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Vice Blog

ST. LOUIS - VICE LBS THE VPDB


Hey, you. You there… guy. Remember that business we did for last week's debate where we watched it and provided running "analysis" in poorly-typed three- to four-minute increments? We are doing it again for tonight's Vice Presidential chat sesh and this one's bound to be good since it is basically the climax from an early-90s Disney live-action movie. We've also got a live correspondent on the ground at Washington U who'll be providing live updates from the ground, live. So check back here starting a little before 9 EST, unless you're at that Richard Kern thing we told you you should go to.

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6:29: Wow, could we have found a worse picture to use for this thing? What, did we just put up the first thing we found on google image?

6:50: Now we're talking. Ha ha ha, look at that face he's making. He's totally like "Wha?" Photo by AP.

6:57: OK, a lot of people here are badmouthing the new photo. Am I the only one who finds this funny? Look at it. He looks like he's fucking Jughead or something. Who opens their mouth like that, all crookedy? I don't know, maybe I just need to eat something.

7:01: See what I'm saying?

7:10: Gettin some 'za. Back in a few.

8:36: Just got in our first update from our guy in St. Louis, Christian. Christian sez: "Yo, this is Christian. Shit is bonkers here. Helicopters woke me up this morning, circling over my block. I just saw the taping of that tv show with Chris Matthews, and it confirmed my suspicions that he is indeed a short, white man. Anyway, since I couldn't actually get tickets to the debate, I will be LB'n from the closest spot I can get to: the security checkpoint about a football field away from the building where the debates are being held. Should be exciting. Also, I am not going to to make any Sarah Palin jokes. However, for the record, I would totally Adam and Eve it with her."

8:49: Apparently, we aren't being "poignant" enough for some people. Duly noted, Canty.

8:50: Also for the record, Christian is a college student. That's why he talks like that.

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8:55: Christian also sent some pics of the bedlam he's in the middle of. Why do these kind of things always draw out the most impy of our society?

Shit. Crap's starting.

9:05: OK, it takes waaaay too long to put up pictures. We're going to have to save them for the end. What was up with that deal where Palin asked if she could "call him Joe" into Biden's mic? Is that some sort of Pacific Northwest deal?

9:07: I studied up on some of these liveblogs since the last one and it seems like the better part of them just summarize what's going on and every once in a while add something in. I think this is pretty stupid since we're all watching the same thing, but let me know if you all'd rather we switch over into that mode. Right now Sarah Palin is trying to liken the country's financial crisis to a teen who stole their parents' credit card.

9:11: See? You didn't need me to say that, you just watched it. Right now Biden is talking about some dude named "Joey."

9:15: For all this woman may appeal to the dopey middle-aged dreamers among us, is she ever going to bomb with everybody who spent their teen years incubating their hate for PTA moms in the suburbs. She's literally the character who'd get spraypainted in the face n the middle of a Suicidal Tendencies video.

9:19: I hate when they placedrop like that. Look at me, I'm from Scranton. I'm just a hard-working boilermaker like you, unemployed guy.

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9:21: Glad we're on the same page re: describing things. I like this "What promise are you going to break?" question. It's like when they ask you what your greatest weakness is at a job interview.

9:23: Mine is laziness.

9:24: That is EXACTLY the answer you're not supposed to give to that question. She more or less just told America "Well I guess sometimes I can be too motivated."

9:27: Update from Christian: "i'm sitting on a bench outside the security checkpoint. this one big guard is staring me down, but he's one of those bike cops, so i'm betting he's just pissed off at how emasculating that is. on my way here, i walked past a tv playing the debates and sarah palin was talking about moms at soccer games. she needs a new angle, man. if my mom were president, the economy would go to shit but we would all be really good at doing our own laundry. i wish i had a "joe" six pack of some bud right now."

9:29: By the way, I am about 97% sure Christian can't see what we're saying on here. If you've got any questions for him, just leave them in the comments and I'll email him. Sort of a little disappointed in that last update to tell the truth.

9:31: How slick was that? She just simultaneously repped and ripped on climate change. Truly next level shit.

9:34: You guys are right, this staring into the camera thing is really unsettling.

9:36: When they burn their dirty coal it will be clean? Not quite as slick a rhetorical strategy, baldy.

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9:38: Sorry gays, but debating about you guys getting married is one of the great all-time snoozers of history. Getting another beer.

9:41: I wonder what they'll pull out for the next election. Do you think it'll ever come to the point when a soul-patched gen-x type in a Baja is debating one of those supertan Japanese Kogal girls?

9:45: Fuck, I meant Manba. Kogal girls are the preppy-looking ones.

