CDA Convention: July 20, 2006.
This past weekend was perhaps one of the most interesting and eventful ones of my entire life. I went to St. Louis for the College Democrat Convention. To keep the interest of anyone who might read this, I'll break up the weekend into entires day-by-day. This is good for me too, because recounting everything that happened this weekend is an arduous task to say the least.
Thursday, we left early as hell on the road. I ended up driving most of the way, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was. After seeing a sign for "Patti's 1880's Settlement" in Kentucky at piqued our (Ashley, Candice, Joe, and I) interest, we stopped off. It was a bit out of the way, but we were making good time. This was, perhaps, the greatest let down ever. What we thought would be a nice little folksy historical settlement with kitschy little souvineers was nothing more than a shitty restaurant that didn't open unil 11, and a low-rent petting zoo with 3 geese, 2 pigs that were sleeping, and 2 rabbits. Welcome to Lamesville, population: us. We had a laugh and took some goofy pictures, knowing the stop was a colossal mistake. What we didn't know was this was going to be par for the course when it came to the weekend.
We left Patti's, and eventually made it to St. Louis blowing through two mixed CDs that I had burned fairly quickly. Driving to St. Louis is along drive, but an easy one. We arrived in The Lou and immediately missed our exit to St. Louis University, which was closed due to massive construction that seemed to cover half the city. Again, a sign of things to come. After little trouble, we found SLU's campus, and checked in.
Problem: Although Joe had registered, the good people with CDA had no material for him.
Big Problem: Joe was the only one who signed up for housing among the four of us.
We had a grand scheme to circumvent some of the costs of housing by having only one of us register for a room, and cram all four of us into it. It'd be a tigh fit, but it'd save a combined $315. Anyway, that fell through and after we thought we finally made some progress with the check-in volunteers [who proved to be a vaccuum of not only helpfulness, but sympathy as well] to fix our problem, we decided to grab some lunch.
The night before, St. Louis had apparently been molested by a massive tornado, eventually leaving 140,000 [?] people without power before the weekend was over. This involved almost every traffic light in the area around the campus to be out, effectively turning every fucking intersection into a four-way stop. As one might imagine, this turned what was supposed to be a quick jaunt to find subway into about a 60 minute trip to find a place where we could eat. We finally ended up at "Crazy Bowls and Wraps" which made Candice violently ill and just made me plain ol' nauseous. At least Joe and Ashley had satisfactory meals. Pay attention to this one folks, as you'll find out in the coming posts, Ashley and Broseph had great luck w/ food, whilst Candice and I probably should've just ate hotel soap in hindsight.
So after this shitty ass meal, we return to SLU to see if any headway had been made on our housing situation. Answer? A resounding no. They didn't even want to refund Joe's money after losing his room.
Not having a fucking clue where we would stay, and it's a lot scarier than you might think than when you're actually presented with the problem. You don't know if you'll be able to have a safe place to stay in a big, unfamiliar city, you don't know how much it's going to cost, and you don't know if you're going to be able to see Howard Dean kick off the convention's opening ceremony at 6:30.
In StL's scorching triple-digit heat, I'm sweating, half-sick to my stomach, tired, and pissed off at the complete lack of sympathy from the CDA check-in staff. In addition, we get confronted by amazingly annoying people running for CDA (College Democrats of America) office. Newsflash, potential officers: When you approach a group of people to campaign, and get evil glares and "Not right now, man. We're trying to sort something out.", Don't fucking continue with your speech. We have no idea who the fuck you fucking are, and we're probably not even going to fucking vote. Fuck.
After some negotiating, we got Joe's money back, and Ashley's mother found us a hotel room. In addition, I'm told by Ashley that the nearest hotel with a)power and b)vacancies is 20 minutes and one state away in Belleville, Illinois. I throw my hands up in exasperation and say, "Let's fucking do it."
Still pissed, but trying not to shatter the fragile dynamic that the four of us had, I attempted to remain calm. I then get cut off in rush hour traffic by an SUV, and I have a mini-meltdown. A clusterfuck of fucks. After about another hour of driving, we get to Belleville, IL, and it's the greatest little city I've ever had the pleasure of residing in for a weekend. There'll be an entire addendum to this series about Belleville, IL because, quite frankly, it fucking deserves it. I. am. in. love. with. Belleville. Someday, I'm going to live there. Yet, I digress.
We get the hotel, get changed out of our nasty, sticky clothes and attempt to look presentable for Dean. We race back from Belleville to StL in a trip that reassured me that this trip was going to be okay. We had gone through a lot (and had a lot still to face, as it turned out) and were still cracking jokes about the can of unsalted peanuts that Joe had brought. Ashley: "Jesus, Joe. I can smell your nuts from up here." Trust me, it's alot funnier when you're exhausted and delirious.
