Photo: Getty
Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla is on the ground in Denver for the Democratic National Convention and blogging for RollingStone.com. Here’s his first dispatch:
On the stereo: Fleetwood Mac, “Walk a Thin Line”
My nearest frame of reference for a political convention like the DNCC is SXSW, the annual indie rock melee in Austin, Texas. We’ve been there as a band a handful of times, and I’ve been twice on my own. It’s a train wreck of logistics: Hundreds of bands (many self-managed and very literally independent) trying desperately to find their credentials, their gigs, their accommodations (often the floors of friends) and perhaps most importantly their free beer. There’s definitely free beer to be found, but it’s something of a treasure hunt in Austin.
The free drinks seem easier to come by here at the DNCC, but everything else is much more difficult than SXSW. For one, there are black helicopters everywhere and snipers on rooftops, that sort of thing. More riot cops than I remember even at the WTO in Seattle in 1999. And mounted police. Bigass horses on every corner between about 15th and 19th Streets, for a few blocks on either side of Broadway downtown.
I’m desperately trying to get my bearings here in Denver — this here mess is tricky to navigate, both in physical and logistical terms. Last night, though, I was lucky enough to get into the reception for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She’s quite the force, much more commanding in person than she sometimes appears on television, and she led an impressive pep rally for the hundred or so House reps, TV producers and guests gathered there. Free wine, but no beer to be found. Funny little expensive-looking hors d’oeuvres. And I think Henry Winkler was there.
My new favorite rep, though, is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, from Florida’s 20th district — Broward County, including Fort Lauderdale. She introduced the speaker at the reception, and while I won’t claim to know much about her legislative history (though she appears to be quite the firebrand, looking through her House page), I was fully taken aback by her authority, her warmth and her ability to actually speak into a microphone (not just near it, as is so often the case. There should be some kind of microphone test in public speaker school; you just sound like a wimp if you don’t do it right). She is, as they say, the real deal.
A little later last night I was introduced to Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont who is, in my personal opinion, a total badass. If it weren’t for his leadership (he’s the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) we’d still be stuck with Alberto “Howdy Doody” Gonzales as our Attorney General. And of course I froze when I met him and couldn’t say much more than “thank you” and polite stuff like that. But I was reminded yet again, as I have been many times over the last 10 years, that I play in a band with a uniquely difficult name: Death Cab for Cutie isn’t the sort of moniker that any career politician can get too cozy with, without some serious scrutiny. And Leahy is the very definition of “career politician.” It was a pleasant and affirmative, but very short, interaction. Suffice it to say that I doubt we’ll be texting one another in the days ahead.
Next post: Chris Walla on Resisting the Urge to Punch Bill O’Reilly
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• Rage Against the Machine To Play Protest Show During DNC
• Lupe Fiasco, Tom Morello to Play Union Festival on RNC’s Opening Day
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