19 MAR 2008 VOLUME 62 ISSUE 08
Daily Specials
Happy Hour! Monday-Friday 3pm-7pm
Monday: $2.00 fish tacos, $2.00 Bratwurst, $9.95 Chicken & Rib Dinner Tuesday: $5.95 Half Chicken with 2 Sides Wednesday: $7.95 Meatloaf with Vegetables & Potatoes Thursday: $10.95 BBQ Rib Dinner with Baked Beans & Cole Slaw Thursday and Fridays are College Nights!
JOIN US FOR LAKERS, NHL and MLB ACTION! Bloody Marys & Irish Coffee
140 Main Street • Seal Beach • (562) 430-0631 BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER
ISSUE 62.8
STEVEN CAREY Art Director
erin@lbunion.com
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
beef@lbunion.com
X-tremely RAD
matt@lbunion.com
RYAN KOBANE
vince@lbunion.com kathy@lbunion.com zummy@lbunion.com victor@lbunion.com reinman@lbunion.com earlgrey@lbunion.com erin@lbunion.com beef@lbunion.com sean@lbunion.com rachel@lbunion.com
W
hat the crap were you thinking, ‘90s? Didn’t you know that in hindsight you’d be looked upon as the generation of “blah?” Did you think that simply being wholesome and apathetic would secure your spot next to the “roaring ‘20s” and the ‘70s? What did you stand for? Where were your balls? Oh, you say they were comfortably hidden under many layers of denim and flannel? That’s not okay ‘90s! Bad ‘90s, bad! Unfortunately, most of us here at CSULB will have to deal with the fact that our generation, “Generation X,” will someday be completely forgotten, only to have a few kitsch relics left behind to stare at and think, “What the hell were we thinking?”(exhibit A and B below).
steven@bunion.com
ERIN HICKEY, JOSEPH BRYANT, MATT DUPREE
Copy Editors
RYAN KOBANE Advertising Representative
ryan@lbunion.com
BREE HOPWOOD, ALLAN STEINER Advertising Representatives CHRIS BARRETT Internet Caregiver
science@lbunion.com
PHILIP VARGAS On-Campus Distribution VINCENT GIRIMONTE Off-Campus Distribution DARREN DAVIS, MILES LEMAIRE, CHRIS BARRETT, ANDREW WILSON, MICHAEL VEREMANS, CHRISTINE HODINH, JESSE BLAKE, DEREK CROSSLEY, CHRISTOPHER TROUTMAN, JAMES KISLINGBURY, PHILIP VARGAS, DAVID FAULK, PAUL HOVLAND, KATRINA SAWHNEY, ALLAN STEINER, SERGIO ASCENCIO, RUSSELL CONROY, KEN C., JOSEPH BRYANT, BRIAN NEWHARD, LAURA SARDISCO, ERIC BRYAN, LEAH MCKISSOCK, MARCUS BOCKMAN, GERARD MOREL Y CRUZ, ROBERT MASUCCI
INSIDE THE UNION OPINIONS PAGE 5
Gerard Morel y Cruz explains why The Cuban American Student Association doesn’t think Che Guevara’s all that great.
VIDEO GAMES PAGE 13 The Union Weekly takes a walk down memory lane with some of the best nineties video games and ends up with really sore thumbs
ENTERTAINMENT PAGE 15
Contributors
SNICKy gnar gnar. A tribute to the greatest shows on nineties Nick.
Disclaimer and Publication Information
The Union Weekly is published using ad money and partial funding provided by the Associated Students, Inc. All Editorials are the opinions of the writer, and are not necessarily the opinions of the Union Weekly, the ASI, or of CSULB. All students are welcome and encouraged to be a part of the Union Weekly staff. All letters to the editor will be considered for publication. However, CSULB students will have precedence. All outside submissions are due by Thursday, 5 PM to be considered for publishing the following week and become property of the Union Weekly. Please include name, major, class standing, and phone number for all submissions. They are subject to editing and will not be returned. Letters will be edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length. The Union Weekly will publish anonymous letters, articles, editorials and illustrations, but they must have your name and information attached for our records. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 500 words. The Union Weekly assumes no responsibility, nor is it liable, for claims of its advertisers. Grievance procedures are available in the Associated Students business office. Questions? Comments? MAIL : 1212 Bellflower Blvd. Suite 256A, Long Beach, CA 90815 PHONE : 562.985.4867 FAX : 562.985.5684 E-MAIL : info@lbunion.com WEB : www.lbunion.com
On a completely separate note, the first annual leprechaun scavenger hunt was a huge success. A winner was crowned less than five hours after issues hit stands. This is a testament to you, the readers, and we thank you. And just so you know, it certainly makes everyone who volunteers here at the Union Weekly all warm inside knowing that you actually care.
SPORTS PAGE 7
Sergio Ascencio bids farewell to Tyresha Calhoun, the lone graduating senior on either basketball team and conclusively proves she’s a rockstar.
MUSIC PAGE 10
Allan Steiner really freakin’ loves the Mountain Goats. Really. Really!
ANDREW WILSON
VINCENT GIRIMONTE News Director KATHY MIRANDA Opinions Editor RYAN ZUMMALLEN Sports Editor VICTOR CAMBA Comics Editor KATIE REINMAN Creative Arts Editor EARL GREY Grunion Editor ERIN HICKEY Literature Editor & PR MIKE PALLOTTA Entertainment Editor SEAN BOULGER Music Editor & PR RACHEL RUFRANO Culture Editor RYAN KOBANE Photography Director
ryan@lbunion.com
Pretentious coffee was invented in the ‘90s, people, and don’t you forget that. This fact alone gives the ‘90s a fighting chance. Before the ‘90s, do you think people had any clue how to waste time? Or even worse, how to order a venti, sugar free, soy, vanilla latte? The culture of coffee is so ingrained in our daily routine now that we don’t even stop to smell it anymore. So here’s to you, ‘90s. Without you there would be no me. Well, I guess there would be, but I would be like fourteen, and that would be awkward. Also, without you there would be no pogs, and a life without pogs isn’t a life worth living.
LITERATURE PAGE 12
Erin Hickey is apparently unaware that Magic Eye books are inanimate objects, so she berates them.
CREATIVE ARTS PAGE 17
Katie Reinman pays homage to the nineties with some mad collage action!
