Dallas Does Denver: Singing a Protest Song

It was a simple question. “What are the protests like?” The caller from Dallas, a freelance photographer who sometimes shoots for D Magazine, had herself been working on obtaining an off-the-books press pass for the convention. Surprisingly, yesterday she was told that her contact had scammed one photography pass for Obama’s Invesco Field speech tonight. She wasn’t interested in shooting that, though, for the same reason we weren’t interested in attending: like with a rock concert, stadium shows are decidedly less interesting than those held at more intimate venues. (And the pass, sadly, was not transferable to me or Lavin.) So, she said, she was only interested in paying for a last-minute flight and coming here if the reports of dozens of violent protests were true and, as important, would produce dramatic images. I was sipping a triple-shot iced vanilla latte in the 16th Street Market area on a patio on a picturesque day. I looked around. There was one anti-abortion protestor, sitting on the curb, taking a break from yelling at disinterested passersby. I took another sip. “I dunno,” I said. “Maybe it’ll get crazy later. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

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