The Georgetown Voice, March 4, 2010

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SAC AND GUSA FACE OFF PAGE 4

WITHOUT FREEMAN HOYAS FREEFALL PAGE 6

CREPE A-MORE PLEASE PAGE 11

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w March 4, 2010 w Volume 42, Issue 22 w georgetownvoice.com

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2 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

comments of the week

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“Sounds like someone should have done their homework” —John “I really will sell this piece of shit: Georgetown Law grad selling his degree on Craigslist for $59,250”

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Voice Crossword “Spring Break” by Mary Cass and Jaclyn Wright

ACROSS 1. Ritual drink used in 47 across 5. In a pod 9. Embarrass 14. Tricky SFS subject 15. Hawaiian island 16. Whine

17. 90s Broadway hit 18. Kind of school 19. Chest wood 20. Oracular 22. Exotic fruit 24. Only 25. Lethal 27. German word for a small boat

SPECIAL RATES FOR ON CAMPUS GROUPS

31. The Beatles were back in it 32. Electric amphibian 34. Bathroom in London 35. Totals 38. Mom’s club (abbr.)

40. Santa’s making it 42. Bawled 44. Compass Point 46. Mediterranean ship 47. Eastern religion 48. ___ Francisco 50. Often done upon a star 51. Head scan 52. Green government agency 55. Took to court 57. Ancient Greek city located in Thrace 59. With 10 down, next week 61. ___ Cudi 64. Country 66. Air freshener brand 68. Dried riverbeds 71. Potato sprouts 73. Colored part of the eye 74. Lapses 75. Money 76. Run ___ 77. Open 78. Otherwise 79. St. Louis football team

answers at georgetownvoice.com DOWN 1. Power controlling device 2. Pacific, for example 3. ___ Carlo 4. Against 5. Soda, in the Midwest 6. Lobes 7. In the lead 8. Limber 9. Agency (abbr.)

10. With 59 across, next week 11. Help 12. Resort 13. That woman 21. After cassettes but before mp3s 23. Popeye’s yes 26. Sixth sense 28. Cover story 29. Used to water lawns 30. “Kick it up a ___!”

31. Secondhand 33. Not strict

35. Hurt 36. Less wet 37. Squalid 39. 6-pack for some 41. Vulgar 43. Owed 45. Lack of difficulty 49. Wears a habit 53. West Coast time zone 54. Each 56. Scrambled food 58. Bird similar to a heron 60. Like a queen 61. Goes around, comes around 62. Saying 63. Students’ workspace 65. Association (abbr.)

67. Fibber 68. Compass direction 69. Boxer Muhammed 70. Completed 72. That girl

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 42.22 March 4, 2010 Editor-in-Chief: Jeff Reger Managing Editor: Juliana Brint Publisher: Emily Voigtlander Editor-at-Large: Will Sommer Director of Technology: Alexander Pon Blog Editor: Molly Redden News Editor: Kara Brandeisky Sports Editor: Adam Rosenfeld Feature Editor: Tim Shine Cover Editor: Iris Kim Leisure Editor: Chris Heller Voices Editor: Emma Forster Photo Editor: Hilary Nakasone Design Editors: Richa Goyal, Ishita Kohli Literary Editor: James McGrory Crossword Editor: Cal Lee Contributing Editor: Daniel Cook, Dan Newman Assistant Blog Editors: Hunter Kaplan, Imani Tate Assistant News Editors: J. Galen Weber, Cole Stangler Assistant Sports Editors: Nick Berti, Rob Sapunor Assistant Cover Editor: Jin-ah Yang Assistant Leisure Editors: Brendan Baumgardner, Leigh Finnegan Assistant Photo Editors: Jackson Perry, Shira Saperstein Assistant Design Editors: Robert Duffley, Megan Berard

Associate Editors: Matthew Collins, Lexie Herman Staff Writers:

Jeff Bakkensen, Cyrus Bordbar, Tom Bosco, Sonnet Gaertner, Aleta Greer, Victor Ho, Kate Imel, Satinder Kaur, Liz Kuebler, Kate Mays, Scott Munro, Katie Norton, Sean Quigley, Justin Hunter Scott, Sam Sweeney, Keenan Timko, Tim Wagner

Staff Photographers:

Keaton Bedell, Max Blodgett, Jue Chen, Matthew Funk, Lexie Herman, Lynn Kirshbaum

Staff Designers:

Marc Fichera, Kelsey McCullough, Dara Morano, Holly Ormseth, Marc Patterson, Miykaelah Sinclair

Copy Chief: Geoffrey Bible

Copy Editors: Aodhan Beirne, Caroline Garity, Keaton Hoffman,

the georgetown voice 3

BABY, I GOT YOUR MONEY

GUSA makes the right move on SAC Members of the Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee sat down on Tuesday night to draft a budget for the allocation of $315,000 from the Student Activities Fee paid by undergraduates. While the process that led these seven students to amass such power was controversial, they now have a unique opportunity to reform the Student Activities Commission, a highly bureaucratic and unresponsive organization.

After a spirited discussion, the committee decided to allocate $12,500 out of the $37,000 SAC requested with the possibility of adding another $12,500 if SAC complies with the “six point” reforms GUSA passed last semester to promote transparency and accountability for advisory boards. Although some senators

advocated denying SAC any Student Activities Fee money, this moderate but firm course, with room for an increase, sends the correct message and provides incentives for the organization to reform.

SAC must embrace GUSA’s six point reforms, which will make the club funding process less arduous and more accountable. At the same time, GUSA should not allow its zealousness about SAC reform to interfere with club funding. This year, SAC will be able to make up the difference between the amount it requested and the amount allocated by the Finance and Appropriation Committee’s draft budget by drawing from its bloated reserves. Hopefully this forceful financial reprove will prompt SAC to reform; if not, GUSA will have to reconsider its policy of budgetary

coercion to make sure student organizations don’t suffer.

Besides handling the SAC situation wisely, the draft budget rightly meets most of the requests from non-SAC advisory boards, providing some reassurance to the other advisory boards that their needs will be met for the upcoming year.

Thus far, members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee have charted a prudent course in their first year solely allocating the Student Activities Fee. One can only hope that they will use the same discretion when drafting the final budget later this month. The success of these newly enacted reforms will be tested in the coming weeks, through legislators efforts to reform SAC without punishing the clubs that depend on funding.

SEXY RESULTS

Address Plan A for reproductive justice Debates concerning sexual and reproductive rights are always contentious, particularly at a Catholic university like Georgetown. Rather than shy away from argument, however, the unofficial student coalition Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice recently brought a number of pressing issues to the forefront in an open letter to University President John DeGioia.

While all of the issues presented in the letter deserve consideration, a number of them were not addressed or glossed over in a written response by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson.

First, Olson fails to make any mention of requests for condoms or emergency contraception by the Plan A Hoyas. These are serious considerations that, despite their sensitive nature at a Jesuit university, merit

a response from administrators. Second, although Plan A’s position regarding greater support for victims of sexual assault fails to take into account certain legal complications, Olson’s response raises at least one serious question that is never addressed. If Georgetown is not equipped to deal with the forensic evidence in the wake of sexual assault, will it provide transportation to Washington Center Hospital? (Hospital officials did not respond to requests for clarification of their policy.) Finally, Olson fails to address specific questions regarding Georgetown’s policies on sexual education for students.

In his letter, Olson insists that Georgetown encourages discussion on issues such as these, but concludes with a repetition of the party line: “As a Catholic and Jesuit

university our policies must reflect our identity and our values.”

Certainly, Georgetown’s religious affiliation affects every student. Our Catholic and Jesuit traditions give us our strong sense of social justice and our guiding principal of cura personalis. But Georgetown’s Catholic identity should not restrict the resolution of issues, not just involving sex but also public health. The reality of sex at Georgetown requires a realistic solution.

Discussion of the issues raised by the Plan A coalition is essential, even if the issues may be at odds with Georgetown’s Catholic identity. While we cannot cast aside our University’s heritage, we also cannot let that heritage prevent us from growing into a safer, more open community.

Matt Kerwin, Molly Redden

Editorial Board Chair: Eric Pilch Editorial Board:

George D’Angelo, Emma Forster, Molly Redden, Chris Heller, Imani Tate, J. Galen Weber, Dan Newman, Will Sommer, Brendan Baumgardner, Cole Stanger, Juliana Brint

Head of Business: George D’Angelo

Director of Marketing: Michael Byerly

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On this week’s cover ... Georgetown Businesses Cover Photo: Jue Chen

QUALITY CONTROL

Right kind of federal control for WMATA The year was 1995. Pierce Brosnan revealed the dangers of bathroom assassins in Goldeneye, and Shaggy delighted the country with his sexual exploits in “Boombastic.” For most of America, it was a good year.

Things were less happy in the District.

The financial profligacy of newly-elected “Mayor for Life” Marion Barry (D) and the government-eviscerating practices of his predecessor, Sharon Pratt Kelly (D), had left Washington’s government $722 million in debt. Congress, citing the power granted to it in Washington’s charter, created the financial control board to bring down the city’s debt.

The unelected five-member panel was eventually granted vast power over Washingtonians, who fought for decades for even a small say in their local government—only to be denied it once more.

It’s starting to feel a lot like 1995 for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, with safety instead of debt the

issue at stake. Last week, four senators, led by Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), sent a threatening letter to WMATA Chair Peter Benjamin. Unless WMATA is able to improve its safety record, the senators wrote, a federal takeover of the agency’s board of directors is inevitable.

Local pundits were quick to dub the senators’ proposed power grab a “transit control board.” As loathsome as the last control board was, though, this board could be beneficial to the District if the city and WMATA handle Congress correctly.

The first step should be extracting as much money from a federal takeover as possible. In 1997, the financial control board received sweeping new powers over nearly every aspect of the District government, but at a huge price: federal assumption of Washington’s Medicaid and transportation costs.

A federal takeover of WMATA should carry similar benefits, especially since the

issue of system safety is tied to aging cars and tracks that the agency cannot currently afford to replace.

The transit control board should have a sunset provision, benchmarks to determine when its work is complete. The legislation authorizing the financial control board mandated that the board dissolve after Washington paid back its debts and kept its budget balanced for four years in a row. The transit board’s legislation should have a similar clause specifying what levels of safety and performance WMATA has to achieve before it becomes self-governing again.

WMATA is currently locked in a death spiral driven by higher prices, decreased service, and worried passengers.

A federal takeover isn’t an ideal option, but it might be the only thing that can save our public transit system. To paraphrase an Oscar-nominated song from 1995, WMATA, you’ve got a friend in a transit control board.

news

4 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

GUSA cuts SAC budget, pushes for change

It’s a new era: the Finance and Appropriations Committee gets down to business.

ties Fee made up 12.68 percent of the total funds allocated to SAC from the University, with other money coming from tuition dollars and the University’s contract with Coca Cola.

The senators considered denying SAC any funding until it complies with the six points of reform, arguing that the group could make up the loss by drawing on its reserves. Amponsah said she was willing to spend down SAC’s reserves but preferred to do so slowly and to use the money on capital expenditures.

“Of course we can pull money from our reserves to fund allocation, but I don’t see how that’s sustainable,” Amponsah said.

In an interview held after the summit, Amponsah said that SAC believes club leaders are interested in using reserve money to invest in student space and capital resources. If SAC’s funding request was denied entirely, Amponsah said the commission would draw some money from reserves to meet the need, but would also “have to look for other ways to reduce allocations” to clubs.

