For those of you who don’t know things, Key Club is the
teenage version of Kiwanis, which is a club which does
service stuff like...uh...cleaning parks and planting trees
and trying to convince old people they’re still important.
I didn’t really give a fuck, I was just there cause my friends
were in it and my other friend was president.
This was the 51st annual convention of the California - Nevada - Hawaii
district. I don’t know how they got past the 3rd if they
were all as boring as this one. Anyway, it was held down in
Anaheim (for those of you foreigners, that’s where Disneyland
is). In fact the convention center is right across the street
from Disneyland.
It took place from Friday to Sunday, so right after school
Friday we left. 12 people from our club were coming, along
with a chaperone and the sponser/ teacher. My friend Matt
was driving his mom’s car, and riding along were Mark (the
president), R.J., me, and this other guy nobody knew. Traffic
sucked so we passed time thinking up tricks to do on this
prick who was also coming. In order to protect David Tran’s
identity, I’ll refer to him as Mr. X from now on. We came up
with tricks like shaving his head, stealing his shoes, ejaculating
into his mouth while he’s asleep (try explaining that if someone
walks in), stealing one shoe, writing 666 on his face, and
gluing his hand to the crotch of the guy he was sharing a bed
with, although that was too cruel to the other guy.
After checking in to the hotel (a Quality hotel, which is code
for "shitty"), we went next door to the Marriot (code for
"expensive, but what’re you going to do about it") This was
where the rest of the clubs from other schools were staying.
There were truckloads of kids all over the place. Most of the
them had...uh, spirit. Lots of singing and chanting and flag
waving and "Our club’s better than yours" and dick measuring.
Well, no, but that’s basically what they were doing. There were
even some clubs with cute uniforms. They were so cute I wanted
to puke. The SAAs were all over the place, policing what went on.
SAAs are the Sergeants At Arms, basically police. Most of them
were pretentious, overly glorified hall monitors.
After a stupid fiasco of looking for our sponsor we got our
badges and junk and went back to the hotel. We decided to
have dinner at Denny’s and skip the first activity, which
was the general session, a massive meeting. Heh heh. Fuck it.
After that we caught the end of a caucus. A caucus is where
people who are running for offices come up and bullshit and
answer questions. You can ask them anything you want. Then
Mark, Matt, R.J., and I ran all over Anaheim looking for the
materials to do the pranks on Mr. X. We ended up at a Food
For Less, where we got scissors and a permanent marker. I
wanted to get some laxatives, but they were too expensive.
While walking back to the car this truck sped into a parking
space right in front of us and two big guys got out. We were
like, oh shit. But nothing happened. It’s a good thing too,
cause, uh, I would’ve kicked their asses. Eventually we didn’t
do the pranks on Mr. X because we couldn’t get into his room.
The activities on Saturday were all formal, meaning coats
and ties and that crap. I was sure the SAAs would enforce
this rule. They probably wouldn’t let us in to the day’s
activities and meals. I didn’t want to wear one of those
junior executive yuppie scum hipster $3000 suits with baggy
pants and look like every other Key Clubber. I wore this black
suit with pinstripes that used to be my grandpa's. It was a
little too small and I also wore a skinny black tie, so that
I looked like a mortician or a hitman. The second general
session was in the arena in the convention center. The
four of us were walking in formation, like in Reservior Dogs.
Would’ve scared the shit out of me if I saw 4 guys wearing
suits and in formation coming down the sidewalk towards me.
By the time we got to the arena the session was over, so we left.
We couldn’t decide what to eat for breakfast so our whole
group split up. The four of us and this guy named Michael
and this other guy whose name I can’t remember crammed into
Matt’s car and went to Carl’s Jr. We wanted to skip the
rest of the Key Club crap and go to Knott’s Berry Farm, but
there wasn’t enough time.
Back at the hotel we messed around and played billiards.
Lunch was in this giant underground room at the convention
center. I think it was a parking garage, cause it was all
concrete and exposed plumbing. They served this weird
salad-like thing in a taco shell. Needless to say I didn’t eat.
