RNC Update

Today has been...odd. I came here for an hour or so then left for the Hilton at 53rd and 6th to find CR's booth in the Big Freakin Republican Marketplace that they had turned a full half of the 2nd floor into. Hopped back on a train to work, where I crammed a little more in before walking over to the garden for the Republican Youth Convention. Going behind the police cordons was pretty cool. There was nobody but you and cops on that side, the rest of the public was forced to watch and envy from the plebeian side of the street. Much security (they made me drink my bottled water in front of them, and goodness knows I seriously considered falling on the ground in convulsions afterward, just as a mild joke).

And then I was on the main floor of the convention.

Basically it was a long succession of Important Political Figures that were all apparently there to introduce the next IPF who was also there to introduce the one after them and so on and so forth. The Bush sisters participated, also Jason Sehorn and his knockout wife (more like honorable IPFs, I suppose), and then Ari Fleischer, which was cool.

The White House Chief of Staff spoke, and about 15 seconds into his schpeel, a whole row of kids directly across the aisle from us started blowing whistles and waving anti-bush signs and jumping on their chairs and screaming. How they snuck in I have literally no idea. Anyway, the response from the room full of a few thousand of the most patriotic Republican youngsters on the planet was pretty much unanimous and instantaneous - a "4 more years" chant began to drown them out and kids basically swarmed them. I pulled Brec back because it was fast going fisticuffs. I resisted the Very Strong Urge to jump in the fray. The press absolutely smothered them in about 5 seconds flat. The Secret Service showed up a second later, and in about 2 minutes, it was completely over, the only evidence that anything had happened was the, oh, 60 Secret Service men milling around the empty row looking for explosives. Pretty wild. Good times.

Some more people introduced some more people on stage, and then I went and got Jason's autograph while he and his wife were giving interviews off to the side. Then it was back to work, where I'm pretending to not be sleeping. Or something.

Also, if you're in Pittsburgh, look for me on the news there tonight being interviewed about the mini-riot. I think channel 4 - the guy started interviewing us after the fray. We told him we were Grovers so we might have a chance of getting on.

Tonight is a Young Repub's event at Jay Z's place, the 40-40 club, but it doesn't start until midnight, so I think I'm going to have a reprieve from the drinking-free-booze-until-the-next-morning bit and go to the gym instead. I want to have enough energy to successfully hit on some young conservative ladies tomorrow at Pressure, the club where we're watching the acceptance speech. And by young conservative ladies I do NOT mean members of the Republican Youth Majority, which, in addition to being communist, I am aware is also pro-choice and pro-environment and pro-many other things, which an enthusiastic young Iranian girl was glad to inform me of last night, at which point I was finished talking to her.

Also tomorrow I'm planning to do a paid interview at lunch time with an Aussie media firm regarding my views on voting. Cha ching. I have it on moderate (as opposed to good) authority that the interviewer is a knockout. That is to say that a girl told me this.

Dave's dead on article about the CR event we met at can be found here.