Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

An art piece by my sister

My sister, who still lives in State College, had told us about the event. In fact, we all got VIP tickets because we had made donations to help the College Democrats finance the event. Anyone who had paid at least $10 towards the event got preferred VIP seating, while admission was free for general admission.

I had tried ahead of time to arrange an interview for Wild Violet and had also tried to help my friend, Sven, a former roommate of my sister's, who'd originally been one of my brother's friends, to arrange a debate at the student station, WKPS. The proposal was for a political debate between Sven and Michael Moore on the liberal side, with conservative radio talk show host Mike Gallagher and the regular WKPS radio host on the other side. Separately, I would interview Michael Moore for Wild Violet either before or after the debate.

Gallagher was also speaking on campus that night, but in the Thomas Building, which is a regular classroom building with a capacity of hundreds, rather than the thousands of attendees at Michael Moore's event.

Interestingly enough, our failed efforts to set up this somehow got out, through the Mike Gallagher camp, one would suppose. He tried to make it sound as if Michael Moore was afraid to take him on, despite the fact that nobody apparently spoke to any of the people involved in trying to arrange this on behalf of WKPS. I can say personally that I was in contact with Michael Moore's talent agency and never had definitive word one way or the other about the proposed event. I can't even say for certain that my messages were received.

Frankly, given the fact that I later found out Michael Moore was on an airplane during the 5-6 p.m. window when the live show would have taken place, I doubt that he would have even been able to call in. In fact, he was late for his own speech because of delays at the Penn State airport. So Mike Gallagher clearly has an inflated view of his own importance in this case and a distorted view of his own relevancy to the Penn State students and Central Pennsylvania public.

It's probably a good thing the interviews fell through, because even though we were on the road by quarter of three, it took us far longer to get to State College than we'd anticipated.

Mapquest.com claims that it takes roughly three and a half hours to get from Philadelphia to State College, but between rush hour traffic in Harrisburg and construction traffic on Route 322 around Lewistown, this adds on another hour to an hour and a half.

We kept getting calls from my sister on my cell phone, checking up on us. We'd always tell her we thought we were through the worst of it, and five minutes after hanging up, we'd hit even worse traffic. It didn't help that it was homecoming weekend at Penn State.

So while we'd originally told her we'd arrive by 7, we didn't arrive until just after 8 p.m. Since there were only a couple buses that went from where she lives to the Bryce Jordan Center where Michael Moore would speak, she caught an earlier bus and promised to save us seats.

Once we'd arrived, we got settled and I changed. Then we went out to wait for the bus. We got out there early, just in case fate decided to mess us up again. There was a Winnebago parked right next to the bus stop sign, and you could no longer see the bus stop sign from the road. We stood behind it, prepared to flag down the bus, should he not realize it was a stop.

We stood there joking around about Winnebagos and wendigos and which was more dangerous. It was a mini Winnebago. "A mini Winnie!" I said.

"It's got to be owned by a woman," The Gryphon said. "No man would own a mini Winnie."

The bus was five minutes late, just when we were trying to decide whether we should hop in my car and take our chances with parking at the Bryce Jordan Center. Nobody else was on the bus. We told the bus driver where we were going. He said he didn't know how close he could get us because of the traffic and the security directing people different places. But we told him to get us as close as he could. Fortunately, security did wave him through and let him drop us at the normal bus stop.

Huge lines snaked out of the different entrances. We'd received a call from my sister, telling us which section they were in. We marched up to a Bryce Jordan employee and asked them were the VIP entrance was. He said we needed to go to Gate D, so we walked all the way around the building, where the line was even longer, marched up to the door and tried to hand in our tickets and go in.

The woman who was there told us the VIP tickets didn't get us in any faster, and we had to go to the back of the line. So we called my sister's cell phone and told her what was up, and she promised to continue to hold our seats for us.

Fortunately, the line moved pretty quickly. Finally, we were inside, walking down the stairs to the section my sister had told us to go to. We heard her call out our names and we knew we'd finally made it. She looked terrific: she's been on Weight Watchers and had lost about 30 pounds this summer.

We had excellent seats, in the first tier right off the left of the stage. I've never had better seats in the Bryce Jordan Center, not even when Bill Clinton spoke at my grad school commencement.

While we were waiting, they showed some video clips from "TV Nation," a show Michael Moore had several years ago that's since been canceled. They didn't seem directly relevant to anything he was going to talk about that night. There was one where they decided to counter hate with love, so he sent a group of people and cameras to a KKK rally. A mariachi band sang love songs, multiracial cheerleaders chanted positive rhymes, and volunteers handed out balloons and roses.

