The No Parents Issue by Carly Spiering

SECESSION: Volume Two, Issue One

The “No Parents” Issue

Wanna submit to The Secession? Email secession09@ gmail.com

This is the first issue of the second volume of The Secession. It was printed on October 12, 2009 at the Whitman Printing Office. We used to be on 100% recycled paper, but this new-fangled off-white paper is mostly made from old-growth forests. The Secession is funded by the Contingency Fund of the Associated Students of Whitman College. The Secession is painfully edited by Los Rupee, Jim Weiner, and Tara Delfina. The Secession uses the Gill Sans typeface, designed by Eric Gill in 1926.

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CONTENT// Untitled (Illustration)// Sam Alden.............................................................................................................................................................cover A pipe for the afternoon (Illustration)// David Kanaga..........................................................................................................................p.2 Frosting sandwiches #1// Iris Alden..............................................................................................................................................................p.4 Untitled// Orion Hughes-Knowles.................................................................................................................................................................p.4 On mix CDs// Niatia Kirkland..........................................................................................................................................................................p.5 Wonderland, via Alleyway// Paris White....................................................................................................................................................p.5 About America// Mar Rodriguez Ortega..................................................................................................................................................p.6 Trasnochando// Sam Alden...............................................................................................................................................................................p.6 Some fun facts...smoking habits...Whitman students// S. Spielberg.............................................................................................p.6 Untitled// Tayler Buffington................................................................................................................................................................................p.7 Untitled// Jasper Follows.....................................................................................................................................................................................p.8 From the desk of... (Illustration)// sccrpro15@aol.com........................................................................................................................p.8 Camp Nowhere (1994)// Morgan Wynne...............................................................................................................................................p.9 A fortuitous discovery// Unknown...............................................................................................................................................................p.9 Whitman College people...need to relax// Carly Spiering..............................................................................................................p.9 The meaning of Country// Iris Alden........................................................................................................................................................p.10 Wilmott cattle (Photograph)// Iris Alden..................................................................................................................................................p.10 Peanust #6// Sunny B.........................................................................................................................................................................................p.11 He anD sHe// Shane “Dilemma” Young...................................................................................................................................................p.11 Decade end lists// Nadim Damluji, Peter Richards, & Finn Straley...........................................................................................p.11 Garap// Orion Hughes-Knowles.................................................................................................................................................................p.12 You know you’re high when...// The Secession....................................................................................................................................p.12 Untitled (Photograph)// Snake Eyes & Phil.............................................................................................................................................p.13 Exerpt from: Terror Rodeo...// Andrew Hall & Bryan Sonderman..............................................................................................p.14 Angry Man #1 (Illustration)// David Kanaga.........................................................................................................................................p.16

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by Orion Hughes-Knowles Neon Collect your wits and stay cool Cast a glace at the grime covered window Do you look good How does your hair look Looks okay Finish the cigarette Flick it into the parking lot Look the part Open the door and go back inside Make brief eye contact with the patrons Look at the floor Shuffle in Sit down Smile and look happy Drink your beer Keep smiling //

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On mix CDs by Niatia Kirkland

Mix CDs. What a fucking horrible idea. Specifically, giving them as a romantic gesture is a horrible idea. A big, unwanted, dumpster baby of a mistake. I know I’m the only one who thinks this is true. EVERYONE loves them a good mix. Throw some Postal Service on that bitch and voila (!), you got yourself a recipe to 1) get laid, 2) express affection, 3) say sorry, or some combination of the above. So maybe I’m a Scrooge McDuck here. But in all fairness, I’ve had some doozies when it comes to mix-taping my way into love. By this, I mean that the mix CD has been the deathknell of every relationship I’ve ever had. Am I exaggerating? Example 1: High-school romance. Swell dude, if a bit heavy on the Chap Stick application (side-note: that was gross!). We had a beautiful-ish summer; Xanax bars on the swamppier, trying to figure out which government his ex-CIA dad overthrew, ice cream on the promenade…you get the picture. And then! The mix CDs were exchanged, and the whole thing fell apart like an untreated leper’s nose and fingers and other extremities. My CD, of course, was flawless. Really just fantastic. His, on the other hand, included two (TWO!) Linkin Park songs. Some might say that this is a forgivable offense, but those people are wrong; “In The End” is in no way an appropriate song to give your girlfriend. The relationship ended shortly before Hurricane Rita, and I spend the rest of senior year avoiding him, as any reasonable person would. Example 2: I’m now willing to admit that this one was my fault. Frankly, the mix had very little to do with the end of the relaysh, and was purely a coincidental factor. In fact, I kind of mind-fucked this one by giving an unsolicited mix, and then promptly breaking up with them. As an aside, I don’t believe that the CD was ever actually listened to (as evidenced by wishy-washy answers to the “did you listen to the CD” quiz I administered), although I could be wrong. Example 3: This one was the Challenger disaster of mix mishaps. Basically, I knew the end of the relationship was imminent; I was going to get broken up with hard. And so, in a doomed hail-Mary attempt to stop the inevitable, I made the mix to end all mixes. I spent a not-insignificant amount of time crafting the perfect musical message. I arranged songs and contemplated lyrics and made cover art and all that shit. I put EFFORT into it, goddammit! I even named the damn thing “Robots Will Never Replace You”, a reference to a weird rant I delivered on the employ-