9:48: Christian update: "there are all these pairs of male news correspondents in sportcoats with no ties and jeans and their video dudes in safari vests walking around everywhere. its like a gay pride rally in the hamptons. not that i've ever been to one of those. i took an adderall earlier and i also ate chipotle for dinner, so i made need to excuse myself and carpet bomb the nearest public restroom in a second. sorry for partying. BRB. also i can see the blog"

9:49: Calling Fidel and Raoul "The Castro Brothers" makes them sound like a latin-themed casino act.

9:52: Man, again with the holocaust. Look, Iran ain't holocausting nobody these days except for maybe some teens drinking wine in one of their parents' apartment.

9:54: Wait, did he just say "Iran is close to Obama"? Not on a rip here, that's literally what I heard him say. Did he say that?

9:59: They're really getting flustered. If this was actually the Queen Ralph movie Pallin's supporters keep mentally painting it as, this would be the part when Biden accidentally admits to working for the Communists. No wait, that's not current enough. Who would he be working for? Al Qaeda? That just seems too heavy for a family comedy. Probably something middle of the road like a corporation in some unspecified field.

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10:03 I really like that she keeps bringing up what we're "craving" as Americans. Nice to know that some people saw Idiocracy as an instructional treatise. A sumptuously rendered instructional treatise.

10:07: Seriously, did you guys all see that? All the colors were really rich, and those matte paintings they use for backgrounds looked so much classier than some computer animated shit. It made me want to go back and watch Office Space again just to check for its production. Full disclosure: I took some vicodins a little bit ago that are just kicking in, so things might get a little loose.

10:11: Again with your neighborhood and your stick. No one cares about your latchkey childhood, Joe!

10:15: It seems like everybody's been making a lot of really-good-when-taken-out-of-context comments in this. The Obama deal, MacCain's George C Scott-esque spiel about "You don't tell Pakistan we're going to bomb them, you don't say that out loud! You just do it!" and now this with McCain tapping her in her special areas.

10:17: Everytime that light starts blinking she turns into a livestock auctioneer.

10:19: She's bombing the weakness question again. Say, "I get giggle fits."

10:20: "My achilles heel is chilli" would have been another good one. All this I-can-relate-to-you-ness is really offputting.

10:22: Christian update: "i'm back. it's cold. nothing's happening. i heard some security guard yell "whoa whoa whoa!" but when i looked, the dudes were just laughing with each other. If palin has the urge to talk like a character in Fargo on the football field instead of inside the athletic center, Vice will be first on the scene."

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10:24: How are we going to eat the car? I swear to fucking god I just heard that.

10:26: That crying thing is probably going to be the focal point of all the coverage tomorrow. I don't get how you can legitimately get worked up over being a good parent. It's one thing if they're asking you to envision your wife's rape, but losing composure over the implication that you're a lesser dad? That seems a lot more deserving of a kind of "Pshhh" response than the whole I'm-controlling-my-voice-right-now-so-you-can't-detect-the-surfeit-of-emotion-in-it. My theory is that they spend their whole political career learning how to "turn it on" for the cameras/crowds that every so often the emotion just kicks in when specific phrases hit their ears or cross their lips, kind of like some cross between the Manchurian Candidate and that episode of South Park where he fakes having Tourettes.

10:32: The old Manchurian Candidate. Obviously. Crap, so this thing is over, kind of snuck up on us again.

10:33: Final update from Christian: "still here. playing minesweeper. harder than remembered." I like that he's gradually adopted a telegraphic syntax over the course of the proceedings.

10:36: True, I do not have kids, but it's the same deal when people get bent out of shape about other people talking about their parents or their brother or sister. I don't know, maybe I'm a heartless asshole, I've just never gotten worked up over something I know is being lobbed at me purely to get me worked up. You know when I do get really emotional though? When I'm hungover. This happen to you guys? There's the physical part, then it starts to pass and I move into this phase where it's like my endorphins just shit out, and things like human interest stories online will give me a lump in my throat. And music, good god. I made this playlist on my computer I listen to during this phase to monitor its progress, comprised of songs that go through stages of being more and more likely to make me cry. So once I've made it through "Wichita Lineman" without seizing up I can move onto that 13th Floor Elevators cover of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and once I can make it through that one OK I move onto Fleetwood Mac and so on and so forth. It's a tightrope walk though, especially when I'm listening to it at the office. One day I'm going break down with my headphones on, and that day is officially going to be the most embarrassing morning of my life.

10:39: Oh fuck, did his wife die? That was a sick fucking move.

10:51: Zombies is a good one. The thing is it has to have a little of a hopeful edge to it to be effective; sad-sad songs won't cut it. It's like it's got to be able to fist the full anal cavity of your emotions instead of just tickling one specific section with its pinky.