rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

(warning: I’m a pompous, smarmy prick in the paragraphs ahead)



went to the statehouse today. my dogs is barkin’, I said goddamn!

alright, so the Hoosiers for Higher Education. a real live bunch, as the Warriors would say. Their purpose, more or less, is to get together annually to guilt state senators and congressmen into accepting the state schools’ biannual budget. more less than more, that’s what it is.

I, however, did not know that. I thought we were just getting to see the capitol as a tour group or some shit. I had no idea what was expected of me, I thought it was going to be a bunch of college kids semi interested in government getting a tour of the governor’s office, looking at busts and ancient state flags. shit like that.

so Ashley is at my place at 9:45, and we get a bagel, and we’re at the bus by 10:15. she had said to dress nice, so I dress as nice as I can – dress shoes, a sweater, a fuckin’ belt. to the motherfuckin’ nines. you know how we roll, 219 for lyfe. I’m thinking I’m going to be overdressed. wrong. I was the only motherfucker with any color. some of my sweater is red, everybody else were in suits. that goes for the ladies too.



it wouldn’t be fair to my cynicism to let their description go at that, so here we go. all these kids are into student government – IUSA. Ashley’s in it, too, but she’s not in the sandbox political area of it. all the rest of these young achievers are getting pumped out about the upcoming election, which I can’t imagine ever getting pumed about. I may be wrong, but I think student government is a joke. most of the “parties” run on platforms like “stop cops from busting up keggers” and to “lower the drinking age to 18.” and then whoever wins can put student body president/VP/treasurer/secretary on their resumes, and get managerial positions at the companies I’ll eventually bend over for and work at. see, what I’m dealing with here are the future captains of industry. and I fucking hate that.

Ashley leans over to me and whispers about the guy a few squares down the sidewalk, “that guy actually was on his cell phone in the middle of a meeting talking to his broker about his investments.” we called that asshole “mutual fund” for the rest of the day. right. I digress.



so we get on the bus. I promptly fall asleep til we get there (“there” being the Indiana Convention Center across the street from the Capitol). we get off, and we’re supposed to get free eats, but the caterer screwed up so we each got ten dollar vouchers and were sent to a food court. over Subway, Ashley explained to me that I was supposed to, you know, schmooze with my state rep. the fuck?

I was in no condition to schmooze. I didn’t even know I wasn’t on a guided tour until I got there. so now I’m dreading the rest of the day. we head back over to the convention center where all the other student delegations from the other IU campuses were showing up. when I saw the Kokomo delegation, I serously sighed relief. they looked like they were from Kokomo. same with the IUN and South Bend kids. someone was actually wearing a Mountain Dew T shirt. so much for being the most poorly dressed.

we sat through a bunch of introduction speeches, were given a map of the statehouse which was much more confusing after some bitch tried to explain the diagrams to us over a bullhorn, and we went off to “lobby.”

I wasn’t much for lobbying, as I had no idea what I’d fucking say to Rep. Ralph Ayres from Chesterton if I actually got a hold of him, so I did a whole lot of wandering around. I sat in both the house and senate galleries for a while, and came to the conclusion that while state government is both banal and tiresome, it was right up my alley. so look for a future run from our favorite slacker!



the day pressed forward. I met up with Ashley, who was now bitching about her high heels wailing on her dogs, and we went back over to the convention center for a planned reception. I think it’s time for a list.



list of killer shit, concerning the reception:

1. the food was banging.

2. the food was also free. double banging!

3. Mutual Fund went up the Korean woman tending the open bar and asked for a Charaz. he was serious, which is even funnier than if he was just being a dick.

4. I had a bunch of mini quesadillas.

5. the IUSA stiffs at my table all got into a conversation about how great Washington is. I don’t think they’ve ever seen Anacostia. or Prince George’s County. or SE in general. or anything outside of SW. or …

6. one wants to work in the DC public defender’s office. why she wants to do that is beyond me, because a) she’s from Indiana and b) her parents probably amassed a lot of wealth to make sure she would never have to deal with the kind of people you’d find there.

7. the stiffs at my table made a bunch of snide remarks about another stiff’s tie being neon green (which is is supposedly in bad taste. who knew?). Ashley explained later that he belonged to a rival student government political party. I guess there must be some bad blood over “school sponsored raging benders litigation.”

8. IU president Adam Herbert actually screamed “go Hoosiers” into the mic during his remarks.



then, the day was done. we rode the bus home, during which I made no snide remarks about the experience. none. at all.

I will be honest, though. I thought that checking out the congress and senate in session was cool. even if they were discussing legislation like “increase in the max number of veteran license plates for veterans act.” I shit you not, they did.