ment repercussions of the impending uprising of robots (Oh, yeah. I’m a keeper). I campusmailed it, because who doesn’t like mail? I was feeling good. Surely, this would work, right? A few hours later, I got dumped (Surprise! What a twist!), but of course, she had not received the CD yet. I know this because, after getting shamefully plastered, I peeked in her mailbox and there it was, a ticking time bomb of gutwrenching humiliation. After trying to point out to those mail-room mouth-breathers that I didn’t give a fuck about “Federal postal laws”, and politely explaining that if they didn’t give me the CD back pronto I would make it my life’s goal to sodomize their mothers, I gave up and spent the following days in an alcoholic haze. Example 4: Once again, the CD was more or less tangential to the break-up. I can only say that the music I received was not very good, and came at the natural expiration date of the relationship (summer!). All I know is that it fell into a pre-established pattern of what seems to be CD-related hanky-panky death. Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson! Never again will I be tempted to express myself through a compilation of songs! From here forth, I will use unsung words and winks to create romance! And find a way to convince the other person to do the same! The moral: Find out the mix history of your intended before you give them a CD and fuck shit up! //

Wonderland, via Alleyway by Paris White

For the first assignment in my drawing class we had to pick a landscape and spend twenty hours on location drawing it. With no idea what a landscape technically was, and a purposeful intention never to figure it out, I decided to draw an alleyway on a whim, and ended up meeting some of the most fantastic people without ever moving from my spot. Despite being somewhat out of the way, that alley formed a sort of crossroads for all kinds of people. One after one, they would appear before me like cinematic characters, pausing on their ways to talk to a girl with a big drawing board and a half-assed portrait of a dumpster and pipes. I heard the whole life story of this Thai man. His name was Cam, and he cooked at the restaurant whose butt I was illustrating in the alley, dumpster and all. That whole alley was made up of store butts, spools and blank walls. Cam was the best alley host. He kept telling me I could use his bathroom, get some water(cause it was crazy hot), and once he

offered to bring me a table. His boss came out too, and I couldn’t pronounce her name, but they would always talk about how much I must like drawing. I would get embarrassed. I mean, yeah sure, it’s great, but I also have to be here. Then there was this girl who’d stride by with her bookbag every couple days. She wouldn’t look at me, and she had a great blank expression to pull it off, too. At one point I yelled at her, saying hi, and she smiled for me(!) but kept going. I could also hear the pilates people. Every day at five-thirty, Fergie and the Scissor Sisters would break the silence and satisfy my eardrums. Then the workout lady would let out a little exclamation every couple minutes to keep her flock of middle aged ladies psychedsometimes just bizarre animal noises, and sometimes she’d go, “That’s right ladies! Keep those legs up!” And then there was this guy with a microphone who wandered around trying to interview the gay population of Walla Walla. He seemed to think alleyways were a good place to start. And finally, the group of people without whom I would not have completed this project- the high school gangsters. Each a full foot or more taller than me, many of them sporting afros, all strutting around like they were real alley cats. I’m still partially convinced that my mother paid these hooligans to come around. They would always show up right when I needed them, on those days when dropping out of college and living in a van seemed like a good idea. Here I would be, shading in my water meter like a grumpy two year old, and these guys would roll up alongside me with precious words of encouragement: “Dude, that picture is so dank.” “Yeah, I could never draw like that.” “How much do you charge?” (I’m sure he felt good saying that, for the first time, in an artistic context.) Then they would disappear behind a wall 10 yards away and get high while I tried to nail down the texture of asphalt with my graphite pencil. The sound of their excessive coughing was a sort of comfort. You’d think an alleyway would be a lonely place to spend twenty hours, but somehow I never got bored. //