We finally attended a session after lunch. It was like a
big Nazi rally with huge Key Club flags and people shouting
and stuff. My friend told me that last year if you got too
loud the Key Club would send their secret police to "talk" to
you. I got an idea to get an airhorn after another group kept
annoying us with theirs. I forgot what the session was about.
It was boring though. We went to a caucus afterwards. People
kept asking the candidates to say the alphabet backwards and
lame stuff like that, so the candidates would turn their backs
to us and say the alphabet (duh). My friend asked this one girl
to say it upside down. She did it too. I was going to ask,
"Do these pants make my ass look big?" but the SAAs would’ve taken
me in the back and roughed me up. The
candidates had really impressive grades. I don’t think anyone
had a GPA under 4.3. They were also in a shitload of clubs.
Important clubs too, not like Star Trek or the Chess club.
In the afternoon we bought the airhorn at a Big 5. The
employees were looking at our suits. I bet they were like,
"What are these sharply dressed gentlemen doing in our
business establishment?" Stupid Mark and Matt
used the airhorn in the car. Goddamn, those things are loud.
Then they did it again (duh, that was cool, let’s do it again).
I wanted to go to the Marriot, get all the elevators up to
the top floor, then put trashcans between the doors so they
couldn’t close. That would’ve been such a cool prank, but we
didn’t do it.
After dinner was another session. It was mostly an awards
show, with awards going to people I didn’t know or care
about, and the same people winning over and over again.
A talent show followed. The first act was a bunch of guys
breakdancing. Actually breakdancing. I didn’t know people
still did that. This 80’s revival is really getting out of
hand. I keep expecting to see people in headbands and jean
jackets with rolled up sleeves. There were some singers too.
I have no idea how people know when to scream during a song.
For example, someone’s singing, then all of a sudden the
audience screams in unison. What the hell are you guys
screaming about? Shut up. The rest of the show sucked so we
left. Some SAAs got in trouble while we were leaving. It
seems they weren’t supposed to let people leave yet. When
we heard this we ran. Heh heh. Fucking SAAs.
The last event of the day was the Governor’s Ball, at the
Marriot. The program didn’t say "dress code in effect", so
I thought I could wear normal clothes. Nope, I was wrong.
The prick SAA at the door said, "I don’t think I can let you
in with a t-shirt." Well fuck you asshole. So I had to go
back and change again. Ruined my day. Also, my friends
had already gone in, and they had the room keys, so I was
locked out. But luckily, our sponsor had the custodian at her
room for something else, so he let me in. I finally got back
to the ball.
The room was totally dark except for the light show by the
D.J. I could feel the room throbbing with music. Actually,
it was more bass than music. I found my friends and followed
them around. The D.J. was playing that mainstream dance
techno rap shit. I hated it. The dancefloor was fucking hot
too. Damnit, turn on the air conditioning, you stingy hotel
bastards. I tried to dance, cause I would’ve looked stupid
if I just stood there. I didn’t get too into it though, cause
it was rap. I should go to industrial and goth clubs. I’d
enjoy them more.
Sunday morning there was one last session. The place
was half empty. The president or whatever of the
Cali-Nev-Ha district made a long speech. I’m not sure
how he became president. I didn’t hear about any election,
and nobody told me to vote. Throughout my time in Key Club
I didn’t hear anything about a president, and all of a sudden
we have one. What kind of totalitarian service club is this?
We are under a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the
common student is exploited for the glory of the Club. Key
Club should be an autonomous collective, an anarcho-syndicalist
commune, with everybody taking turns acting as sort of an executive
officer for a week. But all the decisions of that officer have
to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple
majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a
two-thirds majority in more major affairs. And the SAAs? I
have a feeling these guys would beat me up if I disagreed with
Key Club ideals. Through the SAAs we can see the violence
inherent in this type of system. The ideas and opinions of
the common student should not be repressed, no matter how
controversial they may be.
[NOTE: The above paragraph was written to fill up this space
down here. In no way does it reflect the opinions of Key Club
International. They’re holding a gun to my head and forcing me
to write this. Help]
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