On Thursday, 17 July, I had the fortunate opportunity to be one of
thousands who attended a special movie theater live screening of Glenn
Beck's summer stage concert "Glenn Beck '08:
Unelectable"
This was a first for Glenn Beck and, to my knowledge, the first of its
kind. Glenn gave the performance to a sold out live stage theater in
Dallas, TX. The performance was captured by about seven high definition
video cameras, directed, and streamed to a satellite where it then went to
350 movie theaters.
I bought five tickets to the performance the first day they were
available for Glenn Beck Insiders (about 4-5 days before they were
available to the general public) to see the HD simulcast at the Jordan
Landing Cinemark theaters in West Jordan, UT.
I don't know how big the other movie theaters were, but there were
two sold-out theaters at the Jordan Landing Cinemark and they each probably
seated 2-300 people. I' sure there were other theaters that were much
larger.
I showed up a little more than two hours before the show was to start
because the tickets were all general admission. I wanted to make sure our
group had good seats and that we would be able to sit all together. There
was one other person who had shown up before me, but she was in line for
the other theater. So, I was the first person in line for theater #1. It
wasn't long, however, before a handful of other people were in line
behind me. Then, with over 90 minutes to go before Glenn went on stage, a
young man came, told us we could begin seating, and showed us to the
theater. I thought that was super nice because there was a pregnant woman
in line behind me and I felt bad for her if she was going to have to stand
in line for over an hour. Instead, she could relax in a theater seat.
I made some observations before the show. First of all, there were a lot
of pretty attractive women there for the Glenn Beck performance, about half
of which were pregnant. Also, the people were very friendly and very
talkative, even with people they didn't know.
About 70 minutes before the show started, the projector came on and
the dozen or so of us that were in the theater by that point were treated
to a Windows "Active Desktop Recovery" dialog... in HD. It
didn't inspire my confidence that the show was going to go without
any snags.
After a couple minutes, however, the Windows message disappeared and was
replaced with a young, pretty round-faced blonde with loop earrings holding
a small seemingly homemade clapper board and she was opening and closing it
in front of a pair of microphones about once every two seconds.
She was then replaced by a goofy-looking guy in need of a little
orthodontic work (or maybe he was just had perma-grin from the excitement of being involved in something so... momentous) who did the same thing, but a little differently. His
method of clapping the clapper board was just a little more... goofy. After
a while, he was replaced by an older gentleman who had less muscle
tone in his arms. It seemed harder for him to keep closing the clapper
board and before long, he was replaced by a tall, intimidating fellow who
repeatedly closed the clapper with great determination.
It was fascinating.
Twenty five minutes before 6:00, the Glenn Beck preshow began. This was
just a slideshow presentation of funny trivia facts, pictures, and silly
quotes. I didn't catch much of it because I was running in and out
of the theater to meet the others in my group to get them their
tickets.
Five minutes before six, a countdown timer appeared on the screen
counting down the minutes and seconds "to Glenn." And then,
there was a snow-filled screen and static noise.
On the screen appeared a man in an orange vest and an orange hat, like a
construction worker or something, fist-bumping with three or four other
people in a dark area. After a few moments of watching this, it became
apparent we were seeing Glenn Beck backstage. He carried a plastic green
toy assault rifle and walked out on stage as we followed, viewing him
through the lens of a camera carried by a Steadicam operator.
The theater Glenn performed in was beautiful. It was smaller than I
expected and looked more like a large stand-up comedy club than an opera
house, an arena, or an auditorium (which I've seen Glenn perform in
the last three times I've seen him live.)
Glenn started by introducing two "special" people in the
audience. The first was Texas governor Rick Perry (who had perfect hair)
and had to have been at least a little uncomfortable being an elected
official at a show that was all about slamming "the weasels" in
elected positions. The second was soldier/author/all around great guy
Marcus Lutrell. Gov. Perry got some applause, but Marcus Lutrell got a
standing ovation that went on for several moments. It was clear the
audience loved this guy... and for good reason!
Once that was out of the way, Glenn jumped right into the comedy-
talking about politicians that come out (as he had) wearing their
"huntin' outfit" and carrying their gun that was given to
them by a dear family member (never purchased, of course). Glenn said he
thought people who don such ridiculous costumes to show the press
they're in favor of the second ammendment make him sick and he took
off the orange vest, orange hat, and the flannel shirt under the vest.
Underneath was a light grey T-shirt with large black letters:
"NRA." Hee hee.
The comedy went on for the next hour about politics, about Glenn's
city government making ridiculous demands and imposing outrageous
restrictions on what Glenn and his family can and can not build in their
yard, about Glenn's experience traveling with a firearm through a New
York area airport, and about stupid laws (Chico, CA will collect a $500 fine from anyone caught detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits.)
There was a short 15-minute intermission and Glenn came back on in a
blue politician's suit and red tie and stood behind a podium with a
"Beck '08" placard attached to the front of it.
The second part of the comedy show centered around what Americans (or at
least Glenn-minded Americans) want to hear from their presidential
candidates: the truth.
(The above picture was taken at a previous performance by another Glenn Beck Insider, but the gist is the same.)
The camera work was great. The timing was awesome. The comedy was the
best I've seen of Glenn. My wife was a little... well, okay,
very, disturbed by the number of times Glenn joked about
wanting to kill someone with a gun.
The message in between the comedy was one about realizing the power in
our country is not in Washington, not in your state capitol, not in your
City Hall. It's in you! And it comes from God. Glenn encouraged the
audience to read history, learn more about the founding fathers, learn more
about the history of our great country, and never forget it
is a great country worth fighting for, worth dying for,
and worth saving from peril.
The message Glenn gave at the Freedom
Festival Patriotic Service at Brigham Young University last month
is essentially the same message, only without all the comedy mixed in.
So, all in all, I think it was a tremendous success and I congratulate
Glenn and Company for a job spectacularly well done. They should be very
proud of themselves. I'm certainly proud I could have participated in
this special moment in history as an audience member at the first-ever
Glenn Beck HD simulcast.
