Wednesday Night at the DNC

I jumped out of the car and quickly made my way down Market Street. Past the homeless, the suits, the lady suits and the enforcers I rapidly placed one foot in front of the other.

When you're close to flashing your press pass, people like this jump out at you.

All of them have causes and goals.

Of course, some are more entertaining than others.

Wednesday happened to be the day Rage Against the Machine played in the Denver Coluseum. Jeremiah attended then marched from the venue to the Pepsi Center along with hundreds of strangers. The police geared up and later, after I had left the Pepsi Center, I heard they got down. Pictures in the newspapers the next day showed protesters on the ground after being handled by Denver's finest.

This is the line to enter the perimeter of the Pepsi Center. Organization came into play this day. No more funneling, just one long line.

The escalator just inside the Pepsi Center.

The view from the third floor.

Former California governor Gray Davis.

The lady here is holding a sign stating the area behind her lacks sufficient seating for this gentleman. This kind of bullshit left me out of the area many times.

After I snapped a few photos from this area a security guard for the Pepsi Center walked up to me and said in a hushed tone, "Hey, um, secret service just ordered me to tell you that you're going to have to sit down now." I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah, you're going to have to find a seat." So I found a seat and seconds later two very suspicious gentlemen sat near by. Maybe they were Democratic spectators, but the area I chose to sit in was void of any one else. One man sat to my right and a couple seats down, while the other sat behind me and a couple seats to my left. Right about that point I realized I was thirsty and left to purchase a lemonade.

Bill Clinton is an American rock star.

Melissa Ethridge is an American.

They seemed to like her.

Hey, are these people reading? I can do that.

I left to walk around after Clinton spoke and while watching Biden on a TV, similar to the one above, a security guard approached me and said, "Obama is in the house." I ran to three doors before someone let me in. Then I posted up with my lens and waited.

Then he walked out.

This is Biden's family walking off the stage.

You are welcomed back out on the streets by people like this.

I actually shot these guys the next evening, but you'll never know.

Just remember, see through the bull shit.

Delays Constantly Find Me

The photos are out of order. Don't hate on me.

Attorney Gloria Allred

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez

Pepsi Center

Failing to produce regularly on this blog during an event as big as this sourly sits in my stomach. Let me briefly catch up since I’m tired and fighting to keep my eyes open. In my last post I mentioned waiting for Hillary Clinton to make an appearance at the California delegate breakfast. Well, she never showed. Instead, I snapped shots of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, attorney to the stars Gloria Allred and L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Following the breakfast, I followed Jess to the Colorado Convention Center to shoot video of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez while she spoke to the Hispanic caucus. To everyone’s surprise Hillary made an appearance.

I shot video of her speech and then attempted stills, but I suck at shooting under pressure especially when people are trying to crawl on top of you to snap the same shot. Some big time photojournalist with a nice and giant camera apparently didn’t see me while I stood on a chair directly in front of him. I almost crashed down on a lot of people when he forced his way in front of me. Of course he said sorry, but I’m learning there’s a different kind of sorry when you’re a journalist. It's the kind where nobody really means it.

One of the most interesting parts of the experience happened when Jess and I walked Sanchez to her next meeting. I ran to keep up. I tried to steady the camera. But with hundreds of people to navigate through the task was quite impossible. I’ll post the video of it soon.

After we ate lunch we hailed a cab and traveled to Congress Park where the Minutemen hosted a rally. Nothing exciting happened and people were scarce, but there was a lot of shit talking on immigrants.

That evening I went with Jess to the convention.

We have two credentials. One gets us onto the perimeter and the other gets us into the center. I walked the perimeter while Jess went inside. There’s really nothing going on outside. CNN took over on a restaurant, but a pass is needed to enter and then there were a few media tents and a hot dog truck, but other than that I sat and waited for my turn to enter.

When I did, Ted Kennedy began speaking. I ran up three flights of stairs only to find out nobody would let me in, well, I could have gone in if I wanted to sit behind a big black screen blocking any real view of the floor. I would have been forced to watch TV so I decided to leave. I was pissed and tired anyway. When you’re a college journalist, nobody really gives a shit.

That night we were up until 5 a.m. trying to upload content to www.dailytitan.com and then we woke the next morning around 9 a.m. to start all over.

I’m not doing much writing out here. I’ve shot pictures and video, but I haven’t truly covered a story. I’m the Internet editor out here just like my job title states back home at CSUF. Fun is still in the equation though.

On Tuesday I dropped Jess and Jeremiah off at different spots so they could cover events and I found a nice coffee house to sit and work on the site. That night I walked around town, while Jess and Jeremiah went to the convention. Unfortunately, while the convention is in full swing, the random chaos is absent from the streets. I couldn’t find anything interesting to photograph.

We ended our night with a few beers and returned to our little second-floor studio apartment. Between the three of us there is only two computers so while they hammered out some writing I fell asleep.














I’m itching to write about tonight's experience, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. But as a preview I’ll say I spent the whole evening by my self in the Pepsi Center watching people like Bill Clinton speak and then at the end I saw Barrack Obama. Hopefully the pictures I took came out considering I sat in the nosebleed seats.