Sunburned for Change Part II
Mom to Me May 21 (1 day ago)
My friend, who has been sick since March and has just had her tonsils out in an attempt to get at whatever is wrong with her (have I pulled on your heartstrings yet?) is DYING to see your Obama photos. Please help make her recuperation easier by getting them posted.
NOW.
You people are vultures!
So the special lady friend and I thought we’d be clever on Sunday and show up an hour before doors were supposed to open for the Obama rally at Waterfront Park. But when we got downtown we hit an enormous line of people, the problem being that we were still about 15 blocks from the park. Instead of getting in line, however, we headed to the gates as we had arranged to meet her parents at that intersection. Her parents, somehow oblivious to the fact that there was a giant snaking river of people behind them, were just standing right by the entrance. Being the type to seize opportunities when we see them, we blended in with them and when the gates opened, just casually walked in with the first couple hundred people (that had been hanging out since about 7 in the morning). Unfair I know, but goddammit I have a really nice camera. That should get me something, right?
We staked out an area about 20 feet away from the podium, which ensured we would not be able to watch The Decemberists when they played as they were on a different stage. Bumming off the better-prepared people around us, we slathered ourselves in two or three different brands of sunscreen and got busy standing around for three hours. Every time I looked around at the crowd and thought they couldn’t POSSIBLY squeeze more people in, they’d pack another couple thousand in. Finally when conditions were sufficiently sardine-like they quit admitting, but people were not deterred and an additional 15,000 gathered outside the gates hoping to hear the speech.
After the band finished, an hour of O-BA-MA chanting and a couple introductions later, the Obamas finally took the stage for that weird public family hugging thing politicians do and he started his speech. I’ve heard the basic speech a zillion times by this point, save for a couple Portland-related flourishes (you should have heard the bike cult EXPLODE when he mentioned that the rest of America could learn from Portland’s progressive approach to alternative transportation), so I was free to focus on taking photos rather than get inspired (not that I wasn’t inspired; hearing him speak in person was incredible).
He must have only spoke for about 45 minutes then made the quick round of handshakes, which we were stampeded out of taking advantage of. Afterwards this OCEAN of people spilled into the streets like some epic zombie movie, halting traffic for at least the next 30 minutes. It was pretty surreal, and the mild sunburns we received were more than worth it.
Two days later we voted (yeah, I’m an Oregon registered voter now — weird, eh?), and Obama beat out whats-her-name by an embarrassing margin.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I hope everyone notes that it took you more than 24 hours AFTER my heartfelt plea for you to actually get the stuff posted.
Any more crowd pictures?
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Not from a different vantage point, no. I was pretty boxed into my location.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Every picture with his hand up, in mid sentence, I can only think of him saying meaningful words. Like “progress” “future” “prosperity” “economy” “change” “Jell-O Pudding Pops” “adversity” Things like that. It’s kind of fun.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:43 am
Oh and I didn’t get around to responding to your mail because for what was probably the first time in…at least five years, I didn’t check my mail for 24 hours. I hope your friend wasn’t literally dying.
I think I actually had a slightly better vantage point than the official press, who were oddly positioned BEHIND the podium (here’s a shot of the worst press seating). If you look at 90% of the AP photos of the event, they’re shots of the back of Obama’s head in front of an out-of-focus sea of people.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:12 am
For a good laugh, scope out the ANTI-MSM conspiracy theorist comments here. They all take turns posting images of past events at Waterfront, “proving” that the park couldn’t possibly hold as many people as claimed, and shriek “FAKE!” between ominous bible passages and some unfounded rumors about free beer and free iPods. What? *rolls eyes* I wish.
It’s really just as simple as that many Portlanders wanting to see Obama. The pictures of festivals they show, with crowds of about 15-20,000, look dense from a distance, but there is clearly elbow room. You literally could not move in this crowd; it could EASILY be three times as densely populated. AND no pictures listed show the multitudes of people OUTSIDE the circle of trees surrounding the rally’s boundaries.
Lastly, about claims that all these people showed up just to hear The Decemberists: The Decemberists are a local band that the majority of Portlanders are fucking sick of; they’ve gotten so big, it is no longer cool to like them. Believe me, the crowd was NOT really into the concert. Many people around me made comments to the extent of “God I hate these guys.” They tried some audience participation stuff and the response was lukewarm at best. On top of this, after The Decemberists played, there was an additional hour of standing around. It was 90 goddamn degrees…don’t you think these people would have left after the band finished up? On the contrary, the crowd continued to grow after the band had finished. I have photos of the crowd during the band’s set and photos afterward — many people waited until the concert was over to show up, rather than stand in the sun for 3 hours.
I was there, there were a godzillion goddamn people. There is no global Photoshop conspiracy, Obama is the popular candidate, deal with it. Christ.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Liberal conspiracy theories? Oh Brother.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:02 am
It’s the Masons, they’re behind everything. Them and the Illuminati. Oh, and Rachael Ray and the terrorists too of course.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:30 am
A Christian gave me a book called the Illuminati to read and in it I think they tied Masons to Middle Easterners and various terrorist sects and made them all one big Illuminati family. That’s how their twisted little Christian heads work. That’s why we need to join the Illuminati and persecute them all over again.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Sign me up.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
May 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I really like the picture of you on your dads shoulders.