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Freedom Fry and X Ambassadors play Cal Poly:
The good, the bad and the real heart behind the performance K AT Y BARNARD | MUSTANG NE WS AN EAGER CROWD | Hundreds of students showed up in Cal Poly’s main gym to see alternative rock band X Ambassadors and local indie pop group Freedom Fry perform at ASI’s first concert of the new year.
Annie Vainshtein @AnnieVain
Students shuffled into Cal Poly’s Recreation Center Thursday, only this time, it wasn’t for Zumba class.
Chatter buzzed upward. Vodka was hurriedly chugged, texts from moms deflected. There was a certain eagerness in the air, only to build as the students were stripped at the main door of their umbrellas,
bedazzled lighters and forgotten grilled cheese sandwiches. Over a few hundred students paused their Settlers of Catan residence hall games to see the alt-rock big hitters X Ambassadors, as well as
their lesser known indie pop openers Freedom Fry, in the main gym for Associated Students, Inc.’s first concert of the year. Continued on page 4
Men’s basketball falls short against top-ranked Hawaii
ANDREW EPPERSON | MUSTANG NE WS IN REMEMBRANCE | Cal Poly celebrated recently lost student lives at a gathering on campus Friday.
Friends, families remember students at Celebration of Life Carly Quinn @CPMustangNews CHRISTA L AM | MUSTANG NE WS NOT QUITE | After a strong first half, the Mustangs couldn’t hold on to defeat Hawaii on Wednesday.
Ayrton Ostly @AyrtonOstly
The Cal Poly men’s basketball team (6-8, 0-1) started its 2016 calendar with a Big West Conference matchup at Hawaii (12-2, 1-0) on Wednesday night. Though the Mustangs kept it close in the first half, they couldn’t keep it close enough and lost 86-73 in their first conference matchup of the season. Senior guard Reese Morgan led the team with 17 points while fellow senior guard David Nwaba scored 12 points along with a
team-high eight rebounds. The Mustangs were out-rebounded 40-28 but still matched Hawaii in second chance points (8-8) and points in the paint (24-24). After tying the game 37-37 right before halftime, the Mustangs were in good form against the conference’s top team. They outshot Hawaii 48 percent to 41 percent and went 5 of 10 from three-point range compared to 2 for 9 for the Rainbow Warriors. But anything resembling an advantage disappeared in the second half for the Mustangs.
Hawaii shot better than the Mustangs from the field, threepoint range and the free-throw line in the second half. The Rainbow Warriors opened up a sixpoint advantage midway through the second half and turned that into a 13-point victory after ending the game on a 9-2 run. This matchup was the first of seven conference games this month for the Mustangs. Next up for the Mustangs is a home game against UC Santa Barbara next Thursday at 7 p.m. at Mott Athletics Center.
Cal Poly came together to celebrate the lives of construction management sophomore Nicholas Reid Brown and graduate Ian Kingsbury this past Friday evening. This celebration of life was not meant to dwell on the absence of these two people, but to remember the happiness and love they spread. Brown died at his home in San Diego in the early hours of Sunday morning, Nov. 29. He had been suffering from a low grade fever all week, but the fever spiked on Saturday. After being rushed to the emergency room, the doctors saw no reason
to keep him overnight and sent him home. Brown suffered from a seizure, which resulted in his heart stopping. The paramedics were unable to resuscitate him upon arrival. The cause of the seizure is still undetermined. “I’ve never seen someone so loved by all his friends,” business administration sophomore Matt Devine said. “(His impact) will never end.” Kingsbury’s death occurred locally, in San Luis Obispo, on Nov. 30. Having recently graduated Cal Poly as a software engineering student, Kingsbury was working for Amazon, a job family members said he loved. “Ian was extremely sweet, and
News... 1-3 | Arts... 4-5 | Opinion... 6 | Classifieds... 7 | Sports... 8
always cared for others without focusing on himself,” aerospace engineering sophomore and Giovanni Guerrero said. “I hope Ian is happy now and at peace.” The event was for both friends and families of the two men. “Hearing what (Nick’s friends) have to say about him gives us a whole new perspective on our son,” said Greg Brown, Nick’s father. Counseling services are available to students 24 hours a day, every day of the week. Students can call the counseling office and make an appointment at 805-7562511. The Employee Assistance Program also offers 24-hour counseling services through its hotline, 800-367-7474.