The Finance and Appropriations Committee also clashed with Amponsah over SAC’s secret votes, which Amponsah said she was unwilling to change, arguing that SAC commissioners must be able to make controversial decisions without fearing negative repercussions.

“That was something I was very adamant about,” Amponsah said.

“SAC is charged with administer-

ing University policy … the smallest things can be contentious.”

GUSA senators were not convinced by Amponsah’s reasoning.

“It comes with that position,” Senator Greg Laverriere (COL ’12) said. “They should have to stand by what they think is the morally right thing to do.”

After the summit, the committee discussed the possibility of denying SAC any funding from the Student Activities Fee, but most senators were more eager to hash out a compromise. Laverriere said he would be disappointed if SAC didn’t receive any funds from the Student Activities Fee. “If at the end of the day SAC does not receive an allocation, we have failed,” Laverriere said. “I believe I will have failed in my duties as a GUSA Senator, and I believe SAC will have failed in their duties fighting for clubs.”

At a Finance and Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday night the committee again discussed denying SAC at least a large part of its requested allocation. One idea that came up was to provide SAC with half the funds they requested and give them the opportunity to negotiate for the rest.

But Senators Ben Bold (COL ‘13), George Roche (COL ’10), Matthew Hoyt (COL ‘12) and Laverriere argued to fund at least a portion of SAC’s request. Senators Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), Sandy Glassberg (COL ‘11) and Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) argued that SAC should

not receive any money, since denying funds for SAC would free up money for other advisory boards, whose requests exceeded the funds available for allocation by $57,000.

The draft budget allocates $42,000 of Georgetown Program Board’s $45,000 request, $61,500 of the Center for Social Justice’s $64,000 request, $115,000 of Club Sports’ $150,000 request, and all of PAAC and Media Board’s respective $25,000 and $36,000 requests.

Opponents of GUSA’s changes to the funding process pointed out that, while GUSA had earlier said it was a conflict of interest for advisory boards to allocate money to themselves, under the new system, the Finance and Appropriations committee allocates money to the GUSA Executive. On Tuesday, the committee allocated $28,000 of the GUSA Executive’s $35,000 request in its draft budget, calling one of their requests to fund “future initiatives” “not specific enough.” Last year, the GUSA Executive received $20,000. The additional money this year will go toward continuing the GUSA Fund.

Once students return from spring break, there will be a oneweek period of public comment during which advisory boards can argue for modifications to Wednesday’s draft budget. The Finance and Appropriations Committee will then pass a final draft budget that must then be approved by both the GUSA Senate and the GUSA Executive before it goes into effect.

student protests against the April Fool’s edition of The Hoya in 2009 and The Heckler in December 2009.

Stephen Teague (COL ‘06), a former editor-in-chief of The Fire, said that while he had joined the paper to support its mission of speaking on issues concerning the minority community, the news magazine lacked adequate funding and staffing.

According to former Editor-inChief Yamiche Alcindor (COL ’09), The Fire started as an independent publication, but had no consistent source of funding. Alcindor said during her time at The Fire, she helped incorporate the newsmagazine under the University’s funding, which helped secure “a steady stream of resources.”

“I thought it would be better to cement the future of The Fire by affiliating it with the school,” Alcindor said. “This way we could be assured that the paper would not lose

funding one year or fall through the cracks between leaders.”

While the funding problem was resolved, staffing issues persisted. Jaikissoon said last year The Fire had more board positions than it really needed and problems publishing consistently.

“We had difficulties drawing contributors so publication wasn’t as consistent as we would’ve liked,” current managing editor Alex Bledsoe (SFS ’12) wrote in an e-mail.

In the summer of 2009, Professor Dennis Williams, an Associate Dean for Students and Director of the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access spoke to Professor Barbara Feinman Todd, the Journalism director in the Department of English asking her if she would help revamp The Fire.

“I think that the hope for the class is that we can provide resources to The Fire and generate more

interest,” Feinman Todd said. “A class would attract more students, and we would have an experienced journalist.”

The class, in its seventh week, will be one semester long, and is taught by Knight, a journalist who had worked with The Washington Post for 33 years before coming to Georgetown.

The class focuses on the holistic process of developing a paper, including design and marketing, and Knight frequently brings in guest lecturers who have worked professionally in journalism.

“I want the class to be a working newsroom,” Knight said. “There is no typical day in the class.”

The editors said one of the paper’s goals for this year is to gain more exposure in the Georgetown community.

“The publication has been around since 2000 and if we ask the

next two or three people that walk by if they’ve heard of it, they would say no,” Jaikissoon said. “I want there to be an image or a prestige to be associated with The Fire. It has an important role to play on campus.”

Information Technology director Lisa He (SFS ‘11) created a new logo for The Fire. She is currently working on a new design for the paper’s website. Jaikissoon said that he hopes The Fire will include writers other than board members soon, but for now, the only writers are the 12 board members who are taking the class.

However, editors say the mission of the paper will stay the same.

“I believe The Fire will fill the void in that has existed in the media of our campus—the positive and responsible representation of minority students and issues that are especially pertinent to students of color,” Bledsoe said.

by J. Galen Weber The Georgetown University Student Association’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, which now has exclusive control over allocating the Student Activity Fee, is considering cutting funding to the Student Activity Commission unless the organization agrees to the reforms outlined in the Comprehensive Funding Reform bill GUSA passed in November.

In a draft budget released by the Finance and Appropriations committee on Wednesday night, SAC was allocated $12,500 out of its $37,500 request. Depending on how much of its request is granted, SAC may have to spend down its reserves and reduce club funding, according to SAC Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11).

Money collected from the Student Activities Fee amounts to about $315,000 and is distributed among the five advisory boards and the Georgetown Program Board every year. This year, in ad-

dition to stripping the advisory boards of their votes in the allocation process, GUSA implemented a series of new requirements for the boards, forcing them to limit their reserves, establish an appeals process, provide clubs with the option of lump sum funding, hold public meetings with open voting, hold board members accountable through confirmation by the GUSA Senate or approval by club leaders, and allow clubs to keep profits they make from fundraising.

The budget summit on Sunday began at 10 a.m. and lasted until 7 p.m. The final presentation by Amponsah and debate over SAC’s $37,500 budget request lasted well over two hours. The discussion focused on SAC’s reserves and its unwillingness to comply with some of the points of GUSA’s reform bill.

Senators at the meeting noted that SAC had over $200,000 in its reserves, well over the $150,000 recommended by the Vice President’s Office. Last year the Student Activi-

Jackson perry

After a year’s break, class helps to rekindle The Fire This Time

by Holly Tao The Fire This Time, the University’s self-described “students of color news magazine,” hit the newsstands Tuesday after a yearlong hiatus. Since the paper’s last issue in spring 2009, its editors have worked to revamp the paper in a University class entitled “The Fire This Time Workshop,” taught

by Professor Athelia Knight.

The Fire was founded in the spring of 2000 following two ethnicity-centered attacks on Georgetown student. The new publication looked to provide another outlet for voices on minority issues. The March issue’s letter from the editor by current editor-in-chief Trevor Jaikissoon (COL ’11), “On Fire for Change—The Fire This Time,” reaffirms The Fire’s mission and the University’s need for a multicultural publication in the wake of

news

georgetownvoice.com

Hoya plans for independence

the georgetown voice 5

United Feminists keeps its funding

by J. Galen Weber

by Cole Stangler

Georgetown’s Media Board expects the Hoya to become financially indepedent from the University within the year, though heads of the publication and University officials said a final decision has not yet been made.

“We believe the Hoya will be going independent this coming year,” Alexander Pon (COL ’12) said in his presentation of Media Board’s request at GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Comittee budget summit last Sunday.

(Full disclosure: Pon is Director of Technology for the Voice). “As they bring in much of the revenue for the media board we are kind of in an uncertain financial position,” Pon added.

The Media Board did not request any funds for the Hoya in its budget request for money from the Student Activities Fee. When asked about the Media Board’s decision not to request money for the Hoya, heads of the publication said they had not been in contact with the Media Board and had not yet made the determination to go independent, but were unsurprised by the decision.

“I haven’t talked to the Media Board directly, but we’ve talked with Erika [Cohen-Derr, Director for the Center for Student Programs and advisor to the Media Board],” Margaret McLaughlin, the chair of the Hoya’s Board of Directors, said.

McLaughlin said that the Hoya was still in the process of deciding whether or not to go independent this year.

Amid controversy over whether United Feminists should lose its access to University benefits for partnering with H*yas for Choice in the Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice campaign, Center for Student Programs Director Erika CohenDerr said that the University will not stop funding the group.

Plan A’s demands, which include access to material resources such as condoms and rape kits at GU Hospital, comprehensive sex education, and free speech and open dialogue, were outlined in an open letter to President John DeGioia.

On February 23, United Feminists member Marion Cory (COL ’10) acknowledged that United Feminists risked losing its access to benefits as a result of their involvement in the campaign, especially after Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson rejected Plan A’s demands as conflicting with Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity. However, CohenDerr said that United Feminists has not yet done anything to endanger its funding.

“United Feminists will not lose access to benefits for partnering with [H*yas for Choice,] an organization that does not have access to benefits,” Cohen-Derr wrote in an e-mail on March 3. “In general, access to benefits is not contingent upon the activities planned by the group, as long as they have met the criteria outlined in the Access to Benefits policy and remain in good standing with

Jackson perry

Hoya Editor-in-Chief Marissa Amendolia says the paper is assessing the situation.

“We’re still trying to hammer out what this might look like … we really don’t know,” McLaughlin said.

Marissa Amendolia, editorin-chief of the Hoya, confirmed that no official decision had been made, saying the paper is still “assessing our situation.”

When asked why the Media Board had chosen not to allocate any money for the Hoya, Pon said the Media Board had no reason to believe the Hoya would not be going independent.

“We are operating under the assumption that the Hoya’s independence was delayed by one year last year, and –we have not been corrected by administrators who sit in on our meeting,” Pon said.

The Hoya had been slated to go independent last year, and was not allocated any money in the Media Board’s original 2009 budget. But independence was delayed by a year after its April

Capitol-izing on commuters After two snow storms crippled the District, MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews had a question to pose on Hardball: “Why can’t the people who run this city deal with February?” Matthews went on to say D.C. “looked like Siberia without the Siberian discipline” and complained about— horrors!—needing an SUV to reach his studio.

Matthews’s commute was especially long because he lives in Montgomery County, Md. That means that, whatever you think of his argument that the Dis-

trict should always be prepared for once-in-a-century snow, the tax burden of that preparation wouldn’t fall on Matthews.

Like the estimated 300,000 other commuters from Virginia and Maryland who work in the District, Matthews doesn’t pay local income tax in Washington on the income he earns here. They don’t support the many services they enjoy while working in D.C., including police, road maintenance, and yes, snow removal. It’s time for D.C. to keep some of the money gen-

Fool’s issue was protested for racial insensitivity.

Ultimately, whether or not the Hoya chooses to go independent may have little effect on the Media Board’s budget since the Hoya usually breaks even.

According to Cohen-Derr, the Media Board has not yet allocated money to any of the eight media groups, and the Hoya could still make a request for funds from the Media Board.

In past years, the Hoya’s independence efforts have been thwarted by administrators, but this year it appears the school will not try to stop the paper from going independent.

“They’re not stonewalling us,” McLaughlin said.

When asked for comment, Todd Olson, the vice president for student affairs, said only that administrators were in conversation with students from the Hoya. erated in the city with a commuter tax, in the form of a tax levied on all incomes earned in the District.

