, having two kind older black women telling
me to stop preaching about war and the prison industrial complex. I
guess you had to be there.
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