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The RNC.  This happened a while ago… but it was… what’s the word they kept using… ‘historic!’  That’s it.

Imagine, if you will, it is a time of political upheaval and unrest.  The quaint Midwestern metropolis of St. Paul is suddenly overrun and occupied by idiots of all political standings. The time was late August, in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Eight. It was the eve of the Republican National Convention, and the drunken Irish town that could was in for a week of more frightful sights than a commercial for Valley Scare.

On August 28^th, it was a cool summer afternoon (I mean, probably, I don’t actually remember) when I left my stuffy desk job in search of noble charitable triumphs and creatures of the night.  Rock the Cause was putting on a benefit to help children in communities in Africa devastated by the evil AIDs virus, and had asked us to come and help.  The theme for the show was “ATTACK OF THE 50FT ROCKER IN 3D”

Maudlin arrived at the show in style in our gaudy, jewel-encrusted limo, ‘Samantha.’ Because it was a charity event, and we feel pity for the ‘little persons, we commanded our driver, David (ironically, that’s my name too, but I can’t drive a limo legally…) to give rides to other people who didn’t have jewel-encrusted limos  so that they wouldn’t feel bad.  We also commanded Pat O’Brian of howwastheshow.com to interview them, even though it would be far less newsworthy than the interview he did with us on the red carpet.  The red carpet itself was immaculate. It was sewn with the skins of baby seals, black rhinos, and democrats, and was graciously donated by the GOP for the event. We did many other fancy things on the red carpet, because we could.

Of course, after our glorious entrance, the masses demanded we perform. We explained that that’s why we were actually there in the first place, but they would not stop screaming for us to play until we took the stage with all the majesty befitting a band who used fancy cigarette filters. How did it go? Well, friends, we were amazing.  Missed chords?  Out of key vocals?  …I don’t remember, probably not important.  What was important was that we rock the place.  Melted face parts were everywhere.………………
Then, in a historic moment, at the end of the show, as we violently flailed about, I ruthlessly smashed my bass as though it were a cheap used instrument I had bought from a pawn shop for $59.00 just for the purpose of smashing it. It was legendary.  After us, some other bands that were ok too played.  Some did before us as well.

Later on in the evening we went to the famed Weber Estate in Minneapolis, a place so insanely cool that my trying to exaggerate it here would probably hurt someone. But what I can tell you is that Priscilla and I both scored with aliens from the Twilight Zone.  …and they have some freaky moves…

Of course, we’re workaholics (no punintended) so we also took an opportunity to snap a few promotional shots for one of Maudlin’s corporate sponsors, Sacre Bleu wine. Their wine is good, buy it.

Eventually we went to sleep or something and it was all over…

BUT THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…a few days later the Dreaded Republican National Convention (RNC) began. ‘So What,’ says you, ‘I once met a republican while walking alone in the woods.  At first I was scared, but he seemed just as scared of me as I was of him.’  Fair enough, but the Republicans did not come to St. Paul alone to hike in our scenic woodlands, they came with a bazillion armed guards, cameras, protesters, and likely many of the nobles of the thirteen bloodlines.  There was probably a Reticulan or two as well.

So what did all this mean for Maudlin?  Well, naturally when the most important delegates in the galaxy descend on a city for a convention, they will need entertainment.  The City of Saint Paul foolishly asked McNally Smith College of Music to find musicians and let them lose on the city.  The school lazily passed the responsibly on to the student body because they clearly overestimate the education they provide.  I was contacted by an informant within the school who suggested we play, so I contacted the under qualified mass running the show and they leaped at the chance to have us.  We were told we would be at an undisclosed location for security purposes, and that we would meet at the school where an orange wagon would take us to the area we would perform. We were also promised gyros.

……Upon arriving at the meeting point -an hour late, we were mortified to find out that the ‘wagon’ we were supposed to use to get to our performance area was a freaking radio flyer… A freaking radio flyer. The students were unaware that their conveyances were actually childrens’ toys.

Terrified of an impending riot that was predicted, they informed us that one of our sets had been cut and that we should rush to our spot and play for only a short time before running for our lives.  They said that we could even take shelter in the school  so that we wouldn’t die a horrible death at the hands of poop-flinging protesters.  We, of course, informed them that we were Maudlin.  No one was going to throw poop at us. Then they informed us that we weren’t supposed to bring all the crap we brought, and that they had encouraged acoustic, unamplified performances.  …We then informed them that we knew what they ‘recommended’ but we weren’t a bunch of pussies. So like pirates, we captured several other radio flyers from lesser musicians who were sailing about the open seas of the RNC  in order to carry all the stuff.

We got down to the area we were supposed to play, which was a block over from the Excel Center and adjacent to the Death Star.  Naturally we plugged our crap and started blasting face parts all over and rolling around on the sidewalk. Of course the student weenies told us we were too loud, and that we should be more quit or we might disturb people.  Priscilla got snippy with the lady and, I though we were going to see blood, but then we just pretended to turn down like we always do in these situations.

Anyway, the crowd of people randomly walking by loved us. We had positive comments from both Republican’s and protestors.  Emperor Palpatine gave us a nod when he was walking past, and Count Dracula actually asked for an autograph after the show.  We were interviewed by MPR and a ton of people took pictures that I’ve never seen…  I made lots of jokes about the Illuminati and Priscilla got nervous after we saw a delegate shapeshift so she told me to shut up.  …I didn’t.

Anyway, we got done and had a good time, and then the nerdlingers of McNally Smith were whining about how we needed to leave, and if we stayed it would be at our own risk and the school would not be responsible for our broken bodies after the impending riots happened.  I made sarcastic rude remarks under my breath about how I thought they were dumb and I didn’t like them because they were bossy and snotty.  It was a stark contrast to the treatment we got at the 50ft rocker show.

Because we knew they were dumb, we stayed after the show for about five hours to prove we weren’t going to die or get hit by poop.  We hung out with the SWAT team for a good long time.  They were a hoot, and the once we were hanging out with were very much in support of peaceful protests.  They were afraid of rumors that some protestors intended to throw HIV infected blood at them.  I guess the poop and fermented pee they had been throwing could have been HIV infected too… but I didn’t mention that too them.

One of the hotcops there (yeah, there were even more than one… it was like afreakin robocop movie!) was totally crushing on me because of how rad I am. Priscilla didn’t really get any attention from anyone though, I think she got jealous of me and hotcop.

Anyway, then we went to hang out with the protestors too.  We spent a longtime there, but all the pictures we took were on real film sitting right here on my desk… we’ll get it developed sometime… But, that was wildly interesting too. The Ron Paul delegates came out and were protesting with the crowds, demanding that the police let the protesters march downtown.  The city was keeping them out of the downtown area because their permit for assembly had expired… I had thought the bill of rights was more or less of permit for assembly, but I guess there are some gray areas.  Darth Vader came by and told one delegate, ‘I am altering the bill of rights, pray that I don’t alter it any further.’  And after he had already arrested Han Solo, few argued.  Eventually we left to go to the art store for screen printing supplies.  The store closed at 8pm so we rushed over and made it just in time.  Also at about 8pm police started tear gassing to break up the crowds.

Anyway, that’s about it… Comments?  Questions?

David