Why Rock The Vote and Democratic Gain suck ass

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Democratic Gain made something on the order of 2000 young people go througha political training seminar to seed swing states with young political rabblerousers in an attempt to push these states towards Kerry. To celebrate the end of the training course, they threw a party at local club Avalon in conjunction with Rock The Vote to celebrate.

1. The 2000 kids who had done the training were made to wait outside for hours while VIPs and the well-connected (ie, guestlist folks and people like my houseguests) were brought right in. Even Democratic Gain staffers had problems getting in; one guy I talked to said the only reason he was inside was because he was escorting the kids in wheelchairs and he actually had to threaten to tell the news crews that they weren't letting in the wheelchair kids before any of them were let in.

2. The event was hosted by Free of 106th and Park "fame". She was shrill and nonsensical.

3. We got inaudible "rabble-rousing" speeches from Natalie Portman and Amber Tamblyn, neither of whom seems to know how to use a microphone. We also got an interesting speech from the president of Rock The Vote who encouraged the kids to drink (at the cash bar) and eat (from the VIP-only food).

4. The musical guests in order of appearance were Mission Of Burma (okay, so they were Nirvana precursors and just released an album but NO ONE BUT ME KNEW WHO THEY WERE and they didn't play the one song by them I know), Biz Markie (seriously, off the chain amazing), The Executioners (again, off the chain), an HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTE LONG BREAK to set up for a random hip-hop jazz fusion band that no one knew, who jammed uncomfortably for 25 minutes until SPECIAL SECRET GUEST LAURYN HILL wandered out on stage, played a random new song about how all politicians are evil and want to eat the still-beating heart from your baby's chest while pissing in your dead mother's gouged-out eye sockets, yelled at her band to shut up and played the song AGAIN after yelling at the crowd to LISSEN TO THE LURRICS, then said, "Oops, my time is up" and wandered back off stage.

5. The Clintons were supposed to be there. They weren't. People stayed until 2:00 AM to see them, then spent a good long while booing the Democratic Party when they didn't show.

On the plus side, Biz Markie is a genius and I can't think of any other political party where "Get Low" would get played. Also, the Executioners started a fantastic "FUCK BUSH!" chant. Also, Al Sharpton was there and he was CLOWNING.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, also there were free samples of that new Ben & Jerry's flavor that's strawberry cheesecake-flavored; that was cool.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I am half horrified and half jealous. And that Lauryn Hill story is about what I figured. But Biz!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

weren't tickets to this $1,000.00 a pop?

― kephm, Monday, 26 July 2004 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Yesterday I was approached by no less than a half-dozen Democratic Gain campaigner-types and asked for donations. Part of their training needed to focus on how not to be incredibly annoying, and where Colombia, Peru and Iran are located ... I tried to chat with one of 'em, and hit dead-end after blind-alley. So disenchanting, innit?

― itsa me, mario! (x Jeremy), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I have no idea how much tickets were because I DID NOT PAY (suck on that, wheelchair kids). We didn't even know it was going on until about 4:30 PM yesterday.

Biz Markie played the theme songs to "The Jeffersons", "Fat Albert and Friends", and "Welcome Back, Kotter". He is a genius.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahaha. I would have killed to hear that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"suck on that, wheelchair kids"

you need to find other contexts in which to say this, as often as possible.

this sounds kind of amazing. biz markie???

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Biz Markie played the theme songs to "The Jeffersons", "Fat Albert and Friends", and "Welcome Back, Kotter". He is a genius.

you know, biz markie really reminds me of big youth. does anyone else make this connection?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Man, for a rant about how much this event sucked, there sure seems to have been a lot to love: The Biz!! Mission of Burma playing to the unconverted!! The goofed-out rage of the Grammy-winning Lauryn Hill!! The booing of the party by the faithful!! Fuck Bush!!

― briania (briania), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

disabled kids left out in the rain!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic time. I just think that Democratic Gain and Rock The Vote are incredibly mismanaged. There's NO LEGITIMATE REASON to deny access to the kids the party is supposed to be rewarding (or to hold the party in a venue that can't fit everyone you've invited but that's another issue endemic to having a big party in Boston) and they completely killed the momentum by spending the time between 12:15 and 1:35 setting up for Lauryn Hill's band, then killed MORE momentum by letting Lauryn loll around backstage until 1:55, causing so much unrest that the guitarist had to beg the crowd to stick with it because "something really cool was going to happen" (followed by an anemic live band rendition of the "Tipsy" beat, ha ha).

The crowd had been shouting "WE WANT BILL" from about midnight on. We were sort of hoping it would erupt into a riot when he ended up as a no show. The worst tihng about it is that they must have known before 2:00 AM (which is the cutoff time in Boston) that Clinton wasn't coming and should have made the announcement then instead of keeping everyone sitting around waiting and then dropping the bad news at 2:05 (after keeping half the people outside until 1:45).