About America

by Mar Rodriguez Ortega Last summer I went back home. Home is in Spain. One Monday morning this guy came to my house to do some woodwork. We used to be friends; he taught me how to ride scooters and once he wrote me a poem. It had been ages since we had seen each other, but he still looked the same. He told me though that I looked “bigger” and “more like a woman”. I hate those terms, because what he really meant was “you look fatter”. But what could I do. It was true. I smiled anyway. - Wait, WHAT? You are living in the States? - Yes - Wow, Mar in New York, I had no idea! - Yes... Well, actually it is not New York, I’m living in Washington. - Oh! -State -Oh... - In the west coast He seemed disappointed I was not living in New York. Why do people have to assume

that in a country with 50 States and what seems like trillions of cities living in the States means living in Manhattan, wearing Manolo Blahniks and drinking Cosmopolitans. So I tried to explain: - Near Seattle - Cool! (Without fail, everyone in Spain knows Seattle because of Anatomía de Grey) And how is Seattle treating you? - Great! (Going further and talking about Walla Walla was too much). I like it there. I like the people a lot and the place where I live is ideal, and... - Did they vote for Obama there? - (bang! Excuse me, I was talking! We Spaniards interrupt all the time. And we love Obama) Yes, I actually was there on the day of the elections and it was crazy, such a great experience to liv... - Same here! Everyone bla, bla, bla... Then we talked about his sister’s wedding, and about his new house, and about how my dog

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was doing. And that was it. That’s everything he was willing to know about my life in the States. Actually that was the response of most of the people when they learned about me being in the States: how is IT!? (hard - where do I start?), how is the food?, do you like the Americans?, do they like Obama?, erm... I bet it is cold there! Period. But what I really wanted to tell him that day was about how crazy people in the States are about brunches, bagels, and, most of all, peanut butter. To tell him “you know, everyone eats peanut butter every day”. Or light peanut butter, or crunchy peanut butter, or organic peanut butter. Or peanut butter & jelly, & bananas & apples & whatever-is-passably-edible. Whenever my Spanish friends asked me about the States, I wanted to tell them about Wal-Mart and about how shocked I was in the beginning when they used to constantly ask me if I was a “Washington Resident”. I had no idea why they did that, so I would proudly start with my whole story of “no, I’m actually from Europe, I’m Spanish, but I’m currently living here in Walla Walla, but yeah, no, I’m not a citizen really although I’m going to go soonish

to that place where you can get a Washington state card, which I’m really excited about because I won’t have to carry around my passport all the time”. -Whatever - they would answer. And add the taxes to my receipt. I wanted to share with my Spanish friends all these questions I was asked about Spain, like (I’m totally serious): in which part of South America is Spain? Are there Mc Donalds in Spain? Is there recycling in Spain? Is everyone also black in Spain? Which language do they speak in Spain? I wanted to tell them about how many different types of faucets there are in this country and about how they put ice in every drink, even in water that is already freezing cold. About how shocking it is to me that everyone sings the national anthem before a basketball game -and how I never know if I have to stand, sit, put my hand in my heart, clap or dance while the anthem is being played. I

wanted to talk about frisbie, about The Office, about seeing flags everywhere. Tie-dye t-shirts, garage sales, hand shaking, free condoms. Pounds, inches, Fahrenheit, miles. Going to Macy’s and not having a clue what your shoe size is. People going to class in pajamas on their little scooters, ranch dressing, tipping and tip calculators on the cell phones. And extremely clean toilets that flush automatically. These are the things I always really want to share whenever they ask me about my life on this side of the pond. I guess a lot of people link America with Obama, time zone difference, huge cars, Hollywood, cheeseburgers, Hurricane Katrina, MTV and Arnold Schwarzenegger. At least that was the ignorant perception I had before I came for the first time. Once here, I realized that the small things, such as Lucky Charms and one-dollar bills, are what define America for me. That is to say, things that might go unnoticed by Americans are what I enjoy the most when I´m here, constantly immersed in them. And the ones I miss the most when I go back to Europe. I don’t know if I’ll be able to live without peanut butter there. I love it now. //

Some fun facts related to the smoking habits of a couple Whitman students. By S. Spielberg

Grover McGillicutty Smokes spliffs every day, at the end of the day, after chores. “Spliffs are the perfect combination of long and short term highs.” Sometimes he prefers to smoke alone, but it depends on his mood. He likes to smoke in his neighbor’s room the most. He keeps weed in a bag in his desk, amidst old weed bags. He keeps stems and grinds them up: “Efficiency, dude.”

Virginia Darling Smokes spliffs and other weed things, generally 2-3 times per week. She prefers to smoke alone and at sunset, but her favorite place to smoke is Dolores Park in San Francisco. She buys an eighth of weed once a month or every other month. She puts her stems in a tin can or leaves them in cracks in the sidewalk. When she is high she likes to eat, draw, and talk with friends.

Toadboy Molasses Smokes spliffs 1-3 times a day. He prefers to smoke by himself, at night, in a room or at the beach. Lately, he keeps his weed in a jar in his desk drawer or on the bookshelf. He chews his stems or throws them away. He is anxious throughout the process of smoking, but loves the serene feeling afterwards.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert At the time of interviewing, PQ of the D smoked 40 cigarettes—two pack—a day, but said she needed to quit. She likes “everything” about smoking, and especially likes the cigarettes after meals, right before bed, and the first one of the day. She thinks Whitman’s attitude about smoking is much better now than three years ago, when she was the only person smoking outside Jewett. She only smokes marijuana after drinking a LOT, but then gets the spins.