CULTURE PAGE 18 Why always-artsy Judy Funnie rocked our high-fashion socks off. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
Cover Illustration
RYAN KOBANE Editor-In-Chief ERIN HICKEY Managing Editor MIKE PALLOTTA Associate Editor MATT DUPREE Associate Editor RYAN KOBANE Business Manager
With that said though, I’m as in love with the ‘90s now as I was then. It’s weird how forgettable the ‘90s were—a complete decade loosely defined by family comedies and coffee. So forgettable are the ‘90s that I had to ask if “blankety blank was from the ‘90s,” nearly every time I tried to remember anything. But that’s exactly why I love the ‘90s so much. Generation X will never be emulated. Music? Sure, Generation X certainly offered up its fair share of good music, but come on. Grunge? Really? That’s what we’re going to be remembered for? What a bunch of whiny pussies, I say. Save from Kurt Cobain and a few others, our generation’s music would be remembered as a horrible combination of Vanilla Ice and Green Day (barf). But how rad is that? I’ll never have to worry about my kids listening to my music and claiming, “Dad, I love (insert ‘90s band here)!” I saw the pain in my parents eyes when I first started to “understand” their music, and I certainly don’t ever want to deal with having to explain to my kid that there’s pretty much nothing to understand when listening to the Spice Girls. But I digress. The ‘90s gave us something that seems so natural now, that even the mere thought of life without it sends most Gen. Xers into a state of bewilderment: pretentious coffee.
OPINIONS PINIONS WHY “GUDHOWRYU” IS BAD FOR CONVERSATION ROBERT MASUCCI
I
have officially ordained myself as the eradicator of all the stupid words from the English language. And do you know what’s at the top of the list? “Gudhowryu” Yes, that really is a word. Everyone uses it. I hear it every day. And you know what? It means nothing! Except for maybe a mindless thing to say because we feel obligated to be “good” all the time. It is considered burdensome for others if we are not “good” because they, might feel obligated to cheer us up when they really don’t have to. Or perhaps we just don’t take enough time to stop and internally consider, “Hey, how am I doing?” Or perhaps more honestly, because we really don’t care enough to talk to that person and are just looking for the quickest way out of the conversation. I first noticed this when I used to work at Starbucks. God I’d greet the guests, usually with a “Hey, how’s it goin’?”, or some variant thereof, and then I’d pause to see what they’d say. And more often then not, I would get a “gudhowryu.” I’m not asking how it is going just because I’m a mindless drone in a green apron or because we are required by the Starbucks employee handbook to greet our guests within ten seconds of walking into the shop, even if they are not yet in front of the register. I mean it. How’s it going? Are you in a good mood or are you having a tough time today? If so, can I do anything to lift your spirits? Thank you, and have a nice day. No really, I do mean that, too. I hope the rest of your day—the rest of your week, in fact—is great, and that no tragedy or hardships befall you on your way. Side note: the ones that would really irritate me were the ones that wouldn’t even pause to wait for my response. The ones that say “Gudhowryu can I get a grande mocha.” You know why? Because I know that they don’t really care. Seriously, why pretend? In any case, I bet you more than half—that is to say, more than fifty percent of people—really aren’t (good, that is).
NOTES OF A DIRTY YOUNG MAN That said, I returned one of the gudhowryu’s i got yesterday with a half-kidding “Really? Or are you just saying that?” The woman looked at me for a second, as if she were stunned that she was actually for once thinking about my question of “How are you” (or maybe just the directness of my question?), then she nodded and said, “Yeah... I really am good.” And then she smiled. It was a genuine smile. Only after this last question could I hear it in her voice. She really felt good. Then again, maybe people just are being considerate when they are having a crappy day by sparing the asker of an utter melodrama. Well, that’s very kind of you. But even if you are indeed having a terrible breakup, or you got fired, or you have family issues, or you got in five car accidents on the way to your living room, or your crack lab was just stormed by police, whatever—I do want to know the truth. Not necessarily the whole story. But some people respond along the lines of, “Well, hangin’ in there!” Even that little sliver of truth is enough to start something beautiful, out of the direst circumstances. Even if it is just a few encouraging words in return. Sometimes that alone is better at making someone’s day than that overpriced frappuccino I just ripped them off $4.35 for. I know movies are fake, but I can’t recall any line in a movie that had a “gudhowryu” in it. Movies are obligated to force the characters to internally develop as people and to develop their relationships within the timespan of approximately two hours. That said, there is no time for the useless “gudhowryu.” Within only two hours, in most (good) movies, we see a change or development in character. How much do we, in real life, develop in twenty-four hours? A hundred and sixty-eight, for that matter (that’s one week, to save you the multiplication)? “Gudhowryu” is an excuse, almost an inadvertent shield against what we didn’t know could come out of it. Against what could have been. Imagine if no one in the course of history had ever used “gudhowryu.” Imagine how many relationships would have been different, would have been created, developed, furthered, cherished. How many conversations would have deepened, lengthened, been more meaningful? How many more marriages could have come out of it? How many lives could be enriched by a less superficial connection to other human beings than that conveyed in a few mindless words? So don’t BS me. Let’s relate. How are you?
defined by one word: frustrating. The piece deals with the issues of RESPONSE TO JOSEPH being a physically disabled student BRYANT’S “FRACTURE FRIEND for a short time, and the resulting SAYS ‘WAIT FOR ME’” 3/12 frustration of getting around campus. However, he seems to generalize MARCUS BOCKMAN them beyond the scope of having Partially fractured logic dampens simply having to use crutches until a the impact of Joseph Bryant’s skateboarding injury heals. “Fractured Friend” opinion piece in “I’ve realized how goddamn last week’s issue. inconvenient this campus is for I know the dreary reality of disabled students with limited slogging around on crutches, due mobility,” Bryant said. He may have to an eight year “addiction” to had short-term problems himself— serious skateboarding—I recently which is unfortunate. Crutches are kicked the habit. Stairs mock you about as useful as the floss threader (and beg you to do some stupid, your dentist gives you to use with airborne maneuver down them at your braces. the same time), time seems to speed Unfortunately, there is a complete up walking across campus. Every lack of discussion in the article with class starts two minutes too soon. the permanently disabled students on The very concept of motion can be campus about what they go through
FRACTURED LOGIC
UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
on a daily basis. Is the campus considered truly “inconvenient” by the average, permanently-physicallyimpaired-student? Were corners cut in design? Do we have a minor crisis on our hands—is there a need for a revamped overall architecture? CSULB has a reputation for being very accessible to those that struggle with physical impairments. Featured quotes from someone who permanently has to use crutches, a walker, a wheelchair, etc., would be in order. That was left out—as was any research about complaints others have filed or made. Advocating for an entire student population is great—doing so anecdotally without actively including the target population’s thoughts, on the other hand, doesn’t do the advocate or the advocatees complete justice.
