Obama's Speech: Why I Skipped The Biggest Celebrity Moment Of The Week

Posted at 5:53 PM Aug 29, 2008

By Kenny Herzog

Before NCDSUV shutters its doors for the holiday weekend (it is almost time for the Sabbath after all), I realized some of you may be wondering about the absence of commentary regarding Barack Obama’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention. Well, for one, I was too busy belly laughing over Van Halen’s righteously rockin’ anger at John McCain’s co-opting of “Right Now” to type coherent sentences.

But more pointedly, I have to confess: I wasn’t particularly inspired to sit through the complete director’s cut when I could get the theatrical edit on YouTube and barely miss a beat on the cultural discourse.

There was a time (let’s call it 2004) when, as a journalist, I would keep a running diary of debates, conventions and elections, as a way of playing middle man to the masses who wanted the basic jist, with a bit of editorialized insight.

But now I have been replaced by a machine, as it were, and merely function as another post-reactionary voice putting their two cents on an immediately rendered and media player-ready public consensus.

Admittedly, I felt like a liberal phony as I passed by the open doors of neighborhood taverns, passersby crowded around their TV sets like a scene outside an electronics store in an old movie. That being said, I’ve long since gotten over the notion of Fireside Chats for the Internet generation, and in an era where everything is televised and reproduced on websites worldwide, it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish truly historic moments. And it doesn’t help that I probably retain more disillusionment from Bush V. Kerry than I’ve been willing to concede.

Besides, I already know who I’m going to vote for. And it’s satisfying enough that our current leader is enjoying his final summer nights sipping spiked iced teas on the White House porch. Oddly enough, what I regret more than any skipped-over speech or convention christening is having missed the fucking Van Halen reunion tour this year.