Serena Williams Smokes weed everyday, at least once. “420pm is actually the best time to smoke— after class and with a snack.” She prefers to smoke with others, somewhere pretty and out in nature. She loves vaporizers because they are healthiest, but doesn’t have one right now, so uses the bong her glassblowing friend made her. She keeps the bong clean because smoking is just another aspect of her clean, healthy lifestyle. In theory, she keeps her weed in a little bag her sister made, but actually keeps her weed on the counter. She likes to smoke and then work out. And she eats her stems.

Charles Barkley Smokes spliffs and hits vaporizers, once a day or more, outside in the afternoon. He keeps his weed in an altoids tin. The first time he smoked was with two friends and a pipe in 5th grade. They were unfortunately caught by his friend’s mom and he never spoke to these friends again. When he smokes, he likes to make music, sit and think, play on his computer, and watch abstract things.

Person Seven Smokes weed three times a week out of a vaporizer or steamroller. The first time he

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smokes was in 8th grade in his friend’s garage; the friend crashed his bike into his mom’s car. He keeps his weed in an old Remington shaver case. He keeps stems around or eats them or throws them out. He becomes paranoid when he smokes. He likes to smoke around 11pm, before or after the party, because it is more chill than smoking at the party. When he smokes, he likes to be isolated, read and listen to music, or else “goes and follows a group and does stuff.” //

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by Jasper Follows I am not like you. I am like me. If you have parents who are not one ounce American, then you are also like me, in the sense that you have foreign parents. They may be Chinese and Australian, Ethiopian and Norwegian, or Chilean and Nepalese1. In my case, my mother is Canadian (oh wow… BIG difference you might be saying but hold your horses on that thought) and my father is British, neither of which are that far removed from Americans, but nevertheless my childhood was probably a bit different from what you may have experienced. I grew up in Vancouver and yes, we do say “eh?”. It’s an established word, commonly used to turn comments into questions that may or may not demand an answer. For example, I might say to my friend, “You like peppers, eh?” and he or she might reply, “oh yah”. I suppose “eh” is like “huh” in America but “eh” is much more dynamic. You can use it after almost any phrase without sounding impolite. Your mother probably taught you not to say “Huh?” but rather “Pardon me?”... well, guess what motherfuckers, in Canada, “eh?” is the equivalent of “Pardon me?” How ‘bout them apples. Just kidding. That is false. But we do say “eh”… quite a lot. I think that my favourite children’s TV shows would have to be Thunderbirds and Wind in the Willows. I mean, Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street were awesome too but THUNDERBIRDS and WIND IN THE WIL-

LOWS…. C’MON! And I’m not talking about the new animation version of Wind in the Willows. That is crap. I’m talking about the 80’s stop-motion puppet version. As a matter of fact, the Thunderbirds also involved puppets. Anyway, the point is that both shows were very well done. They were very high-quality kids shows, the kind of shows that might just appeal to some parents too. I would still watch them, even now, and I recommend you do the same… WITH NO PARENTS!! Yes, alright I can relax now because I have successfully tied this into the theme of the magazine. By the way, I had never heard of Nickalodeon (sp?) until I was 15 years old. Canadian kids just watch the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)… the most boring, and, well… Canadian name you can get. Can you imagine some little kids jumping up and down on their parents’ bed at 6am on a Saturday morning, screaming “CBC, CBC, CBC”. No, well I can’t, and I didn’t do it either. Why? Because I lived in an igloo, which I called my

hoose, walked 5 miles to school through a snowstorm everyday on old tennis racquets, ate ice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and had a pet moose.

a totally separate cluster-fuck. I’m talking about the slumlords who administer the renting out of Whitman-owned housing. Recently, my house and the house next to it had D-R-A-MA revolving around the “obvious disrespect of the Whitman College grounds and the rental properties”. What could this possibly mean? It means that we had house furniture masquerading as lawn furniture on our porch. The jig’s up, lads! They caught us! We WERE biting our thumbs at you! And making funny faces when your back was turned! Apparently, these couches were creating an unsightly appearance from Alder and had to go. After a brief email scuffle in which we tried to ascertain what the fuck they were talking about, we lost the Battle of the Couches and our beloved sitting device is now languishing in the dump. However, I would like to point out that our

big part in “House Furniture Witch-Hunt ‘09”. I have it on good authority (Kathy O’Leary!) that, should you pass by a Whitman-owned house with couches on the porch, you actually take the time to send an email to the Housing people decreeing the removal of said couches. All Hail George Bridges! We bow before your superior decorating eye! In the future, you might want to spend a little less time worrying about dumb shit like the appearance of a porch and a little more time concentrating on how this college is going to survive in an economic crisis! Until you figure out how to increase our endowment, please abstain from thinking about…ANYTHING ELSE! Unless you feel you’re close to cracking the code to increasing diversity…I know how that keeps you up at night.

by Carly Spiering

houses are still unsightly! Because Whitman houses are shit-holes! Here’s an idea, Whitman Housing: maybe if you slapped a coat of paint on the house or (gasp) actually fixed some of the more glaring problems (the broken windows are a good start! Just a suggestion! Oh, wait! You are legally obligated to fix them! So fucking do it!), then the oh-so-sensitive aesthetic sensibilities of the fine men of the Apex will be offended no more!

