Drinking Through Chicago

Ahh Chicago. The bars are open until five a.m., the pizza is great, the Guinness is cheap and unfortunately, the conservatives talk too much. The Collegiate Network held its annual Editor's Conference in the windy city last month in an effort to network college conservative publications together.

After our last issue went to press around four a.m., we packed our bags and flew on the early morning flight to Chicago. After what seemed like only 50 minutes of sleep, we were greeted at the O'Hare Airport by a taxi driver who talked and sang to himself. Little did we know, that when we arrived at the hotel, we were in for nothing more than talk.

The banquet food consisted of shrimp chowder and a very rare steak. The speaker for the night was also rare. Some withered old conservative bastard rambled on about how college conservatives needed to "come over to Macedonia. Help us." Since none of us seemed to be able to get a visa to war-torn Yugoslavia, it seemed that his plea was in vain. He did, however, share with us his idea of good journalism. And it went a little like this:

Joe Smith and Jane Jones are to be married this evening. The groom is none too bright, and has the same chances of making a nice little life for himself as a snow ball in hell. The bride is "painted like a Sioux" and has kissed every boy in town. Together they will have cretin children and live off of food stamps and trash scraps well into their forties.

If people at home think the Commentator is bad, they've seen nothing like this. We choked down the chocolate truffles and thought how liberal and well-mannered we were.

Visions of microbrews and peanuts danced in our heads throughout the speech. When the speech ended the announcement was made that drinks would be served in the next room. A miracle from the gods, or so we thought. We entered the room only to find Budweiser and O'Douls. As the other participants raced towards the beer with childish grins upon their faces, we stood by waiting for something, anything to happen. We were immediately cornered by two editors from the Berkeley Counterpoint, who, while the saviors of our weekend and our sanity, were Buchanan-supporters who had really encountered no resistance on the most liberal campus in the world, and had never met Naked Guy. Damn.

We quietly excused ourselves a number of times and went to our rooms. After spending a few moments in shock, rocking back and forth like stimulus-deprived Romanian orphans, we finally went to sleep.

Despite the warnings not to show up to the sessions late, we staggered into the morning session and found our seats. David Horowitz, the editor of Heterodoxy was the morning speaker. Insert Black Hate Crime Crap here...

We were then subjected to three rounds of workshops. In the first, the editors of the UWM Times spoke of their recent plight with the local Black Students Alliance and the Nation of Islam. It seems that some journalism genius decided that using the word "nigger" in reference to O.J. Simpson in a commentary in defense of Mark Fuhrman was a good idea. When a public outcry was the result, the editors were surprised, and many of the contributing staff defected to the witness protection program. Seeking support from their fellow conservative editors, they seemed surprised again when the editor from the Northwestern Chronicle said, "I never would have printed that."

While the editors of these papers waxed right-wing on the tired old issues of multiculturalism and homosexuality in curriculum, we nodded off, dreaming of the next coffee break. Finally, Neomi Rao, formerly of the Yale Free Press and currently working with Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard saved the day. Discouraging exclusive focus on issues of minorities and homosexuals, Rao suggested expanding the reach of some papers and discussing issues that answered this question: Who is being screwed by whom and how much? A breath of fresh air swept through the room, and many of the editors whined their disbelief and their dedication to issues that would keep them on the fringe.

We had some time to freshen up before the banquet. We returned to our rooms, pressed our pillows to our faces and screamed: "Oh my God, we're liberal!" And it's true. To all of you kids in the BSU, OSPIRG, MEChA, the ASUO, USSA, MCC, and the Student Insurgent: the Commentator is left of center. Unlike some publications, we do not know the goose-step, couldnšt pull off a Zieg Heil if we tried and don't know oppression from a hole in the ground.

During the banquet, replete with heavy meat and steamed vegetables, we listened to the wisdom of a columnist for U.S. News and World Report. He told us that abortion was bad because it authorized untrained medical personnel to perform surgery (untruth number one), that multiculturalism was bad because it just was (non-logic number one) and that there were no conservatives in the press (untruth number two). He tried to explain that it was the average news writer that shaped public opinion, not columnists and commentators. These news writers, he said, were shamefully liberal and shaped their stories around their liberalism. We turned to each other and wondered psychically if there was a shovel anywhere close.

After the banquet, we were set free. We stopped in the hotel bar for a few Samuel Adams on the house (finally). The other participants, from Berkeley and Georgetown were in awe of our stories about our little local bar, Max's. We entranced them with our tales about layout night and the "Web o' Lust." They followed us.

We walked, backwards, to the local pizza joint. The customers who had frequented the restaurant before us had scrawled "Oregon has the best micro-brews on earth!" on the walls. We bragged to the Berkeley guys that the scrawling was true, but they still insisted on ordering Bud. We attempted to listen to the Georgetown boy talk about his times at Texas University, but Autumn became comatose and actually drank the Bud.

We were tired, but we had to see the real Chicago. We again walked backwards to avoid chapping our nostrils in the wind to the John Hancock Tower. The elevator up to the 95th floor rocked back and forth with the building in the wind. When we arrived at the Signature Room, the wind had died somewhat and we were relieved to see a one drink minimum. Davis from Dartmouth had two martinis, the Berkeley Boys had Sam Adams, as did Autumn, Texas and Georgetown had a nonalcoholic slushy of some sort, and Farrah enjoyed a scotch and water. With artificial heat coursing through our veins and sedatives reaching our brains, we narrowly averted coronaries when the bill arrived with $5.75 for a beer all over the receipt. We returned to the hotel and Farrah listened to Georgetown and Dartmouth blather about the rate of tuition at their respective private institutions.

Finally Autumn and the Berkeley Boys returned, lightly toasted and ready for more Guinness. We trudged off in the direction of early morning bars, and after being rejected for wearing tennis shoes at one fine establishment, we happened upon Timothy O'Toole's. Open until five a.m., with two pool tables open, fine chips and salsa, three dollar drinks all night and the actual Beretta flirting with a prostitute, Timothy O'Toole's became our home for another few hours.

Farrah had to convince the bartender that she actually could handle Wild Turkey and Coke, even if she is a petite flower. Dartmouth matched Farrah drink for drink and was noticeably green when she suggested going back to the hotel and cracking the single-malt scotch when OšToolešs closed. She was convinced that enough liquor could drown out the memory of Buchanan placing before Dole in the straw pole taken earlier in the day.

Shortly before we left, the bouncer asked us not to be too critical of Beretta. "He has a gun, and might blow us all away," he said. If only he'd been at the conference.

Autumn Depoe writes for the Oregon Commentator

Farrah L. Bostic also writes for the Oregon Commentator