Monday, January 11, 2016
NEWS | 2
JASON HUNG | MUSTANG NE WS FREE PARKING ON WEEKENDS | Students will not have enforced parking on the weekends. As of now, there is no set date that UPD will enforce weekend parking. Administration is discussing the matter.
Weekend parking to remain unenforced on campus James Hayes @CPMustangNews
Weekend parking enforcement has been postponed while campus administration continues to discuss the matter. Seven-day parking enforcement
was scheduled to begin Jan. 1 after it was postponed in fall because of backlash from students. There is no set timetable for when — if ever — enforcement will begin. A total of 1,326 parking spaces were lost when construction of Student Housing South began
on the G1 parking lot, university spokesperson Matt Lazier said. The residential R2 lot accounted for 484 of those spaces, though Lazier said campus traffic surveys indicated the lot was approximately 80 percent empty during the day.
Parking for students changed with the loss of the G1 lot due to construction of Student Housing South. Though the K1 lot was created to compensate for the loss of G1, 53 total parking spots were lost, including residential spots. The R2 lot was underutilized, La-
zier said, up to 80 percent empty during the day, according to campus traffic surveys. Weekend parking is often enforced at nearby lots during athletic games or concert performances. People with general, faculty or staff parking permits
can freely access the monitored lots during events. University Police Department (UPD) also stopped selling annual and quarterly general passes on Sept. 23. Daily and weekly general permits can be purchased to park in the general lots.
Monday, January 11, 2016
NEWS | 3
ASI Chief of Staff Jonathan Lampkin resigns Naba Ahmed @Naba Ahmed
He had the desire to pursue some of his other commitments, academics and careerrelated interests. OWEN SCHWAEGERLE
JOSEPH PACK | MUSTANG NE WS EXECUTIVES | ASI President and agricultural business senior Owen Schwaegerle said Lampkin wanted to pursue other interests. Schwaegerle will take on responsibility in the interim.
Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) Chief of Staff Jonathan Lampkin resigned on Sunday, Jan. 3. The philosophy senior, who declined to comment on his resignation, served as chief of staff from the end of Spring 2015 to the beginning of Winter 2016. According to ASI President and agricultural business senior Owen Schwaegerle, Lampkin wanted time to pursue other interests. He had been captain of Cal Poly’s mock trial team and worked for Tardiff Law in Avila Bay. He also worked as a student assistant in the Economics Department on campus. “He had the desire to pursue some of his other commitments, academics and career-related interests,” Schwaegerle said. Lampkin’s letter of resignation was read at the Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 6 by ASI Chair of the Board Vittorio Monteverdi. Schwaegerle will be running Executive Cabinet meetings until a new replacement is found. Students are encouraged to apply for the vacant position, which can be found on the ASI website. With the aid of the ASI Executive Staff, the Chief of Staff will be responsible for implementing the ASI president’s goals. The position closes Jan. 19 at 5 p.m., and the anticipated start date is Feb. 1. “I want there to be a large pool of applicants so we can have great quality candidates,” Schwaegerle said.
Monday, January 11, 2016
ARTS | 4
K AT Y BARNARD | MUSTANG NE WS COMING TO LIFE | X Ambassadors’ lead singer Sam Harris belted out lyrics while doing the occasional jump or dance move. He put on a memorable performance, though his brother Casey seemed to really carry the show.