Whitman Housing

George Bridges

IMS Yes, I have kept the projector for a few days longer than we agreed. And I feel bad about it, honest. But do you really need to use caps-lock-voice to let me know that I have a DATA PROJECTOR OVERDUE and that LATE FEES APPLY? I get it; it’s an expensive piece of equipment and you don’t have anything better to do. But I think it’s safe to say that, since most people are not even aware that you exist, much less that they can rent a projector free of charge (Helpful Hint Alert!), this is not that big of a deal. Certainly

Funny story… I once told someone that we play tennis on ice up north and they believed me. Although I do talk very s l o w l y and they might have just agreed with me because they thought I was challenged. So what do Canadian kids do with no parents. Uhh I dunno… start speaking at a normal speed? Start writing down bad words like “color, honor, flavor”… because those are BAD words. If you happen to write one down the wrong way, it could get ugly up there. And you don’t want to see an angry Canadian. That’s like an angry Mr. Rogers. If any of these completely random pairing actually exist, please identify yourself… you’d probably be kind 1

of interesting. //

Camp Nowhere (1994) by Morgan Wynne

No rules. No counselors. No Parents. A perfect summer. Camp Nowhere gives kids what summer is supposed to be—a party. Starring Christopher Lloyd, (whom you may recognize as the creepy villain in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”), as an unemployed drama teacher turned summer camp director, Camp Nowhere becomes the ideal place for children to go when they want to avoid computer camp, drama camp, fat camp, and military camp, among others. The kids can do what they want when they want—and with Dennis as the nearly invisible camp director, there are no rules. However, the parents start suspecting that the camp is not what it’s supposed to be. Thus the deception begins. Watch as the kids and Dennis attempt to create a “Parent’s Day” for every camp that the kids are supposed to be at. Will they succeed in tricking their parents? Will they have had the best summer a kid could ever hope for? Spend your afternoon at Camp Nowhere, and find out. //

Whitman College people and organizations that need to relax I’m not talking about the dorms, here. That’s

According to Whitman Housing, you play a

A found item.

not on par with the eyesore that is a couch on a porch.

John Delaney (Whitman Security Guy/ Former boxer?) It’s kind of hard to tell you to chill out, actually. Thanks for keeping the police off of the campus; you’re doing a bang-up job. It’s just…you busted me on my birthday, dawg! I even told you it was my birthday and showed you my ID! It was a total bummer that you made me pour out my drink. And, to be honest, I had kinda hoped for some birthday well-wishes. Maybe you could give birthday boys and girls a break, or at least don’t write them up. I’m not saying encourage them to chug it, but maybe give them the option? “Pour it out OR chug it” seems like a legitimate solution to you being sort of mean and scary, and will probs make their birthday that much more special. //

to me. Country Music, the tangy and twangy soundtrack to this foreign pasture was equally unfamiliar. The bayside radio waves carried assorted hits of the decades in my mother’s Volvo and an endless stream of jazz in my father’s Subaru. It wasn’t until the summer of my ninth year, with my sister away at summer camp and my parents newly separated, that I was sent to visit my paternal relatives in Palestine, Texas and was introduced to Country. There, on Wilmott Farms, with my thrice-removedcousins, I tasted the salty pleasures of life in a small East Texas town: red dirt, the phrase “it don’t,” farming equipment, a particularly vicious breed of ants, riding in the back of pickups, and Bible camp. I wish I could describe my schooling of the Country Music doctrine, but alas, the only musical souvenir from the vacation is Paula Cole’s “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone”.

Palm Springs, and listening to Country Music. This last habit confounded me. It defied the framework of native authenticity that I thought essential to Country. Were they trying to get in touch with the primordial roots of their political party? Did Country Music fetishes develop at Country Clubs, inspired by riding horses? In any case, the image of a young mogul checking his email on a mobile device and shouting to a fleeced peer across the quad, “You going to Tim McGraw this weekend?” long remained a mystery.

