The Black Sheep • a college newspaper that’s actually about college •
Volume 2, Issue 5 4/12/12 - 5/3/12
F givree.. ing .lik th e t at he com un pan paid y t lab his or y su ou’ mm re er.
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Spring Nudity: How Much is Too Much? Lanee’ Sanders wrote this Spring is inarguably the most beautiful time of the year. What with the sun, the flowers and the tremendous amount of socially encouraged nudity, how couldn’t it be? The springtime brings out the naked person living inside all of us, and it can be a beautiful, beautiful thing. There’s something about the sun’s rays caressing our skin that pushes our sense of decency and concerns about skin cancer to the mind’s periphery. It’s a truly magical time when you realize the girl who was always wrapped up in a puffer coat weighs 30 lbs less than you originally anticipated. Unfortunately, sometimes we get more skin then we bargained for. Suddenly, the sweet girl next door looks like a harlot, and the beefcake downstairs has let masses of chest hair out to breathe. As college students, we should all be fully capable of dressing ourselves without help, but I understand that some will always fall behind the learning curve. This is to help ensure that no student or primary article of clothing is left behind. Don’t break any of these rules, and you’ll remain the classy, respectable student that you are from Monday through Thursday. If you were getting dressed this morning, threw on some shorts and a bra and then stopped, you are too naked. If every time you take a step, the campus gets a peak of alternating booty cheeks hanging out of your dress, you are too naked.
If you’re rocking your wife beater to class and you are not an aspiring rapper in 2002, you are too naked.
you haven’t done a sit-up since 10th grade gym class, you are too naked.
If the campus ministries stop you on the street repeatedly to shower you with the Lord’s forgiveness, you are too naked.
If you’re wearing a black lace dress over bright red lingerie and you are not in the VIP line at Mirage, you are too naked.
If you don’t believe in panties but do believe that mini skirts and mountain bikes are a good combination, you are too naked.
If your junk is hanging out of your denim cutoffs (yeah, I’m talking to you, hipster kids), you are too naked.
We’re not in high school anymore. No one likes a dress code or being forced to censor one’s individuality or skankiness, but sometimes too much of a good thing goes bad. In the case of nakedness, there’s a complete loss of mystery that accompanies the spring wardrobe. There’s this great thrill in seeing someone naked for the first time, but the whole campus has eye-banged them, they’re kind of old news. So try to keep your modesty in check until the weekend, no one cares what you’re wearing while you upchuck vodka shots into a bathtub.
If you’re in church and your pastor is sweating before he’s started preaching, you are too naked.
If your biology classmates keep asking you if you work at Daddy Rabbits, you are too naked.
If you insist on walking everywhere shirtless even though
Other stuff
Inside
How to avoid the spring bling blues. see page 5
Warm Weather Break-Ups
Get mad drunk like your forefathers would want!
see page 7
Turning 21: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Got a Light?
It’s so bad, but it’s so cool! see page 12
02
Table of > > > PAGE 7>>>
contents
The Top Ten
Reasons Why Spring Semester Feels Faster Than the Fall Semester.
PAGE 9>>
9
Bartender of the Issue
Mina from Buffalos Wild Wings needs a mix between Aladdin and David Beckham.
page 11 >>
11
CD Review: M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion
M. Ward’s 8th album is perfect for vibing out, man.
page 11 >>
The Black Sheep Interviews: Shpongle
our chat with simon posford, one half of the trippy electronic dj duo.
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The alarming disappearance of a fat-come-recently-fit person amongst their group of fat loser friends. Pat’s absduction was swift, after he lost weight he spent much more time in pussy than in the gaming room.
