Surviving the Circus: Five Rules for Conference Success

Despite his annoyance with the circumstances, the Senator was smiling.

We were hopelessly lost on unnamed side streets. The coastal rain was waving like heavy drapes in the streetlights and the few stars that took shape jostled and arced across the firmament before dying beyond the ink black mountain range just east of our trundling. 

Still, the Senator smiled.

“Leg Kick!” AJ Abernathy lunged from behind a big leaf maple and smacked me in the quad.

“Damnit AJ!” I grabbed my leg as he dashed behind a house. “Stop doing that!”

Cassidy Caldwell hopped into a shallow puddle in her high heels and pencil skirt. Our formal attire had long ago been sacrificed to the storm. We had begun to embrace the primitive.

“Senator, where the hell are we?!” She shouted playfully.

“How the heck should I know?!” He shot back. His glasses were fogged up and streaming rainwater. The Senator had the patience of a farmer, but everyone has limits. He raised his voice to get above the storm.

“Who put AJ in charge of directions?!”

AJ sloshed from behind the house, scatted gibberish at a pre-flight seagull then narrowly missed my hamstring with another low slung leg heave.

Cassidy cackled. 

“In my defense,” I said, eying AJ as he darted behind a nearby oak tree to “hide”. “Yes, I had trusted him. But AJ insisted he knew where this party was……”

“That was before he got into the Fireball and started thinking he was a cagefighter!” Cassidy finished.

The Senator appreciated the deeper value of our journey. Chaos always made for a better story. And the Senator, like most who attain higher office, collected stories like river rocks. Too be slung during their endless array of meetings and invitations that clog their daily calendars. 

A gust of wind hit our scattered crew and I wobbled like a drover on an oxen sledge.

“What about these people up here?” Cassidy yelled from under the suit jacket she was using as a rain shield. “That knucklehead is dressed like a mountie. He might know!”

 “Hey!” I yelled at the uniformed posse passing in the other direction, “Which way to the Roughriders party?!”
“Up here!” someone hollered, while switching to a jog, splashing forward to escape the pounding rain.

Rule 1: Arrive like the wind, leave like the tide. (timing is everything)

The four of us entered the house, dropped our soggy layers, and took stock of the scene. Half the crowd was dressed like Teddy Roosevelt and the other half like college republicans. This was the place alright.

For reasons no one had adequately explained, theme parties persist. They are like cockroaches after the apocalypse – impossible to fully eradicate. Beyond being a theme party, this soiree was made particularly grim by its attendance consisting 100% of Political People. While still new to the field, I was quickly adapting. I learned as a white male who held no elected office, I had zero social capital. No one wanted me talking to them or interrupting their attempt to talk to someone more important. My opinions were as well received as hymns sung to a dead horse, and my name was forgotten as soon as it left my lips. I countered this by sticking close to Cassidy. In a room of political nerds slobbering for status, an attractive alpha chick cuts through the bullshit like hot butter. 

Cassidy did a quick assessment of the attendees and was unimpressed. “Alright, two drinks then we hit the road,” She scanned my face for recognition, then turned on her heels and breezed towards the kitchen where the liquor was. I realized she could only coddle me for so long. Eventually I had to sink or swim on my own. 

Not confident enough to follow her through the living room gantlet and not buzzed enough to know how to start a conversation I went to the keg. 

“Put ‘er there, pal” I said to the kid manning the hand pump, holding out my giant red cup and grinning ferociously. He stopped pumping and gave me the spigot.
“All yours”, he said, and walked off.

He’d surely seen me enter with a female and a legislator and was jealous. I took the handle and pivoted so my back was to the wall, surveying the room while pumping. 

One’s initial moves when entering a party are critical. Those micro-decisions dictate how the attendees will treat you during the rest of your visit. The Senator had his decision made for him. He was immediately surrounded by admirers and wouldn’t be freed up anytime soon. Meanwhile AJ busied himself playing grab-ass with the lower level staff and activist class. 

I finished filling my cup and stood my ground. Standing alone in the corner would surely be noted in the social supercomputers revving in my fellow partygoers amygdala’s. But I preferred remaining neutral instead of committing to a conversation that signaled my acceptance of a rung on the social ladder.

The room was 80% male, smelled like chili and heavy on interns. During these conferences ladies essentially drank for free, so the complimentary keg advertised on the party flier spoke mostly to the fellas. I tried to retrace my steps at how I had ended up in this well traversed territory of professional pugilists. If one were to believe the promotional materials, this was the oldest annual political conference in the United States. It occurred each year at a rugged coastal town famous for its skee ball and its spring breaks. I had been informed, perhaps incorrectly, that it was THE event of the year to be seen at. And as a newbie, I was also informed, it was important to be seen.