LONE STAR I’m in Texas. We left Tuesday night at nine-thirty. We arrived in Austin twentyfour hours later. We drove in an Audi TT. There were three of us. It was cramped. A quarter-million to half-a-million people came here to this sweaty-sweaty town, to see a whole lot of bands play and to drink a whole lot of free booze. It’s almost hard to buy a drink out here. I’ve been to Texas repeatedly, always in the summer, always over a hundred degrees. It’s eighty-five and feels like a hundred. Yes, I’m going to only type in short non-loquacious sentences. The tattoo I got yesterday is sweating ink. I feel like a typewriter in a sauna. On the way here we saw many deer. Many of them were dead. Even more of them were alive. I like deer. One time when I was young, two bucks were fighting in my driveway. Their antlers smashed into each other ten feet from my front door. It was late and I couldn’t go inside. I’m not a fan of the south. It scares me. It’s a lawless land with too many laws. I’ve run into a lot of people I didn’t think I would see. We smiled, hugged, exchanged numbers and then never called each other. That’s the way the world works. I’ve been trying really hard to party. To live it up, if you will. But I just don’t have it in me. I’m surrounded by hundredsof-thousands of people that I should get along with, that I should identify and bond with, but I can’t. I’m bad at mingling and small-talk in crowded bars and clubs. I’m bad at having fun in public. I really love being around it though. Everyone seems to be having so much fun. I take pleasure in that. Their smiles make me smile. And I do love to smile. They have signs here in Texas that say if you smoke in front of a gas station they will take you out back and hang you. Seriously. My friend Paul, who I came with, is black. He did not smoke in front of the gas station. We came here with no plan. We decided only a few days ago to come. We are staying at a sweet rock-a-billy couple’s house. They’re charging us fifty-bucks a night. Every hotel is booked. They have four hot-rods. They make me feel at home. He’d heard of my old band. I’d heard of his. The world is small like that. I’m typing slow because it’s airconditioned in here. But I have to return to the heat and the sweat and the bodies and the smiles and the music and the shitty haircuts and short-shorts and the rest of this state where everything is bigger, but nobody said it was better. DEREK CROSSLEY
GERARD MOREL Y CRUZ This is an open letter of protest and disapproval squarely directed at Gerry Riposa, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at CSULB. It is our hope that he reads this commentary in his comfortable second floor office found in the McIntosh Building. In that cozy little office hangs a framed portrait of Hollywood’s favorite revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Our question to Mr. Riposa, as Cuban-Americans and as concerned CSULB students is the following: what has “Che” accomplished in your eyes to merit a place of honor in your office at an institution of higher learning? We would like to remind you of “Che’s” Message To The Tricontinental where he called for “a second or a third Vietnam,” alluding, of course, to the destruction of your very way of life and to “make you feel like a cornered beast.” “Che” continues in the nurturing of this concept by stating that “hatred is an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine.” Is this
CRUEL MEN IN A CRUEL LAND MICHAËL VEREMANS
We’ve heard on the news or from people who have been to Iraq that it is a cruel land. Although our administration denies the escalating violence of what has aptly been called a quagmire, it is clear that the conflict has developed into a mini-Vietnam. It’s been said before, but it seems like our troop build-up and increasing monetary investment begets only more “extremist” violence, more Iraqi liberation fighters. It is described as lawless, like the wild-west meets soviet bloc country, a place where men can still rule by the fist—where the price of power is paid by the powerless. Many of us have seen the morose video of cruel Marines throwing a puppy over a cliff as though it were a sport. If you haven’t seen it, go to youtube.com and type in the keywords “marine throws puppy” and
significantly illuminates your naïveté. However, the most unfortunate message you send is by enshrining a morally bankrupt man, idolized by the bourgeoisie and the politically deviant, who continue to propagate a mythical cult of personality, in an institution that promotes unencumbered discourse. With all due respect, if you held the same position that you hold at CSULB at a number of universities in Florida you would certainly be met with much fiercer opposition. The CubanAmerican voice is not heard as stridently in California as it is in Florida, but the voice of what you call “equity” is. The voice of dissidence may not be tolerated in Cuba today, and is often time only a silent murmur, but it will once again be heard as the boisterous grito de orgullo cubano—¡Viva Cuba Libre! It is for reasons of displaying an artifice of liberal thought, a right CSULB proudly promotes, that the CSULB Cuban-American Student Association demand that you replace your kitschy piece of reprocessed, pseudo-revolutionary, pop-art. Legitimate replacements can be found in the likeness of true revolutionaries, i.e., Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Schweitzer, Stephen Biko, Huber Matos, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, or José Marti. Marti’s immortal discourse continues to echo and bemoan the tragic history of Cuba—“When has the cry ‘to Cuba!’ burst from the Cuban heart with greater reason—and greater anguish and love—than today?” Kill your idol! Your poster is deeply offensive to the Cuban-American Community and to the families of “Che’s” victims.
see for yourself. Among various reaction videos, there are also numerous other videos of abuse by US soldiers in Iraq of animals and civilians. Of the hundreds of people dying every month in the pseudo-colonialist war against the restless natives, why focus on the death of a dog? Because it’s symptomatic of the entire situation—the unabashed cruelty of violence-politics. This is no just liberation, this is just another attempt to export Western Society to an “uncivilized” country. It is conversion by the sword. We are showing them our worst face. Now we as a country have spent our entire history in various conflicts. We have a violent past, and if that’s any prediction of the future, I don’t see the Iraq war ending with a regime change. This culture of violence
drives people to extremes, like school shootings, and the destruction of innocent people and animals. What’s more, the puppy in America symbolizes the helplessness of childhood, when other people have to care for you—they’re cute. And now the dog, arguably the most American of pets, is being tortured and killed for the sport of soldiers. There was never a time when the aristocratic warrior class spent a moment feeling guilty over having fostered cruelty for their economic ends, training people for death and honing their violent tendencies into a fine point, as though it were a good thing. Is this what a man is? Someone who would kill a puppy? How can we expect these men to bring peace to a land in strife? There are very rare examples of peaceable resolution, especially when people can get away with murder and violating the “Corps Values” of the Marines that are just a sham of a humility facet.
UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
Illustration
WHAT HAS “CHE” DONE FOR YOU?
conjecture apropos to what should be bestowed upon the impressionable minds of your students? “Che’s” words, and your apparent sympathy for him, contradict and negate your statement regarding the CLA Faculty Retreat: “...the value of peace sits squarely in the Liberal Arts ethic, along with equality, equity, and social justice. We know these values.” One important note, Mr. Riposa, is that real rebels do not help establish, or support, centralized state authority. Under “Che’s” diabolical diligence, the incipient revolutionary government of Cuba offered only a modicum of basic human rights, which continues to be the precedent for Cuba today. Among “Che’s” many accomplishments, after January 1, 1959, was his presiding over the revolution’s first firing squads (at La Cabaña prison), the persecution of intellectuals, and the suppression of free speech. He also established Cuba’s infamous “labor camp” system—the same apparatus that is used to incarcerate and disparage dissidents, homosexuals, and AIDS victims. “Che” was the antithesis of freedom, though he has been sanctified by Fidelistas, popular media (particularly Hollywood) and by people like you—the bourgeoisie—as emblematic of freedom, freethinking, rebellion, and social justice when in fact he helped create a social system scaffolded by injustice. Mr. Riposa, the poster that adorns your office wall speaks volumes and it specifically undermines your commitment to “social justice,” and perhaps more
ALLAN STEINER
OPINIONS
SPORTS END OF THE ROAD A BLOW-BY-BLOW ACCOUNT OF BOTH TEAMS’ FINAL MOMENTS ON THE COURT. IT WAS... AHEM... A TOUGH SEASON
RYAN ZUMMALLEN
T
he women come into the Big West Tournament with a lowly 7th seed, but they’re matched up in the first round with #6 Fullerton—who they clobbered by 18 just a week earlier. Plus, last year’s tournament saw the 49ers in a similar position before Karina Figueroa went buck wild and led the team to two upset victories and nearly a third. In the Anaheim Convention Center, will we see some of that Disneyland magic today? The men enter the Convention Center as the #8 seed, after a disappointing season that we all knew would be difficult, but was still tough to swallow. At times, they played to their potential and looked like a 4 or 5-seed. The 49ers proved that they can play with anyone, despite their 6-24 record, and they’ll need to be at their best to topple #5 UCI. It’s tough to beat a team three times in one year, we tell ourselves… The women’s team’s lone senior and season-long floor leader, Tyresha Calhoun, is not starting. Coach Hegarty has elected to go instead with lengthy guard Valeriya Musina, who takes the point on the 49ers’ zone defense in order to thwart Fullerton freshman phenom Lauren Chow and her long-range bombs. They’ll also need to stop bruiser Toni Thomas under the basket, and center Brett Timmons is up to the challenge in the opening minutes. The Anteaters’ big stars are 6’6” guard Patrick Sanders and punishing forward Darren Fells. Long Beach plays exceptional defense when it wants to, and they’re going to need to if they want the upset. Donovan Morris banks in a three early, is it going to be that kind of night? Hope so. Cornel Williams hits a triple from the corner—to
Photos RYAN KOBANE UNION WEEKLY 19 MARCH 2008
The one man show (Donovan Morris, above middle) takes it to the hole. Darren Fells (33), a man amongst boys.
UCI’s chants of “UC Re-jects”—and the Beach takes a strong 10-2 lead to open the game. Does it make sense to employ a full-court press in women’s college basketball, where there is no ten-second backcourt count? It’s how the 49ers made their late-season run, but today the Titans find holes and the Beach can’t close on the trapping opportunities quickly enough. An Ally Wade three-pointer brings the score to 15-12, Fullerton, and the 49ers switch to a 2-3 zone when Chow takes a seat. My notes read: “Plater 3, Plater 3, Plater 3. Seriously?” But Irvine is hitting their jumpers too. Fells commands double-teams in the post, which forces the 49ers to collapse and allow open J’s—the Anteaters take advantage. Plater has 15 in the first half, but D-Mo is stuck at 7 and the defense isn’t holding up. Figueroa bangs in a three to bring the Beach within two, and Fullerton’s two best ball handlers sit with two fouls apiece. The full-court press is taking its toll on the 49ers though, and the Titans find open bucket after open bucket to go on a 14-4 run. The press finally bears fruit, producing the first steal at 2:30 left in the half, but Fullerton is already up 34-23. The Beach gave up 51% shooting in the half and trails 38-29 at the break. A week earlier, switching through screens caused match-up problems for the 49ers. Now, they’re not switching, but UCI’s stagger screens leave them chasing open jump shooters, who aren’t missing. The Anteaters shoot a whopping 72% from the field in the first half and take a depressing 47-31 lead into the break. Oy. Plagued by chronic foot problems all year, Figueroa starts the half matched up against the speedy Chow, who leaves Fig flat-footed over and over. Maybe it’s the prosthetic shoes, or missing games early in the season, but Fig does not look like the same player she was in the ’07 tourney. She’s still got a gunner mentality though, and her three cuts the Titans’ lead to nine. They need to lock down on D now, trading buckets isn’t going to work. Fullerton’s Jasmine Scott is starting to heat up… The 49ers need to make an early 2nd half run to stay in it, but it’s more of the same as Fells finds room for two in the post. Morris hits a much-needed three; let’s see if he can get a rhythm. On defense, they’re switching selectively—guards with guards, forwards with forwards—which is a huge step in the right direction. There’s constant chatter on the defensive end and I’m feeling a little better about our chances. Our post players are bigger, but theirs have better position. Toni Thomas will finish with 18 and 11, while Jasmine Scott keeps finding holes in the zone D to
amass 22. Meanwhile, our offense is stagnant—Fullerton knows exactly what we want to do, which has been the 49ers’ true plague all year. A small, fast lineup experiment fails and the Fullerton lead balloons to 63-45. The press claims its second steal of the game in the closing minutes. “It’s been very effective,” Coach Hegarty later said about the press. “That’s something we’ve really relied on, but it didn’t get us what it had been getting us.” We’re looking for #4 a lot more, which is a gift and a curse. We play much better when others are scoring to complement Morris, but his team is in desperation mode and D-Money is trying to put them on his back. Down twenty, the 49ers go on an 11-2 run, and a classic Morris sequence—FTs, steal, triple—cuts the lead to eleven. We won’t get any closer. The 49ers fall in the first round of the conference tournament to CSUF, 69-51, bringing their season to a close at 9-19. One player is crying, but it’s not important who. Coach Hegarty says it would be a major understatement to say she is disappointed in the team’s effort, but the bright spot is that only one player graduates this summer. Thanks for a fun season, ladies. D-Mo is forcing now, and after a 15-point first half, Plater gets his first two of the second in the closing minutes. The 49ers fall to UC Irvine, 77-63. D-Mo finishes with 25, Plater 17, Williams 12, and Mo Clady controlled the offense with 8 dimes and just 3 turnovers. It just wasn’t enough. “It comes down to a 4-minute or 8-minute stretch and all of a sudden, your season’s over,” says Coach Monson, who is beaming with pride and praises his team’s effort and improvement over the season. “I never like to look to next season,” says an upbeat Morris, “But I guess I don’t really have a choice.” With no graduating players and one more year from D-Money, next season doesn’t look so bleak after all.