Without taxing commuters, District residents face a massive tax burden. The U.S. Cen-

city on a Hill

by Will Sommer

A bi-weekly column on D.C. news and politics sus Bureau estimated that D.C. had almost 600,000 residents last summer. In 2005, city officials estimated that 300,000 workers commute to the city from the suburbs. That means Washing-

ton residents are forced to subsidize government services used by a group half their size.

The idea of a commuter tax, catnip to District residents tired of subsidizing their suburban colleagues, isn’t without precedent. Philadelphia taxes income earned by suburbanites, and New York City had a commuter tax during the 1990s.

Like many good ideas in this town, it’s threatened by the Home Rule Act, a pact made with that devil otherwise known as Congress in 1973.

Home Rule essentially gives Congress veto power over any new District laws and has pre-

their advisory board regarding compliance with any and all relevant university policies.”

Cory said on March 3 that United Feminists losing its funding was not a big concern.

Additionally, on March 1, the Student Activities Commission approved funding for a March 22 panel of three pro-choice speakers. Although United Feminists secured funding for the event, the Plan A campaign is hosting the event.

David Gregory (COL ’10), editor-in-chief of the Catholic, socially conservative Georgetown Academy, believes that the administration will eventually prevent it from taking place, despite the approval of Bill McCoy, associate director of the Center for Student Programs.

“Like Plan A[‘s demands], I’m not terribly worried about this,” Gregory said. “I think the University will shut it down before it takes off the ground. I can easily see alumni bringing this to authorities outside of Georgetown. If Georgetown does start funding this, it could explode very easily and quickly into something the University just doesn’t want to happen.”

Although Cory is pleased that Georgetown has chosen to sponsor a pro-choice event, she said that it does not erase the University’s history of stifling student discourse on the matter.

“Plan A is committed to ensuring that in the future, HFC will be able to secure university support without having to go through another student group,” Cory wrote in an e-mail.

vented the District government from imposing a commuter tax.

In 2004, District activists tried to impose a commuter tax anyway, but their attempt was rejected by a federal court.

Until Washington gets true congressional representation, the outlook for a commuter tax is bleak. Someday, though, D.C. might actually receive the estimated $1.4 billion it loses annually in tax revenue from commuters, and that would truly send a thrill up every resident’s leg.

Want to play some real Hardball? E-mail Will at wsommer@ georgtownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

Hoyas slump continues as Freeman sits out

by Tim Shine “We’re as good as we want to be.”

That was Greg Monroe’s assessment of the Georgetown Hoyas after their emphatic 103-90 victory over Villanova last month. Georgetown had just run down the country’s second ranked team, and their potential seemed limitless.

Almost a month later, a ceiling has clearly been placed on that potential. After seeming to have the inside track to a top Big East finish and a double-bye in the conference tournament, the Hoyas, having lost four of their last five games, now must decide if they’re good enough to be in the top half of the Big East.

That is the question facing Georgetown, at least in the short term. Win against Cincinnati this Saturday, and the Hoyas are guaranteed a top-8 seed and first-round bye in the Big East Tournament.

Lose, and they’ll be playing at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday and looking at a five game road to the championship.

It is a position that seemed unfathomable as the Hoyas celebrated their victory over the Wildcats. But for all its top team bona fides—wins over Duke and at Pittsburgh, for instance—Georgetown has proven to be maddeningly inconsistent, as evidenced by losses to South Florida and Rutgers. The Hoyas are unquestionably talented, but remain an enigma—not a descriptor any team wants in early March.

The season is far from over for the Hoyas, but they don’t have much time to reverse their slide.

Heading into the postseason, Georgetown will have to quickly

resume playing the kind of basketball that caused some to talk of the team as a Final Four contender.

That means again displaying the trust and synchronization so evident earlier in the season.

“I just think the trust comes from being around each other all the time and knowing what people are capable of and what they’re good at,” junior guard Chris Wright said. “I have the utmost respect for everybody on the team, and I trust everybody to the fullest in any situation.”

That kind of cohesiveness was missing in Georgetown’s past two games, back-to-back double-digit losses. Of course, that may have something to do with the absence of junior guard Austin Freeman, who was severely limited by illness against Notre Dame and completely unavailable against West Virginia.

Freeman, the team’s leading scorer, was so sick that he had to return to campus the day before the West Virginia game and was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital, where he was diagnosed with diabetes, according to a Washington Post report.

If there was any silver lining in the loss of Freeman, it was that it allowed Georgetown to address an issue that was a concern even at the highest points of the season, their lack of depth. The Hoyas’ freshman-heavy bench saw a lot more playing time in the absence of Freeman, and used it to showcase their continued development.

Freshman forward Hollis Thompson got his first career start in place of Freeman against Notre Dame and took advantage of the opportunity, scoring 12 points.

LYNN KIRSHBAUM

Freefalling: Georgetown must stop this steep slide against Cincinnati.

Of course, these are the kinds of accomplishments teams can take pride in during November or December. Georgetown’s coach knows that a good game from an inconsistent freshman pales in comparison to a bad loss.

“Hollis might have played well,” John Thompson III said after that game. “I’m having a hard time finding any bright spots right now.”

Freshman guard Vee Sanford had a coming out of his own against West Virginia, with nine points in 21 minutes, both career highs.

“Vee has been coming along since the first day of practice,”

Freeman said last week. “He’s been working his butt off and doing whatever he can to help himself get better and to help this team get better.”

If the Hoyas have a healthy Freeman back, and the freshmen can continue their recent strong play, Georgetown might surprise a few people in New York and in the NCAA tournament. But before that, they must take care of business against Cincinnati.

The Bearcats will be no pushover, especially as the desperate squad claws to keep its postseason hopes alive. A 77-73 loss

to Villanova on Tuesday likely pushed Cincinnati off the NCAA tournament bubble entirely, but by winning Saturday and making some noise in the conference tournament, freshman Lance Stephenson and company could be right back in it.

At this point, there will be no easy games for Georgetown.

The Hoyas will be getting everyone’s best shot, and their margin for error will become nonexistent. But ultimately, this team’s destiny is in the players hands. As they know, they’ll go as far as they want to go.

The Sports Sermon “I skied the second lap and I f--ked up today. I think I have seen too much porn in the last 14 days” — Norwegian skier Odd-Bjorn Hjelmeset on why he won silver, not gold. players alike have become disillusioned with every slight tick in a throwing motion, every As a Detroit Lions fan, one hundredth of a second in the of my favorite times of the year 40, and every quarter inch on is the NFL Draft. This is when a vertical leap. Where then are my Lions get their pick of the scouts supposed to go to evalucollege litter year after year, ate their multi-million dollar without ever improving as a investments? The answer is franchise. However, before the simple: look at the player’s colexcitement of draft day, there lege tape. is the NFL Scouting Combine.

Call me crazy, but I After years of enjoying the would go straight to the liCombine—and seeing the Library of game tape a player ons front office drool over any has amassed over wide receiver that his college career can catch a ball— Pete Rose Central before I dismiss my views toward Da bettin’ line him for a subpar the combine have Dookies Margin performance on a started to shift.

Hoyas drill that lasts less Although the (favorites) (underdogs) (duh!) than five seconds. fun and joy of Crew Cold Shrinkage This is especially watching athletic Cincinnati freaks wear the Please God true for players Gtown tightest and skimpGtown Cincinnati coming from a big NCAA time program with iest clothes are endweekly games against the top Another drill that gets too less, I am of the opinion that the competition in the nation. Bemuch attention is the bench NFL Combine has become far ing a workout warrior at the press. For this drill, scouts sit more important than it needs to combine is no substitute for in an auditorium and watch the or should. performing at the highest level prospective pros on stage lifting The main problem with the week after week.

225 lbs as many times as possicombine is that the many drills The bottom line is that the ble. Sure, I get the idea that you do not necessarily translate to NFL Draft is an inexact science, want to have a buff guy playing in-game ability. Let’s start with and scouts will take any opporfor your team. However, this the most popular event at the tunity they can to evaluate talexercise is simply that—an exCombine, the 40-yard dash. ent. The Combine can be useful ercise, not a football activity.

Over the years, this drill has for lesser-known talents to get There are a multitude of become less about football than their name on the radar, but it other drills that make up the about making the Olympic track should not be a forum for playrest of the Scouting Combine, team. Nowadays, the players ers to loose upwards of $10 milbut most are less effective at degear up in outfits tight enough to lion due to tenths of a second termining future pro talent than leave nothing to the imagination differences in meaningless. is widely thought. Scouts and and shoes specially designed for

by Adam Rosenfeld

track sprinters. They spend upwards of 30 seconds getting in the most optimal starting position, then shoot straight as an arrow down the track. The whole scene makes me question the Combine. The idea that an extra hundredth of a second is the make-or-break mark for a player is simply ludicrous. Next time you see a NFL skill player start from a track position and run 40 yards in a straight line with no contact, let me know.

sports

Through rain and snow, Hoyas tredge on

by Rob Sapunor As MLB teams start spring training games this week in Florida and Arizona, Georgetown’s own baseball team heads down to Florida for eight games in the nine-day Rollins College Baseball Classic. The Hoyas enter the tournament coming off of a loss at Norfolk State after taking two of three games from George Mason.

The Hoyas have benefitted from a strong young pitching staff that complements their older teammates. Freshmen Charles Steinman and Neal Dennison each pitched more than four innings in the second game of a doubleheader against George Mason. Dennison struck out six hitters and picked up his second win.

“I’d rather not have to play any [freshmen] and be in a position where we have seniors and juniors on the field and mound, but we’re not there yet,” head coach Pete Wilk said, “Neal has been outstanding and from his first pitch he hasn’t shown any signs of being a first-timer in college baseball.”

In addition to strong pitching, Georgetown has shown the ability to battle through to the last play of the game. This was exemplified by the Hoyas’ back-toback extra innings wins against George Mason in both games of the doubleheader. In the last game, the Hoyas were not victo-

Olympic pride The Vancouver Olympics marked the 30th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” when the United States hockey team upset the Soviet Union juggernaut at the Lake Placid Olympics. 1980 was the last time the U.S. won gold in hockey at the Winter Games. The game is one of the defining moments of 20th century American sports.

Unfortunately, we live in the 21st century, an age of multi-million dollar contracts and steroids, where players often seem to only care about money and forget the need to show up for their country.

The 2010 U.S. Olympic hockey team proved that there are some players left who love to represent their country. This year the U.S.

rious, but mounted a comeback in the late innings to close within one run after trailing by six runs halfway through the game.

“The late inning magic is coming from our strong senior class leadership and an effort by them to change the culture of teams in the past,” Wilk said.

Courtesy SPORTS INFORMATION

Play Ball: Hoyas finally hit the field.

Senior Captain Tommy Lee, who hit a home run in the third inning of the loss to George Mason, has provided such leadership.

“We’ve always spoken to them about playing all 27 outs and all nine, innings but they’ve taken it to heart, “Wilk said.

“I give all the credit to captain Tommy Lee and his senior parthockey team almost pulled off one of the biggest heists in sports history—stealing gold from Canada. It was almost Miracle on Ice: Part Two. Coming into the tournament, Canada was the overwhelming favorite because it had the deepest roster and home ice advantage. Winning anything less than a gold medal would be seen as a national failure. The birthplace of the sport was eager to show the rest of the world that hockey is still its game.

The United States, on the other hand, came to Vancouver with a bunch of kids. The average age of the squad was 26, and only three players had Olympic experience. In the 2006 Torino Olympics, the U.S. had finished eighth, and it was unclear how the young team would respond

ners in leadership.”