From my heavily wallpapered corner of the room I watched the partygoers glide across the hardwood like unmoored cadavers, fidgeting at the lightest twitch from the unseen marionettes’ above. I would soon learn that the key to nearly everyone’s success was possessing zero self awareness. Being well balanced or having a modicum of restraint was useless in politics. Those weren’t the types to collect here anyway. The ones standing on the balls of their feet with both thumbs perpetually pointing back at themselves. To believe you were the best option to represent the needs of a large population center takes a level of hubris and narcissism that runs contrary to the very notion of “public servant”. 

While lost in thought one of their ranks blustered through the doorway and shook her umbrella off next to me, exhaling loudly to announce her entrance.  She had a sprite ethereal gaze that could either signify high intelligence or vapidity. She was probably 60, but at a glance, could be mistaken for half that. “Hello!” I said, with an expression that tried to extol empathy, I pointed to a place she could ditch her rain gear. “Hello” she said, rolling her eyes at the weather and glancing around the room. “Thanks, I’ll keep my umbrella though.”  One less item to gather if needing to make a hasty exit.

Generally, even the dimmest elected officials develop a keen perceptivity forged by the fact that everyone they talk to wants something from them. They get accustomed to taking people’s best shot in conversations and can immediately detect those who are ill-prepared. Since my sole focus was on pounding beers, I wasn’t taking any shots, and this was causing a disruption in her hard wired social sequencing. I also had no idea who she was. “Hello!” I repeated, smiling, as she continued standing there holding her umbrella. She just blinked at me like she’d lost the pitch count. Did she think I worked here? 

“Ah, Representative Ratchet. Nice to see you made it.”  A handsome young-ish man waltzed up from behind me and joined us. He had straight legged chinos and an Ace Ventura wave accompanied by the self-satisfied look of someone who’d  just pulled off a prank. “Have you found our fair host yet, Mayor Brownwacker? He’s hard to miss, he’s dressed like Teddy Roosevelt and utilizing enough open carry to make Mad Max blush.” At this, Representative Ratchet’s face made a faint expression. The hint of a smile at the edges of her mouth. She knew of the Mayor’s passion for weaponry. “Straight ahead to the kitchen you’ll find him,” he said. She smiled appreciatively at being bailed out of our chat.

“She’s had some nice work done, eh?” he said with a smirk, as we watched her navigate the shark pool.
“Patrick” he said. Nodding at me and still smiling from his comment. “Reminds you a lot of high school, doesn’t it?”

I gazed at the entangled throb of the room.  “Yes, yes it does.”

He leaned in to get above the noise, “Elected officials assume everyone knows who they are.” He continued, keeping his eyes on the room. “If you don’t recognize them, they are prolific at standing in silence until someone comes by who does.” He took a sip of something that looked expensive. “Anything they say can be used against them later. So their best bet is to say nothing. It’s really just risk mitigation.” He shrugged as he considered his point. “Or if they do talk, they’ll say something which is still basically nothing.”

“I guess I’d only seen her on TV,” I admitted. “She looks different in person.”

“Yeah, her hubby pays for it,” he smiled and pointed to the kitchen. “Go get yourself a real drink. The keg’s flat.”

Rule 2: Always keep reserves back in the room.

Indecisive by nature and liking to keep my options open, I arrived at the weekend conference earlier in the day without registering, sans transportation and absent any lodging to speak of. I did have a bottle of Aberlour scotch, however, which along with the lessons I would learn from Cassidy, perhaps crested the conference as the real winner of the weekend. 

Like most of my contemporaries, scotch didn’t land in my drinking career until relatively late in the game. It certainly isn’t something one’s doing shots of in college. Nor is it quaffed in those post-college apartments when decorating christmas trees with beer tabs and subsisting on elevated ramen and Kraft macaroni dishes. Even in the heady years of young professional “networking” when one first discovers 4pm is a perfectly acceptable time to schedule an “HH” on your calendar and have a few drinks on the clock while vaguely talking shop with an old college flame, Scotch wasn’t in the rotation.

Scotch signaled a transition to a new level of drinking. One that expands to include nearly the entire horizon of drinking options. It’s the important stage right after wine tastings enter and before the home liquor cabinet starts to form.

