Rhymefest at Wilberforce and University of Cincinnati

DSC_0279, originally uploaded by Rock the Vote 2008.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Young voters registered yesterday — 12,399
Miles travelled today — 103

9:36 pm - Some — in fact the bulk — of our hotels should go down in infamy as miserable slimy hovels fit for criminals or travelers from a prior century. Our production manager, Mary, has slept fully clothed for most of the tour because she fears what creatures may infest her bedding.

That said, the last two nights have been an exception. Whoever created or governs the Comfort Suites somewhere near the Buckeye’s stadium in Columbus, Ohio should be treated like a conquering general during a homecoming parade. Real comforters! Clean floors! Sure, the fitness center was a joke, but there was a pool! A pool! The front desk was manned by angels and I actually turned two years younger when I drank from the fountain in the lobby. So here’s some advice to the Columbus-bound: keep this place in mind.

In point of fact, Columbus as a whole treated us absurdly well. We hit Due Amici on Gay street (really) where we had one of the few excellent meals of this trip and then headed to the bars and clubs to impel the late-night drunkards to register.

After leaving the brief Eden of our Columbus hotel, we celebrated Sunday morning as one must: with a bullhorn, speakers, and half-wakened students.

Wilberforce University, the oldest private black university in the country, is situated well away from the hubbub and fury of the city. Large parts of the student body head home for the weekends and those who stay probably don’t expect to be roused by their classmates dashing through the hallways of the dorms screaming civic duty through a bullhorn at 10:00am in the morning.

“Students of Wilberforce. Wake up! You must vote for your future! Our ancestors died for this right!” Cyrus, a student at the school and a volunteer for Rock the Vote, bellowed at the walls. To some it must have seemed that they had flickered from one dream to another: maybe flying effortlessly over the hills of Kentucky and Ohio but and then violently wrenched into some surreal simulacrum of their dorm room. But in this new semi-dream, the dorm room is echoing with the sermons of some half-mad fire-and-brimstone preacher bellowing the gospel of participatory democracy. Have they flipped into a nightmare? Are the avenging demons of their ancestors haunting their dreams with guilt because they have not yet registered? Or is it merely that some nutjob volunteers are pounding on the door with promises of donuts, coffee, and music if they will just fill out some paperwork and vote?

Ah, they conclude as they come to their senses, it is the latter. And headed by that madman Cyrus.

Cyrus may well have had to deal with angry stares and sullen friends this afternoon, but he did pull out the students.

Rhymefest joined us for our stop at Wilberforce University and rode with us on the bus to the University of Cincinnati, a stop that included performances by ICandi and DJizzle and appearances from Miss America, Bootsy Collins, and Buckethead.

That show is now over and we have settled into our current hotel, which briefly looked like it might rival our paradise in Columbus. But it was not to be. My sister and I found our room filled with paint cans and construction equipment. The front desk exchanged it for a second room with mysterious stains on the floor and a doorknob that came off in my hand. Our brief Eden is gone and - whatever we did to deserve it - we must deal with the thorns and thistles of this new, lesser dwelling.

--Nick Brown