The Manning rule, among little-known Indy facts

Little-known facts about Indianapolis:

It has one of the lowest suicide rates of any city over 100,000 people – experts attribute this to the lack of buildings over three stories from which people can jump.

The city used to be called “Gary,” but then The Music Man was released and residents got so tired of that song, they changed the name. Littler known fact - first they changed the name to “Indiana,” resulting in a great deal of confusion (the postal union in particular was upset, as postal employees were forced to think for the first time in...ever) so they added the “polis” to straighten things out. Adding the particular suffix “polis” was a tribute to the region’s most popular culinary invention – The Polis Sandwich, consisting of plain turkey on white bread.

Under city code 3.6, section iv, passed in 2002, any female asked by Peyton Manning for a sexual favor must immediately and completely consent, or else face a penalty of three years imprisonment and/or forced lifetime residency inside the city.

Following 83 percent of all novelty signs anywhere in the world that have an arrow pointing you in the direction of “Middle of Nowhere” will lead you here.

Every president save James Garfield has managed to avoid visiting here, and his two-day visit only occurred due to a lost drunken bet made with vice-president Chester Arthur. (Had Arthur lost, he was to have visited malaria-infested Panama, where he was to work on the canal for a year.)

The most notable family from Indianapolis is the Lilly’s, of Eli Lilly, the drug manufacturer. Lilly actually started a timber company in the 1800s but also dabbled in chemistry. He found that the concoction of drugs he formulated - called anti-depressants now, but at the time referred to as “the Gary blues pick-me-ups” - were so popular and needed among virtually all residents, he decided to switch industries.

One of the current large employers is a spin-off of Lilly, called Lilly Latex. They specialize in a chemical called “indianacite,” used by most paint manufacturers to speed the drying process. Nearly all residents aspire to be a visual tester of the effects of this chemical, as it is one of the more stimulating professions here.

Now, moving on….
I think people secretly laugh at my phone. If you’ve seen American Psycho there is an amusing storyline about these high-powered men and their fetishizing of business cards….they show them off to each other, are openly envious of the nicer ones, etc. Some people are like this with tech toys, but I am certainly not, and I certainly don’t care about having the latest and greatest stuff. This is more than obvious when you look at my phone, for example, which I think maybe came off the production line in 1997 and weighs about four pounds. And I can see people look at me as I hold it to my ear, as I text, as I lug the external battery, strapped to my back - these sad looks, sometimes condescending, sometimes scornful, but often just empathetic, wanting to help me. I ignore them, I look away, I adjust my phone at just the right 86 degree angle and stand stock still so I can hear the person on the other end and pretend I don’t see their stares. One of my good friends scorned cell phones up until just a few years ago and now has the latest and greatest…he has zoomed past me, and I admit I’m envious at the thought of having access to the internet on me at all times (“Are those Scarlett Johansson Google images in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”) but I refuse to advance and will keep this phone until they pry it off of the Walkman attachment in my fanny pack.

This was exacerbated at one point by this douchebag who talked in one of my sessions today. He started his talk by asking everyone to get out their phone and hold it up. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m assuming roomfuls of adult don’t like to be told to do dumb things like this. I abstained – and kept my phone hidden. Why do people do this? Is it some weird control thing about having the attention of a room of a couple hundred people? He also then commanded us at one point to send a text to a certain number, something I also refused to do. (Confession – when someone says “Text ‘coupon’ to 7456” I really have no idea what this means. I mean, I could guess, but I’d ask someone before I did it.) I’m a bit of an anomaly here, I think, in that I have great facility with Twitter, for example, which for some reason seems to confound even smart people, but find Facebook and texting aggravating and difficult.

In general, I’ve accepted that I’m usually the dumbest person in any room. Sometimes hubris gets the better of me and there are occasions when I think that maybe this isn’t the case…but then I’m typically brought down to earth quickly. But I must say...this conference is attended primarily by a lot of marketing professionals and I’m feeling kind of brainy. Maybe it’s just because I work with a lot of really smart people and interact with a lot of really smart people all the time, but I definitely have gotten the impression these last few days that this isn’t the strongest IQ group you’ll ever see. But taking them out of their hometowns and putting them in Indianapolis no doubt raised the average IQ of both cities.