American Dreamer: The Circus
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.
By Kid Beyond
Monday morning. Just finished the 18-hour drive from Black Rock to Denver -- Steve and I switching shifts throughout the night, fueled by Radiohead, live Floyd, Rage Against the Machine and drive-thru Burger King.
I’m aching to augment my 2.5 hours of sleep, but there’s only enough time to wash the playa dust out of most of my crevices and head downtown to the Circus.
And a circus it is: part rock concert, part revival meeting, part infomercial, part telethon.
The energy in the halls of the Pepsi Center is, appropriately, a caffeinated, refreshingly caramel-colored sugar-rush. Wide-eyed first-time delegates plod slowly, overstimulated, jostled brusquely by jaded power brokers, merchandise hawkers, preachers, Teamsters, volunteers, Secret Service agents, and media squads from Fox News to YouTube to local public radio. Identity cliques -- Hispanic Caucus, LGBT, teen vote -- travel in packs. Celebrities from Hollywood and politics suddenly appear -- their star power creating instant clumps of handlers, hangers-on, well-wishers, cameramen, and gawkers -- and disappear just as quickly.
In one 60-minute stretch I pass Spike Lee, John Kerry, Maria Shriver, will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, Gray Davis, Bill Richardson, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Barney Frank, Sam Donaldson, Charles Gibson, two guys from the Daily Show, and yoga starlet Seane Corn.
The convention, while a lot less dusty than Burning Man, is no less tribal. On the playa I marvel at the diversity of the nudists, bikers, yoginis, furries, gearheads, pyros, pranksters, huggers, rollers. I get the same feeling here: a gathering of tribes so diverse -- each pursuing their own interests and passions, following their own narrative thread -- you wonder if there's any overlap at all, any common ground.
In both places, we look to the center for answers: this Man in the middle (an XY of the species in both cases), a larger-than-life figure on a pedestal that everyone's circling around, ostensibly the reason they're all here -- but everyone seems to realize that he can only do so much. That he's ultimately an empty vessel for their own hopes and dreams and intentions and energy. The real event is not in the center of the circle, but on the circumference.
I speak with delegates who are here for their sixth convention, their seventh or tenth. They see more first-time delegates this year, a younger crop than ever, more energetic, more diverse.
"The progressive movement has come a long way in the last 8 to 10 years," says Eden James of the Courage Campaign, a California-focused progressive activist network. “That's reflected in Obama's nomination. He's not feeding the movement, or even supporting it necessarily, but he's benefiting from it. Many of the folks inside this hall were probably outside the hall in 2000."
Franklin Delano Williams, a delegate from Augusta, GA, is one of them. He's been coming since '68, but this is the first convention where he's a delegate rather than a protestor. What was he protesting? "Everything. Anti-war, you name it." He has this advice for the crowds outside: "After you're finished protesting, go back to your precinct and go to work. Take it all the way back home. It all starts locally."
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