aboutcontactsubscribe

Upcoming Convention Liveblog for The Nation

AUGUST 22, 2012
Here's the first post on my new blogsite at The Nation. I am going to be ringside (at my TV) for the duration of these spectacular events deliriously blogging each night and doing . . . who knows what. I don't think you need any self medication to see these, especially Tampa, as a vast, surreal orgy of willful stupidity and morbid sadism to make Fellini spin like a sonofabitch, not to mention Lincoln or Ike. So anyway, here goes nothin'. Please visit during the procedings (which I will either keep up with or completely ignore) or anytime.
 

I’ve covered many political conventions over the years. They are hard to forget, but sometimes I think it would be a good idea.
 

Today, conventions seem to be about very little. They mostly exist as a fancy feast for fat cats and the creatures of the media-industrial complex.

They hold the country’s attention for the better part of a week, but without really having anything new or very revealing 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 eighty-four 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 an uncredentialed apartment house 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 posting regularly on my live blog on TheNation.com, FacebookTwitter andTumblr, producing my dignified art. These characters, though, pretty much draw themselves.

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 clustermashorama for the weeks of both conventions.The liveblog begins Monday, August 27. Grovel-to-grovel coverage. Going Koch to Koch. At my blog on TheNation.com.

© 2024 Steve Brodner