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05
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Warm Weather Break-ups:
How to Avoid the Spring Bling Blues Ta Trammell wrote this
When you think about spring, you think of flowers blossoming, birds singing and hot chicks and studs tanning by the pool. Gone are the gray and black colors of gothic winter past, you can’t help but feel rejuvenated. The sun comes out and you start feeling a little frisky. You might try to tame this feeling by being more spontaneous or outgoing, but soon you will realize the animalistic beast inside you cannot be contained. You see the short skirts and nearly naked bodies around you and think, why the hell am I wasting my time with this loser? Sad, but true. But what if you aren’t the one with the giant, green, horny Hulk inside you? What if you’re the normal, persistent partner that doesn’t change, no matter the season? How can you make sure that your spouse doesn’t leave you? Here are some signs and symptoms that your mate is about to leave you for the bipolar girl in the mini skirt. Like herpes, if you know the symptoms you can avoid the encounter, I guess. It’s getting hot outside and they start buying lots of new clothes, especially underwear. I know what you’re thinking. People always buy new things for new seasons. Wrong. New underwear is the first sign that your mate is thinking about doing the nasty with someone else. Before, they didn’t care about wearing the same holey underwear that are stretched out on one side and stained on the other. But if you see a fresh pair of Hanes or Vickies, be prepared for a night of getting trashed to comfort your broken heart. The next sign your spouse is ready to give you the
@westcoastkix #niceiscool
boot is a loss of PDA – public displays of affection. Some people don’t even do the whole PDA thing. But, if you’re used to having dry sex on the park bench for all to see, you might want to find a homeless man is because he’s the only one that will give you that reckless park bench love you so desperately need. The last sign is both the most annoying and most apparent. I like to call it “pretend-to-fight” syndrome. This is a very serious illness which could have you walking on eggshells for the whole spring season. Let’s say you and you’re boo are chilling, watching a movie all cuddled up and cute, and you happen to sneeze. You’re mate gets up in a frenzy and starts spilling out statistics about the effects of sneezing and how it causes cancer and storms out the door. As you stand there baffled, you don’t realize they were probably texting their new loves, just waiting for an excuse to leave. In this case, it was your allergies. Bet you’ll take that Allegra next time. If you spot these symptoms early, you won’t fall victim to the spring bling blues. As the weather changes, you should, too. For example, if you and your mate are out to dinner, drop your napkin and reach over and give him a little pre-dinner massage, if you know what I mean. Look ma, no hands! I’m not asking you to fornicate in front of all the women and children in Denny’s, but keep your relationship spicy. Trial and error is the best method for this situation, but be careful not to get too freaky and scare your spouse off. Stay humble, keep it fresh and always remember to wrap it up because herpes is FOR LIFE.
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www.theblacksheeponline.com THe top ten Reasons Why Spring Semester Feels Faster Than the Fall Semester
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10) Concrete Evidence: Spring semester starts January 17 and ends on May 11. That totals to 3 months and 23 days. Time off consists of 9 days for spring break and 1 reading day. Fall semester: August 25 – December 20, a total of 3 months and 26 days. 2 reading days and 4 days for Thanksgiving break. Spring is shorter by a margin of 7 days. If God created the world in seven days, imagine the possibilities. 9) The Parties: The parties in the spring are 100% better. August weather in Richmond is amazing - don’t get me wrong, I’d drink a cold beer in that heat any day. It’s just when September comes around, temperatures drop and like an ugly girl who takes off her make-up off, it’s cold. Partying in the spring with the weather only improving makes time fly.
Turning 21: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Ben Palmer wrote this You’re on the roof of a leaf-encrusted Honda. You’re wearing clothes that aren’t yours and shoes that look mysteriously like rolled up newspapers. You’ve got seventy Mardi Gras beads around your neck and a half-empty bottle of Kraken lashed to your left hand with twine and duct tape. Did you slip into Charlie Sheen’s poker night, you ask? Hardly. You, my friend, have just experienced the watershed moment in your journey to adulthood, and your kidneys’ inevitable Waterloo: the twenty-first birthday. Whether you’re waiting for it with bated breath, or trying to relive it every chance you can get, our society sure has romanticized the twenty-first birthday. And by romanticized, of course, I mean drenched it in lots and lots and lots of booze and tossed it onto the curb like a puke-covered sofa. It’s the subject of countless inane movies, the culprit of an untold number of trips to the Altar of the Porcelain God, and the number one revenue stream for every bar within walking distance of Monroe Park campus. But what is this elusive and fleeting day? Does it have any actual meaning? Hell, does anyone over twenty-one actually remember it? Perhaps we should start from the top and thank the United States of America for basically granting us a day to become adults, while simultaneously acting like toddlers.