As it stands, the team is just happy to be playing. After a storm prevented scheduled opponent New York Tech from making the trip down to play the Hoyas, the team was relieved to get an opponent in George Mason. Coach Wilk said he is frustrated by having to practice inside because of the weather.

“We’ve been outside with spikes in dirt on eight days and we’re 30 days into our practice period and season,” Wilk said, “It’s just a tough way to start a year.”

The loss against Norfolk State was tough but not entirely surprising considering the Hoyas’ youth. Coach Wilk thought the performance was fair, but admitted that his team struggled from a lack of hits, something he hopes will improve down the line.

The team can look forward to the Rollins College Baseball Classic with sun and heat replacing the rain, snow, and cold weather of D.C. Welcoming weather aside, they shouldn’t expect a leisurely warm-up in Florida like most MLB teams experience during spring training.

“These games count on our record, and when we have a chance to win the oldest college baseball tournament in the country, it’s way more important than the classic spring training in MLB camps,” Wilk said. to the hostile environment. Expectations were not very high.

But after beating Canada once, and crushing Finland in the semifinals, the U.S. entered the gold medal game having never trailed once in the tournament. It was clear that this U.S. team was something special.

Backdoor Cuts

by Nick Berti

a rotating column on sports The defining moment for the team came in the last minute of regulation during the gold medal game. Trailing Canada 2-1, the U.S. could have easily started packing their bags, content with a silver medal—they had already far surpassed expectations. In a display of national pride and relentless determination, Zach

the georgetown voice 7

Craig Dowd

What Rocks

georgetownvoice.com

MATTHEW FUNK

This summer Craig Dowd found himself in an unfamiliar place: the sidelines.

Instead of training, he was recovering from offseason surgery to correct a sports hernia. Luckily for the Hoyas men’s lacrosse team, the senior attacker ’s surgery didn’t cause him to miss a step, scoring one goal and recording two assists in yesterday’s game against 11th ranked Harvard University. With three solid years under his belt, Dowd continues to make his presence felt on the field in his final season.

Dowd has steadily increased his leadership role on the team, improving from third in scoring his freshman

Parise tied the game on a put-back opportunity with less than 30 seconds left. The shot quieted an entire country—the U.S. had crashed Canada’s party. While Canada ultimately came away with the gold thanks to an overtime goal by national hero Sidney Crosby, the game was memorable for the amount of effort and ability U.S. players demonstrated.

What was so impressive about this team is that they bucked the trend of U.S. teams underachieving in world tournaments. This young team was able to forget about money and represent their country with honor and hard work. Many players constantly sacrificed their bodies and dove in front of 90 mph slap shots for the good of their team and their country. This isn’t very common in other sports.

year, to second his sophomore year, to leading the team in scoring and assists his junior year.

With one last chance to make the playoffs, Dowd is determined to keep his focus on the field, approaching the season one game at a time.

“Last year the team started to look ahead at certain points of the season when we shouldn’t have and we’ve learned from that,” Dowd said.

With a host of returning players and a talented crop of recruits, look for the Hoyas to thrive behind Dowd’s strong play and senior leadership.

—Willis Stebbins

In the World Baseball Classic, the U.S. has managed to place eighth and fourth in the first two years of the event. America, the country that started the sport, hasn’t even seen the podium. U.S. players care more about the regular season because that is when they make their money.

Basketball is the same way.

Sure, the United States won the gold medal in 2008, but they only managed to win bronze in 2004.

With all the U.S.-born talent in the NBA, we should have no problem winning gold every year.

Because of this group of kids, we know that while money drives sports, there are some who still compete for the love of the game and the pride of their country.

Play some pond hockey with Nick at nberti@georgetownvoice.com

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8 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

The R word: REcession or revival?

by Shira Hecht

MAX BLODGETT

One day it was there, the next—gone. An empty storefront on Wisconsin Avenue is all that remains of Sugar, a Georgetown boutique that once sold women’s clothes and jewelry.

James Packard-Gomez, a Georgetown business owner, ran into the proprietor of Sugar not long after it closed.

“She told me, ‘I just closed in the middle of the night. The landlord was doubling my rent, I couldn’t afford it,’” Gomez said.

Sugar’s fate is not an uncommon one. According to the Georgetown Metropolitan blog, 47 stores closed or moved out of Georgetown in 2009. (The Georgetown Business Improvement District puts the number

at a more conservative 35.) The Georgetown Metropolitan counts roughly 450 stores around the Wisconsin Avenue and M Street corridors, meaning that one in ten businesses left Georgetown last year. Only about half that number went against the tide and opened for business in Georgetown last year.

Down to Business What is happening to Georgetown? Are these the normal hiccups and fluctuations of a vibrant city, or is this a more fundamental change in the very character of this old district?

The reasons for the closings are “fairly obvious,” according

HILARY NAKASONE

Rainy day: Georgetown businesses are waiting for shoppers to return to the streets.

to Ed Solomon, a member of Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the owner of Wedding Creations and Anthony’s Tuxedos. “[These businesses] are just not getting the traffic, people walking the streets to spend money,” he said. “The numbers are down, across the board.”

While guarding against generalizations, Solomon noted that the recession has made credit tighter all over, and Georgetown is no exception.

For many businesses in Georgetown, the high rents that come with the fancy neighborhood prove to be too much when times get tougher.

“I look at a lot of these other small businesses and the problem they’re facing is they’re just not making the money to match the huge rent that comes with having a Georgetown location,” local resident Carol Joynt said Joynt owned the iconic Nathan’s Restaurant before being forced to close it in the summer of 2009. She has lived in Georgetown for 30 years, and now blogs about the neighborhood at Swimming in Quicksand.

According to Joynt, Nathan’s was bankrupt the whole time she owned it. It only made money at the bar, while Joynt was forced to pay property taxes and keep up an expensive building in an expensive part of town. This past year, having sunk as much of her own money into the place as she could, Nathan’s landlord sued her for eviction and Joynt got out.

Nathan’s, whose closure was covered by The Washington Post and other local media, may have been the most visible Georgetown business that closed in 2009. Many of the other stores are less familiar—Mass’s Closet, Georgetown Pet Boutique, Ann Hand. But some other, bigger names have been rumored to be in trouble, and may close in the next year. According to the Georgetown Metropolitan, Puma may be on its way out. Pottery Barn is to be replaced by Brooks

Brothers within the year. Joynt has heard rumors about other brands like H&M and Benetton shutting their doors for good— although Benetton has said it is just remodeling. And the Georgetown Mall continues to hemorhage stores.

At Pottery Barn, a saleswoman said everything was fine, and that she did not know anything about the store closing. But according to Topher Mathews, who writes the Georgetown Metropolitan blog, Georgetown’s Pottery Barn has long been the worst-performing one in the country, something he said is true of many of the chain stores in the neighborhood.

Many businesses, already on the edge, have been pushed over by the recession.

Not Without A Fight “We don’t like the ‘r ’ word,” Packard-Gomez, CEO of Erwin-Gomez Salon and Spa, said. “We tend not to use that word, because, knock on wood, we are able to consistently maintain our numbers through various different tools, incentives, and programs that we’ve put in place.”

According to James Bracco, executive director of the Georgetown BID, the failure rate of Georgetown businesses is actually significantly below average, which in the past year was 27.77 percent for the United States and 21.62 percent in Washington, D.C. Georgetown’s losses may just seem overwhelming because of the nature of the neighborhood.

“The Georgetown business community is tight-knit so we experience business failures here as heartbreak,” Bracco wrote in an e-mail. “When a business closes, we feel it.

When a business is struggling, we empathize.”

Mathews, who has lived in Georgetown for about seven years and written the Georgetown Metropolitan blog since 2008, sees a slightly different explanation.

“I do think that with Georgetowners, there is a bit of a cottage industry of being angst-ridden about the state of Georgetown and the future state of Georgetown,” he said. “You can go back in the Post archives, for example, and find articles talking about the decline of Georgetown that were written 10 or 15 years ago.”

In 1990, the Post ran an article headlined “Georgetown Copes With Changing Image,” forecasting retail doom as Georgetown transitioned from “elegance to free-wheeling carnival.” Two decades ago, the state of Georgetown business was a similar concern, with some upscale retailers such as Chanel turning down the neighborhood and some chains like the Gap thriving.

“Some people would maybe want Georgetown to be all fancy furniture stores and high-end boutiques, but there is a history going back to the ‘70s and ‘80s of Georgetown being sort of rough and tumble like that,” Mathews said. “Quirky is probably the better term. Commander Salamander is the last vestiges of that, of a more punk, alternative kind of place.”

The fortunes of “quirky” Commander Salamander show the transition Georgetown is going through right now. In January, the store posted signs

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georgetownvoice.com reading “CLOSING THIS LOCATION...Everything must go!” and advertised newly slashed prices. After a few weeks of “total liquidation,” the store made enough money from its sales to keep going for another month, and perhaps another month after that.

None of the Commander Salamander salespeople the Voice interviewed for this story knew how long the store would be open. They said they are currently planning to stay open on a month-to-month basis, but the going-out-of-business signs have not gone away.

“A lot of small businesses that have been here a long time, sometimes they are able to adapt, or you have a clien-

hood’s residents are feeling the impending losses.

New Look Georgetown “Christ, I shopped at Commander Salamander,” PackardGomez said. “I got my first Madonna-rama belt there when I was 14. To see things like that close, it’s really been a mindaltering, earth-shattering experience … I guess it’s just part of the evolution of change, but with change comes a little pain.”

Nevertheless, Packard-Gomez is optimistic about some of the more upscale stores moving in. Most other people with strong ties to the Georgetown community seem to agree that the neighborhood is changing,

HILARY NAKASONE

Nathan’s Famous: The iconic bar and restaurant closed its doors last summer. tele that comes here regardless,” Solomon said. “But in terms of the ones that depend on tourist traffic, we have seen a drop off.”

Yet it is hard to see where businesses like Commander Salamander, which has been in the neighborhood for many years, fit into this dichotomy.

The storefronts of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street are in flux, and it’s unclear what Georgetown will look like when the dust settles. Change is coming, and naturally the neighbor-

HILARY NAKASONE

Murdered row: Vacant storefronts are not an uncommon sight along Wisconsin Avenue.

though not all are as optimistic about where it is headed.

“It used to be that Georgetown merchants catered to Georgetown residents,” Joynt said. “Well, Georgetown residents aren’t necessarily the prime markets for the M Street corridor … I don’t know who the people who shop on M Street are, I don’t know, tourists.”

Tellingly, some of the more tourist-focused businesses, such as Georgetown Cupcake, have found a way to thrive, despite the economic climate.

“Georgetown Cupcake is a phenomenon, but you can’t look at that as an example,” Joynt said. “You look at upper Georgetown—small proprietors, small businesses, selling something that’s not trendy. There will be more closings over the next year.”

Long term success for other small businesses, such as those on Wisconsin Avenue who cannot rely on tourists, is dependent instead on appealing to long-term residents. Or perhaps the students who live nearby for four years.

“I don’t think residents think much of the role that students play,” Mathews said, “which is

probably significant, but narrow. There are a small handful of places that [students] go a lot.”

If that is the case, there may soon be more student-oriented outlets replacing outgoing businesses. Bracco mentioned students as an impetus for the Apple Store that will soon take the space previously occupied

by French Connection on Wisconsin Avenue.