We get back to SLU and get to the Dean speech about 5 minutes late, which was a shit ton less than we thought we'd miss. Dean gives the standard speech about what we need to do as a party, how important young dems are, etc. Then, he took three questions from those of us who submitted them earlier, and mine was the final one picked. It was cool having a question answered by one of my favorite politicans and the chair of the DNC. I hope he never runs for president, because Howard Dean is right where we need him. He's going to do great things with the party. I asked him how he planned to implement his '50 state plan' in extremely red states like Alabama. This plan has always been under intense scrutiny and criticism from both sides, and it really seemed to get him fired up and defensive about it which was pretty cool. It was also nice getting our UAH Chapter's name read in front of the entire country's delegation of College Dems. Go Chargers, and all that jazz.
So that was cool. After that, we go back to Belleville and take showers and everything and get ready to go out and hang out with some like-minded folks back in St. Louis. On the way, Joe and I picked up a few forties and the four of us played a drinking game until it was time to go out for Candice's 21st birthday. We went to a place called Humphrey's, which was leaps and bounds better than Huntsville's Humphrey's. They served me $3 Blue Moons in a Blue Moon glass, which I promptly stole, and played 'Sweet Home Alabama' for us. We mingled with some Dems from Gainesville and other southern folks, but for the most part we kept to ourselves. After such an exhausting day, it only seemed right. Oh, and they closed at 3. Not that it mattered, everyone was ready to leave around 1:45 anyway.
Sean [drunk, wearing a bright red "BAMA" shirt]: Look, John. I'm from Alabama and--
Bartender: You don't fucking say!
Sean: No, I totally am. Look, John. I'm from Abalama...Alabama and we've got a Humphrey's over there. Where's your bathroom?"
Bartender [good natured laugh]: Up those stairs.
Eh, that exchange is a lot funnier to me, I suppose. For the sake of everyone on the trip, I'll just say we had fun Thursday night, and leave it at that. Ashley and I talked some stuff out, Candice had a good birthday [i hope], and Joe will never forget his first blackout. Get it? I'm hilarious.
After sobering up, I drove back, and we all went to bed. In attempting to find a parking space, and get an extremely muscle-bound Joe Terrell up two flights of stairs to our hotel room, Ashely and I definitely left Candice's car unlocked, and a window down.
Seriously folks, this is only part one. I sincerely hope you've made it this far and that I've made this entry at the very least tolerable to read.
Oh yeah, my wallet was laying in the passenger seat of the unlocked car with the windows down...
[continued later]
Thursday, we left early as hell on the road. I ended up driving most of the way, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was. After seeing a sign for "Patti's 1880's Settlement" in Kentucky at piqued our (Ashley, Candice, Joe, and I) interest, we stopped off. It was a bit out of the way, but we were making good time. This was, perhaps, the greatest let down ever. What we thought would be a nice little folksy historical settlement with kitschy little souvineers was nothing more than a shitty restaurant that didn't open unil 11, and a low-rent petting zoo with 3 geese, 2 pigs that were sleeping, and 2 rabbits. Welcome to Lamesville, population: us. We had a laugh and took some goofy pictures, knowing the stop was a colossal mistake. What we didn't know was this was going to be par for the course when it came to the weekend.
We left Patti's, and eventually made it to St. Louis blowing through two mixed CDs that I had burned fairly quickly. Driving to St. Louis is along drive, but an easy one. We arrived in The Lou and immediately missed our exit to St. Louis University, which was closed due to massive construction that seemed to cover half the city. Again, a sign of things to come. After little trouble, we found SLU's campus, and checked in.
Problem: Although Joe had registered, the good people with CDA had no material for him.
Big Problem: Joe was the only one who signed up for housing among the four of us.
We had a grand scheme to circumvent some of the costs of housing by having only one of us register for a room, and cram all four of us into it. It'd be a tigh fit, but it'd save a combined $315. Anyway, that fell through and after we thought we finally made some progress with the check-in volunteers [who proved to be a vaccuum of not only helpfulness, but sympathy as well] to fix our problem, we decided to grab some lunch.
The night before, St. Louis had apparently been molested by a massive tornado, eventually leaving 140,000 [?] people without power before the weekend was over. This involved almost every traffic light in the area around the campus to be out, effectively turning every fucking intersection into a four-way stop. As one might imagine, this turned what was supposed to be a quick jaunt to find subway into about a 60 minute trip to find a place where we could eat. We finally ended up at "Crazy Bowls and Wraps" which made Candice violently ill and just made me plain ol' nauseous. At least Joe and Ashley had satisfactory meals. Pay attention to this one folks, as you'll find out in the coming posts, Ashley and Broseph had great luck w/ food, whilst Candice and I probably should've just ate hotel soap in hindsight.