Scotch came into my life at this specific time at this specific conference via a recommendation from a specific liquor store clerk to whom I’ll always be indebted. He ran a place on the edge of town and nodded with empathy as I explained the situation I was in. No lodging. No transportation. High stress. General disdain for everyone around me…….. 

“Have you tried Aberlour?” he offered. I squinted at the small print on the bottle. “No. I generally hit tequila or whiskey to manage these types of social environments.”

“Perfectly reasonable choices,” he said, grabbing the bottle and setting it in front of me. “But Single Malt combines the best of both those without the drawbacks. It will get you energized, but also less likely to start fistfights.” “No kidding?” I rubbed my chin, intrigued. “Especially when consumed in the quantities you are describing.” He added.  

Admittedly it was on the high end of my price range, but the clerk informed me it was on discount. “Two glasses of this,” he said, while making a jet engine movement with his hand. “And you’re off!” 

Rule 3: If you know what’s going on at the conference you’re doing it wrong.

After our liquor store purchases Cassidy pulled into a parking lot just off the main drag and stopped the car. “Okay. I’m going to check in at my hotel. What are you going to do?” She looked in the mirror to check her makeup. I had been pondering my answer to this question ever since I’d made the last minute decision to attend. I took a deep breath and tried to sound confident. “I was thinking of heading to the conference check-in booth where I’d see if I can nab somebody’s leftover registration lanyard, flip it backwards, and then head into the evening’s plenary session.” She looked at me like I swallowed a bug. “Yes?” I continued hopefully.

“No dum dum. That’s a terrible plan. You aren’t doing that.” We can find our badges and welcome shit whenever. Their only value is the free drink tickets and people will give me theirs anyway.” She closed her cosmetic case and put it in her purse. “Look, Nicki is coming over to my place in a half hour to start getting ready and she’s bringing wine. You can hang with us.” She got out of the car, opened her back seat and heaved the jumbo tote bag over her shoulder. “Definitely NOT  going to the conference though.” She slammed the door. Then opened it back up. “Don’t forget your bottle.” 

“Fine by me, I’ll hang with the girls,” I said, to an empty car, grabbing my backpack and bottle. Despite now working in politics I wasn’t keen on hanging around the type of people that liked the subject matter so much they discussed it in their free time. The longer I had to steel myself for those interactions with the faithful, the better. 

Rule 4: When in doubt, head to the hotel bar.

As we descended to the Hilton’s basement ballroom for the nights signature event I was hit with a wave of apprehension. Something felt off. Cassidy and I had already been separated from AJ and the Senator for some time now. The beauty, and for many, the terror, of the conference structure is that if you stay out long enough eventually everyone ends up at the same places. We knew we’d reunite with our original crew on a future leg of our journey. Well, maybe not AJ. 

Peering into the large room confirmed my apprehension. There were a few ruddy elders who’d been glugging since breakfast on the dance floor, otherwise it was just casual conversation at a half dozen high top tables and some people mingling around the buffet line looking over each other’s shoulders in case someone with more clout entered. Despite this being the main event of the night, we’d arrived too early. (see Rule 1)

“Hotel bar. Upstairs.” Cassidy said loudly in my ear, having done a loop and now sallying past me to the stairwell. Two dapper elected officials awaited our arrival in the upstairs hotel bar, holding an ocean view seat at the table for Caldwell. When they saw me coming, one sighed and un-energetically grabbed an additional chair from a nearby table and pulled it over. They resigned themselves to my presence being the price of an audience.

This is where I started to get my education on PAC’s. Political Action Committee’s. They vary in flexibility by state. Free Speech in our state meant PAC’s could be used for just about anything by just about anyone who had one. Ever wonder what happens to those donations grandma scrapes together at the end of the year with her sad little checkbook? It goes to pay the bar tab for a schmuck like me lounging at a table of smooth talking degenerates flirting with a chick half their age and twice their IQ.

Admittedly, what technically constitutes “work” when you are involved in politics is a gray area indeed. The machine operates on waves of information, and the more you have, the more nimble you can be at ascertaining intentions. Alliances were won and lost at many a late-night hotel bar when all the posturing of the job was finally exhausted and a sleepy pragmatism could raise its head and peek above the brinkmanship. 

After the hotel lounge the four of us decided on an unplanned pit stop at a local dive bar. The injection of normalcy the dive offered was refreshing after the revolving door of workplace conversations with the same rotation of characters whose only variable was their degree of drunkenness. I enjoyed watching the electeds shrink back down into civilian life where the bartenders gave zero fucks who they were and treated them just like everyone else, except slightly worse, since they were the only wags in the joint wearing suits. 