Continued from page 1
Nauseating strobe lights zigzagged across the room, casting fermented shades of orange and acid blue on late-comers and timid couples. People danced their way into the doorways and I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest, but not in a way that was particularly exciting. Backpacks lined the bleachers like a middle school dance; I was the chaperone. The Los Angeles indie pop band Freedom Fry probably would have won every Battle of
the Bands at your high school. The songs lacked continuity, or what seemed like any true, active intention at all. They were a little folky, a little country, a little alternative, a little bit Mumford & Sons and even a little bit of Gregorian chant — but didn’t ring eclectic as much as a half-baked hodgepodge of something trying to separate itself from Milky Chance, but falling short. Parts of their set, though, had their own flighty kind of effervescence; for a few seconds at a time, Parisian-born lead singer Marie Seyrat’s wafty vocals re-
minded me a little bit of a fellow Parisian, Beach House’s vocalist Victoria Legrand. But what almost felt authentic slowly found itself closing in. Then, in some vain effort to achieve a climax, the sound clamped back out, premature and hollow — back to songs you sing half-heartedly at a karaoke night with your friends. Listening to X Ambassadors, the radio superstars from Ithaca, New York, who took the stage for the remaining near two hours of the concert, I noticed a similar pattern. All in black, and most
likely planned that way, their performance harked back to the foundation of pop — a sort of baseless urge to evoke: a premeditated package of a concert manufactured to ensure fawning girls, boisterous applause and seaweed-like arms uniformly moving to the beat. But the most interesting part of X Ambassadors, and perhaps the reason for my own semi paradigm-shift, was Casey Harris, the keyboardist and brother of lead singer, Sam Harris. Unbeknownst to me at first, Casey is blind; he was born with Se-
nior-Løken syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects both his kidneys and his vision, so he’s unable to read anything on paper. Yet, I felt the kernel of the band not only through his fantastic piano playing, but also through his movement. While the other members of the band either didn’t engage or somehow overcompensated through dangerous hops onto pricey speaker systems, Casey was what carried the show. He was fervent in every way he moved. He whirled, swayed and bounced with conviction — he
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leaned his entire body toward whatever instrument was dominating. He didn’t impose and was content to be separated in his own corner of the world. This was a stark difference from the chiseled voice of Sam Harris, the processed drum lines and the vacant movements of the rest of the band members who looked like Teletubbies if they could vape. The heart began to take shape underneath their glassy armor and the glitz and glam of the deep V-neck — the pseudo art of performance. And just like that, X Ambassadors came to life.
Monday, January 11, 2016
ARTS | 5
The rules of Bike Night
“You can completely cut loose, and no one really cares. It’s great, especially at the end of a quarter. You can just come and scream.” RYAN WEIDEMAN GEORGIE DE MATTOS | MUSTANG NE WS SIMPLE PLE A SURE S
| On the first Thursday of every month, bikers adorned in costumes congregate downtown for a care-free night of fun. Their joyous yells and constant bell chimes are hard to miss.
Brendan Abrams @brenabrams
The first rule of Bike Night is ... there are no excuses for not showing up to Bike Night. As for the other rules, well, you can’t expect a ragtag group of marauding hooligans on two wheels to waste time coming up with constraints on their latenight recreation. If you have ever found yourself downtown after 9 p.m. on the first Thursday night of the month, you likely have experienced Bike Night, which also goes by the more “official” name “The Bike Happening,” though there is very little organization involved. Each Bike Night, anywhere
between 50-250 cyclists meet in the Mission Plaza before gleefully spinning laps up Marsh Street and down Higuera Street. They gather after every lap in the Bank of America parking lot at the corner of Higuera and Santa Rosa streets to collect stragglers and revel in the incredibly joyous sensation of riding bikes with other people who like to ride bikes. Yet, Bike Night is so much more than just riding bikes. It’s like temporarily joining a cult whose only doctrine preaches the simplest forms of happiness. It’s no surprise; cruising down the street with the pedaling congregation puts cool wind in your hair and whooping howls at your lips without any
conscious input from your reasoning faculties. Perhaps there’s a bit of herd mentality involved, and a few unsuspecting drivers are inevitably spooked, but it hardly seems to matter when the banana-costumed individual beside you screams “Green light Bike Night!” as everyone rolls through an intersection. Costumes, while not mandatory, are highly encouraged. They supposedly follow a theme each week, but the only real goal is looking wacky, and the crowd rarely disappoints. Tandem and double-decker bikers share the road with people decked out in crazy hats or completely covered in strings of Christmas lights. The costumes become even more