Synthesis Two years ago, I returned to Palestine, TX for Thanksgiving. I was excited by the notion of seeing my cousins again and brought along a camera to document the reunion. No longer were they just people with whom I share a sprinkle of genetics; they were Country

Beef cattle waiting to be fed at the Wilmott Farm

The meaning of Country by Iris Alden

Formative Encounters Having been raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Country--the sprawling landscape with farm animals silhouetted by a rusty sunset--was nothing but an archetypal fantasy

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Counter-examples I transitioned smoothly from elementary to middle school without any further Country encounters. I began my freshman year at Menlo School, an astroturfed preparatory paradise with abundant North Face and Lacoste emblems. Extracurricular amusements of my peers included tennis, golf, driving sport utility vehicles with “Keep Tahoe Blue” stickers tacked on the bumper, spending weekends in

People. Kent (named after his belated uncle, who died in a lumber accident by the side of his twin brother Brent, a homosexual who lives in Dallas and does not speak to the Wilmotts) was born in the same year as me, and so I used him as my window into Country Living. I tagged along for all quintessential activities: hay-bailing (“You’ve never been on a tractor before?!” he exclaimed as if it were

a great scandal), cattle-feeding, four-wheeling, and spotlighting, that is, hunting for hogs at night by the light of headlights. And of course, I asked him about music. Occasionally he listens to rap, he said (or rather muttered), and sometimes there are pop songs he likes, but most of all he likes Country, for the stories. Thanksgiving in Palestine gave me refreshing insight into the authentic Country Universe, but it was by no means epiphanous. The most illuminating encounter occurred in early September of this year, when I was presented with the opportunity to cover a Blake Shelton with special guests Joey+Rory concert at the Walla Walla Fairgrounds for the UnionBulletin. I put on my riding boots (“riding,” as in the classificatory term used by department stores), and with notebook and recorder in hand, prepared to ask the questions and get the answers. I wandered about the stadium, looking for the most Country people I could find. I spotted a couple with 10 gallon hats and prominent belt buckles and approached. The man, whose name totaled two syllables, stoically uttered from his dip-packed lips “I hear he puts on a good show,” about his Country hero. It was clear that he could say no more, so I left to find more subjects. I had no luck getting quotes until I entered the beer garden. There, I met a young woman who told me about how Country music is the “only music that honors the people who are dying out there for us to be free.” I nodded, and proceeded to get a beer. I drifted into the beer crowd, casually asking its members, “What do you like about Country Music?”. In various constructions, the unanimous answer was, “Country Music is about things I can relate to.” I thought of Kent’s comment about stories, and listened to the ones that Blake was up there singing on the misty stage. Sure enough, lots of his songs were introduced with “this is a story

about...”. I caught glimpses of narratives: drinking yourself silly, a pickup truck named Ol’ Red, something about best friends, something about Mexican girls, cheating, drinking and continued drinking. Could this be the magic material, the connection between Country Music fans across America? Beer? Beer certainly accounts for some of the attraction to Country Music; in recalling the hoots of my high school peers, I am almost certain that their taste for Country Music must reside solely in this shared love of beer, their pastel existences lacking the essence of Country life. But what then of Kent, the sober Christian? Beer cannot account for his liking Country Music, and while there are songs that reference things beside drinking (driving, being with your friends, loving a lady), there is a mutual awareness that these things are better with a beer. The answer is in the Beer Metanarrative: it’s not just about beer, but about the attitude with which you drink your beer. The first part of the mantra is “I don’t give a fuck” followed by any number of conditionals--”If it makes you mad,” “If it’s noon,” “If I’m driving,” etc. The Affirming Finale: “I’m gonna drink my beer!” This I think, is the crux of the matter; if you’re Country, you do what you want, and you don’t give a fuck what anybody else has to say about it. It perhaps explains why future investment bankers can relate to a genre which speaks to a world completely outside of their own, and why that world cherishes the message of its music so fervently: it echoes American Freedom, the thing Republicans like most. Still, in some ways, I think Country was best summarized by a friend in her comparison to gangster rap (another genre that reaches beyond its tightly controlled boundary): “You listen to gangster rap and you feel gangster. You listen to country and you just want to drink a beer.” //

He anD sHe

by Shane “Dilemma” Young She likes Biggie, He likes Pac. She likes Jay, He likes Nas. She likes Rakim, or so He thought, Then He caught Her rockin to Aesop Rock. She blows bubbles, He blows pot. She blows doubles, He blows thoughts. She blows trouble, He blows God. She likes cats, He likes dogs. //

Decade end lists

by Nadim Damluji, Peter Richards, and Finn Straley A. Top Ten Catastrophes of the Decade 1- Kanye West/Taylor Swift-boat scandal 2- the real swiftboat scandal 3- that time your iphone got stolen 4- that time your ex-girlfriend stopped taking calls/getting drunk and back to gether with you 5- that time that dog almost died 6- The July war of 2006 7- that time you got mugged in Chicago 8- that time that “TV stopped” (writers strike) 9- Hurricane Andrew 10- 911 B. Top Ten Pop Phenomena/Memes of the Decade 1. Keyboard cat 2. Starwars trumpet girl 3. Rickroll 4. Goatse 5. Dan Brown 6. Cigarette addiction 7. Hermione goes through “puberty” on screen for all to see

