The Rake Magazine

Tag: Republican National Convention

  • Mayhem at Mickey's Diner

    Let me start off by saying, I’m not a particularly political person. I care, don’t get me wrong, but I just prefer to do what I do best, staying in the pretty bubble of art, music and what-have-you. I am an A+E Editor, after all, not a political commentator! I rarely watch TV, but when I do I often assume it’s an extra-violent news day, even though deep down I know that’s the way the world is, and I subsequently shut it out of my mind. It might be ignorant of me, but hell, my brain can only hold so much information, and the battle I’ve personally chosen is one of making sure you know exactly where to go to see the coolest art, music, and performance – and trust me, it’s not that easy of a job!

    However, I do appreciate passionate people; people who are so into whatever they are doing that it basically takes over their life and becomes their identity. I think it’s impressive and endearing (and only once in a while, creepy). My decision to cover the scene in Downtown St. Paul was fairly innocent – I not only wanted to see a massive throng of people coming together to stand up for something they believed in, but I also wanted to see what they were wearing. Yes, it’s true. After watching the Liberty Parade this past weekend, I had a feeling plenty of sassy nut jobs in outrageous get-ups would be out in full force. I was definitely right, but what I didn’t really bank on was getting tear-gassed by the end of the night.

    It was my definitely own fault for insisting on staying with the unruly masses when they came to a halt in front of Mickey’s Diner on West 7th, after a generally peaceful 4-mile march through the city to the foot of the RNC. I just couldn’t help it though. The photo ops were just too good.

    After following the some 5,000 or so protesters up from the RNC gates to the street, I was at the tail end of things, having stuck behind to snap pics of some guy who looked like Jesus swaying in front of a line of cops with a miniature rainbow flag on a stick. The scene up at Mickey’s Diner was pretty ridiculous. About 150 cops in full riot gear flanked all sides of the street, trying to herd the protesters all in one direction. One cop sat perched on the top of Mickey’s, others stood on squad cars in bad-ass RoboCop poses.

    While the majority of the march had shuffled off so as not to aggravate the cops, a core group of about 200 or so stayed behind and basically just stood there, chanting and talking smack to the lines of police. Honestly, I think both sides were looking for a fight of sorts. The cops were practically vibrating with excitement at the thought of getting to kick the crowd’s ass, and the protesters seemed to want them to do it, and were basically asking them to do it by not moving after the three warnings police gave, ordering everyone to disperse via bullhorn.

    Dumb as I am, I stayed right up at the front of the police line somehow thinking they wouldn’t actually do it, I mean, no one was threatening them, maybe they would just pepper spray a few rowdy punks and everyone else would walk quickly away, virtually unscathed. Not so much. I heard a loud pop and saw billows of tear gas start rising up in the middle of the crowd. Numerous more pops and the streets were filled with screaming protesters running aimlessly as lines of police advanced on us. I turned tail and began booking up the street, veering away from the thick line of cops liberally dousing retreating protesters with huge arcs of pepper spray as flash grenades and tear gas canisters fell all around us. People were writhing on the ground crying and screaming for medics, and while everyone ran, the police seemed to be shooting things directly at our backs. A tear gas canister whizzed by about a foot away from me, bounced off an electrical box right into my line of retreat and started seething smoke. I jumped over it with my scarf covering my face and kept on running. At some point a boy that looked to be about 16 or 17 asked me to please help him and I just yelled at him to keep running and yanked at his sleeve, dragging him on. I saw a crying girl stumble too close to the police line, which was met by a douse of pepper spray that was so extreme that it literally splashed off her face, downing her instantly. Another young kid was balled up by the doorway to an office building, clawing at his eyes and bawling while other protesters screamed for someone to help him. I’d never seen such a thing. It was like a war zone, minus the actual killing of course. Eventually I ducked around a corner and got out of the fray, coughing and rubbing my eyes until I found a bus stop bench to sit down on, regroup, and let my panic meter go down.

