Most. Describable. Days. Ever.

I just got back from the National College Media Convention. It was awesome. I met quite the cast of people along the way. I ran into people from my past, and quite possibly made some contacts for the future. The convention is basically all the colleges from the US sending their newspaper/yearbook/radio station/broadcast people to learn new things and to meet each other. That's the official story anyway. The real reason is clearly to have hilarious session names such as: "How Not to Offend Black People in 3 Easy Steps" or "Fakin' it with Photoshop, or 10 Ways to Destroy Your Credibility" and "You Don't Need Class to Publish a Student Newspaper". There was also a Lesbian Round Table Discussion, which I insisted should have been a Triangle Table Discussion. There was also a hilarious event involving the daylight savings shift.

That's the end of the story, though. I think we should start at the beginning. If disjointed chronology works for Falukner, I see no reason it wouldn't work for me. The man was a hack! However rather than steal directly, I intend to steal and modify. That's the basis of all creativity I'll have you know. The modification: headings.

Day 1: Most Random Day Ever.

*Doodly doo doodly doodly doo* Wavy lines, vaguely underwater-esq going back in time fadeout *Doodly dee doodly dee doodly dee*

Time: the start of the trip. Walking around the convention I saw someone familiar, so I went up behind her, put my head next to hers and said "what the hell are you reading". She turned to me and was as shocked as I was to see her. Her name: Molly Schell. We took a minute to reflect on the randomness, then I profusely appologized for past wrong doings. It happens. We chatted a bit, then I went to check out the convention center. Inside I mosey-ed past a booth and I watched a drawing, the lady in charge of it was saying "Come on, no whammy, no whammy..." which prompted my asking if she had seen any game shows in the last 15 years or so. She ignored me and then revealed the winner: "Molly Schell from Evangston" at which point my head would have exploded if I didn't know she was there. Because there's random, and then there's "this must be scripted random". That's the kind of random I was dealing with.

As we were arriving in Kansas City I mentioned that I would like to see a movie at some point, if it's possible. I really enjoy going to the movies on vacation, checking out the different theaters, observing new and exotic snack bar selections (this one had beer), and generally spreading the gospel of shouting "BOO COMMERCIALS" at the screen before the movie starts. It turned out that I wouldn't have to worry much about that. There were to be 4 advance screenings. First was RENT, then Shopgirl, then Grandma's Boy, and finally The Aristocrats. I saw them all. Here's my reviews in the order I saw them:

• RENT: Phenomenal. Sorry, just had to use Beauchamp's word. The movie itself was very very good however. Despite the opinion of one of the members of my paper staff (he's a republican, they hate RENT anyway). We got to see it on the 27th of October and were the first general audience screening of the film. Before us there was just a screening for people involved in it. There were a few changes, but the changes they made were minimal and necessary for it to work on the screen. All in all 4/4 Hand Turkeys.

Day Two: Most Cinematic Day Ever.

• Shopgirl: Ummm... good. Yeah, I'm definitely going with good. Well. No. It was good. I think. Yeah, didn't suck. I wouldn't praise it like I did RENT but it wasn't offenive to see. I liked it much better than the movie it's most compared to: Lost in Translation in any case. Plus Claire Danes is far hotter than the lion-faced Scarlett Johansson. I think she's famous just for her cool name.Saw this one on the 28th (Quien's birthday for those in the know). Summary: a solid B, within the curve of modern cinema. So sayeth the hand turkey.
  

• Grandma's Boy: Horrible movie. Good experience. It gets a paragraph. I was ditched by my RMC compatriots who wanted to go to a club with a guy that Gloria, an RMC-er from Chi-town, met online a week ago. He was going to come pick her up in a black Yukon Denali, and take her to a club to give her free drinks and... presumably rape and murder all of us. I was out. So wandering around I hopped the last bus to the screenign of this movie at a casino. Riding on the last bus, alone I met the organizer of the entire event. He looked familiar and I'm sure it was because he's been on one of the talking head shows I watch, but I really can't place him. Anyway, he asked me if I was a reporter. I said I was and gave him my card. He laughed (it's a ridiculous card) and asked me if I wanted to interview the stars of the movie after the screening. I said yes, of course. I then proceeded to spend the rest of the movie thinking "what the shit am I going to ask these guys?" Continued in the next bulleted point.
  

• Fortunately I have seen all the movies Allen Covert, and Peter Dante have been in and had some pretty insightful questions. After the obligatory "So... I bet you've heard this enough to kill, but... how do you know Sandler" question (it's a Happy Madison production) I moved on to more specific stuff. For instance, Nick Swardson's standup features prominently Gay Robots, which are in the movie, and old people/grandma's. So I asked how much was derived (except I said "ripped off") from his act. They laughed. I had about 15 minutes with the boys, and we hit it off pretty well. Well enough to take pictures in compromising gay-love embraces, which I always rate as being top shelf. In fact, here are those pictures now:

Center: Me and Peter Dante, clockwise from top right, Paul Provenza (we'll get into that later), Allen Covert and I, and then two more Scott/Dante's.

It should be noted I also went to some sessions on these days that I'm not getting into because... honestly this is long enough.

Day Three: Most Aristocratic Day Ever

• And finally, The Aristocrats. Another 5/5 Hand Turkeys. I got to meet and chat up Paul Provenza after the show. I told him he is now my patron saint of free speech. He then pondered just how fucked up that religion must be. It was hard to disagree. The movie itself had me laughing pretty good a few times. And I don't think Sarah Silverman ever looked that hot, or was that funny, at least from what I've seen. Although, I'm eager to be proved wrong.

And after that I flew home. One more funny thing happened though. And it was this: daylight savings time. I forgot about it. So when I woke up I had a 15 minute minor flipping out session. Afterwards I returned to my calm, aloof manner, but still insisted we get to the airport a bit early. It turned out our flight was later than we thought so we were severely early. About an hour before take off we saw a man frantically running through the terminal. It looked like he was looking for his kid and found the tot near the gate we were at, but he blew past him. Now we could hear him. He was frantically repeating "Oh no, oh no" and then screaming "WAIT!" he ran to the door that leads to the plane and tried to open it but it was locked. "No. NO! I can't miss this flight" he moaned as he pounded on the door.

At this point we were all watching, so was the flight attendant at the gate that was boarding next door. Flight Attendant (FA):"Can I help you sir?" Dumb Ass (DA):"I need to be on that flight!" FA: "Sir, that flight doesn't leave until 11:20" DA: "I know, I still have 1 minute. (turning to door) WHY IS THE DOOR LOCKED?!" FA: "Sir, did you forget about daylight savings time" DA: "... oh." He then sat down amid sarcastic applause and my cackles from being doubled over in laughter.


Ah, done. Tell me what you think.

- Scott