E. 8.

“the fundamentals of our economy are strong” 9. Celebrity Death 10. “Vampires” C. Top Ten TV Shows Watched in the 00’s 1. The Wire 2. Castle Academy 3. Sharkweek 4. How I Met Your Mother 5. The 350 LB Virgin 6. Cops 7. TLC Original Programing 8. A Child Frozen In Time 9. Lost 10. John Adams D. Top Ten Friends Made in the 00’s 1. China 2. bros 3. frat bros 4. Joe Gustav 5. Matt Dietrich 6. Sam Alden 7. Simi Singh 8. Eliza Young 9. Chris Duncan 10. Emilio Estevez

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Top Ten Drugs Done in the 00’s 1. Xanax 2. Pot 3. Asprin 4. Cigarettes 5. Glue 6. Money 7. Fiction 8. Duster 9. “drugs” 10. life F. Top Ten Years of the 00’s 1. ‘07 2. ‘05 3. ‘06 4. ‘04 5. ‘03 6. ‘08 7. ‘09 8. ‘00 9. ‘02 10. ’01(obviously) G. Top Ten Cell Phone Service Providers of the 00’s 1. Sprint 2. Verison 3. T-Mobile

4. Cingular 5. AT&T 6. Altel 7. Nokia 8. Qwest 9. Cricket 10. Us Cellular H. Top Ten Characters of Fiction in the 00’s 1. Jack 2. Marjane Satrapi 3. Ironman (but really just Robert downey Jr.) 4. “Ray” 5. Yoda (like from attack of the clones) 6. Hope Obama 7. The “Oriental” 8. Woody Allen 9. Kng Fu Panda (Jack Black excluded) 10. Hannah Montanna J. Top Ten Decades to Feel Nostalgic for This Decade. 1. 1920-30 2. 1840-50 3. 1500-1510 4. 1000-1010 5. 1980-1990 6. 1950-1960 7. 1334-1344 8. 1970-1980 9. 2000-2010 10. 1770-1780 K. Top Ten Top Ten Lists of the Decade 1. top ten catastrophes 2. top ten phenomena/memes 3. top ten TV shows watched 4. friends made 5. drugs done 6. years 7. cell phone service providers 8. characters of fiction 9. decades to feel nostalgic for 10. Top ten top ten lists //

You know you’re high when... -someone’s telling a joke in a language you don’t understand but you can’t stop laughing. -they’re ants. They are little... ants... -you think you’re a tooth in a tyrannosaurus rex’s mouth. -you utter the phrase “I could eat my weight in peanuts!” -Walla Walla doesn’t rhyme anymore. -barometric pressure falls below 750 inHg. -it’s 4 o’clock and you’re behind Anderson. -you read that sentence and think, ‘How did they know?!”. -you tell your friend not to unwrap all three packages of mini muffins at once because they were individually sealed to preserve freshness

and they might go south before you get a chance to eat them all, which will be within 20 minutes anyway. -anteaters donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem that bizarre anymore. -10000111011011110000011010100000000 00000000000001001001111111100001 -you realise your pillow does not actually talk back during sexual intercourse. -there is a song you TOTALLY have to listen

to, RIGHT NOW. -you find yourself folding laundry for over half an hour. -you honestly believe you can write the next great American novel. -no matter how much you plan ahead, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re at least ten minutes late. -that bud you smoked that you found on the ground was actually a rock.

-you absolutely stop talking and just want a bowl of Raisin Bran. -sorry, you know your high when.... (compiled responses to a listserv email) //

Excerpt from: Terror Rodeo Roundup: A Reference Collection (Routledge, 2009) By Andrew Hall and Bryan Sonderman The Terror Rodeo does not possess a strict definition, but generally describes particularly jarring circumstances of interaction between people and environment. The first designated Terror Rodeo, though not actually the first Terror Rodeo, received the title in 1980, when director Menahem Golan premiered his film The Apple at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood. The crowd was so dissatisfied with the film screened that they supposedly “threw their free souvenir soundtracks at the screen, causing extensive damage” (Internet 23); this, then, became a Free Record Terror Rodeo, an experience brought on by the unique fusion of failed allegory and rejected merchandise. Terror Rodeologists have since taken to the study of what makes these events so particularly jarring, as its definition is amorphous and its impacts range from the small-scale (kind of off-putting) to the all-consuming (Hell-on-Earth unbearable). Further examples follow with pertinent citations for additional exploration.