entertaining and significantly more risqué in the warmer months, when warm clothing — or any clothing at all — is less necessary. Bike Night is thriving, and its popularity is a result of its accessibility. All you need is a bike and a willingness to shut off your mind for a little while. There are no waivers to sign, no inhibitions to maintain. It’s an unadulterated glimpse into a whimsical expression of pleasure. The only negative side effect is a sore face from smiling so much. Dan Rivoire, executive director at Bike SLO County (a local cycling advocacy organization), is well aware of how exciting and enjoyable Bike
Night is for everyone who participates, but he also pointed out its positive influence on the entire community. “It gets more people to remember how fun it is to be together with the community and riding a bike,” he said. This leads to more widespread acceptance of cyclists on the streets of San Luis Obispo. “(Bike Night) is an opportunity for people on bikes not only to have fun, but also demonstrate that they can be respectful and obey traffic signals and that sort of thing,” Rivoire said. Respect for the community is surely a substantial theme, but it does not cut into the event in any negative fashion. C o mp u t e r e n g i n e e r i n g
sophomore and Bike Night veteran Ryan Weideman was at Thursday’s Bike Night with a couple of friends. His view of the happening reflected many participants’ attitude. “You can completely cut loose, and no one really cares,” Weideman said. “It’s great, especially at the end of a quarter. You can just come and scream.” The thing about Bike Night is that it must be undergone, submitted to and experienced in whatever sense of the word requires the least thinking. There’s no sense in sitting around talking about it. May be there is a second rule; you do not talk about Bike Night. Go and be there.
OPINION | 6
Monday, January 11, 2016
On love, war and irony Emilio Horner @CPMustangnews
Emilio Horner is a political science senior and Mustang News columnist. These views do not necessarily reflect the editorial coverage of Mustang News. “Bernie Sanders for Prez” laptop sticker? Check. Thrift store button up? Check. Dissatisfied sneer at the corporate muzak (Hozier) bleeding out of the Linnaea’s Coffee shop speakers? Check. Was this the ultimate performance of my commodified center-left middle class cookie-cutter yuppie identity, or was there still a shred of authentic human expression to be found somewhere in between downloading Father John Misty’s LP edition of I Love You, Honeybear onto my Christmas gift iPhone and watching my friends Lee and Carlo play backgammon and shoot off 9/11 conspiracy jokes? Unclear. But it was a nice moment regardless. A little too hyper on coffee, I weakly muttered something about my love and happiness with my friends before feeling awkward and quickly putting forward a rude joke. Being insecure at emotional expression is not new, and people have long been scared to express how they truly feel for fear of others not reciprocating similar emotions. Additionally, it obviously can be uncomfortable to express conflicting beliefs, attitudes and values with people with whom one wishes to share a strong connection. Naturally, it can be easier to keep conversation light or disguise opinions in jokes and irony. However, it has no longer become a question of simple parody, imitation or duplication. Instead we have entered, as French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard argued, a culture context in which it has become a question “of substituting the signs of the
real for the real.” Modern cultural and emotional displays no longer have the ability of being too artificial, because for something to be artificial it still requires a connection to reality; instead we have lost the capability to make the distinction between nature and artifice. Or joke and seriousness. The fact that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were two of the most popular “news anchors” of the last 10 years proves this. The question becomes, can we at all control the frame of irony, or has the frame completely dissolved? Even I, a good atheist, overly privileged nihilist and believer in the subversive power of a well-placed inappropriate joke, believe that the inability of individuals to distinguish between authentic emotion or connection and merely the traditional signifiers devoid of the actual emotion is a problem. This inability to distinguish can cost us the ability to fully empathize and love others. One of the best parts of being human, we’ve turned into an ironic joke. I recently saw an example of the problem of where the joke ends and the ideology begins with regard to the political right on Facebook with a picture of a group of armed service members wrapped somewhat ironically in an American flag with the caption “’Merica!” Surely the excessive jingoism is ironic, but still something the individuals in the picture largely believe. We too commonly mock our own ideology while continuing to perform and embody it. The nationalistic and hypermasculine media representations of war oddly enough become more real than actual battlefield experience. It turns out that the true nature of love and war are what we’ve lost through the prevalence of irony in modern society, despite our constant desire to have it all. We want the emotional connection of love without the
