Freelance Thursday...
Here is a - well, thing - about the fantastic time I had when Senator Barack Obama came to speak at the University of Maryland. It actually took place on February the eleventh, but I'm slow.
I was at the Comcast Center at five-twenty in the morning chekcing in press, pushing a garage door button, and telling people "No, you can't go this way." Fun stuff. Some things I would like to share with you:
1. The Secret Service really are smug bastards with weird ear pieces, shiny shoes, and long, black jackets, just like in the movies.
2. They do not care about what is convenient for you.
3. Reporters actually have feelings. They get sad pretty easily, I found.
4. It is very, very difficult to get people to take an young-ish looking girl on the short side seriously.
5. However, if you have an official campaign card and look harassed, you can make it work.
6. It is remarkably easy to snag an event press pass, add your name to the list, and sneak up onto the main press risers to take pictures.
7. I did exactly that.
8. There needs to be a law prohibiting deejays from playing "Umbrella." "Ella...ella..." is still ringing in my head.
9. Cops will take directions from you if they think you're someone important. (Ha! Fooled 'em!)
10. Most campaign staffers are hateful, hateful people. They do not trust you to have good judgEment when speaking about the Senator and therefore forbid you from answering questions from the press. We had to turn down interviews. After the event, though...
11. Doug Gansler is a fantastic person.
12. Barack Obama is even more awesome.
13. Seriously.
14. It is damn cold outside at five o'clock in the morning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Nice. How'd you snag this job? And did you actually get to meet Obama, or just the secret service people and the campaign underlings?
And I totally know what you mean in #4...not to mention, I'm shorter than you, and until I got a hair cut, looked a lot younger. :P That and I suck at leadership or telling people what to do...I was always the one who just did the work for the group project by themselves while the rest of the group argued over it, lol.
So even though you had a campaign card, you still had to steal a press pass? And are these pictures on facebook?!!
Haha, I'm surprised they still play all the classic "waiting" songs like Umbrella at something like an election speech.
What did u direct the cops to do?
Who is Doug Gansler? (i could wiki this, but I don't feel like it, lol)
And the 5 in the morning thing is true everywhere, even in CA, though compared to here CA's 5am weather is pretty darn warm, lol.
Post a Comment