Emily Osterkamp (SFS ‘10), waiting in line at Georgetown Cupcake, said that she could not think of any businesses that had closed during her four years as a Georgetown student that she was particularly sad about, but was excited about some of the new businesses that had opened, such as Lululemon Athletica and Georgetown Cupcake. She characterized the newer stores as “upscale chains” as opposed to “singular stuff.”

Georgetown Cupcake is the company most often mentioned as a model of how to succeed in business in Georgetown. Founded by sisters Katherine Kallinis and Sophie LaMontagne in February 2008, it soon had lines around the block, hour-long waits for cupcakes, and a growing reputation. In the past year, Georgetown Cupcake moved to a larger space, opened a location in Bethesda, and started a catering business. This summer the store will be the focus of a reality series on TLC. Georgetown Cupcake may owe its success to being able to appeal to students, tourists, and residents.

“There are a lot of visitors— both foreign and national—who find themselves in Georgetown and see the perky festivities on the corner and stop by,” Olivia Bennett (COL ’10), who works at the store, wrote in an e-mail.

“A lot of locals come by to place orders for a party or to get a dozen for an upcoming event.

Of course, with the new Facebook/Twitter “free cupcake,” [the store posts a flavor for the day online, and the first 100 who ask for it get a free cupcake] TONS of students come by for that! And surprisingly, more and more adults know about it as well.”

“While it’s very popular with tourists, it gets an awful lot of residents too,” Joynt said of Georgetown Cupcake. “It was the residents that kept them afloat through the blizzard. They stayed open, and that was cool.”

Bennett reported that the store sold a lot of hot chocolate during the snow, and that customers trekked from George Washington University and even Rosslyn to the shop, one of the only Georgetown stores that stayed open during the storms.

the georgetown voice 9

HILARY NAKASONE

Your business here: There’s plenty of space to be had for new stores.

Road To Recovery The success of Georgetown Cupcake and other new stores proves that despite the recession, all is not hopeless in Georgetown. Stores may be closing, but others are opening up, and many are doing well.

Although Georgetown will undoubtedly remain a popular neighborhood when the money starts flowing again, it will also be a different one.

Some of the old-guard Georgetown boutiques, like Commander Salamander, may be gone, and perhaps some of the name brands like Puma and Benetton. But in all likelihood, once the economy has complete-

ly recovered, the chains will be replaced by more of the same.

In the meantime, the few businesses that keep their finger on the pulse of Georgetown will continue to thrive.

For Joynt, the places that she thinks are doing well, including Georgetown Cupcake, Marvelous Market, A Mano, and Thomas Sweet, “are places that stayed open during the blizzard, that were committed to serving the community.

“That’s really going to be the secret to survival—serve the community and the community will be there for you.”

Additional reporting by Brendan Baumgardner.

HILARY NAKASONE

Let them eat cupcake: Georgetown Cupcake has thrived despite the recession.

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

TAB The Band proves Hoyas can rock too

by Nico Dodd

Amerie, Rites of Spring lead singer Guy Picciotto, and those two dudes from Vertical Horizon: the number of notable music artists that have recently come out of Georgetown can be counted on one hand. A scholarship was offered to John Legend, but he spurned us for Penn. Unfortunately, our campus community widely regards music as a hobby rather than a career pursuit, so it’s always surprising to hear when artists have roots on the Hilltop.

Adrian Perry (LAW ‘08), bassist and lead singer of TAB The Band, has been simultaneously balancing his law and music careers since he graduated from the Law Center three years ago. With a MySpace profile that reads like a well-polished résumé and a tour pedigree that includes performances with the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Modest Mouse, and Dinosaur Jr., TAB The Band seems to have everything going for it.

Adrian and fellow band members itemize their accomplishments online as if MySpace is the LinkedIn of the music industry.

(To be fair, it is.) They proudly tout the fact that their music has been featured on Entourage, CSI: NY, ESPN, The Howard Stern Show, and—the holiest of holies— a Reese’s cup commercial. The profile also lists accolades from Rolling Stone down to VH1’s Best Week Ever. They may not be making waves in the music industry, but at least they’re making noise.

TAB The Band was originally branded “T & A” when Adrian and his brother Tony started jamming during his Christmas break in 2006.

“We came up with one idea, and we were like ‘This is pretty good,’” Adrian said in a phone interview.

Things moved quickly as they released their first EP in March 2007, added a drummer, Ben Tileston, who brought the “B” into the group’s name.

“We just thought ‘TAB The Band’ had a better ring to it. We wanted to distinguish ourselves from the soda,” Adrian said.

The group’s first songs were comedy, but they quickly changed to rock. Not a surprise, since Adrian and Tony are the sons of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who often performs with the group.

With the Law Center so far away from Georgetown’s main campus, Adrian was unable to make a strong connection with the modest on-campus music scene.

However, Adrian says his family members “all love D.C.” “[As a child] trips to D.C. were pretty regular,” he said. “I was definitely aware of the D.C. hardcore scene and Dischord Records, a lot of that music.”

Thankfully, TAB The Band’s repertoire does not include any Minor Threat covers. The group’s fifth and latest release, Zoo Noises, plays like a standard 70s radio rock/blues album, with plenty of modern, riffy rock songs and short folk

TAB the band

Adrian Perry’s other jobs include graverobber, brooder, and arsonist.

stomps with charged mandolins and chorus-like vocals.

Adrian’s Mick Jagger-esque singing complements wellplayed guitar sections, creating a sound reminiscent of The Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age. Unfortunately, Zoo Noises vacillates between

the lion’s den and the petting zoo. With more “deep album tracks” than solid singles, the album fails to keep a consistent level of energy. As soon as the band unplugs, their strength falls out from beneath them.

While the University produced the songwriter behind

“Afternoon Delight” and “(Take Me Home) Country Roads,” Georgetown hasn’t produced a rock superstar in four decades.

But with TAB The Band’s chocolate-commercial notoriety and fan base that extends well beyond the front gates, they’re a step in the right direction.

Pictured above: Jack DeGioia’s planned response to the next norovirus outbreak on campus.

IMDB

It’s alive .. and it’s really bad

by Leigh Finnegan Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I’m convinced the zombie apocalypse has already happened. And in the midst of all the world-ending, brain-devouring, undead action, the only ones spared were those without any creativity or ingenuity for horror filmmaking. Now we, the moviegoing survivors, must endure the harsh reality of a post-apocalyptic world: overabundance of special effects, subpar writing, and remakes. With The Crazies, which opened this past week, Hollywood hit us with the trifecta.

The Crazies is a run-of-themill zombie movie, due in no small part to the fact that the original 1973 version was the product of “Father of the Zombie” director George A. Romero.

The plot is simple enough: people in a remote Iowa farming town transform one by one from simple, tractor-driving, countrymusic-listening folk into raging, homicidal psychos. When the government intervenes in attempt to stop the epidemic and fails spectacularly, it’s up to the town’s Sherriff, David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), to get to the root of the problem. With his hot blonde doctor wife (Radha

Mitchell) and handlebar-mustachioed deputy (Joe Anderson), he embarks on a subversive mission that leads him to the depraved, malicious villain responsible for the rampant death and destruction—tap water.

Maybe it’s a marketing tool

by Brita. Maybe a ploy by antienvironmentalists who don’t want plastic bottles to go extinct. As Dutton delves deeper into the source of the problem, he discovers that the culprit, as in all good 70s movies, is government incompetence. When a plane carrying an unknown toxin (apparently not labeled with a “CAUTION: VEHICLE OF THE APOCALYPSE INSIDE” sticker) crashed into the podunk town’s water source, government officials decided that rather than get the people out of the deathtrap, they’d just collect them all in an industrial camp and let zombie nature run its course.

If you’ve seen the original Crazies, this probably sounds familiar. If you haven’t, well, this still probably sounds familiar.

It’s a typical zombie movie with a typical zombie-movie plot, and despite attempts at differentiating itself, The Crazies still falls into the same formula. The movie tries to rely too much on

gore, which has multiplied since the original, and raise its level of shock and horror. But as cool as it is to watch people get impaled on pitchforks, it’s nothing we didn’t see in the last Friday the 13th. Or the one before that.

The main place where this horror film falls flat, though, is in its lack of actual horror. People watch scary movies to bite their nails, scream for the main character not to look behind the door, and wonder where they’re going to hide when the zombie takeover reaches their home. Let’s just say you won’t go home terrified to drink your water after watching The Crazies. Moreover, it’s unclear whether these killers even really count as zombies. They eventually die on their own—after they do some killing, the virus eventually wins. What’s so terrifying about farmers getting a weird strain of the flu?

The zombie apocalypse (I’m telling you, it happened) may have robbed us of our inventive, questionably-sane horror directors, but the real victims were the moviegoers. We’re the ones left to roam the barren wasteland, hoping for a decent movie that’ll make us fear more than just tap water.

georgetownvoice.com

“Rambo? Rambo’s a pussy.”—Tango and Cash

the georgetown voice 11

Credit where credit’s due Crêpe balls of fire

by Brendan Baumgardner The theater went dark and the credits began to roll.

A tight, intense close-up of a hand-stitched notebook bulging with margin-to-margin scrawl appeared on the screen.

Next came a police file, complete with gory photographs.

Then razor blades slicing at dirty fingertips. All the while, a grating industrial soundtrack blared over schizophrenic, unfocused text flashing on the screen. We had entered the lair of a psychopath. Two minutes later, the credits finished and the film was ready to begin.

That’s when the lights came up.

The terrifying opening credits to the 1995 thriller Se7en are a prime example of the work of Kyle Cooper, a man Details Magazine once described as “almost single-handedly revitalizing the main-title sequence as an art form.” His work, which can be seen in dozens of films ranging from Dawn of the Dead to Wimbledon to Mission: Impossible, is a fantastic blend of form and function. He captures the imagination and sets the tone of the film that follows.

On February 23, Cooper spoke to a sold out crowd of design students and film aficio-

Bag the jet lag Spring break will find many of us waiting in crowded airports, toting luggage around and eagerly boarding planes bound for destinations a world away from the Hilltop. Whether you plan to visit California, the Caribbean, or Cannes, your body will need to readjust.

While you may feel completely at home in your new environment, your body likely will not. It has been carefully programmed to function on a Washington, D.C. time schedule.

You may thrive on spontaneity and adventure, but your body thrives on routine. Drop your body off in the middle of Paris, and it’s likely to be confused.

It’s nighttime in Paris when it’s noon in D.C., and your body expects the sun to be shining.

nados at the Penn Quarter Conference Center. The highfalutin discussion of design theory could have been stiff and abstract, but Cooper’s down-toearth presentation and passion for his work kept the discussion exciting. He’s ready (and very willing) to quote Shakespeare’s Henry V at length, but also quick to remind you he got into the industry through his love of monster flicks.

These days, the engaging title sequences that Saul Bass pioneered with films like Psycho and Spartacus are fast becoming a lost art. Directors are increasingly opting for minimal title sequences, with

The deTROITeR

Well, I won’t be sleeping tonight.

As it turns out, our biological clocks are particularly sensitive to light and dark cues. The body has learned a certain pattern of sunlight and darkness, and expects that pattern to be followed. The body’s natural cycle, its Circadian rhythm, is triggered and maintained by exposure to sunlight. Our brains receive light-dark signals directly from the eyes, governing our daily activity and energy output based on those cues.

Once that pattern has been disturbed, and a new pattern has been put in place, it takes a while for your body to catch on.