    I had lost my friends Stephen, Dylan and Paul, and upon calling them I found they were locked in a freezer at the Dominos Pizza place across from Mickey’s, where they had gone to get a bite to eat after the main protest dispersed. When the mayhem broke out, tear gas had apparently begun to seep in through the closed door of the place to the point that all the employees and customers had retreated to the freezer until the smoke cleared out. I think they got free pizza out of it, so that’s at least one positive.

    After about an hour of trying to cross multiple police lines that had positioned themselves all around the area, I was finally reunited with my posse, who had been on the opposite side of the line. We were forced by the police to take the long way around to the Capitol and up to Paul’s car, which was parked on University. Along the way we passed by at least 500 cops in full riot gear, traveling in menacing packs all over downtown and at the Capitol. It was quite intimidating, and a little bit shocking, considering the sheer numbers. As the protesters had been chanting all night, "This is what a police state looks like!"

    At any rate, you probably won’t be getting any more play-by-play coverage of police riots from me. I’m still jumping at loud noises, and have had enough of the smell of hippies and crust-punks to last me for quite awhile. Here’s my advice for future protesters: start running before they start shooting tear gas – it does not feel as awesome as you’d think!

    Click HERE to see even more pics snapped by both myself and Stephen from the protest and our day Downtown. We don’t have anything from the actual confrontation, as we were busy running/ hiding in freezers. Strangely enough, videos of the melee taken by Kare 11, that were up on their website just last night, are now down; however, they do have some good still shots HERE.

  • Politics Lite: Inside the Xcel

    After popping into PetSmart for a new dog tag and Home Depot for some new levelers, I head right next door to the Doubletree Park Place in St. Louis Park. How convenient! My plan is to catch a ride to the Xcel Energy Center with whatever delegation happens to be staying there. It turns out to be the Georgians, and they’ve taken to referring to their quarters as "The Georgia Hotel." I like their sense of claimstaking.

    A friendly man in a neon vest asks where I’m looking to go. Thinking I’m busted, despite my legitimate credentials and earlier phone inquiries, I play it cool but slightly miffed. I’ve already had to change my outfit in the parking lot after realizing how underdressed I was. Grateful for the bag of preppy teacher clothes waiting to be dropped off for donation, I throw a sweater over my polo shirt (instant fancy!) and change out of my summer sandals. These Georgians aren’t messing around: high-high heels, slinky dresses, snazzy sportcoats with zippers on the pockets.

    Now comfortably playing the role of dowdy journalist, I engage the friendly fellow in neon, who appears to be running the show. He turns out to be the brother of Debbie Woodward, the woman who turned around the Northrup King Building which houses our office. Well acquainted with The Rake, he takes a shine to me and lets me in on how things with the visiting delegates are going. "They’re dumb," he emphatically spits out. "I’m sorry?" I think I must have misheard him. "They’re just dumb," he repeats. "Did you grow up here? Be thankful you got a DFL education." He doesn’t utter these remarks in a mean-spirited way, rather he’s just surprised at how logistically difficult they’ve been to coordinate. I tell him something non-committal like, That’s always the way with big groups.

    A genuinely fancy lady approaches and asks about getting on the shuttle. She doesn’t have her credentials, but assures us both they’re simply awaiting her pick-up at the Xcel. "You oughtta work for The Rake," he points at me. "They get their folks full credentials." "I work for myself," she replies, and thanks us for our help.

    I hop on the trolley destined for Brit’s in Minneapolis. AT&T is hosting a party there for the Georgians and I’ll try to get in. On the way one of the cuter delegates talks about having eaten a cookie today. For about ten minutes she laughs about this. I am happy to see the out-of-towners making the most of our fair cities. We tour past the Sculpture Gardens, Walker Art Center and Loring Park. I take in the sights and make believe I’m viewing them with out-of-town eyes. I’m impressed by the city’s history as our trolley driver tries to be heard over the cookie laughs.

    As you may have guessed, I am not allowed into the private Brit’s party, not being from Georgia and not being a delegate. I walk a block and catch one of the fleet of tour busses headed to St. Paul. Upon crossing the river, one rider announces loudly, "Uh oh! We’re going over a bridge!" It is apparent he is looking for laughs, but the joke doesn’t land.