Yankees sure do know how to party when the time comes. And no matter the era, whether you hit your milestone in the golden age of the bellbottoms or the heyday of the halter top, every twenty-first soiree has a few things in common: an inordinate amount of alcohol, a weird new friend that will mysteriously ask you for beer the morning after and a strange chunk of the evening that you can’t seem to remember. When I say “inordinate amount”, I speak of such an amount that would make Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnoff blush. It is such an astronomical volume that it could easily be carried on a Viking longboat to keep an entire crew of hairy, Nordic alpha-males completely hammered on their trip back from raiding England. Yeah, that much. But don’t let your new “friend” ruin your sterling stash of fire water. Fear not, they’re easy to spot. Commonly perched right beside your fridge waiting for the split second that you avert your eyes, during which they will clean your stash dry, this new “friend” will blow up your phone for about a month until they find new twenty-first birthday prey. If all else fails, they do have a hidden weakness - money. Upon being asked for it, they will spontaneously combust into tiny pieces of ginsoaked confetti.
"perhaps we should thank the united state of america for granting us a day to become adults, while simultaneously acting like toddlers."
Surely due to its supreme benevolence, the United States has felt the need to share the drinking age requirement with such international gems as Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and the global powerhouse of the Solomon Islands. We’re in great drinking company, aren’t we? But I digress. Our German mates may be enjoying their Oktoberfest brews years before we can even experience our first martini, but we
But before you blow your entire life savings on seventy bottles of Macallan, remember that it’s just a day. Sure, those mint juleps you just mouth-vacuumed might have made you forget what day it actually is, but in the morning, a twenty-first celebration is still just a birthday party. Enjoy it, reminisce it, eagerly await it. Just whatever you do, don’t expect to remember too much of it.
8) Summer Vacation Attitude: You’re in class and hopefully you have a window by you for staring off into space. How can one focus when he or she is day dreaming about the sexy people on the beach they’re about to hit up in a month? 7) Chasing: The art of chasing is highly practiced in this breezy weather. Everyone’s going out: Thirsty Thursdays, Fucked Up Fridays and Sloppy Saturdays. Guys’ hormones are raging with sexual tendencies and the chase is what it’s all about. Of course we all go home empty handed. 6) Makin’ That Money: Much respect to those who are working parttime to provide themselves with allowance or rent. Treat yourself to a few drinks at happy hour or hop to Off the Hookah on a Thursday night. $1 rails will let you forget everything. No stress, you deserve a pat on the back. 5) Booty Shorts and Tank Tops: Okay, so autumn seems longer because everyone’s making fashion statements in their long sleeves and jackets. Spring is for the daffodil-printed skirt bottoms or short shorts to show off voluptuous curvature. Men who’ve worked on their summer beach bodies wear tank tops to show off their chiseled biceps. 4) Slow Motion: These days sluggishness is a widespread disease. The heat slows us down and we’re all developing zombie-like symptoms. Soaking in the vitamin D is great, but if it takes 12 minutes to crawl to the library when it takes you six to powerwalk in the cold, we accomplish so much less in the spring. Every day ends up being a race to the finish. 3) Hangovers: Drinking on the porch steps with your friends on a Wednesday evening right after your 4:30 class is much more common now that the glorious sunset compels you to sit on the balcony and reminisce the old days. Betting shot-guns and beer bongs on whoever loses in Super Smash Bros. on the N64 ensues, and soon enough it’s 1:19 a.m. If you can, remember it all started on the balcony. 2) Lack of Sex: We’re not having too much of it. That’s for the fall semester when everybody stays inside in the ice-cold Richmond weather, toasting in front of the fireplace and making love. Spring is all about the chase before the winter hibernation. 1) Daylight Saving Time: The sun stays out longer. Why would you go to class on a beautiful day when journeying to Belle Isle with a group of friends sounds more enticing? Doesn’t the idea of pretty girls in red bikinis by the river and sexy guys that look like assholes capture your attention more than the lame professor reciting the PowerPoint presentation behind him?