Generally, your body needs one day to readjust for each time zone that you cross. Sorry, jetsetters, but this means that you will probably be feeling the effects of a flight from D.C. to Paris for nearly a week. By that time, you are

long tracking shots and unobtrusive text. Cooper shuns this philosophy, and to great effect. Rather than viewing title sequences as the bit of information that comes before the film, he builds his sequences as films’ first scenes. The best title sequences, he argues, set the mood of the film and prepare the audience for what lies ahead. The media montage and gory text that opens Dawn of the Dead, for example, illustrate the dismembered world that the film inhabits.

Cooper’s dedication to his craft stems from his desire to enhance the film as a whole, which explains the high demand for his work of late. He is the kind of creator who understands that to achieve a truly great finished product, every element must work in harmony. No consummate filmmaker would skimp on score or sets, so why would he settle for the bland and the forgettable as a first impression? Cooper’s work is refreshing, innovative, and exciting because it reminds filmmakers that there’s opportunity in the oft overlooked.

But the real testament to his talent—Cooper’s credits make the 1997 sci-fi horror atrocity Mimic look cool.

probably ready to board a plane back to campus, shifting the pattern all over again.

Since Spring Break only lasts a precious ten days, you will want to make the most of it. So, how do you spend your time partying in Paris or surfing in the California sun instead of sleeping in your ho-

Rub Some dirt On It

by Sadaf Qureshi

a bi-weekly column about health tel room? The answer is food.

Our bodies operate on several cycles, and our eating cycle is almost as powerful as our sleeping cycle. The stomach— as any hungry student in the midst of midterms will tell you—can outsmart the brain.

The best way to get back in sync is to avoid eating before

by Katherine Norton

Whether or not Georgetown needs a new crêpe place is debatable. When a lust for thin pancakes and gooey filling strikes, we already have two strong choices: Snap for quick and affordable fixes and Café Bonaparte for classier meals. Although both restaurants seem to fill the crêpe niche, the fine people of the Aditi restaurant group decided to open Crêpe Amour on M St. underneath Amma Vegetarian Kitchen.

Crêpe Amour is unassuming and benignly modern. A few shiny plastic tables and chairs are squeezed in around the preparation counter, where piles of fresh ingredients grab your attention.

The food is made-to-order right in front of you by attentive, brighteyed employees who have all the cheerful enthusiasm that comes with a new culinary venture. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something comforting about watching them spread batter onto the hot griddles with traditional wooden spatulas and fold the finished product into a neat little packet on a Styrofoam plate.

The menu, like Snap’s, is split into two lists of sweet and savory options, and each variation has a jazzy name (with some more clever than others—“Steve’s Job,” an apple and cinnamon filled concoction, probably took a bit more and during your flight. Once you arrive at your destination, you are free to eat. But if you eat breakfast at 7:30 a.m. in D.C., remember to eat again when it is 7:30 a.m. in your destination city. If your meal schedule continues to revolve around D.C. time, so will you and your body. While this won’t immediately dispel all of the symptoms of jet lag, it will help your body to adjust more quickly than it normally would.

After all, our daily activity is not governed solely by sunlight exposure. (This seems like it would be especially true after spending an entire week holed up in Lauinger, entirely deprived of all natural light while studying for midterms.)

Daylight schedules often give way to eating regiments. We divide up the day according to meal times and vary our en-

thought than “Bananalicious.”)

Upon close inspection, the sweet menu is more limited than its eleven choices suggest, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to improve the tried and true formula of chocolate plus fruit. Expect to consume about half a cup of Nutella in one sitting, because, happily, these people do not scrimp with the toppings. The “Carnivàle” crêpe is perhaps the most decadent choice, with fresh strawberries, hazelnut chocolate and bananas folded up and covered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. The flavors are clean and satisfying, if not revelatory.

The savory side of the menu is more ambitious—fillings ranging from the customary ham and cheese to the more unconventional mac n’ cheese and tandoori chicken. The “Mayflower,” a medley of smoked turkey, cheese and cranberry sauce, sounds enticing, but you have to wonder if a crêpe is really the right place for cold cuts.

Although it’s a bit dry, it’s better to go with the “Bachan,” which is filled with spiced potatoes and peas and topped with cilantro sauce. After all, these are the people who brought us Amma’s yummy masala dosa.

Even if it’s not particularly inspired or original, Crêpe Amour is serviceable, affordable, and will leave you feeling as though it fed a hunger you didn’t realize you had.

ergy output accordingly. Eating cycles are tightly linked to our sleep cycles in any case. We eat during the waking hours, and don’t eat during the sleeping hours. This is why altering our food intake can have such an influence on when we feel tired or when we feel active.

So if you are a picky eater and never liked the plane food anyway, you are in luck. Otherwise, try your best to pass on the little bags of pretzels, and those enticing preheated meal trays. The airline crew might be slightly offended by your persistent refusal of food, but your body will be thanking you and rewarding you for the rest of your trip.

Before takeoff, be sure to put Sadaf’s seatback and tray table in their upright and locked positions at squreshi@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

C r i t i c a l V o i ces

Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me, Drag City Joanna Newsom’s 2006 album, Ys, is one of my favorite releases of all-time. Working with super-producer Steve Albini and Van Dyke Parks of Pet Sounds fame, Ys was a lavish five-song suite as notable for its lyrical density as its sweeping orchestral crescendos. It may not have been very accessible, but at five songs in length, it was at least digestible.

Newsom came off as a romantic classicist who plucked her harp strings carefully, a perfectionist who focused on making the suite work rather than overloading it with lesser compositions.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Newsom announced that her third LP, Have One on Me, would be a triple album, eighteen tracks and two hours long.

But unsurprisingly, she pulls the whole thing off. Have One on Me is a sprawling masterpiece that explores the margins and empty space of her music in a way Ys

Tropical drunk Spring break is not typically a time for learning about other cultures. At least, it shouldn’t be. In two days, for instance, I will mid-air, bound for gorgeous Costa Rica. If all goes to plan, I will spend a week lazing in the shade of a palm tree on an ivory beach. As great as my appreciation for the rich history of Latin America is, let’s be honest—I’m not headed south for cultural edification.

This isn’t to say that you should avoid all museums like the plague (although I certainly will be) or shy away from attempting to learn a few words of your destination’s native tongue. But,

didn’t, and though it might not reach the dazzling heights of that record, it’s full of gifts for anyone who puts in the effort to make it through its entire runtime.

The first disc is the strongest of the bunch. “’81,” a simple ballad that harks back to her earlier material, works beautifully in context here, sandwiched between two of Have One on Me’s best and most challenging tracks.

The first, the title track, clocks in at 11 minutes and brings in some of the Appalachian arrangements of her most recent EP. It builds to its climax with a surprisingly active percussive section—with handclaps, bass drum kicks, and rim clicks giving the song an unusually propulsive flair. The next, “Good Intentions Paving Company,” is as close to lounge music as Newsom has ever come, with an extended horn solo and great jazz drumming. The disc’s sixth and final track, “Baby Birch,” is unabashedly traditional in its first half, then shifts abruptly as Newsom once again brings in a rhythmic build. Her voice throughout the track is more beautiful than ever before, and it’s hard to believe this is the same vocalist who shrieked her way through The Milk Eyed Mender in 2004.

The second disc is a more subdued affair, more interested in exploring the empty space between the delicate plucks of her harp. Its songs are less dense and its arcs less dramatic. Standout

“In California” finds Newsom restraining herself in a melancholic ode to her home until a thundering bass drum arrives and she bizarrely approximates a bird’s call, before an abrupt climax and swift denouement. Like much of the material here, it can be tough to get a handle on. “Jackrabbits,” which follows, is easier to grasp.

“You can take my hand in the darkness, darlin’, when you need a hand,” Newsom sings, relaxing us as the disc moves towards its conclusion.

“Esme,” the third disc’s obvious standout, continues Newsom’s newly direct lyricism. “If you are scared, if you are blue, I’ve prepared a small song for you,” she sings without a hint of pretentiousness. One critic was horrified that such heartfelt lyrics could be written for Newsom’s jokester beau, Andy Samberg of SNL and “Dick in a Box” fame.

For me, though, that just adds to the intrigue of Have One on Me. For someone who has composed some of the most fantastic music of our time, we know desperately little about her private life. But here, as on Ys, Newsom creates a universe full of feeling and beauty, and that’s something very few artists have accomplished as well as she has.

spring break is for relaxing, not learning. Save it for your regional studies classes, kids.

Before I start hearing cries of “Philistine!” (although, to be fair, “tan, relaxed Philistine!” would be more accurate), let me assure you that there is one facet of Costa Rican culture that I fully intend to take advantage of—their alcohol.

That really means two things: Costa Rican beer and the national Costa Rican spirit called guaro. (Well, maybe three. With Costa Rica being located on the Caribbean, there might be a little rum consumed too.)

To be sure, their beer, Imperial, is nothing special.

Don’t expect the languid pale lager to challenge your pal-

ette like a boisterous India Pale Ale or gleefully knock you down like a strongwilled, alcoholic craft ale.

And guaro, a clear alcohol made from sugar cane, can charitably be called vodka’s dim-witted but affable kid

Voice’s Choices: “81,” “In California,” “Esme” —Justin Hunter Scott

Bottoms Up

by Sam Sweeney

a bi-weekly column about drinking brother. Take the flavorless Russian spirit, make it a bit sweeter and lighten up its alcoholic kick and you’ve got the national alcohol of Costa Rica.

I normally expect my booze to have a bit of an attitude. Some pizzaz. But as I while away listening to the

Titus Andronicus, The Monitor, XL Records Sounding like Bright Eyes after an eight ball of speed, New Jersey’s own Titus Andronicus return on March 9 with its sophomore effort, The Monitor. Continuing the drunken lo-fi raucousness of their first album, 2008’s superb The Airing of Grievances, the new album once again manages to capture the enegry of the band’s frenetic live shows.

The Monitor, a fitting reference to the Union warship in a concept album ostensibly about the Civil War, opens with the sprawling “A More Perfect Union.” After the recitation of an early Abraham Lincoln speech, the guitars and drums kick into a thoroughly modern rock song.

Fans fearful of an album filled with spoken word sections based on speeches from Jefferson Davis and Walt Whitman need not worry—there is enough youthful and drunken imagery to appease any concerns. The album highlight, “Theme from ‘Cheers,’” begins smooth swooshing of Caribbean waves on the sand, you can bet I’ll be nursing a smooth guaro on the rocks, condensation dripping down the glass.

That, or a chilled Imperial, keeping me company as my skin assumes a mellow brown.

Really, what better way to complement my lazy week on the beach than two complaisant drinks that want nothing more than to lay there with me as the sun sets? There’s a reason why these are the national beverages of the land of “Pura Vida.”

And this phenomenon isn’t limited to Costa Rica, either.

Drinking the native alcohol of your spring break destination is the easiest way to add local flavor to your week away from dreary D.C. Mexico-bound

by detailing a night of drinking in a friend’s basement, crescendoing into the epic shout-along line, “Give me a kegger on a Friday night!”

The songs here are more confident and tighter than those on their debut, The Airing of Grievances.

Taking a trip up the Garden State Parkway, with a detour through Thunder Road, Titus Andronicus is much more comfortable wearing their influences on their sleeves.

On the opening track, for example, lead singer Patrick Stickles sings, “Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to die.” Who doesn’t like a shout-out to the Boss?

On this album, Titus Andronicus fits a bit better into the shoes they want to fill. The effect is impressive—Stickles and company clearly feel much more comfortable pushing themselves to their limits.

Half of the album’s ten tracks clock in at over seven minutes, with the closer, “The Battle of Hampton Roads,” coming in at an epic 14 minutes. The Monitor is hefty, but well worth multiple listens.