DIRTBAG ON DIRTBAGS
SPORTS
This week: USC series
DARREN “LET “ IT RIDE RIDE” DAVIS
SERGIO ASCENCIO
A
nd then there was one. One senior on the court at the Anaheim Convention Center wearing the Long Beach State basketball jersey. This is counting both the men’s and women’s teams. One player who would walk out of that arena, knowing she wouldn’t be back next season for her redemption song. Her name is Tyresha Calhoun. Maybe you’ve heard of her, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you saw her play. ‘Reesh was a playmaking point-guard on the women’s team. She wore number two, and had a senior night all to herself. She was a point guard that could wear out the energizer bunny. Yet she ran a half-court offense that was more Manning than Vick, which already kind of dwarfs Calhoun’s elusiveness and explosiveness. But she found a way to develop into one of the more productive points in the Big West for her two seasons in the league. She knew she didn’t have to handle the scoring or do too much being surrounded by a solid squad. So she consistently dished out dimes and racked up turnovers, the gift and curse of being a point guard. But it never seemed to hurt her confidence on the court. But point guards are counted on for more than crooked numbers in the box score. And Calhoun was no different. There is no stat line for bringing leadership and excitement any time her Adidas Promodel’s kissed the court. And while on the court she has this demeanor, different than any other guard on her team or on the court. Boss-lady Karina Figueroa takes the all business approach, Valeriya Musina has this recklessly effective get-the-job-done style of ball, and LaTorya Barbee has the swag and persistence to knock down any shot from anywhere. And then there is Calhoun—a player who just always looks ready to play. With the ball in her hands she seemed to always stare down the opponent trying to guard her, as if saying to herself, “You can’t guard me,” right before blowing by them. And on defense she keeps the same smirk, challenging opponents to take her one on one. ‘Reesh just plays like she wants to be out on the court, like she belongs. Maybe that is why she led her team and finished fifth in the Big West in minutes played with 782, despite missing three games this season. It is a credit to her energy as much as her skill. Consider the mental toughness to play those minutes on a team that limped through most of the season due to injury. She finished the year at the top of many categories for the 49ers. She tied with Fig for most times getting to the foul line, finished second averaging 8.9 points per game, led the team in assists and turnovers (gift and curse). She also led the team in fouls and number of times fouling out of games (5). Scrappy, gotta love it. You also got to love how she huddled up her teammates during any break on the court to share words with them. But it was Calhoun who did the talking. No matter the score or the situation, she dropped some knowledge on her teammates.
She also had an impact in other areas where you wouldn’t normally expect a 5’6” guard would. Calhoun finished fourth on the team in rebounding, but brought down the most offensive rebounds. What kind of point guard does that? Tyresha Calhoun did that. No one ever made the case for Calhoun being the strongest shot on the team, but she finished second among the regulars, shooting 47% from the field. And she showed maturity and discipline in realizing she wasn’t the best shooter on a team with potent scorers behind the arc. And she still led the team, hitting 45% of her 29 three-point attempts. That is what Calhoun brought to the team—all-around game with a great approach. And that is what will be missed most about her. It’s important to note that Calhoun arrived at the Beach last season after a few years at Riverside CC. She had an immediate impact starting in 30 of 31 games. This year she started 19 games, finishing the final seven games of her career off the bench. In the same strategy the Phoenix Suns implement with Leandro Barbosa. Calhoun was not playing poorly. Rather, she was counted on to ignite a spark off the bench. A never-ending spark unless Coach Mary Hegarty calls her to the bench. And with one minute and 12 seconds left in the first round match-up with Fullerton last Wednesday, Hegarty pulled Calhoun for the final time as a Long Beach State 49er. Only a handful of ‘Niner faithfuls stood up in recognition of what was a brief, but solid career. So this week we honor Tyresha Calhoun for not getting senioritis on the basketball court. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
RYAN KOBANE
I am flying solo tonight. Sort of. My bashful blonde brother took a trip up North to attend a socialist rally or crush grapes or whatever Northern Californians do in their spare time. So I decided to take Jolene, my 2nd ex-wife and mother of my eldest son, who just turned 10 last week. Yes, gents. I am 22 years old, twice divorced, and have a 10-year-old son with raging learning disabilities. High school was rough for me. You do the math. So it’s USC (9-7) tonight. The crowd is larger and rowdier than any Friday previous. The USC/ Dirtbag rivalry is more marquee than I thought; or perhaps as the Division I rankings go (#7 and rising, baby!), so go the fans. Either way I am mourning my obvious sobriety. Bringing a girl who knows nothing about baseball to a Dirtbags game has its advantages and disadvantages. I suppose opting to not get offensively drunk due to her being here is good in the sense that I am not dropping any F-bombs in front of toddlers. On the other hand, isn’t getting drunk and dropping F-bombs in front of toddlers the gimmick of this column? In fact, I seem to remember Vince and I specifically including that in our agenda when formulating this sham over Winter break. At least Jo is enjoying the game. So much so that she cheers every time bat hits ball, regardless of team, score or situation. Aw, pun’kin. USC’s starting pitcher Tommy Malone is a crafty lefty despite his high ERA. When the Trojan’s score in the first frame, he backs it up by consistently chucking above-average off-speed stuff as his punch out, making the likes of Long Beach brick house Shane Peterson look ridiculous on the whiff. Meanwhile, the only Dirtbag starter I’ve seen pitch at home, Andrew Liebel, is lights out after his 1st inning hiccup, retiring nine in a row at one point. Despite his consistency, Old Friday Faithful started the game with no Ws to his record. Until tonight. It’s the 3rd inning, and the University of Scared Caucasians is leading 1-0. It has been a quiet game thus far, and the yellow-sleeved hecklers to my right have resorted to chowing down on the Trojan first base coach (“Hey, your wife called. She said you’re never in the box.”) Then back-toback stand-up doubles from Peterson and Jason Corder tie the game with two outs, followed by an RBI single from Rylan Sandoval. “That was nice,” says Jo. And there the score stays for the remainder of the game, with Liebel absolutely cleaning up shop. I throw Vince a line afterwards to tell him how much I miss him. He ignores the call.