There was another clip about a BET sound engineer who'd been stopped by police more than 20 times in a few years despite the fact that he'd never done anything illegal. So they bought a billboard and put up flyers and bought television ads announcing that he was "not the guy you're looking for."

As we waited, the crowd got more and more excited. Finally, they brought him out. He pumped up the crowd right away by revealing he was wearing a Penn State jersey. Then he got the crowd of primarily students riled up by suggesting that Michigan, his home state and a big football rival of Penn State, was going to make sure that Kerry won the state and that Pennsylvania wouldn't want to be shown up.

Afterwards, The Gryphon said that portion of the presentation sounded more like a stump speech, especially when he had everyone chanting, "President Kerry!" Then he moved on to doing what he does best: to talk about the issues in an entertaining way and make points that make you think.

One of the things he discussed was the fact that between women and minorities, if you put them together, they make up 62 percent of the vote. If they just get to the polls, they could really influence the election. And he talked about how young people have been missing in action in the elections. He had people stand up who hadn't voted before but who were going to vote this election. And he told them that if they promised to vote, he'd give them the slackers' food staple, ramen noodles. The guys got the slackers necessity, clean underwear. But since they were three packs, he said they'd have to share with their buddies.

At one point, he was talking about how men for many years had two important functions: propagation of the species and getting things off the top shelf. But they were made less relevant by advanced fertility techniques and the invention of the aluminum stepladder. Ever since then, he joked, men were trying to figure out their role in society.

He mentioned a very interesting point when he was talking about the media and how they haven't been doing their job. Apparently, a "Washington Post" reporter not long ago looked into which plane had actually gotten the bin Laden family out of the United States after 9/11. Research revealed it was the White House press plane! And even though this appeared in the "Washington Post," the mainstream media has not picked it up.

I really liked one segment where he talked about conservative talk radio and how they're always shouting people down and telling them to shut up. He said it's because they're afraid to hear the other side's points because they might be right. He did a funny thing about Bill O'Reilly and how he didn't know that phone sex consisted of saying, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut uuuuup!"

We had a great time. Afterwards, we decided to walk downtown and hit one of our favorite bars, Zeno's, which is a little basement place with really good beer and live music.

There was only one car for all of us, so those who wanted to rode and The Gryphon, Sven, my sister's fiancé and I walked. As we crossed campus and then walked down College Avenue, Sven and I decided it would be easier to point out things that hadn't changed than those that did.

Of course, The Gryphon didn't hear much of this because it was a typical homecoming weekend, people running around in high spirits, blissfully unaware they would lose to Iowa the next day 6-4.

At one point, a frat looking guy fell in some gravel and looked like he was going to throw up. "Now that's something that hasn't changed," Sven and I agreed.

About a block from Zeno's, my sister called to say Zeno's had a helluva line and they were going to go to Chumley's instead, which was the local gay bar about a half block away. It's generally a more mellow atmosphere and usually a good place to go if you don't want to fight huge crowds.

But the downtown was so packed that even Chumley's was shoulder to shoulder. But we ordered some drinks anyway and chilled for a bit. My sister got a whiskey sour, and it tasted good, so I got one, too. I had the female bartender, and she gave me a cherry and an orange slice. My sister was jealous because she'd had the guy bartender, and he'd only given her a lime slice.

Even though we had to shout over the crowd, we had fun talking about everything from belly dancing to bizarre fashions to the "log" song from Ren and Stimpy.

The Bride was there, our friend who got married back in August. She'd brought her husband, so I suppose for now you can call them the Newlyweds. They were in great spirits. I hadn't seen them so relaxed for a year and a half. But I guess planning both a Hindu and a Catholic wedding will make you a bit stressed.

After a couple drinks, we decided to brave Zeno's for last call. By then the crowd had died down and we convinced the guy at the door to let us in. Credit my sister in her pink sequined shirt, with her dazzling smile.

We all tried a beer we hadn't had before and chatted while listening to the live cover band. My sister and I went down front and danced for awhile. They even played the Monkees song, "I'm a Believer." Everyone went wild.

Then the lights flickered on, and we had to go home. We all managed to pile into the car and tried to be respectfully quiet while the male Newlywed (this is awkward; I'm come up with another nickname soon) drove in thick fog. Of course, being quiet proved too difficult for me, and I started squeezing The Gryphon's head and going, "Slurp, slurp."

My sister said, "Alyce, be quiet."

"I'm quietly slurping brains," I giggled.

"Not funny," she said, which of course, only made it funnier. I giggled into my scarf the rest of the way home.

More from Homecoming weekend:

October 26, 2004 - Dinner, No Dancing

October 27, 2004 - Shmeebones & Phones

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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