Daniel Park wrote this
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Bartenderof the Issue
Mina Buffalo wild wings
Relationship status: Taken Major: International Studies What celebrity would you most like to punch in the face?: Kreayshwan, she gives a bad name to females. What is the worst pick-up line you’ve heard on the job?: “Whats YOUR favorite?” when asking about sauce. What Disney character do you most want to hook up with?: Aladdin all day! What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen on the job?: Someone fell, like busted their ass!
If you could create a holiday, what would it be?: One that teachers let students party in classrooms. What dead person would you most want to bring back to life?: My dad’s dad. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?: The ability to read minds. Who do you most want to have a tickle fight with?: David Beckham What’s one thing you never want your mom to know about you?: How much I really snuck out. How many 4-year olds do you think you could take in a fight?: 6
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Sweeps Season:
With sweeps season upon us we decided to highlight the best, the worst and the rest of first-season shows the only way we know how: In the most juvenile way possible.
Happy Endings (ABC) In a sentence: Attractive twenty-somethings act like attractive twenty-somethings.
Marry, Bang, Kill Edition
Marry!
The show is full of plausible scenarios executed in funny ways. Remember early episodes of How I Met Your Mother, before you just wanted the damn show to end so Ted Mosby could just get on with his miserable life? That’s Happy Endings now. It shows how goofy assumedly normal people can be in
Why we’re proposing: Sure, you may not like Zooey Deschanel. “She’s too purposely quirky!” you say. “Even when she’s supposed to be upset, she comes off like a sad koala!” says another person. “Her acting skills are ruff at best!” says the dog TV critic. To you we say, “Who gives a shit?”
their private lives. Not all investment bankers are huge dicks? You don’t say! A food truck owner that doesn’t have to be some overly-quirky buffoon hellbend on remaining that way? Zuh? A comedy based in reality, teased out to be funny? Well, we’ll be damned.
Person of Interest (CBS) Bang! In a sentence: The weird guy from Lost hires Jesus to kick some ass and take some names.
Altruistic genius billionaire conceives of a way to identify villains and victims prior to crimes being committed. As a result, he hires an ex-CIA field officer It’s certainly a lot closer than one would think. Yet, the show kinda-sorta works. Person of Interto take care of his dirty work. est sticks closely to its premise, is well-casted, and presents interesting scenarios with each new Or, episode. It’s not perfect, but there are a lot of hours to fill in a programming schedule, and to fill Well-endowed lesbian nuns fly armed-to-the-teeth cyborg dragons through space in an attempt to rid the them without making the viewer want to throw their remote through the TV with disgust is certain universe of alien pedophiles. worthy of some praise.
2 Broke Girls (CBS)
Kill!
There’s the flat premise: Life is hard for two gals just a-tryin to make it in the big city, LOL! There’s the oddly racist ensemble cast featuring
Or, think about it this way: Without Miss. D. New Girl would be terrible. Replace her with Laura Prepon? Horrible. Jenna Fischer? Surely you jest! That one girl from that other thing? No way! The show isn’t terrible, and we can all thank her for that. Heil, er…thanks, Zooey!
Up All Night (NBC)
Bang!
But strip those cast members away and look at where Up All Night stands right now. Eh. Maybe it’s the subject matter—it’s hard to relate to the perils of child rearing when you haven’t done it yourself. Like a clown falling off the Empire State Building, we know that the situations the couple is led into should be funny, but when face meets pavement it’s a sad, empty feeling more than it is a laugh.
Premise: The parents cope with traveling with a child for the first time. Moral: Don’t have kids if you like seeing cool shit.
Seriously, look at the premise of two episodes, and the moral each story:
This was supposed to be a comedy, right?
Premise: After the baby, the marriage is lacking in sex. Moral: Do you like sex? Don’t have kids.
Alcatraz (Fox) In a sentence: Hey look, someone thought the fat guy from Lost deserved his own TV show!
Why it should die: Though we respect the religious beliefs of others, we find it impossible to come to terms with the idea that one could believe in a higher power in light of 2 Broke Girls’ existence.