The original USS Monitor, involved in 1862’s Battle of Hampton Roads, was unable to claim victory over its Confederate foes. 148 years later, Titus Andronicus succeeds in making The Monitor a winner.

Voice’s Choices: “Theme From ‘Cheers,’” “A More Perfect Union,” “The Battle of Hampton Roads” —Dan Newman Hoyas can sample a variety of real Mexican tequilas, whose flavors span an impressive range (Jose Cuervo doesn’t count). Those headed to England or Ireland should swig some Guinness or, if that’s a bit too rich, try some snakebite, a sweet concoction of beer, hard cider, and blackcurrant cordial.

Wherever you’re headed, eschew the Bud Light during this upcoming week. Swig the native beer and down shots of the national liquor and you’ll begin to feel like you’re home.

Oh, and did I mention I’m going to Costa Rica?

Sam can’t find the Fountain of Youth, but he’ll let you into his lost city of gold at ssweeney@ georgetownvoice.com

13 the georgetown voice

fiction

december 4, 2009

Unknown Expectations

by Capri Bronaugh-Larocca

Her hair splayed across her pillow in an arc that made her look like an angelic medusa, she stared at the ceiling; she stared at nothing.

She knew it was coming and yet she couldn’t stop it. She could already picture herself on the train ride there.

The condensation trickled in horizontal streaks on the opaque glass, beads of sweat making trails on the forehead of the mechanical beast. She wiped the side of her hand on the window, creating a looking glass into the outside world. The rain fell in a randomness that was almost uniform and the trees were lush with the quenching of spring.

The grey light from the clouded sun reflected in her eyes.

There are no words to describe this feeling.

Is it loss? Is this really happening? I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a shoreline, the wet sand sifting, shifting beneath me as tumultuous waves crash on top of me cooling me off and breaking me down. Memories flash back to me in snippets that seem to be fading. Am I going to forget?

With a soft sigh she scanned the inside of the train car, catching momentary eye contact with the other passengers, and back at her looking glass. The people in the car exhibited similar blank expressions to match the groaning of the beast as it chugged along the tracks. The images whirling outside the window faded as she focused on the clear glass circle which refocused into another scene.

Her toes were wet. June this year had been a mesh of humid rain and warm puddles. Her flip-flops squeaked as she crinkled and released her big toes against them. She looked up. Her friends stood in front of her in a semi-circle of longing stares and deep embraces. What does this mean? Will I never see them again? If so, what was the point of us hanging out for so long, if we are just going to lose each other in the end? How’s it going to be when we don’t know each other anymore? She couldn’t help but feel that she should have spent more time with her family. Family was always there. That was what her father said. And yet she would ditch her family to hang out with friends, friends that were now leaving, with no saying of who they will become, who they all will become to each other. But is family always certain? She wasn’t sure. There were times when she thought so and others when she was convinced that family was no different from friends. You just lived with them. Other than blood there is no reason outside of emotion to be loyal. Was blood enough? But at times my friends have been more to me than my family … but it’s possible we won’t stay in touch ... She looked at the scene, herself the nail that held together the fan of friends that were spread before her. She looked at each face, trying to remember the contours

of each nose, the placement of each freckle, the finite details that could not be seen with a photograph. But the more she stared, the more the images went out of focus, the faces smeared and contorted. The fan lengthened, stretching her further and further away from the faces that composed her high school life, further away from the familiar. Just blank faces staring without eyes, from a distance.

She pictured Time latching onto the chains of friendship, like black rust, slowly, slowly withering away the loops, causing them to disintegrate in small flakes that flutter to the ground like seeds spinning off decaying trees with no ground in sight, fluttering into oblivion with …

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Shuffle the thoughts away. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the moment.

But the future is beckoning! Pandering, making her worry. But ignore it for now. Enjoy the moment. “Hey,” her friend said, touching her arm earnestly, “you wanna go get some ice cream to celebrate, one last time?” Her friend’s face was clear and glowing in the afternoon sun. She frantically scanned the skin laden valleys and plains; remember, remember.

“Yeah,” she replied with a small smile and quietly followed the group, not able to get out of her head. She stepped in a puddle, like a lake of black ice on the wet pavement. She watched the ripples reflect the light in waves that lay to rest on the dark shore. Tumultuous waves crash, cooling and breaking, sifting, shifting sand … The methodical rising and falling of the black water closely resembled the whipping of her best friend’s hair on graduation day …

The blinding white sun dresses and suits caused the audience to squint at the group’s heavenly splendor underneath the sun. Her best friend sat in front of her, her long black hair swaying in shiny waves on the soft breeze. The same breeze cooled her neck, spotted with beads of sweat, some from the heat and some from her nerves. The audience faced them in anticipation. She could faintly discern familiar faces among the masses, but all the squinting to focus gave her a headache.

Even when she closed her eyes she still saw the white light. It reigned over everything that morning. And as the microphone boomed her full name, she pushed off of the ground and rose to accept her diploma. Her feet left the bleacher platform and …

Once their bare feet left the pavement and hit the wet grass they slid. Laughing and falling and sliding and cutting the grass with their half naked bodies. The group of them, they were like minnows, cruising in between the seaweed of the cold lawn. Their pale skin glistening with an eerie glow that made them look as if they were made of

silver, they danced. Shouts broke through the silent cricketing of the night and were soon swallowed by the immense black sky. Bent forward, posed for the summersault, her bare back hugged the hills of her spine, stretching the soft pale landscape with its ridges, she dove. The jagged edges of the blades slashed her stomach with an icy sting soon sedated by the elation of the act.

As the initial thrill subsided, they convened in one heap of tired eyes and sore muscles, only the soft sound of heavy breathing to take them back to the splendor of the moments before. Backs down and faces towards the stars, they were sturdier in this position than any other. She laid her head on his bare stomach, as her friend positioned their head on top of her bellybutton.

Entangled in this net the silver minnows breathed as one, slowing themselves down, blinking at the sky.

One more week. One more week and we will be gone. This place will no longer be ours… we could come back but it will never be the same as in this moment. We own this moment. Two lights suddenly cut the black night and the security cart neared the field. “Run!” one of them shouted, and the school dispersed, swimming through the dew-kissed grass to

avoid the predator. Their tinkling laughter painted the stars, causing them to twinkle.

She stared at the black specks on the white ceiling, imagining them inverted as the night sky. The Earth is so small. I am so small.

How can such a small thing feel so much? She sighed and turned on her side. The selection process was over –– a culmination of four years of hard work –– and now a new one began. She found security in the fact that she could usually anticipate what would happen, but now the reins were stripped from her hands and she had to surrender to the ride. The next couple weeks were routine, but after that train ride …

She sat up and took her computer from the desk beside her. She opened it, but then closed it, unsure what she wanted to do. Am I sure about anything anymore? She put the computer back and turned to her other side.

She looked out her window at the trees of her back yard. If she squinted enough she could picture them as skyscrapers. The faint singing of fresh spring birds drifted to her through the window. She smiled and then furrowed her brow, engulfed in expectations.

JIN-AH YANG

voices

14 the georgetown voice

march 4, 2010

The effortless transcendence of Gucci Mane

by Sean Quigley As someone who enjoys listening to and thinking about rap music, I’ve always had a hard time appreciating Gucci Mane. His tinny, dime-a-dozen synth beats make a mockery out of the sampling process that hip-hop was built on, and his unwillingness to rap about anything outside of his cars, jewelry, and guns, combined with his general aversion to making his lines actually rhyme, made most of his admittedly prolific output tough to stomach. His label, So Icey Entertainment, is stocked with such borderline-retarded non-rappers as OJ da Juiceman and Wacka Flocka Flame; his entire movement embodies everything that New York hip-hop purists hate about the iced-out, Stanky Legg-shaking South.

It’s hard to believe, then, that in between serving two separate jail sentences, Gucci owned 2009, dropping, by my count, no less than six official mixtapes (three of them on the same day), his major-label debut album, and appearing on countless guest verses.

Instead of changing his style to more closely fit the traditional rap star archetype, he simply bludgeoned listeners into accepting his M.O., releasing song after song filled with nothing but drugs and jewels. Somewhere along the line, though, it clicked—through nothing more than stubborn persistence and the magnetic allure of his gigantic personality, Gucci became something more than his fellow kush-puffing Southern compatriots, morphing into a national star.

It’s tough to get past the relentless misogyny and incessant drug talk, but underneath that baritone, stuffy-headed drawl is a genuinely charismatic rapper with a deceptive feel for beats.

His delivery may be monotonic, but he has an interesting ability to squeeze extra syllables into lines and subtly shift flows mid-verse.

His lyrics are admittedly one-dimensional, but he’s blessed with an almost preternatural ability with catchphrases. Many rappers develop a signature one-syllable identifier to shout at the end of verses, but Gucci has at least five (my personal favorite: “skurt!”).

Though he’s not respected as a lyricist and often maligned for his almost exclusively materialistic subject matter, his deadpan delivery makes some of his lines laughout-loud hilarious. His penchant for the absurd rivals Cam’ron at his Purple Haze peak: he alternately indulges in offbeat sex raps (“Ass fat as two basketballs/Gucci finna dunk on her”) or left-field thug metaphors (“.45 in the club/I could kill a hippopotamus”). He’s simultaneously menacing and charming, kooky and straightforward, egregiously over the top and down-to-earth.

While aging veterans Jay-Z, Eminem, and 50 Cent (now geezers in rap years) released unexciting, critically panned albums in 2009, Gucci’s acceptance of his position as rap’s populist iconoclast helped him gain a following that extended well outside the South.

Gucci succeeds without the internal rhyme schemes and tonguetwisting verbal acrobatics that rap fans love, preferring to hammer home his themes of drug talk mixed with Atlanta pride. “I’m from East Atlanta six/where the boys dump bricks/and we don’t

bump The Blueprint 3,” he raps on “Classical,” a direct jab at Jay. Of course, Gucci isn’t the first libelous Southern rapper to take a shot at the king. After gradually building a devoted following by dropping a torrent of mixtapes, Lil Wayne proclaimed himself the best rapper alive and topped the charts with a crossover dance hit that compared fellatio to candy. In many respects, Wayne paved the road down which Gucci now drives his yellow Lamborghini, preparing rap fans to sift through mountains of mixtapes to access his music and popularizing a brand of zany, free-associative rhymes of which Gucci’s lines are a bastard cousin.

Wayne is by far the more talented emcee in the traditional sense, but Gucci has willed himself to the top through the sheer force of his personality, mixing impeccable street cred with the kind of goofy charm that makes critics swoon.

Hip-hop is entering a brave new world. Enjoying more commercial viability and worldwide cultural prominence than it ever has, it is simultaneously facing crises on multiple levels. Its biggest star is going to jail for a year,

and its next-biggest star is a halfJewish Canadian who played a disabled kid on a teen sitcom. Underground talents release promising mixtapes for free, then get swallowed up by major labels where their creativity withers behind suffocating 360-degree deals.

The only people making money are despised as inauthentic sellouts. The only thing that everyone agrees on is that the industry is fucked. Maybe it takes someone as irreverent and unique as Gucci Mane to jolt the genre back to life. Who else would have devoted an entire song to bragging about how much yellow stuff he has, or boasted that he “raped the game without a rubber/now my bank account is pregnant”?

This new decade could take us anywhere. Here’s hoping Gucci is at the forefront of wherever that may be.

Sean Quigley is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. Even his diamonds have got diamonds, even his hos have got hos.