heartbreak. We want the power, glory and safety of war without the pain and suffering. Unfortunately, it’s inherently impossible to separate the two, and our attempts to have the good without the bad lead to meaninglessness and harm. Hookup culture is to love what shock and awe campaigns and drone strikes are to war. Love without love. War without war. The left devolves to hedonism in response to modernity. The right devolves to fundamentalism, constructing an existential threat that needs to be destroyed (all too commonly minorities, women and the lower class). But it’s not as simple as choosing to be a nihilist or a liar, because all too often the multicultural tolerant left (of which I consider myself a member) preaches diversity without conflict. Or difference without difference. The dream of a cosmopolitan future is largely utopian. It was believed that 9/11 or the threat (or perceived threat) of global terrorism could shock us out of our break from history and back into the real world. But as I listened to my friends rattling off jokes about it (the best being 9/11 was an inside job and 7/11 was a part-time job), it appeared that was not the case. Depressed, I put in my headphones and listened to I Love You, Honeybear, attempting to drown out the postmodern malaise. The album, a love story about Misty’s courtship and marriage, captures love past most cultural notions of romance. What makes the album so good is Misty’s total acceptance that his persona, a folk singing shamanic drifter, is largely an ironic spectacle. However, by refusing to accept mass media representations of the sentiments of love minus the painful intimacy, he truly transcends the simulacra. I think he honestly captures love including its distrusts, helplessness and loss of self in a way that
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The new left is meaningful, pain and all. Of course my attempts to vocalize this were met with even more irony and jokes. Carlo, recognizing that this conversation was likely me procrastinating on my Mustang News article, asked me what I had actually planned to write about. I told him I wanted to write about love and irony and why it is that we cannot be serious about serious issues. I motioned to Lee and said, “Hey maybe, I’ll write about you; you’re the ultimate postmodern spectacle.” He asked for further explanation and I, way ruder than intended,
stated, “You know, your life is a huge joke.” Letting out a too loud for the Northface-wearing Linnaea’s liberals crowd groan, Lee grabbed a sharpie that was sitting on the table and wrote in big block letters on his sweatshirt “I DO CARE.” It was the ultimate nihilist paradox. Hedonistically destroying something to show how much he cared. And an example of Hegel’s concept of an abstract negativity. We may not have the language necessary to know our own unfreedom, but never doubt that at some level we do care. Good luck this quarter escaping the desert of the real.
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Monday, January 11, 2016
SPORTS | 8
What you missed in sports over winter break Tommy Tran @CPMustangSports
The winter sports season is now in full swing with the start of conference play. Men’s basketball is currently at a 6-8 record overall, with an early conference record of 0-1. The Mustangs began their sixgame road trip on Dec. 14 as they traveled to Saint Mary’s, losing to the Gaels 93-63. “That was a tough game,” head coach Joe Callero said. “We had just finished finals up and had not played for nine days so we looked really rusty. They looked great.” Later that week on Dec. 17, men’s basketball competed against the University of Southern California. The Mustangs fell short, with a loss of 101-82. This was followed by yet another loss for the Mustangs as
they traveled to Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Dec. 20 and fell 80-74. The Mustangs finally ended their three-game losing streak on Dec. 22, as they beat the University of Texas - San Antonio (UTSA) Roadrunners 88-73. Cal Poly led 51-26 at the end of the first half, with a 58.8 field goal percentage. The Roadrunners came out in the second half hoping to bring the game closer, but with seven Mustangs ending the game in double-digit scoring figures, Cal Poly kept the game out of reach. “We played great basketball and really blasted UTSA. We played our best game of the year there, offensively and defensively,” Callero said. “The players did a great job. They got refocused after losing three games and they came together.”