There’s the stale jokes: Kat Dennings has big boobs! The other girl is blonde! Creeps! Horndogs!
uh…didn’t work so we—Zooey Deschanel, everyone!
Why we want to bang it: Will Arnett gets a lifetime pass for Arrested Development, Christina Applegate is above average in everything she stars in, and Maya Rudolph has a strong enough comedy portfolio to make us believe that this show has the potential to go beyond where it is now.
Which of the following shows maintains a more likely premise:
That may sound a little harsh, but the show is truly an affront to whichever god you worship.
New Girl is the perfect vehicle for all of Zooey Deschanel’s wild, wacky quirks. She manages to evoke grins, giggles and guffaws in equal doses simply by being herself. Seriously, she’s so stinkin’ adorable that we can’t control our childish choice to chain words together into alliterative sentences. What else does that work with? Let’s find out: The cute and cuddly kitten clawed clumsily at the creased corduroys. How adorable! On the other hand: Hitler happily high-fived his henchmen, hearing of the Hebrew Holocaust. That…
In a sentence: Wait, someone explain to us why people have children?
Why we want to bang it: In short, few shows get as much mileage out of willful suspension of disbelief as Person of Interest does.
In a sentence: Hot girls make fun of vaguelydefined stereotypes while looking hot, just like high school!
Marry!
In a sentence: Aww…Zooey Deschanel!
Why we’re proposing: Yes, we’re kinda cheating with a show that technically debuted a year ago, but the fall schedule offered Happy Endings its first chance at a full-slate season. This is a good thing. Happy Endings is ridiculous in how ridiculous it isn’t. The show refuses to get by on lame comedy gags and overdone tropes, and manages to find humor in having the characters act in a way that people actually act, but funnier.
New Girl (FOX)
Kill!
Why it should die: Alcatraz is little more than an extravagant mad lib done up with dark undertones and pseudo-science writing in an attempt to lure in a sizable chunk of Lost fans fiending for another psychodrama fix.
a nerdy Asian, a creepy Eastern European cook and the token black guy. Then there’s the laugh track. Nothing says, “We think the show’s demographic is a group of vegetative-state slapdicks,” like a laugh track. It’s like the producers are screaming, “She spilled soup on her tits, laugh, monkeys! Do it now so Chevy will buy some more truckin’ ads!”
One can easily picture the writing room, a bunch of suits lording over feeble, weak-willed writers willing to put pen to paper for a quick paycheck. Every time a writer submits a draft, it’s sent back moments later with notes littered with impossible-to-decipher demands like, “needs more intrigue” or “lacking techno mumbo-jumbo.” The end result is a show that just kind of exists for the sake of existing. To make a food allegory that only Hurley could love, it would be like ten chefs
trying to cook the same steak. Each one would try to improve the cut of meat in their own way. One would broil it. Another would move it to a grill, someone would try to pan fry it. In the end, it’s a charred husk of its former self. At this point the guests don’t want to eat it, but they’re thinking, “Well, we already drove here, why the hell not?”
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the black sheep interviews:
Shpongle
You’ve never truly felt “shpongled” until you’ve been to one of Shpongle’s unforgettable performances. We got to chat with Simon Posford, half of the brainchild behind the British psychedelic-electronic duo that’s about making awesome music just as much as it’s about trippy visuals and having an amazing experience at the show. The man behind the six-eyed mask talked to us about goals (or lack of them) and their new set The Masquerade, which just embarked on tour in the US. Check them out at the NorVa in Norfolk on April 21st! The Black Sheep: How did you get involved in playing electronic, trance music? Simon Posford: I guess I took a terrible path in my childhood at some point and got involved in a bad lot. I was playing in bands at school and stuff like that, playing at local girls’ schools, which was fun. Then for some stupid reason I choose playing electronic music. TBS: When did you take the leap from making cool electronic music to putting all these psychedelic visuals with it? Simon: If you’re going to DJ these days, you need to put on some kind of show. We do Shpongle with a live band, which is such a spectacle. We have Brazilian dancers, contortionists in a box, giant florescent Slinkies, not to mention 12 band members on stage. It is psychedelic music and it is mind-expanding stuff, so you need to have a good live show and a good visual show to go with the music.
cd review
out now
m.ward A Wasteland Companion Predictably great chill tunes, man.