Facebook: Trying to resist the universal influence

by Ella Mitchell We’ve all heard how the Internet is ruining our generation’s ability to socialize. Face to face communication is out of style, replaced by dating and social networking sites. These websites seem to help us maintain friendships by connecting us with people thousands of miles away, but it often feels like they are debasing the quality of our relationships.

Facebook is a big part of my life—I can’t deny that. I, like

many of my friends, check it obsessively, especially when procrastinating or waiting for someone to post pictures from last weekend. But since I haven’t yet found myself online chatting on a Friday night instead of going out to dinner with friends, it hasn’t seemed like a problem.

About a month ago, I was sitting in Lau, indulging my Facebook addiction, when I saw I had an unexpected Friend Request notification. I initially assumed the foreign-sounding name was some random grifter creepily friending me before he stole my

I “like” this: Jacques Ngor Ndour and his daughter.

Courtesy ELLA MITCHELL

identity. Then, surprisingly, I recognized that the name that popped up as Senegalese, and, stranger yet, one that I knew.

I met Jacques Ngor Ndour two summers ago when I, and 18 other high school students traveled to Mbissel, a rural village in western Senegal, to teach English and help his town build a wall around the local cemetary.

Jacques always stood out among the locals for his constant attentiveness to all of our group’s needs. We thought we were volunteers, but it soon became apparent that the he and his family saw us as their esteemed guests.

The sense of community I found in that tiny African village may sound like a trite college application essay topic, but the contrast between the genuineness of their friendships and my numerous Facebook friends was shockingly striking. To a community without electricity or running water, our short stay was a big deal. Friends and friendly faces seem to grow on trees in America, but for the inhabitants of Mbissel, our interest in their lives was a rare occurrence.

Being Facebook friends with Jacques is great—instead of the occasional letter, we can now chat every week. After only a month on the website, he al-

ready has a substantial number of friends, and his online social circle expands by the week. I imagine the 30-minute drive to the internet café is worthwhile to him, especially when the electricity is working and the line for the single computer isn’t too long, that is.

But I worry about the impact that Facebook will have on Jacques’s conception about his life and his community. He has 52 friends; I have 825. Does he think that I keep in constant contact with over hundreds of people the way he talks with fifty? Does he feel like his impact on my life was nothing compared to my other friends’? I don’t ever want to give Jacques the idea that he is just a blip in my network of friends.

His genuine openness toward me as a new acquaintance surpassed anyone else’s, and that will always stand out to me.

I know that keeping in touch, even with distant friends is extremely important in Senegalese culture, but Western culture doesn’t always allow time for this. Will Jacques feel forgotten if I stop using Facebook so much?

We are so accustomed to letting relationships drift and drop that we hardly notice the friends who cancel their Facebook accounts or stop updating their profiles.

The loose definition that we give friendship may allow for extensive networking and invitations to lots of events, but those benefits are making us forget the significance of sincere, caring friends.

There is no way for me to gauge how Facebook will affect Jacques. I am fairly confident that the community he lives in is strong enough to resist the temptation of electronic interaction, but I worry nonetheless. It is probably too late to completely reverse the effect the Internet and Facebook have had on our Western conception of friendship, but a little awareness can go a long way. I know that Facebook will continue to play an important role for me in keeping in touch with my long-distance friends, so I don’t want to deprive Jacques of this function. However, I also hope that the time is coming soon when our society starts to back away from the computer screen and remember the importance of real human relationships.

Ella is a freshman in the College. Add her as a friend if you want discuss the sociopolitical implications of increased internet usage.

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15

“I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he, nervously

by Aodhan Beirne I sat in the auditorium waiting for my turn. Each camper stood, said his or her name and something he or she enjoyed doing, and sat back down. It was simple, and by the end of the exercise we knew at least a little bit about every other kid. As the girl next to me sat down, I stood up and told every other nine-year-old at Camp Rae my name. Next I told them the only thing I enjoyed doing, the only thing I was actually good at, and frankly the only thing I didn’t quit within a week of starting: Irish dance.

“Did he say he likes ‘dancing?’

Dancing is for girls!” one of the boys in the row behind me said.

When the gale of snickering died down, I sat in my seat with a lump in my throat, wishing that I was anywhere but that auditorium.

I had never thought of Irish dancing as bearing any kind of a stigma, but I knew that a gymnasium full of nine-year-olds couldn’t be wrong. From that moment on, I resolved to keep my love of Irish dancing a secret.

This concealment proved highly difficult during my grade

and high school years, especially because I frequently missed school for days at a time when I traveled to Ireland for competitions. I felt I had to lie to teachers about why I was missing school, lie to friends about why I couldn’t go out, and lie to everyone about why I was on crutches so often. An intricate web of dishonesty shrouded what I still considered my darkest secret. I felt like Bruce Wayne.

I don’t remember ever being as embarrassed as I was that morning at Camp Rae, and yet I never considered quitting dance a viable option. I still enjoyed doing it. My fear that my friends would find out my terrible secret was never as strong as my love for Irish dance.

I like the way that dancing makes me feel, and I have never felt anything quite like the satisfaction that I get at the end of a competition. My commitment to and love for the sport have allowed me to keep dancing despite the trouble of lying to my friends and constant worry that one day I would be revealed. I could leave my school and go to dance class to work out my frustration about not being able to tell anyone. Just hearing the music made everything worth it.

When I got to Georgetown, I decided I would no longer actively lie to people about my dancing. I’d love to say it was because I had become a more mature and self-confident person, but I did it

Courtesy CAPRI BRONAUGH-LAROCCA

I’m Dancin’ with myself

mainly because I didn’t want my new roommate and friends thinking I was going to Baltimore every Monday for drug deals. Also, because some of my friends from dancing were students at George-

Post-irony is real, and so what?

Depending on how much time you spend on the Internet, you might be familiar with the rap group Die Antwoord, a South African group which calls itself alternately “next level rap-rave” and “Zef rap” and whose members sport some preposterous haircuts. Die Antwoord, or “The Answer,” as their name translates to English, has left many stymied.

Why, exactly? Because, despite how ridiculous they seem, they’re actually pretty damn good.

Die Antwoord are just one of many pop culture phenomena that have recently complicated our understanding of irony. With a proud “who cares?” attitude, recent trends in pop culture—like Tao Lin’s literature and last fall’s The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans—make it difficult to separate irony from sincerity.

Historically, this makes sense.

Irony, so long a tool of the underground, is often tied closely to

authenticity. An “authentic” person—someone who earned this title through certain signifiers (keffiyehs, tight jeans, etc.)—doing something decidedly “inauthentic” (listening to N*Sync) made for the best sort of late-90s/ early-00s irony. In general, pop culture in the 1990s was pretty awful—resulting from attempts to make good products through big budgets, but without the soul that made first-wave pop so appealing (compare Michael Jackson’s Thriller to HIStory). In this climate, authenticity mattered. In the 00s, though, the underground unironically fell in love with a certain former N*Sync member and the mainstream learned who Wes Anderson was. Authenticity has gone by the wayside, and overt irony with it.

What we’re left with today is often called “post-irony,” although the term does a poor job of describing the state of things. We

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now have a smarter form of irony, irony used as a scalpel as opposed to a mallet. And it makes sense— even if irony can no longer serve its original purpose, it’s become such an integral part of American culture that it has become subtly embedded in everyday use.

Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant is perhaps the best

Carrying On

by Matthew Collins A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

mainstream example of this new, hyper-postmodern sense of irony.

The film contains what a Snakes on a Plane-style irony-fest should: hokey plot, bad acting, and deliciously over-the-top glorification of sex and drug use. But the film does much more than revel in its genre’s campy history—The Bad Lieutenant is gorgeously shot and contains pervasive, incisive commentary on everything from race relations to police corruption and the definition of finding success in America.

Likewise, the increasingly popular Hipster Runoff blog—

town, I had no choice but to come out as an Irish dancer. I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to tell people, but I would at least stop lying when asked.

This policy was going pretty well for me until last year at the crew team’s annual talent show in McNeir Auditorium. As I was walking off stage following our pitiful unisuit-clad group rendition of Thriller, I was called out by the MC, who insisted that I come back on stage and demonstrate my Irish dancing abilities. Panicstricken, I felt the eerily familiar “get me out of this auditorium” feeling creeping over me. I faced the choice of either sitting back down red-faced as I had done ten years earlier, or getting back on stage and dancing for my teammates. I danced. Now, I don’t remember the crowd’s reaction when I performed in kindergarten—before Camp Rae, before I realized that dancing wasn’t cool—but I’m fairly sure it was not as gratifying as it was walking off the McNeir stage for the second time that night. I was reminded the curative nature of dancing and of exactly why I didn’t quit in the wake of the laughter all those years ago.

presumably written by Brooklyn author Tao Lin, whose style is remarkably similar to the anonymous persona behind the blog, “Carles”—directs irony back at hipsters through its hilariously self-conscious “hipster” writer.

Carles, constantly concerned with “personal brands,” generally focuses on the marketability of people/bands/DJs/products/ nations. Written in a deliberately obnoxious internet speak—lots of questions and air quotes, numbers substituted in words, “u” instead of you—Hipster Runoff reads like a joke but also raises concerns about society and our increasingly uncomfortable relationship with pop culture. See, for example, Carles’s piercing dismantling of popular street fashion blog The Sartorialist, which posted a fashion commentary about a homeless man. Relying on common wisdom encased in air quotes, Carles posts a picture of a homeless man lying in a puddle of his own urine, and pushes the need for the homeless to pursue personal branding— clearly, then they could just “get a fucking job” like “the plotline of that popular Will Smith joint ‘The Pursuit of Happyness.’”

The important distinction that needs to be made, though, is that irony and sincerity are now just

My struggle with my Irish dancing secret reached its climax earlier this semester in my Irish History course. We were told on the first day to go around and say our name, and something interesting about ourselves. To be honest, there’s nothing else that interesting about me, so I was stuck. When it was my turn, I told everyone my name. I took a deep breath, and as the words came out, I waited for the crushing giggles. There were none.

There were no visible reactions at all, in fact. With a sigh of relief, I felt my decade-long burden slide from my shoulders.

Irish dance has been such an integral part of my life, and I’m glad I can celebrate it alongside the second most important thing in my life: Georgetown. It’s disappointing that I can no longer exercise my creativity by constantly. But overall, the benefits of my exposed dancing career outweigh the cons. I guess every superhero has to hang up his mask eventually.

Aodhan Beirne is a sophomore in the College and copy editor for the Voice.

The only shoes that he has in his closet are dancin’ shoes.

sitting side by side—they’re inexorably linked. The Bad Lieutenant is a not a great film just because it’s a combination of a campy, “it’s so bad it’s good” mentality and smart directing—the unremarkable Planet Terror did that a few years back. It’s great because the ironic “badness” is threaded throughout its entirety, adding— in the most self-consciously postmodern way—a sense of surrealism and absurdity to a story that revels in the absurd.

We are, however, still used to being able to ask about sincerity and get a straight answer: yes, Andrew W.K. was just kidding all along; no, Snakes on a Plane isn’t a horror movie; yeah, my moustache is just for laughs.

Today’s irony is far more ambiguous (there’s a reason Lin is “famous” for putting words in quotes—who knows what anything means when people are kidding most of the time?) and far richer for it. As the headline ran on Videogum: “Die Antwoord is ‘Fake,’ and So What?”

Matthew Collins is a junior in the College and a contributing editor for the Voice. This is what an ironic mustache looks like.