Last week, I was in St. Louis on vacation. It might seem like a weird place to go on vacation and that’s probably because it is. I was attracted to the city for a couple of reasons. The main one being that they have a Major League Baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals. I love going to different stadiums around the country and collecting pennants from them:
Busch Stadium was the 10th I’ve visited.
The other reason was that I knew there was history to the city. I knew it had, “The Arch.” I knew the city was nicknamed, “the gateway to the west.” I knew going there that it would have something. Did I think it would have seven days of things? No, I was a little concerned about that. Well I was wrong because by the end of the week, I was completely worn out.
I was so wrong, in fact, that I’ve got a whole bunch of blog posts coming up that will be inspired by my trip to St. Louis. I’m really excited to for all this inspiration it’s given me and it compelled me to write this post.
I’ve learned from doing stand-up comedy that people aren’t always listening to the point of something. For example, I have a joke where I mention veterans. I don’t even make fun of them or the idea of them or get political about them. It’s just an observation that requires me to mention that veterans exist. I’ve discovered that I need to go out of my way, while telling this joke, to explain that I give veterans all the credit they deserve and am not mocking them just so people will actually listen to the set-up and punchline. This is because too many people hear the word “veteran” come out of my mouth and decide whatever I’m about to say is wrong. In fact, it’s one of the few jokes I’ve been heckled about and it was just some guy yelling, “Marines!” at me. He apologized to me afterwards.
I tell this anecdote because inevitably people will assume I’m judging St. Louis and in some ways they will be right. However, any comparison I make with St. Louis and Boston, St. Louis and Los Angeles, or St. Louis to wherever is just for the sake of discussion. I had a great time in St. Louis and I can see why so many people are proud to be from there. All I’m saying is everyone just needs to chill out, preemptively.