Rule 5: You do not have to finish your drink.

The storm finally relented, allowing the coastal breeze to mix with the marine air and rain-polished pavement to form a pleasing aroma that accompanied our walk back to the waterfront hotel. Our dress shoes clacked against the scarred jaw bone of sidewalk as we debriefed in a spitfire fashion on conversations from previous destinations. Travel between events was done on foot and these intermissions were filled with the retelling of fragmented sequences, overheard conversations and comedic encounters. The crossfade of hotels, promotions, house parties, penthouses and receptions became threaded together by these unnamed and unknown streets. It was on these strolls that Cassidy explained her methodology for turning a conference’s dull lecture halls into a jamboree of excess. She attended none of the day’s scheduled events, instead spending the time sleeping-in, lounging at the beach and shopping. Conferences were really just for networking anyway, she pointed out. And this is best done when tipsy from a fresh glass of pinot rather than overflowing from a noggin filled with powerpoints.

Cassidy was the undisputed Queen of the Conference Circuit. At any given function she became the individual in the room whose ring was kissed. Even the party hosts or resident power brokers eventually came to her for validation. Or if they didn’t, she was busy plotting a strategy to win them over so they soon would be. She was uniquely able to bludgeon the careful norms associated with white glove events while simultaneously expanding the possibilities for how electeds were allowed to behave. And they loved her for it. 

While lobbyists and influence peddlers appreciated gifted politicians, the holy grail are the electeds who think they’re smart but actually aren’t. These individuals can be more easily molded and manipulated into becoming Manchurian candidates. This is why you’d often see the craftiest lobbyist having recurring dinner dates with the dumbest elected officials. 

Every once in a while there would be an elected official with such a dreadful personality and unlikeable disposition that no matter how easily they could be manipulated, they would still end up alone at parties in the corner standing next to me. 

“Where’d you say your district is again?” I asked one such legislator, still unable to visualize the area he was describing in my mind. He smiled at my confusion and held his hand up as an imaginary map for guidance. “It’s rural parts of three unincorporated counties and portions of six small towns.” He pointed at different areas on his hand. I followed the movements intently but was still having trouble. He gave up and put his hand down. “Nobody knows where it is or where the boundaries are. So nobody knows who their legislator is.” He smiled. “It’s perfect.” I nodded, trying to follow the logic. “I get NO constituent calls…….. and NO emails.” His voice started rising with excitement as he explained. “I show up at a few parades in the summer….. That’s about it. I waft just enough Name ID around so voters recall my name slightly more than other candidates when filling out their ballots. Usually only takes one mail piece per cycle.”  He took a sip of his Mirror Pond Pale Ale. “If I’m feeling frisky, I’ll put some field signs out in my friends yards a few days before the election. That’s it.” He smiled as he visualized one of his yard signs.

“I see.” I said.

“Right?!” He swayed back and forth upon my seeming to comprehend his rather odious view of public service. “It allows me to focus on the important stuff………. Like this!”

I nodded slowly and crinkled my forehead as if coming to understand a profound truth.

Cassidy returned with a trail of eyes following her ass from the last conversation.  She had pen scrawled all over her hand. I cocked my head sideways trying to read it. “What on your hand?” I asked. “Room numbers.” She rolled her eyes. “Flattering, but gross.” She sucked in her stomach and fixed her dress. “God, I feel bloated.” She glanced at the legislator next to me who was ogling her as she adjusted her wardrobe. She shifted to a whisper so he couldn’t hear. He was like a skunk. People would scatter on site if he followed us. “Alright we’re out. Heading to the after party.” I gestured at my full beer. “Leave it.” 

“Duty calls.” I said to the skunk, putting my drink on a nearby speaker.

He smiled and cheersed the air then looked back to the room. He opened his eyes widely as though peering into a great darkness. My name and our conversation were already erased from his memory.
——-

What: Aberlour, Single Malt 12-Year Scotch
Where: At social events, or prior to them.
When: you need a kick. (or to avoid a leg kick)
How to drink: With large ice to minimize dilution. Or with a few drops of water.
ABV: 40%
Aroma: Fresh apple slice with a bit of cinnamon.
Taste: Rich oak, medium body, well rounded. 
Finish: Slightly sweet and spicy.
Value: 8
Availability: 4

For Isy’s review of Aguardiente, Colombia’s national drink, see ‘Watermelon Poison: drinking fire water in Bogota.”Watermelon Poison: drinking fire water in Bogota – Uncharted Dives