So after this shitty ass meal, we return to SLU to see if any headway had been made on our housing situation. Answer? A resounding no. They didn't even want to refund Joe's money after losing his room.
Not having a fucking clue where we would stay, and it's a lot scarier than you might think than when you're actually presented with the problem. You don't know if you'll be able to have a safe place to stay in a big, unfamiliar city, you don't know how much it's going to cost, and you don't know if you're going to be able to see Howard Dean kick off the convention's opening ceremony at 6:30.
In StL's scorching triple-digit heat, I'm sweating, half-sick to my stomach, tired, and pissed off at the complete lack of sympathy from the CDA check-in staff. In addition, we get confronted by amazingly annoying people running for CDA (College Democrats of America) office. Newsflash, potential officers: When you approach a group of people to campaign, and get evil glares and "Not right now, man. We're trying to sort something out.", Don't fucking continue with your speech. We have no idea who the fuck you fucking are, and we're probably not even going to fucking vote. Fuck.
After some negotiating, we got Joe's money back, and Ashley's mother found us a hotel room. In addition, I'm told by Ashley that the nearest hotel with a)power and b)vacancies is 20 minutes and one state away in Belleville, Illinois. I throw my hands up in exasperation and say, "Let's fucking do it."
Still pissed, but trying not to shatter the fragile dynamic that the four of us had, I attempted to remain calm. I then get cut off in rush hour traffic by an SUV, and I have a mini-meltdown. A clusterfuck of fucks. After about another hour of driving, we get to Belleville, IL, and it's the greatest little city I've ever had the pleasure of residing in for a weekend. There'll be an entire addendum to this series about Belleville, IL because, quite frankly, it fucking deserves it. I. am. in. love. with. Belleville. Someday, I'm going to live there. Yet, I digress.
We get the hotel, get changed out of our nasty, sticky clothes and attempt to look presentable for Dean. We race back from Belleville to StL in a trip that reassured me that this trip was going to be okay. We had gone through a lot (and had a lot still to face, as it turned out) and were still cracking jokes about the can of unsalted peanuts that Joe had brought. Ashley: "Jesus, Joe. I can smell your nuts from up here." Trust me, it's alot funnier when you're exhausted and delirious.
We get back to SLU and get to the Dean speech about 5 minutes late, which was a shit ton less than we thought we'd miss. Dean gives the standard speech about what we need to do as a party, how important young dems are, etc. Then, he took three questions from those of us who submitted them earlier, and mine was the final one picked. It was cool having a question answered by one of my favorite politicans and the chair of the DNC. I hope he never runs for president, because Howard Dean is right where we need him. He's going to do great things with the party. I asked him how he planned to implement his '50 state plan' in extremely red states like Alabama. This plan has always been under intense scrutiny and criticism from both sides, and it really seemed to get him fired up and defensive about it which was pretty cool. It was also nice getting our UAH Chapter's name read in front of the entire country's delegation of College Dems. Go Chargers, and all that jazz.
So that was cool. After that, we go back to Belleville and take showers and everything and get ready to go out and hang out with some like-minded folks back in St. Louis. On the way, Joe and I picked up a few forties and the four of us played a drinking game until it was time to go out for Candice's 21st birthday. We went to a place called Humphrey's, which was leaps and bounds better than Huntsville's Humphrey's. They served me $3 Blue Moons in a Blue Moon glass, which I promptly stole, and played 'Sweet Home Alabama' for us. We mingled with some Dems from Gainesville and other southern folks, but for the most part we kept to ourselves. After such an exhausting day, it only seemed right. Oh, and they closed at 3. Not that it mattered, everyone was ready to leave around 1:45 anyway.
Sean [drunk, wearing a bright red "BAMA" shirt]: Look, John. I'm from Alabama and--
Bartender: You don't fucking say!
Sean: No, I totally am. Look, John. I'm from Abalama...Alabama and we've got a Humphrey's over there. Where's your bathroom?"
Bartender [good natured laugh]: Up those stairs.
Eh, that exchange is a lot funnier to me, I suppose. For the sake of everyone on the trip, I'll just say we had fun Thursday night, and leave it at that. Ashley and I talked some stuff out, Candice had a good birthday [i hope], and Joe will never forget his first blackout. Get it? I'm hilarious.
After sobering up, I drove back, and we all went to bed. In attempting to find a parking space, and get an extremely muscle-bound Joe Terrell up two flights of stairs to our hotel room, Ashely and I definitely left Candice's car unlocked, and a window down.
Seriously folks, this is only part one. I sincerely hope you've made it this far and that I've made this entry at the very least tolerable to read.
Oh yeah, my wallet was laying in the passenger seat of the unlocked car with the windows down...
[continued later]