Figure 1: Myspace Terror Rodeo There is no understanding as to when or, more importantly, how one becomes part of a MySpace Terror Rodeo. Its definitive qualities are elusive, though it is now known that one can become caught in a MySpace Terror Rodeo at any given time (but mostly at night), any day of the week (but often on nights with drink specials or nights that precede days on which someone else's best friend doesn't have to work), or any year (but mostly years in which you're between the ages of 13 and 29). Much like the Teenpop Terror Rodeo, the MySpace Terror Rodeo is built on models of self-deception, autotune, and nightmare sequences in which one suddenly loses long-established agency. Triggers vary considerably; it could be trance music, multiple camera flashes from 45-degree angles overhead, or a situation in which one crowd encircles, then swallows, another, invariably destroying whatever was once there. It could also be the moment at which one is asked to, yet refuses, to move on in spite of all circumstances. See also: K-Hole Terror Rodeo (9.2r), Irony Terror Rodeo (1.1d), Miley Cyrus (Achey Breaky Terror Rodeo, appendix c), Crippling Indecision Terror Rodeo (9.9m)

Figure 2: Airport Bar Terror Rodeo In its basic facets, this Terror Rodeo is nearly indistinguishable from the perennial Drunk, Broke and Waiting to Die Terror Rodeo (6.1b). The transition from one into the other is commonly characterized by the abrupt dissolution of visual faculties and an intense “pins-and-needles” sensation from the groin down—at this point, the participant commonly loses the ability to comprehend CSPAN and/or ESPN subtitles and the words take on a hypnotic function. Airport Bar Terror Rodeo is not easily “cut off”; in most cases, non-consenting participants must simply wait for its passage. It is the only known Terror Rodeo for which one must find external transportation from the Rodeo site to intiate its termination—as such, its continued existence has proven lucrative for certain transportation industries, who employ the notorious Weak Bloody Mary Terror Rodeo (5.3e) to assist in the inevitable transition to Comedown Terror Rodeo (5.4e). See also: Christmas in a Submarine Terror Rodeo (Berman, 4.36c), Indoor Smoking Ban Terror Rodeo (6.13a), Jalapeno Popper Terror Rodeo (1.1b), Confessional Terror Rodeo (1.18t)

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Figure 3: Enthusiast Terror Rodeo The Enthusiast Terror Rodeo comes on when one has the unfortunate circumstance of meeting an individual who cares far more passionately and intently about something than the Terror Cowboy ever could. This particular Terror Rodeo is onset by way of a show of intense passion -- cardholding, framed memorabilia, franchise tattoos, ownership of eightto-ten objects that all serve the same purpose -- that then gives way to allconsuming, inescapable lectures and moments of intense discomfort. The Terror Rodeo thrives because no conduction of enthusiasm takes place; the areas of high and low enthusiasm concentration never achieve any form of equilibrium, nor can magnet-like attraction occur. As with Failed Sex Terror Rodeos, the experience is only able to produce intense discomfort and resentment between parties. See also: Vinyl Terror Rodeo (4.6aa), Internet Terror Rodeo (8.1l), Asperger's Syndrome (to be addressed in Vol. IV of our seven-part series), Ten-Year-Old Terror Rodeo (44.25mx), Family Gathering Terror Rodeo (3.22a), Mel Gibson Terror Rodeo (777.23r)

Figure 5: Oasis Karaoke Terror Rodeo This Terror Rodeo is most often conducted by the fathers of young men like these, in the slightly more derelict pub next door to this Ketamine/ Barley Wine Terror Rodeo (see appendix 2.1a). It can be difficult to discern where this Terror Rodeo stops and actual Oasis Terror Rodeo begins but evidence suggests participation in the latter requires sufficient currency to purchase darker, shinier sportswear. Spawned in the United Kingdom, scholarly consensus locates the origins of this Terror Rodeo in the activities of two “salty Manchester twats”, performed between “crawling half awake to the pub” and “losing consciousness pissed drunk in some manky fucking gutter” (Dennis-Gladwell 1999). See also: Blade Violence Terror Rodeo (2.6c), Teen Pregnancy Terror Rodeo (2.19b), Post-Rave Fallout Terror Rodeo (2.72d), Cunted-to-Fuck Terror Rodeo (2.2h).

Figure 5: Drug Terror Rodeo The Drug Terror Rodeo sets in the moment the drugs win, which is more of a "when" than an "if" regardless of the care one can take doing fieldwork. For example, a Drug Terror Rodeo commences when methamphetamine ceases to be an inexpensive, high-efficiency stimulant and instead leads one to watch faces melt in a mirror for three and a half days, likely leading to lost productivity. Other potential Drug Terror Rodeos can take place in circumstances that suddenly and viciously necessitate sensory experience, low-frequency drones, and dairy products; another Drug Terror Rodeo brings on gratuitous, likely false impressions of the apocalypse and/or moments of intense confusion, misunderstanding, and betrayal (to further perpetuate the Terror Rodeo). See also: Bankruptcy Terror Rodeo (4.6a), Suburban Boredom Terror Rodeo (7.6d), Interpersonal Relationship Terror Rodeo (3.20p), Unnecessary Surgery Terror Rodeo (4.2n)

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