WE SAY GOODBYE TO TYRESHA CALHOUN—THE ONLY GRADUATING SENIOR ON EITHER TEAM
Photos
X
LONE WARRIOR
“DEAR DIARY...” EVERYBODY IN 1994 WAS UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING. BRIAN NEWHARD
H
ow did all of the hit rock songs from 1994 happen to be about hating yourself? Modern rock radio in that year was a sad scoop of self-loathing piled on a suicidal brownie with not-getting-any sprinkles on top. Seriously. Anyone could have had a hit record in 1994, so long as the lyrics were glum, gloomy or insecure (case in point: the Crash Test Dummies’ “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm”). I know you know all the big songs from that year: Green Day’s “Basket Case,” Smashing Pumpkin’s “Disarm,” The Offspring’s “Self-Esteem,” Radiohead’s “Creep,” and the ilk defined the music of the alternative rock era, the music of the nineties. They were all excellent songs, they were all about insecure, depressed deadbeats, and for some reason they all were huge in ‘94. But it doesn’t end there. 1994 started with some shaggy-haired nobody’s funky, slide guitar and sitar-driven rap (Beck’s “Loser”) dominating the modern rock charts. Anyone who’s heard “Loser” more than twice knows it’s a satire. However, Beck gave a face and a voice to the millions of shaggy-haired nobodies that lightheartedly mocked their depression, all wrapped up in their denial. And after Beck’s work became more personal, hindsight told us what a bruised, sensitive depression-case he really was; Lord only knows what fucked up shit Beck was covering up when he told us to “get crazy with the Cheez Wiz!” Weezer also broke in ’94 with “Undone (Sweater Song),” a song that exemplifies the slacker generation by doing what it did best: slacking off. Why even write
lyrics that would depict a quiet, self-conscious central character (Rivers Cuomo was probably too morose and lethargic to bother) when you can simply force that character into awkward conversations so the listener can hear him get pushed around. You can’t help sympathizing with the poor schmuck and that’s what gives the song its simplistic brilliance. The achingly angsty guitar riffs don’t hurt either. The same year saw the Deities of Downers conquering the charts as well. R.E.M., the Athenians who made this whole “distort your guitar, efface your ego” thing possible, pumped single after single off their platinum #1 album Monster. The always-uplifting Morrissey held the top spot on the modern rock tracks chart for seven weeks straight (or was it seven weeks gay?) with “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get.” On closer inspection, this syrupy, unrequited love song becomes an alarming examination of obsession and threatening behavior. I found Morrissey’s character to be the most pathetic of any I’ve mentioned because he’s too clueless and conceited to realize that he should hate himself. No study of suicidal alternative rock would be complete without mentioning Nirvana, the Alpha and Omega of the movement. 1994 saw “All Apologies” (the second single off Nirvana’s swan song In Utero) getting major airplay. It’s a beautiful, succinct lament of an isolated outcast who is tired, frustrated and well, apologetic. This song stands alone amongst its kind in its emotional purity and earnestness. When Kurt Cobain proved just how earnest he was, it signaled the beginning of the end of an era. Why was 1994 such a good year for bummer songs? I’m sure the proximity to George Bush the First’s White House stay played a part. I think the root cause might lie in the attitude of the music industry. It’s important to remember that at the time, alternative rock was treated as a passing fad. All of the bands that fit the mold were written off as one hit wonders (particularly Radiohead, Weezer, and Beck) and the establishment continually told
MUSIC
Good ol’ Thom “Nobody Likes
these artists that Me” Yorke. they would have their fifteen minutes in the spotlight and then never be heard from again. This was the perfect environment to foster a nihilistic “Who gives a fuck? Nothing really matters anyway” attitude. An excerpt from an interview with Billy Corgan echoes that same patronized sentiment: “There’s this line from the song ‘Rocket,’ ‘Bleed in your own light.’ I wanna fuckin’ bleed in my own light, not in Kurt Cobain’s, not in Perry Farrell’s. I wanna go down in my own fuckin’ ship. That’s what I’m about.” Looking back at all the great, albeit depressive, music that was released in 1994 makes me wish that today’s emos would put the same time and compassion into their art. Or they could just kill themselves. Either way.
SEX ON THE PLAYGROUND LEAH McKISSOCK Remember that song, “I smell sex and…can-dy…yeah. Who’s that lounging in… my…chair…?” It was the chart-topping hit of 1998 that spent fifteen weeks at number one, gaining mass popularity at the same time as Everclear, Fastball, Barenaked Ladies, and Oasis. Unfortunately, Marcy Playground’s career got swept up in a wave of similar-sounding bands, only to be washed away by the bubblegum pop/Latin epidemic of the years shortly thereafter. It’s strange to look back at the year 1998 for music: Half of the records released that year were full of typical-sounding, mainstream crap that one simply couldn’t avoid being beaten over the head with, while the other half were experimental, released underground, and made by artists that are much more popular in the musical spotlight of today than they were at the time of their release. The timing of Marcy Playground’s self-titled album couldn’t have been worse for their short-lived career. Of the two polar opposite categories of music being released in ’98, their sound was right smack in the middle of it all. They were too edgy for the people who fell head over heels in love with Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, and Lou Bega the following year, and they were far too mainstream for those listening to Eels, Elliott Smith, and Neutral Milk Hotel. What’s a Marcy Playground to do? What they did was release another album in 1999 called Shapeshifter that failed miserably, going virtually unnoticed by a population of listeners too distracted by N*Sync, Christina Aguilera, and the equally horrendous Columbine Massacre. I have to admit, I was distracted too. I was every bit as unaware of Marcy Playground’s music at the time as any other average American citizen. Seven years later, however, a new friend began to rave about Marcy Playground. Of all the people I’ve ever asked to inform me of their favorite band, he was the first to name the one-hit wonder that delivered “Sex and Candy” to the world. Having been intrigued by his rave reviews, I accepted his offering of copies of their self-titled album, as well as Shapeshifter. It wasn’t long before I found myself belting out the lyrics to each of their songs in my car on a regular basis, feeling an incredible nostalgic attachment to every track. That’s exactly what Marcy Playground’s music makes you feel: nostalgia. It calls forth a nostalgia for the good side of music that came out of the late ’90s. The feeling is
combined with a timeless quality that brings a sadness about the fact that a band with such a perfect recipe for success got completely ripped off. They had the potential to appeal to a wide range of listners, yet they ended up falling by the wayside. There was no cult following, no fan base, and no demand for more of their music. Of course, it’s never too late to go back and listen to the music they released all those years ago. Named after lead singer John Wolzniak’s elementary school in Minneapolis, Marcy Playground was born when he moved to New York and began writing the songs that would later become the band’s self-titled debut record. Not long after, he began collaborating with bassist Dylan Keefe and drummer Dan Reiser. Eventually the newly-formed Marcy Playground was signed to Capitol Records and released their first two albums. After Shapeshifter, however, Reiser quit the band, to be replaced with the drummer from a band called Lincoln that had opened for Marcy Playground in the past. At this point, the band found itself struggling to stay alive, having made a failed attempt at creating a new record. Finally, in 2004, a third album, MP3, was released. Commercial failure has left the band at a point where no official break-up has been announced, but an indefinite hiatus is apparent. Although Marcy Playground has essentially disappeared from the music scene entirely, their self-titled album and Shapeshifter still occupy my stereo on a regular basis. “Sex and Candy” will be forever remembered as a track synonymous with the late ’90s alternative pop-rock scene, but if you take the time to look closer at their music, you’ll see that Marcy Playground was really much more than just that. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
