Bad Idea Field Trip: The Conan O'Brien Chicago Rally

I believe that buried within the subtext of Martin Luther King's Lincoln Memorial speech, he had a deep a profound hope that one day the citizens of America would unite on his holiday to march in protest of a talk show host getting fired.

This is the only possible exclamation I can deduce from the fact that protests were held in four - FOUR! - different cities today to voice displeasure at NBC canning Conan O'Brien.  What possible reason could there be to hold a protest in Chicago for a talk show that takes place in Los Angeles?  I have no idea, but I decided to venture down to the NBC5 Tower and see how the crowd was.

I encountered about 150 or so protesters toting signs, home made masks, spray-painted orange mop-tops, and a variety of orange clothing.  What was particularly fun about this "protest" was that it essentially consisted of 100 or so people wandering around.  Once in a while somebody would start a "CoCo!" chant, or "Masturbating Bear!" chant, which would last about 15 seconds, and then people kept milling about.

My favorite moment was when somebody decided to start this age old protest battle cry:

Guy:  "Who do we want?"

Crowd: "Conan!"

Guy: "When do we want him?"

Crowd: "[Indecipherable nonsense, as 1/3 of the people shouted "Now!," 1/3 shouted "11:30!" (the time the show starts on the East Coast,) and 1/3 shouted "10:30!" (the time the show starts in Chicago.)]"

Perfect.

Here's a bit of the footage I threw together to give you a taste of the bizarre scene.  If you notice toward the end of the clip, you'll see my favorite sign of the day: Jon Hamm Should Play Captain America.  That guy's got a point.

Tell Tale Signs

We've touched base here before on the merits of the Westboro Baptist Church. Unbeknownst to me, these God fearing do-gooders were at University of Chicago yesterday, protesting the fact that Barack Obama was once was a professor at the Law School. He stopped serving as a lecturer there in 2004, so the Baptist Bruisers were in fact protesting something that last occurred FIVE YEARS AGO. I find this concept to be brilliant. It makes as much sense as attending the American Idol episode taping tomorrow to voice your outrage over Ruben Studdard winning season 2.

Until recently, the biggest problem with this crew has been that people didn't know how to handle them. Confronting them doesn't help, and constitutionally, there's nothing police can do about hatemongers on public property. Luckily, the UC kids put their thinking caps on, and much to everyone's delight, came up with signs of their own. A sampling can be seen here and here.


The code has clearly been cracked! We can only hope this leads to an ongoing battle for best combatant signs at a Westboro protest. I'm going to have my "God's Life Would Suck Without You" sign ready and waiting.