M. Ward is a phenomenal singer, songwriter and guitarist who’s been around for over a decade, consistently performing and releasing music, never faltering on his undeniable raw talent. He’s also one half of She & Him with the adorkable Zooey Deschanel, and one quarter of the incredibly talented 2009 folk collaboration, Monsters of Folk. Not to mention his nearly constant touring and various other collaborations throughout the years, that’s a whole hell of a lot of information about a quiet guy from the west coast. A Wasteland Companion is M. Ward’s 8th album, a feat for anyone and especially for someone who’s under 40. At this point in his career, it’s assumed and quite blatant that he’s got his shit down. M. Ward knows exactly who he is, what and how he’s going to play his music, and, perhaps most importantly, what his fans like. That’s not to say that he hasn’t grown as an
artist or become more polished, but if you listen to his discography, it’s all pretty damn similar—acoustic folk music with passionate, relatable lyrics that sometimes make you sad and sometimes give you the chills. The majority of his songs hover around 3 minutes, but often times much less with barely enough time to even get a song rolling. With him, it’s not so much about finding one song that stands out (though it’s happened, obviously), but enjoying everything just as it happens to be. At just under 40-minutes long, A Wasteland Companion is nothing but predictably great M. Ward quintessential folk rock. The first song released was, “The First Time I Ran Away,” a low-key tune with sparse, simple lyrics and subtle guitar—one of the slower and weaker tracks on the album. Some of my favorites, though, are “Me and My Shadow” and “Crawl After You” because they’re two of the
GRADE b
more interesting, stand-out songs on the album. “Crawl After You” is particularly beautiful with a nice piano and violins melodies (and painfully cute lyrics). And, if you listen closely throughout the album, you might just hear Deschanel herself featured in a few of the tracks. Subtly, of course. It’s a damn shame if you haven’t checked M. Ward out by now because he’s definitely worth a listen. But if you’re going to get this album, you’ve got to check out some of his other stuff (Post-War is a personal favorite) too. That way, if any of his songs get a little too slow, you can just go on to the next one (on to the next one). Sounds Like: A shy honeybee drinking lemonade on a bench, by himself. Download: Me and My Shadow, Crawl After You, Primitive Girl Listen to it When: You’re just vibing out, preferably in a hammock or by a lake.
TBS: Last year you performed with The Shpongletron (a huge DJ booth with lights, screens, and video mapped images projected onto 3D images) and this year you’re performing with The Masquerade. What’s that all about? Simon: For The Masquerade we actually built a structure called The Glyph, and it’s sort of like The Shpongletron on steroids. It’s trippier, more mapping, just cooler, more psychedelic, more awesome, and I’m a little bit closer to the crowd. TBS: Why the word ‘shpongle?’ Simon: The word Shpongle came about by my musical partner Raja Ram. He had taken some mind-expanding substance and he was wandering around a festival and he said, “Oh Simon, I’m really shpongled.” It was suppose to be a mix of several words that came out at the same time; spangled, stoned, monged, all these words that he wanted to express all sort of fell out of his mouth into one word, “shpongle.” We got a good laugh and thought that we should probably use it as a band name. After that festival we made our first track, and “Shpongle” was just perfect. TBS: When you started Shpongle, did you have any goals in mind? Simon: We never really had any goals, I sort of like not having goals. If you have your goals and you attain them, then now what? Then you set another goal, and then you make this cycle of boredom. If you don’t make your goals, then you’re in a cycle of disappointment. So, we didn’t really have any plans. All we really wanted to do at the time, and continue to do, is to have fun and make music that we want to listen to, and that’s really all I’ve ever done. I do a show that I want to see and maybe that I want to take drugs to. People that don’t like [drugs] don’t have to, because the show has that similar affect on the brain. TBS: What kind of inspiration do you use for your music and your props? Simon: Everything inspires one, I think you’d have to have a heart of stone and a mind of mush to go through life without being inspired by the universe we live in. You know, the smile of a stranger or the woman you love, or a raindrop making its way slowly down your window. It’s all about having an open mind, then you’re open to these influences - the sheer beauty and joy and love and inspiration that the world has to offer around every single corner. Whether you have to bust that mind open with psychedelic drugs or if you naturally let it open like a lotus flower, then it doesn’t really matter. TBS: Okay, true or false: do you put some sort of hallucinogenic-chemical in the air during your concert to get everyone on the same level? Simon: Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I would love to be able to do that, but it’s probably illegal and I’m barely allowed in this country as it is. That’s the only reason not to do it though! TBS: After your show is all said and done, what’s your beverage of choice? Simon: Alcoholic, vodka and soda. Non-alcoholic, ginger ale or Coke, not water.