Also, momentum-wise the band order was wrong. They should have done:

Mission of Burma
Lauryn Hill
The Executioners
Biz Markie

Or, they could have just had the Biz spin all night. That would have been tight. He did an old-school set and ACTUALLY PLAYED OLD SCHOOL ("Planet Rock", "Rapper's Delight", "I'm Bad", "The Way It Is").

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

yuppies be rioting

― kephm, Monday, 26 July 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

The boosterism was kind of hysterical.

Dean - "Bush is hurting you, the middle-class!"
Kids - "Yeah! My dad can barely afford his Lexus!"

When Howard Dean took the stage, everyone did the madman hoot at him. I love young people.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

the absence of the long-awaited bill clinton/biz markie collab is really to be regretted.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, the Kerry daughters are much more articulate than the Edwards daughter. They were also kind of hysterical because they kept threatening to embarrass Kerry as retaliation for their teenage years and one of them volunteered the other one to fill in for The Executioners.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

isn't the edwards daughter like 7 years old?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

"daddy i crapped my pants"

audience: "woot woot woot woot"

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Am, that's pretty much what Amber Tamblyn said. At least, that's my assumption because I couldn't hear a word she said.

Another favorite moment: Dean brings on a horde of young people carrying "I'm Young/I'm Registered/I'm Voting" signs and places front-and-center on stage their chaperone (seriously, this woman was 45 if she was a day and therefore looked a little silly waving her sign).

We also saw Bill O'Reilly earlier that day at a Harvard K-School event. We met a K-School alum who wanted to roll on him. We egged him on but nothing happened.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

who is amber tamblyn?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/joan_of_arcadia/

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

She was also Dawn's slutty friend on Buffy. She should have stayed in the shadows of obscurity.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

She also got JACKED UP in the American version of "The Ring".

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds like she's already suffered enough.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

by "K-School" do you mean Kennedy School, Dan? Interesting that O'Reilly was there since he wasn't asked to be on the panel (Brokaw, Rather, Jennings, Judy Woodruff, Jim Lehrer, etc.) for the discussion of the media's role in presidential elections...

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 26 July 2004 15:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes I do. We also saw THE RENO! She is feminine-looking in person!

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Janet Reno? Whoa.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Amber Tamblyn = also this guy's daughter:

http://www.filmkultura.hu/2002/articles/essays/images/twinpeaks/twinpeaks16.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

i was gonna ask that, jaymc, but i thought it was a long shot!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha, I was going to ask if she was Russ' daughter, too!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Because the most important thing about this week is that all the kids who do less work than the bigwigs get into the right parties!

isn't the edwards daughter like 7 years old?

He has two. One is 4, the other is 22.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 26 July 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

It was the most important thing about this event, Gabbneb, or are you being purposefully disingenuous about the importance of showing appreciation for someone volunteering their time to your cause?

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, after rereading your initial sarcastic statement, feel free to eat a dick.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 July 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Mission of Burma played! Awesome!

It's true that Natalie Portman deserved to give a speech as she's on a higher political level than the average person for some reason.

She should've compared the Bush administration to The Empire and Kerry to Han Solo and Al Sharpton to Lando.

― David Allen (David Allen), Monday, 26 July 2004 18:49 (twenty-one years ago)

WHO IS SKYWALKER

― Whiskeytown Littlecock (ex machina), Monday, 26 July 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Edwards?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 26 July 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, after rereading your initial sarcastic statement, feel free to eat a dick.

OK, fine, maybe it's mean to suggest that the GAIN attendees (like just about everyone else who descends on this event) are overly-self-important. But if so, why is it ok to say that the people who made their event possible 'suck ass'? Big, temporary, security-heavy event run by people in politics being disorganized shocker.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 26 July 2004 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16800-2004Jul26.html

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I17464-2004Jul27

― Kingfish von Bandersnatch (Kingfish), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Just noticed that. I now see what Dan was talking about.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 13:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, also there were free samples of that new Ben & Jerry's flavor that's strawberry cheesecake-flavored; that was cool.

THIS ICE CREAM IS LIKE CRACK TO ME GIVE ME MORE OMG WTF

― TheRealJMod (TheRealJMod), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040726/i/r2289536158.jpg

here we see Biz Markie's thick funk & old-school beatz giving Terry McAullife the vapors...

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040726/i/r1786816326.jpg

...no comment.

― Kingfish von Bandersnatch (Kingfish), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

best b&j's is cool brittania but i can see how that flavor wouldn't wash in an election year. huckleberry hussein is another unfortunate victim of our political climate.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

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