It’s hard to forget the political conventions I’ve covered. But sometimes, I feel, it would be a good idea.
Today, conventions seem, on the surface at least, about less and less. They mostly exist as a fancy feast for fat cats and the creatures of the media industrial complex.
They try to hold the country’s attention for the better part of a week, but without really having anything new or illuminating to say!
So why is it a good idea for an artist to cover them? Because we do very well with BS. We know how to sift through it and find stuff you can use. In fact we find it nourishing.
So for the next week we will focus on Tampa, which happens to be about 84 miles from Walt Disney World . . . and is, very possibly, now an even greater Fantasyland.
Like many protesters I will be confined to a specially designated area (in my case in a completely uncredentialed apartment in New York).
But with enough pizza and beer I expect to be able to see Tampa and Charlotte from my house.
For the conventions I will be doing a live blog for thenation.com, posting regularly, producing dignified art. These characters, though, really draw themselves.
Just had this idea: what if we thought of the candidates as mash-ups of personalities and archetypes? So who would Paul Ryan, for example, be a mash-up of? Perhaps Howdy Doody meets Arnold Schwarzenegger?
And Mitt Romney? Maybe Gordon Gekko meets Mr. Bean.
So check out my flowing cluster-mash for convention weeks.
The live blog begins Monday Aug 27. Grovel to grovel coverage. Going Koch to Koch. At thenation.com.