MUSIC
KINGS OF THE MOUNTAIN THE MOUNTAIN GOATS WANT TO BE YOUR FRIENDS ALLAN STEINER
I Photos RUSSELL CONROY
f you’ve never heard The Mountain Goats, you should know that their music could easily be called literate indie-folk. You should also know that lead singer and guitarist John Darnelle is known for sounding like a mountain goat. The group’s music te’;lls stories that generally focus around on characters as opposed to ideas, even though the characters are often used to portray an idea of some kind. The groups latest album, Heretic Pride, contains almost orchestral elements, but live the band consists of John Darnelle, a bassist, and a drummer. The actual instrumentals are really good, but they are not the reason I listen to the music. I listen to the Mountain Goats for the incredibly well written characters and deep stories that guarantee to impress in just about every song. I once read that the audience at a Mountain Goats show is an extremely devoted one. It makes sense. It takes almost a level of commitment to fully appreciate the work that John Darnelle brings to the table with his albums. The listener needs to spend time with each song individually in order to truly understand what Darnelle is trying to say. This type of devotion leads to an audience being there to see more than just a bunch of guys rocking out—so often that an audience will make or break a show. But this kind of devotion almost secures an awesome show. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
I knew all of this before the show and needless to say, I was excited. When I got there, the audience looked like what I would have imagined Mountain Goats fans would look like: English students. The kind of people that care to spend time getting to know the characters in a song rather than just taking the music at face value. After openers Jeffery Lewis and the Jitters took the stage and subsequently left the aforementioned stage, it was time for the main event. The closest I can come to describing John Darnelle’s appearance is to say that he looked like an English professor. It seemed fitting considering my description of the audience. When John Darnelle came to the microphone it was with his black hair and a voice I have heard talking to me through my earphones for the past three years. The band started with the song “Michael Myers Resplendent” which is off of the new album. It soon became evident that there were several things I had overlooked when listening to the albums. First of all, Darnelle’s ability to control his voice is incredible. He can go from a whisper to a yell almost seamlessly. I also noticed that the instrumentals rock out a lot more than I had given them credit for. I had always imagined Darnelle sitting in a chair in some empty room with an acoustic guitar, but Darnelle is all over the guitar. Add the drums and bass and you’ve got yourself a pretty kickass show. I noticed that I really know nothing about the Mountain Goats compared to most of the people who went to the show. I know quite a few of the group’s lyrics. I know the meanings of most of the songs, but this audience was singing along to just about every song. Because The Mountain Goats have such a devoted fan base, the connection that Darnelle has with his audience is unlike anything I have seen before at a show. He was able to play a wide variety of his songs from quite a few of his albums without worrying if the audience would be familiar with the songs. In fact, when one concertgoer asked Darnelle to play one of his very early tracks entitled
“Jenny”, his exact response was “What the hell…” He then proceeded to play the song with the help of his rhythm section, (which only added to the song which was recorded without backup instrumentation) The response was almost unanimous delight which told me that I was hardly the only one in the audience who had listened to the bands early albums. Darnelle played a couple unreleased tracks as well, both of which were extremely good but neither of which I can recall past that. Now if at this point I haven’t convinced you that the show was awesome, I should mention the two encores. I should mention that there were times during the performances in which the entire audience sang as one. I should explain that the show took on the feel of a campfire. When it finally was time to go home, I did so with a respect for Darnelle that is not easily achieved.
SPOTLIGHT ON The 1921A ERIN HICKEY
T
o say attending a 1921A show is like stepping into a time warp would be inaccurate. Perhaps a closer way to describe it would be a time gumbo. True, the band borrows from the music of the ‘20s—their name is evidence of that—but there are also elements of ‘30s blues, ‘60s garage rock and ‘90s grunge. The Venice-based band skillfully weaves the best elements of each decade into a tapestry of sound that, while hauntingly familiar, is thoroughly original. Their inability to choose a single decade to borrow from is indicative of the band’s general attitude—they are nothing if not indecisive. At live shows, they switch instruments often; they’ve been known to stop playing in the middle of a song because the guitarist has changed his mind and decided that he’d rather be playing banjo. In fact, the only band member with a set instrument is
HOT CHIP MADE IN THE DARK SEAN BOULGER
drummer Alex Platt, and even he has trouble defending his turf. The other band members never hesitate to move in on his percussive territory, banging their hearts out on an amalgamation of glass bottles, street signs, railroad spikes, suitcases, and pretty much whatever they can find. Even the band’s clothing choices demonstrate a disdain for uniformity. While singer Kris Hutson evokes a slightly more adventurous Kurt Cobain, donning shredded jeans, sunglasses, and occasionally acrylic nails, producer Jake Faulkner (who often joins the band onstage) is strictly traditional: Stronghold jeans, tasteful button-downs, and suspenders. Guitarist Zack Sokolow dresses true to the band’s hometown; he favors the simple style of ‘70s skate culture, and wears it well enough to make Stacy Peralta blush. Then there’s bandleader Joel Morrison, who just kind of dresses like a normal guy, but still manages to look perfectly
7.4
As the dance music scene becomes more and more saturated with the French Revolution of electronic music, it becomes harder and harder to find new grooves that aren’t remixes, mashups, or brought to you by Ed Banger Records. But looking past Justice, Daft Punk, and all their love children/clones, it’s good to notice that the British can still make some pretty awesome dance music—and no, it isn’t house. It may come as something of a surprise to us all, but the Brits are actually making dance music that is fun, engaging, and home to a pronounced degree of substance. On their third album, Made in the Dark, dance geeks Hot Chip have given us a record of refreshingly enjoyable dance tracks. Achieving critical breakthrough with their sophomore record, The Warning, Hot Chip brought attention to itself with an album of quirky and thoughtprovoking electronica that was as goofy as it was danceable. Made in the Dark takes itself a little bit more seriously, but Hot Chip’s trademark smirk is certainly present in songs like “Ready for the Floor,” the album’s leadoff single. A bouncy, upbeat song, “Ready for the Floor” almost commands its listener to get up and groove, but with a smile and nod that makes one ready and willing to comply. For the most part, however, Made in the Dark takes itself a great deal more seriously than its predecessor. The Warning, though not exactly a comedy album, certainly was hallmarked by a feel-good silliness, its lyrics including gems
STEPHEN MALKMUS AND THE JICKS REAL EMOTIONAL TRASH
8.5
ALLAN STEINER Stephen Malkmus’ latest release is one of my favorite recordings to come out so far this year. It’s an album that I actually feel honored to review. Now since I am not sure who is going to read this, I should mention that Stephen Malkmus is known for leading the group Pavement, who are regarded by many critics as one of if not the best band of the ‘90s. He is also known for his last three solo albums, each of which were met by their own level of critical acclaim. On Real Emotional Trash, Malkmus plays with the very fabric of music. There is a sense of fun on this album that never lets up. But don’t mistake this sense of fun for a novelty. This is a serious work by an artist whose vision of what the art form of music can be extends as far as the eye can see. From the moment that the guitar leaps in (about 5 seconds into the first track), there is a sense that Malkmus knows exactly what he is doing, that we are just along for the ride.