The men’s basketball team opened their Big Sky Conference play last Tuesday as they traveled to Hawaii to face the Warriors. With the game tied 37-37 at the half, the two teams continued to play a close game going into the second half, until the Warriors went on an 11-2 run with 12 minutes on the clock, bringing the score to 61-51. Hawaii came away with a win, giving the Mustangs their first conference loss of the season, 86-73. The team finished their sixgame road trip and is now preparing for the remainder of the season. “For the rest of the season, I just want to continue our current direction as I expect us to continue to improve, I expect us to continue to play like a great team and to represent the
school in a good way,” Callero said. “We’ve got a chance for a great conference run and a great postseason run.” The Mustangs had a bye last Saturday and are currently at rest until they return to the court Thursday at 7 p.m. to face UC Santa Barbara in the Mott Athletics Center. The Blue-Green Rivalry game is themed as a “Green Out“ game. According to Callero, the team will be giving out free green t-shirts to the first 400 or 500 students. The women’s basketball team also competed over winter break, with a current overall record of 8-7 and a conference record of 1-1. “The team is really excited about all the accomplishments and the progress that we have made this preseason,” head coach Faith Mimnaugh said. “Four of our losses were to teams highly ranked so we feel good about how we’re progressing.” The Mustangs started their winter break play against the Loyola Mar ymount Lions Dec. 12, winning the home game 70-58. On Dec. 17, the team traveled to Saint Mary’s, playing a close overtime game against the Gaels. Cal Poly led the first quarter with a 25-20 lead, continuing their momentum into the second quarter, ending with a 4633 lead. The Gaels continued to fight back as they entered the fourth quarter tied 59-59. Senior guard Lisa Marie Sanchez made a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left in the game, tying the match at 75 and sending it into overtime. Falling short to Saint Mary’s in their overtime battle, the game ended in an 87-83 loss. The women’s basketball team faced a three game losing streak as they continued to fall short against their opponents. The Mustangs faced CSU Bakersfield with a tough loss, 57-52, on Dec. 19. Traveling to face No. 7 Oregon State, the Mustangs fell short against the Beavers, losing 8043 on Dec. 21. The Mustangs bounced back, ending their losing streak with a 97-72 home victory against Sacramento State Dec. 29. The team started conference play Jan. 7 against UC Santa Barbara, losing 78-67. The women’s basketball team traveled to UC Irvine last Saturday where they beat the Anteaters with a final score of 72-54, marking Cal Poly’s first conference victory of the season. Playing a close game, the Anteaters trailed behind the Mustangs 33-32 at the half. The Mustangs changed the game at the second half, dominating the court by maintaining a double-digit lead all throughout the fourth quarter. Sophomore guard Gabby Grupalo
MUSTANG NEWS FILE PHOTO STANDING TALL | Women’s basketball won two games over break.
scored a record-high of 25 points in the game. The team has already faced a series of difficulties this season with a few season ending injuries. “(Guard) Breezi Holt is done for the year and (guard) Zonyia Cormiér is (also) done for the year,” Mimnaugh said. Despite the adversity, Mimnaugh sees positive outcomes. “What looks like a curse can end up being a blessing,” Mimnaugh said. “We’ve had a very good point production off of our bench, which has really helped us be successful.” The team is using this week to prepare for the remainder of their season. “Our team has got their eye on the prize, trying to win a championship,” Mimnaugh said. “I think we’re one of the teams that has the potential to put it all together and surprise some people with a championship.” The team’s next appearance will be Saturday at home against Cal State Fullerton. The wrestling team competed in two tournaments over the break, first traveling to Reno. The Mustangs wrestled in the Reno Tournament of Champions exhibition, with 24 Cal Poly wrestlers competing against
some of the nation’s top wrestling programs. The Mustangs earned 26.5 points and tied for 16th place with Oregon State and Southern Oregon. No individual Cal Poly wrestlers placed in the tournament. Wrestling’s second tournament took place in Chattanooga, Tenn. for the Southern Scuffle, where the team placed 27th overall out of 30 teams. Wrestling returned to their regular dual meet schedule last Friday in their second Pac-12 Conference meet as they lost against CSU Bakersfield with a final score of 26-9. The team currently stands 1-4 overall, and 0-2 in conference standings. It will face Duke on Sunday at home in Mott Athletics Center. The women’s swimming and diving team is starting to plunge back into the pool, having competed against San Diego State Dec. 18. The Aztecs outswam the Mustangs 181-106. The men’s and women’s teams will host UC Santa Cruz on Saturday for the Mustangs’ senior day. All Cal Poly sports teams will continue to compete this week as they try to make a strong start to conference play.