I just flew in from Montreal, and boy are my arms tired
To those who didn't know, I spent the last week in Montreal at the National Liberal Convention. The whole ordeal began last Tuesday. My colleague Jay (heretofore LL Cool Jay) rented a cargo van (heretofore referred to as "Big Pimpin'") and loaded it up with approximately $40,000 worth of computers, TVs, VCRs, and digital video equipment. My boss made a point of softly muttering the price of each piece of equipment as he handed it to me to load into the van. "Digital editing board... twelve thousand dollars..." That sort of thing. Now, I was already stressed out enough about driving to Montreal, seeing as I've never driven in Ottawa, in Montreal, or between the two, I haven't been behind the wheel of any vehicle in months, and Big Pimpin' is no small vehicle. Knowing that I could be killed for less than the price of the equipment I was responsible for was not helping my stress level.
Around 2pm LL Cool Jay and myself hit the road in Big Pimpin'. We fixed the radio to a classic rock station for most of the trip, except for the brief period during which we were stopped at a red light in front of the Rideau Centre (translation: the most ghetto block in Ottawa), where we switched it to a gangsta-rap station and proceeded to "Raise The Roof." Two white guys in a rented cargo van tossing down gang signs would get a person shot in most places. How we survived I still do not know.
We didn't leave Ottawa as early as we had hoped, so I got to experience the wonderous joy of driving in Montreal during rush hour. In a cargo van. I cannot reinforce this next statement enough, so I will use a lot of capitals,put it in italics, and ask you to read it at least twice: Never Drive In Downtown Montreal During Rush Hour In A Cargo Van. There is no reason that you can justify doing this, especially if you have no idea where you're going. The drive into Montreal is a half-hour of freeways that always seem to be jammed. When you get close to downtown, it appears that the freeway designers got bored with building their roads on simple solid ground, so they put them in the etheral air. There's tons of perfectly good earth beneath these freeways in the sky, but apparently we just don't drive down there anymore. The whole place looks like an M. C. Escher Painting.
The freeway ordeal ends when you hit RueRené-Lévesque. If one has not realized by this point that you are no longer in Anglophone Canada, this hits you like a plate of poutine in the face. Here there be Quebecois. At this point, driving changes from stressful to confusing. As it turns out, you cannot turn left in downtown Montreal. Moreover, if you get on the wrong street, your inability to turn left puts you on a bridge out of town, and the only way you can get back is by driving through ghetto Montreal. That is a half-hour of my life that I want back. Every time I was able to turn left after that, I thanked Jesus just a bit.
The convention itself was a four day whirlwind of sign-waving, speeches, man hugs, and cheesy music. I don't have a lot to say about that part of it, because I was stuck in our media monitoring center changing VHS tapes, running from room to room to fix Powerpoint presentations, and getting free pepsi from the Liberal Party office. Plus, since our office has to work for whoever wins we were strictly forbidden from picking up any campaign swag until we elected someone.
The thing about conventions is all the work happens after hours. When we leave the convention hall we don't go home, we go to hospitality suites. Some of these suites are put on by leadership hopefulls in effort to persuade delegates to vote for them, others are put on by organizations in an effort to have as much incestuous party networking as possible, and in the case of the Atlantic Caucus party they have them just as an excuse to get drunk. Regardless of who puts them on, there is always drinks to be had, and usually for free. On any given evening there were at least three major parties going. One could go to any one of these events and find Members of Parliament. One could also go to any one of these events and find the sameMember of Parliament at all of them. One could also go to one of these events and see a particular Member of Parliament standing on a table and singing, and singing very well at that. He got a standing ovation. In my next life I want to be from the East Coast.
Ignatieff had two parties a night. The Atlantic Caucus party was called a phenomenal event by some, and a fire hazard by others. The Canada-Israel Association party had a giant chocolate fountain. I had to sneak into a Dryden party through a back hallway, a service elevator, and a kitchen. The Young Liberals party had underage drinking, blackberries, glowsticks, senior citizens, senior citizens with glowsticks, teenage sex, middle aged sex, drugs, aid for Africa, a live acoustic cover of "Bust a Move," and near fistfights over who was best suited to lead the party. When the cover band publicly supported Bob Rae one Dionista nearly bum-rushed the mic. She would have done it too if she had been tall enough to scale the stage.
Safe to say that with parties and free booze every night, plus early mornings at the convention, we were all bleary eyed. Moreso after we were awoke by a 3am fire alarm in our hotel. Hell is standing in a cold stairwell with a hundred people in their bathrobes, with everyone wondering what's going on.
In the end we elected a new leader who doesn't speak the best English. I consider this an asset. Our last great Francophone Prime Minister didn't speak very good English either, but as the speech he delivered at the convention shows, that doesn't matter much. When we didn't understand what he was saying, we took it as our cue to applaud. We applauded a lot.
We drove out of Montreal in both a traffic jam and a snowstorm.