    To get into the Xcel I have to walk through the "FOX Experience." What you "experience" is an onslaught of Hannity and Colmes close-ups and volunteers thrusting geeky hats at you.

    Inside I immediately take in the prevalence of these geeky hats and other kitschy wears. Blinky lapel pins, red-white-and-blue everything, cowboy hats galore. Is democracy supposed to be this tacky? Is this why we alternately hate/ envy the French? Would they be caught dead in any of this garb?

    One woman in the Florida delegation catches my eye. She’s wearing a gold silk kimono-type dress with exaggerated sleeves. She’s wearing gold stilettos, big gold hoop earrings. She’s primed for Myth Nightclub. I like how she shakes her assets in time with the elevator jazz tunes blaring over the speakers. I also like the guy up high in the NBC skybox/ makeshift studio. He’s up against the glass, butt to the entire convention, shaking just like the Florida gal. I can’t tell if he’s sincerely getting down, or if he’s mocking the whole show. Whatever the motivation, he doesn’t stop for nearly ten minutes.

    In keeping with my recent State Fair binge eating, I stop by the concessions area. Two women walk by me, "They got the food thing open today!" "Well somebody got a brain!" Yes, brain indeed. The concessionaires can’t slop condiments on fast enough. They’re almost out of sweet tea. Two bratty kids wearing Dorothy red slippers cry out, "Just bread and meat! Bread and meat!" They are unimpressed with the array of cheeseburger toppings. Not surprisingly, the line for vegetarian wraps and chef salads is non-existent. These are red meat eating delegates.

    I feel like I’m in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. Everyone’s potentially suspicious: that woman in the spotless chef’s jacket; that "priest." Two very serious men walk by, one holding some kind of device, the other holding an appendage of the device. I figure it’s a bomb-sniffing metal-detector of sorts. The guy holding the device keeps looking at the dials saying, "louder, louder," as they creep slowly past.

    The speakers:

    Jo Ann Davidson, co-chair of the RNC, keeps pronouncing it "NAY-tional, NAY-tional." I’m unsure what that accent is, but it also leads her to proclaim the VP nominee’s name as "Sarah Paw-linty."

    Norm Coleman amps his East Coast tenor with several sprinkles of "haaaaahd" work, and other such classic JFK-isms. He tries a joke with the punchline of, "I’m not indecisive, am I? That coulda been an Obama campaign slogan!" The reporter beside me leans in and points out, "He used to be a Democrat, you know? Talk about indecisive."

    Rake favorite Michele Bachman takes the stage and makes Minnesotans look like a pack of idiots. "It’s not just a saying," her crazy-eyes open wider than could be healthy. "We really ARE nice here. We’re FRIENDLY, HAPPY PEOPLE! And we do have a lot of liberals in Minnesota, but they’re HAPPY liberals." How many times she repeats the words "happy" and "nice," she sounds like a foreign language learner who stopped trying after chapter one.

    Big cheers all around with any mention or jumbo-tron photo montage of Lincoln, Babs, Reagan, the usual. Babs and George Sr. do show up about halfway through the night, almost too much of a surprise for the giddy delegates to handle.

    Current President George W. Bush is introduced by his wife (in person) and speaks to the convention (via satellite). It’s only slightly awkward when he’s unsure how long to wait for laughs after cracking a joke. (Laura’s wearing a spicier outfit tonight, possibly in response to Cindy McCain’s hot number the night before. And it’s cute how she says the word "muh-skituh" when mentioning the pesky insect.) The scary stay-the-course steadfastness makes an appearance in Bush’s remarks when he proclaims, "To protect America we must stay on the OFFENSIVE."

    Miles McPherson, former San Diego Charger, current pastor, underscores that "Character is doing what’s right even when nobody’s looking." This was one of our core Army Values when I was in, although we used his phrasing as the definition for "integrity." There’s a lot of riling up the troops here that’s reminding me of past Army leaders’ attempts at the same.