UPCOMING RELEASES Bonnie Raitt - Slipstream Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine
Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls Taproot - Episodes
Jason Mraz - Love is a Four Letter Word Train - California 37
Neon Trees - Picture Show Yann Tiersen - Skyline
12
Got A Light?
Kiara Powell wrote this
As part of the D.A.R.E. generation, I’ve always known that drugs are bad and each cigarette can take seven minutes off your life. But coming into VCU, never in my life have I seen myself surrounded with so many options to smoke. As a naïve freshman, I felt immature when I saw my peers in my orientation group lighting up their cigarettes, exhaling the beautiful swirls of smoke. Little did I know that the tobacco horizon stretched beyond the simple cigarette. There was hookah, clove cigarettes, cigarillos and, if you’re cool enough, hand-rolled cigarettes. And as a freshman, I kept myself as far from the temptation as I could. As the years progressed, cigarette smoking continued to call to me - the clusters of skinnyjeaned hipsters blowing smoke into the sun, or the roundtable of the hookah in the moonlight. I’m not going to lie, there’s something about a hot guy smoking a cigarette that made me want to ride side by side on our fixies into the Broad Street sunset. An immediate sense of relaxation filled my body when I pictured a warm, spring evening at Sahara with friends, laughing, connecting with the Turkish roots of hookah. My
perfect summertime daydreams involved me, my hair flowing in the wind at Belle Isle, an American Spirit in my right hand and a PBR in the other. Every time I think of doing that though, I remember the “Stall Seat Journal” that’s posted in the bathrooms everywhere on campus. It’s the reality check, like my mom in poster form, always making me feel worse about my bad decisions. Of course she would have something to say about me getting too drunk and not staying hydrated between drinks or not controlling my time to the brink of having a mental breakdown. It always makes me feel guilty. I’m torn because I know it’s bad that I’m smoking cigarettes. I know that hard pull on the filter fills my lungs up with toxic fumes, but damn it, it makes me feel cool. It makes me feel like I run this campus. The Stall Seat Journal will tell you that smokers are the minority, but try standing outside Temple on a spring day and tell me you can’t smell the majority. I say everything in moderation. Moderately cool, moderately healthy.
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class tim e
the madlib: a dubstep show
Hey __1__, have you heard of this new music, dubstep? I don’t know how I haven’t heard that shit before, it’s so __2__. Basically, it’s electronic music with these drops, which are instances where the musician makes a noise like two __3__ __4__. Have you heard of __5__? I really __6__ that guy. Last week __7__ asked me to a __8__ concert, so I __9__ went. When we arrived it was pretty obvious everyone was on __10__. There was a girl wearing a shiny __11__ that you could see under her light-up __12__. A guy with hair like a __13__ offered me some __14__, but when I saw his __15__ I was like, “no thanks, man.” So, during the concert this guy was doing this dance, it looked like he was trying to __16__and __17__ at the same time. I had to __18__ him, because he looked like __19__. Later that night some girl __20__on the dance floor. Everyone around her jumped they were so __21__. Eventually the show ended and we all went home, but I had such a __22__ time I couldn’t fall asleep until __23__.
1) Name 2) Adjective 3) Animal 4) Verb 5) Dubstep artist 6) Adjective 7) Name 8) Dubstep artist 9) Adjective 10) Drug 11) Clothing article 12) Clothing article
class tim e
Meet The Staff! campus manager Jasmine Kent
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