In Conclusion: MPs know how to party, Atlantic MPs really know how to party, the Jews have the best buffets, being in Montreal is awesome, getting into and out of Montreal sucks, and clearance heights on parking garages are really just a suggestion. Just don't tell Hertz that.
Around 2pm LL Cool Jay and myself hit the road in Big Pimpin'. We fixed the radio to a classic rock station for most of the trip, except for the brief period during which we were stopped at a red light in front of the Rideau Centre (translation: the most ghetto block in Ottawa), where we switched it to a gangsta-rap station and proceeded to "Raise The Roof." Two white guys in a rented cargo van tossing down gang signs would get a person shot in most places. How we survived I still do not know.
We didn't leave Ottawa as early as we had hoped, so I got to experience the wonderous joy of driving in Montreal during rush hour. In a cargo van. I cannot reinforce this next statement enough, so I will use a lot of capitals,put it in italics, and ask you to read it at least twice: Never Drive In Downtown Montreal During Rush Hour In A Cargo Van. There is no reason that you can justify doing this, especially if you have no idea where you're going. The drive into Montreal is a half-hour of freeways that always seem to be jammed. When you get close to downtown, it appears that the freeway designers got bored with building their roads on simple solid ground, so they put them in the etheral air. There's tons of perfectly good earth beneath these freeways in the sky, but apparently we just don't drive down there anymore. The whole place looks like an M. C. Escher Painting.
The freeway ordeal ends when you hit RueRené-Lévesque. If one has not realized by this point that you are no longer in Anglophone Canada, this hits you like a plate of poutine in the face. Here there be Quebecois. At this point, driving changes from stressful to confusing. As it turns out, you cannot turn left in downtown Montreal. Moreover, if you get on the wrong street, your inability to turn left puts you on a bridge out of town, and the only way you can get back is by driving through ghetto Montreal. That is a half-hour of my life that I want back. Every time I was able to turn left after that, I thanked Jesus just a bit.
The convention itself was a four day whirlwind of sign-waving, speeches, man hugs, and cheesy music. I don't have a lot to say about that part of it, because I was stuck in our media monitoring center changing VHS tapes, running from room to room to fix Powerpoint presentations, and getting free pepsi from the Liberal Party office. Plus, since our office has to work for whoever wins we were strictly forbidden from picking up any campaign swag until we elected someone.
The thing about conventions is all the work happens after hours. When we leave the convention hall we don't go home, we go to hospitality suites. Some of these suites are put on by leadership hopefulls in effort to persuade delegates to vote for them, others are put on by organizations in an effort to have as much incestuous party networking as possible, and in the case of the Atlantic Caucus party they have them just as an excuse to get drunk. Regardless of who puts them on, there is always drinks to be had, and usually for free. On any given evening there were at least three major parties going. One could go to any one of these events and find Members of Parliament. One could also go to any one of these events and find the sameMember of Parliament at all of them. One could also go to one of these events and see a particular Member of Parliament standing on a table and singing, and singing very well at that. He got a standing ovation. In my next life I want to be from the East Coast.
Ignatieff had two parties a night. The Atlantic Caucus party was called a phenomenal event by some, and a fire hazard by others. The Canada-Israel Association party had a giant chocolate fountain. I had to sneak into a Dryden party through a back hallway, a service elevator, and a kitchen. The Young Liberals party had underage drinking, blackberries, glowsticks, senior citizens, senior citizens with glowsticks, teenage sex, middle aged sex, drugs, aid for Africa, a live acoustic cover of "Bust a Move," and near fistfights over who was best suited to lead the party. When the cover band publicly supported Bob Rae one Dionista nearly bum-rushed the mic. She would have done it too if she had been tall enough to scale the stage.
Safe to say that with parties and free booze every night, plus early mornings at the convention, we were all bleary eyed. Moreso after we were awoke by a 3am fire alarm in our hotel. Hell is standing in a cold stairwell with a hundred people in their bathrobes, with everyone wondering what's going on.
In the end we elected a new leader who doesn't speak the best English. I consider this an asset. Our last great Francophone Prime Minister didn't speak very good English either, but as the speech he delivered at the convention shows, that doesn't matter much. When we didn't understand what he was saying, we took it as our cue to applaud. We applauded a lot.
We drove out of Montreal in both a traffic jam and a snowstorm.
In Conclusion: MPs know how to party, Atlantic MPs really know how to party, the Jews have the best buffets, being in Montreal is awesome, getting into and out of Montreal sucks, and clearance heights on parking garages are really just a suggestion. Just don't tell Hertz that.
posted by B-Boy Nothing at 10:48 AM
4 Comments:
This may come as no shock whatsoever, but I am going to give that post a 9 out of 10. It was right up there with the best, but there was a lack of Ruby. That could have put you over the top.
i want your job. not fair! i'll trade you ok? you can go to school for me for the next 6 months, and i will go around drinking free drinks for you. ok? deal!
It's a good thing my Dad didn't strap our current roommate with dynamite and send him to that conference like he wanted to, that sure would have been a conflict of interest for me.
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