    Each speaker is framed by bucolic, digitized, small-town backdrops. Sometimes they morph into wheat fields. Sometimes they’re stars and stripes. Always they are undeniably iconic Americana. And so is Miss Florida. And the brat kids wanting a plain burger. And even Norm Coleman’s gigantic teeth.

    I head back to the busses forgoing the media open bar. I’ve imbibed enough spirit here
    to keep me tipsy for a good long while.

  • Why Party Like a Rock Star When You Can Party Like a Delegate?

    Not yet near the doors of the Minneapolis Convention Center Sunday night and I am already handed Republican swag, in the form of a DVD. This DVD "as seen on CNN and FOX News" depicts on its cover the iconic image of a radical Islam toddler wielding a rifle. I politely put it in my purse as if I sincerely plan on watching.

    My guest and I are already out of sorts and being ushered in the doors through a Notre-Dame-like tunnel of earnest outcries. "Welcome to Minnesota!!" they shout. "Thank you, thank you, lovely place," we reflexively reply. We’re traipsing down a gawdy red carpet alongside thousands of genuine Republican delegates just thrilled about their Welcome Party. Having scored tickets, we’re thrilled too.

    Guests don the costume-y gear you might expect: patriotic scarves; gigantic elephant jewelry; nametags with lasso designs around the edges. There are cute elephant ears (worn on headbands), but I’d rather have the pastry. Billed as a "Red Carpet Affair," I didn’t know what to wear. Nor did, apparently, several of the delegates. But who is there to care? What with the free food and booze (as Kate Iverson so kindly mentioned I dig), most guests were quite contented. I heard one happy delegate urge his friend to move along from the meat carving station, "You can’t DRINK roast beef!"

    A few non-food or booze highlights (although the Bud Light Limes were surprisingly tasty):

    Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. These Republicans just can’t get enough of the guy. Naturally my guest brings up the Phil Hartman "History as it Really Happened" sketch in which Lincoln is shot for being so damn annoying and raunchy while watching that fateful play. And so, I can’t give the guy dressed as Lincoln any serious attention. Nor am I all that wowed by the semi-trailer-cum-Lincoln-museum parked along one wall of the auditorium. I do like the souvenir penny/ lapel pin they give me upon exit.

    Other vehicles on display include a 1986 prototype of Reagan’s Cadillac limousine. An excited volunteer points out that Reagan made a special request to have the roof raised three inches thereby accommodating his wearing a cowboy hat inside. What a diva.

    "FDR’s limo" is also there, but it isn’t really a limo, just an old car. Delegates checking it out joke, "I bet the Democrats were giving him crap about driving this thing around! His carbon footprint, HA!"

    Party-goers wait in a long line to walk through a replica of Air Force One. I wait awhile, then get antsy for more action and head to CNN’s mobile studio. In the doors of the bus and almost out again, the guide finally asks if we have any questions. "Yeah," I say, annoyed that he needs prompting to do his job, "So what goes on here?" The answer is actually well-delivered, once elicited (all their on-the-trail coverage is filmed and edited within the bus, and we’re allowed to see the control room).

    Norm Coleman’s teeth are maybe the greatest highlight of all. One really can’t appreciate their Chicklet-like quality without seeing them up close. Rent There’s Something about Mary to remind you what Matt Dillion’s teeth look like after he gets them "done" for her. And Coleman’s tiny head only makes those capped chompers more prominent. Norm’s L.A. wife waits glassily on his arm while my co-hort makes Beetlejuice remarks about his shrunken skull, surely loud enough to be heard.

    The think tank in charge of this operation spared no expense when it came to cultivating patriotism. The frequency and volume of Lee Greenwood’s "Proud to be an American" hearkens back to my Basic Training days in South Carolina. The loon calls piped into the restrooms are something altogether new.

    Perhaps most patriotic of all is Harriet, the 27-year old bald eagle on display. We could have gotten our picture taken with the elderly Harriet, but it was more fun watching others, imagining them the would-be victims when Harriet finally snaps. I bemoan the fact she’s kept in a poorly-disguised dog crate when traveling. "But that’s an eagle crate," my friend corrects me, and then asks if I think Harriet gives autographs. My American pride is at its all-time apex.

