Waiting for the end
September 4th, 2008 – 3:15 PM by James Lileksl”>Light cool day; everything in the hall feels a bit anticlimactic after last night. I’m sitting in Rice Park with MSNBC blaring in the background. No protests at the moment; there was one sad 9/11 truther walking around with a pole. No sign, just a pole. The Mossad took it! A couple has set up an unintelligible hand-made sign that demands a NEW MONETARY ORDER; they’re either protesting the Federal Reserve, or Western Union. Two bands are playing pretty good rock to audiences composed entirely of granite-faced cops. There’s really nothing to film and nothing to cover; it’s all just a matter of waiting for McCain.
The quote going around the newsrooms: when this thing is over, there will be a crash heard for a ninety-mile radius. I think you’ll all be understanding if newspapers just take a week off, won’t you? People who’ve been on this thing for a fortnight are staggering around like hollow-skulled zombies. What must surely task the souls of pundits at the moment is the knowledge that nothing anyone writes or predicts before tonight’s speech will matter a second after McCain begins to talk. I mean, I have to go on the air in four hours, and I feel like singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall” until they cut my mike.
One sign it’s been a long week: by day four, you should set off the metal detectors with your lanyard flair. Many news organizations and exhibiters give away small pins to hang on your neck-rope, and we collect them just because they’re free; I have a UPS tape measure for the same reason. (Actually, I have two, because whenever someone hands out something you get one for “your friend.” Because there might be a pin-for-tape-measurer market that develops at any moment.) By Thursday you should have enough pins on your credentials lanyard to earn you the wanding of your life by the security guards.
Off to film some bands, then do some radio; downstairs on Radio Row you can hear the sound of the barrel-bottom being scraped, and that’s my cue.
21 Responses to "Waiting for the end"
Shitty coverage from a shitty writer employed by a shitty newspaper.
Or, um… classic Lileks coverage by one of the best and loved voices on the internet from a paper that is lucky to have him.
Point of view, I guess.
That explains their recent spike in subscriptions.
I don’t subscribe, I just like Lileks, Lance Lawson and especially Doris.
Yes, and old Tom is a literary scribe on a par with Hawthorne.
Why, just look at his masterful use of the adjective “shitty.” Only a select few gifted writers can wield such difficult tools of the English language. Clearly, Tom is one of those most fortunate souls. I expect to see more stellar prose from Tom to appear in all the nation’s broadsheets, because no force on earth could keep such written genius as Tom’s out of the public view forever.
Tom in Denver…stop razzing us about Doris!!! Might have to kill someone or something er-other! ; )
I clicked all over the post from “Tom” above, but was disappointed to find no links. I was hoping to read this writer he speaks of so vividly.
In the meantime, I’ll settle for Lileks. I’m all agog to hear what he has to say about Sarah’s running mate.
Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry you were forced to sit and stare into your monitor, and read such dreck! Please forgive whoever tied you to your chair, and forced your hand to click on that dastardly link! Shameful, I say! Shameful!
Having said that, I am eagerly anticipating the return of the Bleat and the Buzz! (And Lance!)
Oh, and Sarah can make me her whipping boy any time she wants…
[sings] Sarah’s hot, I totally swear, WHOA HO, LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER! [/sings]
As for the OP, Internet is Serious Business.
Sincerely,
Cameron XIII, Van Dierten if you’re nasty.
Hey James,
Are you going to cover the RNC in St. Paul? That little bio beside your picture says you’ll “…be covering the Democratic National Convention as only he can.” Or, maybe your web editors jsut went to sleep at the DNC and never woke up?
Lance knew that Tom took the sign because the sign was razzing Tom about Doris.
Jeez Tom, Doris? Really? Doris and Tom? Ha ha ha ha.
Oh, it’s a typo. It was supposed to be Lileks on Vacation?
It’s certainly been great to be here the last 2 weeks in this new blog full of friendly, literate non-Buzzoids (with all their good-natured ribbing and sparkling Wildean bons mots)
Sayanora - and back to the Buzz next week (I sincerely hope)
Wally (aka hpoulter)
I figured it out. The marketing department at the STrib is absolutely brilliant. You see, they saw a decline in readership, so they somehow figured out that people who hate the STrib just can’t stop reading it for some unexplainable reason. So all they have to do is give those people something to hate, and they’ll keep lining up for more.
That must be the same strategy Walmart is using. Because, as I’m sure everyone is aware, EVERYBODY hates Walmart, yet EVERYBODY shops there. Just go in there and listen carefully, you’ll hear nothing but people quietly muttering about how much they hate that place, and that they’re only shopping there as a way to stick it to them. I haven’t figured out exactly how that works, but there must be some kind of logic behind it.
Sarcasm is fun…
Seriously though, it boggles the mind that so many people come to read a site that they detest so much. Literary masochism, it seems… Personally, I hate Old Navy, so you know what I do? I don’t go there! Simple as that…
Looking forward to getting back to Buzz where hateful people just don’t bother.
Mr Lileks:
In a word …*sigh*
I was hoping Lance Lawson would be solving murders at the conventions, or there would be pictures of nearby googie architecture, or thre would be more celbrations of the more retro aspects of the conventions, or, at the very least, the Conservative fellow who seems so carefully airbrushed from your buzz blog would make a brief appearence.
Maybe the reality of politics (9 parts plastic to one part back stabbing) doesn’t lend itself to your style. I don’t know. But this blog was disappointing.
They should have let you stay at the fair. Perhaps the next time the conventions roll around, they’ll send Lance, Tiny, Doris and Scotty MacVictim.
Alonzo, I understand your disappointment. But you must admit the ‘bird porn’ was a good tangent. 
I enjoyed Mr. Lileks blog in both Denver and St. Paul. (I’m glad it was St. Paul because the other twin city is much harder to spell). I didn’t come to this blog because it was hard hitting political commentary, that is easy to find almost anywhere these days. I didn’t venture downtown when the DNC was in Denver and Lileks provided a taste of what was going on outside the convention.
I think the DNC was easier to cover because it was first. These aren’t just political conventions, they are also journalist/blogger/media-in-general conventions too. I think the people covering the convention enjoyed themselves and were a little burnt out by the time they went to St. Paul.
The police presence in Denver did seem a little much, but I guess the pre-convention hype of the protest groups contributed to that. I think the violent groups went to St. Paul.
All in all, I think the DNC went pretty well in Denver and the RNC went well in St. Paul. I think both cities will be happy to host another.
In about 100 years.
It tricky alright.
I’m the Stribs target market. That’s why the paper is flourishing.
The guy with the pole is intriguing.
Was there another guy handing out special glasses that made the sign visible to you?
Or maybe he couldn’t decide what to put on his sign, so he waved a pole, got himself recorded, and plans to do a little photoshopping later on. Maybe a big prediction?
Or perhaps it was a subtle commentary on the curtailing of free speech.
Great to have JR at the conventions. Blog and Bleat could be published as “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘08″ Have that gonza flavor sans the drugs.
Yo, Jimbo, the convention is over. Coming back to work or what?