    Overheard:

    Big guy flanked for photo op by two Miss Teen Minnesota contestants proclaims: "This makes my whole [dag-gum] trip!! [Coo-coo!]"

    "Caramelized onions?! What WILL they think of NEXT?!"

    Several of the not-found-anywhere-else exhibits mentioned here (plus actual First Ladies’ gowns, a replica of the Oval Office, and a scale model of the White House) are still on display and open to the public during the Minneapolis Convention Center’s CivicFest. See "The Rake’s Secrets to Surviving the RNC" for more info. I can not guarantee they’ll give you caramelized onions if you go.

    Click HERE to read about my misadventures inside the Xcel.

  • A Book for Locals who Love Being Local

    With a few novels under his belt, Minneapolis literatus Bart Schneider tackles a type of local mystery fiction that swings somewhere between the present and the future…the very, very near future. Set during the National Republican Convention (coming to the Twin Cities in September), Schneider’s novel The Man in the Blizzard follows the character of Augie Boyer, an almost-to-seed private investigator dealing with a handful of personal issues alongside his fight against the right-wing hyper-conservative forces of evil. A liberal writer’s cliché? Maybe, but the story is just complex enough that there may be something for other ideologies, if one looks hard enough.

    At the outset, the reader finds out about Augie’s gluttony, his sinking testosterone, his impending divorce, and his pot addiction. Add to this a mysterious blonde violinist, some poetry-quoting cops, and a complicated neo-Nazi plot, and the narrative becomes almost laughable in its unreality. On the other hand, that might just be what Schneider intends; the tone of the narrative consistently swings somewhere between irreverence, melodrama, and emotional realism. The characters themselves seem to be extraordinarily witty, not unlike jesters and servants in Shakespearean plays that can spin double entendres with the best of them. At times, Augie invokes the spirit of a middle-aged male Juno. Incidentally, the novel references that movie anyway.

    The book is loaded with unashamedly proud references to Twin Cities perks, figures, and pop culture. A reader living in Minneapolis or St. Paul will most likely feel a warm smugness as they recognize the hip locations frequented by the characters: the Walker Sculpture Garden’s bridge, shops on Eat Street, Micawber’s, and many others. Barring the fact that not one of the characters ever visits the Mall of America, the novel could actually double as a rather excellent tourist guidebook. The fact that the characters know this much about their two cities-and all the related history and current events besides-borders on the unrealistic, and probably channels Schneider’s own educated background. Unfortunately, it might distance readers who are not used to such hyper-drive intellect shooting at them from fictional personalities.

    Then again, the characters together have good synergy. They form a sort of colorful Breakfast Club-type collective, which seems to be universally appealing to commercial audiences. Along with that, there are some moments of rather sweet emotion (e.g. a conversation between Augie and his estranged wife Nina at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts). The few conversations that actually seem natural and unpracticed are the bright spots of the novel, the places where the reader can actually relate to the characters. The Man in the Blizzard is also overtly political in nature; opinions voiced in the dialogue have very thin veils. In writing a novel that takes place in a hugely political situation, Schneider could have chosen to make the political conflict more complex in nature. Instead, he seems to perpetuate the tired stereotypes of the Christian fundamentalist right-wings and the loose, hippy liberalists, presumably to create more of the us-versus-them mentality that pervades crime fiction. Closer inspection does reveal moments of cognitive dissonance (Augie’s punk-liberal assistant regrets her past abortion), but the novel could have done much more with all the gray areas that make up true-to-life politics and true-to-life…well…life.

    This novel and genre is a venture into uncharted territory compared to Schneider’s past novels (largely historical fiction). To take that risk is commendable. The story is entertaining and full of vivid details, and the marketing tactic of releasing it slightly before its time setting is clever. Schneider does an admirable job of guessing at the near future, wrapping his hypotheses neatly into the narrative. Add these positives to the purer scenes of ordinary life, and The Man in the Blizzard could certainly be worth a read.

    The Man in the Blizzard will be released August 5.