MUSIC
believable behind a double bass. Go figure. Their debut album, 21A is available at McCabe’s guitar shop in Santa Monica through WPA records. Though the record is fantastic, it’s not nearly as impressive as their live shows—this is due in large part to the fact that the band is made up entirely of musicians who are too good for their own good. What sounds like two layered guitars on the album is revealed at a live show to be one guitarist who just happens to be able to play two parts simultaneously. Want to check them out with out shelling out the clams? The music video for their first single, “Broken Hinges,” is directed by Geoffrey Barish (who’s also done videos for Lenny Kravitz and Warren Zevon) and is available on YouTube. Do yourself a favor and look it up, because in an era when all new music has started to sound the same, we can thank our lucky stars for the 1921A.
like “Hot Chip will break your legs/snap off your neck.” Made in the Dark still has its moments of frivolity, prime examples being “Ready for the Floor,” and the WWE-inspired “Wrestlers,” but the majority of the songs are darker and much more intense than what we’ve seen from Hot Chip in the past. While The Warning’s lighthearted tone was aided largely by its syncopated beats, Made in the Dark is a great deal more streamlined—these are club tunes in a much more straightforward sense. The beats are fast, and an increased focus on percussion gives Made in the Dark a very heavy-hitting feel that wasn’t present on Hot Chip’s previous efforts. Of course, Hot Chip pulls it back every once and again; “We’re Looking for a Lot of Love” is a great slow jam, but these don’t always work as well as they did on The Warning. The title track is readily forgettable, and the final two songs, “Whistle for Will” and “In the Privacy of Our Love” are hardly redeeming in any way, effectively destroying the momentum of the album as a whole. The aggression of tracks like the in-your-face “Hold On” and “Touch Too Much” are inappropriately counterbalanced by these slower tunes, and the effect throws off the intensity of the record. The good tracks, however, are plentiful enough to outweigh the irritating ones. The new Hot Chip is slick, streamlined, and aggressive; “Hold On” has 1960s-style car chase bongos, and “One Pure Thought” (easily the best track on the record) is cheerful and dancy, demanding repeat listens. On Made in the Dark, we see Hot Chip beginning to take themselves more seriously, crafting songs that are far more focused and forceful than anything we’ve seen from them before. For the most part, this works, but when they slow things down, they begin to teeter on the brink of taking themselves too seriously. Here’s hoping these guys don’t forget how to have a good time. I am always worried as a reviewer when an artist’s lyrics seem inconsequential to the album. It is a sure sign that I am doing something wrong, that there is something I am missing. But I feel confident in saying that this album is great even outside the context of its lyrics. I mean, with lyrics like “Dragonfly wants a piece of pie/He is so strung out/Shake me off the knife because I want to go home” isn’t it okay to say that the lyrics are simply meant to add to the fun of the album? It’s lyrics like these that make this such a fun album to sing along to. The thing that really makes this album is the guitar. To refer to it as anything less than mind-blowing would be a vast understatement. Even by itself, the guitar on this album is great, but the thing that really makes it is the combination of guitar and vocals. Malkmus matches the vocals and guitar with what seems like such ease, occasionally blending the two at the end of words so that what started out as a word turns into a guitar solo. This just adds to the playfulness of the album. I don’t dislike any of the songs on this album, but there are definitely highpoints. Songs such as “Dragonfly Pie,” “Hopscotch Willy,” and “Gardenia” are some of them. Also, there is a changeover about two and a half minutes into Baltimore that bears mention. As a fan of music, I’ve always seen album reviews as a recommendation rather than news. I can’t fully describe an album; I don’t know that many adjectives. So I urge you to go and sample any music you read about on this page for yourself. And that urgency goes double for this album. Enjoy. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
LITERATURE MAGIC EYE!!!
BEEF’S TOP O’ THE PILE
NINETIES COMICS HOLOFOIL 3D ADAMANTIUM-BEING-RIPPEDOUT-OF-YOUR-FACE EDITION!
HOLY PREMATURE ASTIGMATISM, BATMAN!
Holy shit were ‘90s comics all over the place. It truly was the best of times and the worst of times. For every Tim Sale, there was a Rob Liefeld, and for every beautifully realistic Alex Ross cover, there was a fold-out hologram tinfoil X-Men cover. Here’s the best of the best though:
ERIN HICKEY
M
agic Eye, who do you think you are? Do you think you’re an innovative (albeit outdated) way to view 3-D images on 2D paper without the use of holograms or those awesome cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses? Oh, you do? Well, in that case you’re correct. But you still suck. Oh Magic Eye, how you tormented me in my youth. Your pages and pages of computer-generated images caused me far more strife than an eight-yearold deserved. Try as I might, I could never see what your brightly colored pages promised. What came so easily to my fellow third-graders always seemed to elude me. I was often forced to flip to the answer key in back, just to preserve the small shred of dignity I still had. “Oh yes, I see it now! It’s a unicorn! How clever.” Lies. The trick, I hear, is to stare at the image for so long that your eyes defocus and/or fall out of their sockets. It’s some scientific mumbo-jumbo about each eye focusing on a different pattern within the image and giving your brain the information it needs to decode to create a 3-D image from a 2-D one. Sounds like a lot of work for your
Batman: The Long Halloween: Basically anything Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb worked on together, although Long Halloween takes all the elements of what should be in a Batman story, including how the characters should look and perfects it, resulting in some of the spindliest villains ever. Kingdom Come: Proved that ‘90s comics can be as big of a bummer as the stuff from the ‘80s, and that the action/iconic characters/ vast scenery look twice as good with Ross’ painted art. Preacher: If you haven’t read it yet, fucking get on it. It’s undeniably one of the best stories ever, comics or otherwise.
You’ve got newsprint on your nose.
poor brain. What the hell did brains ever do to Magic Eye anyway? Or eyes for that matter? Is Magic Eye bitter and alone because of its alienating powers? Has it, like Harry Potter, lost the love of its family to its mystical properties? Is that why it resents Ordinary Eye and goes out of its way to cause pain and strife in normal eyes around the world? Probably. Poor misunderstood Magic Eye. It’s not your fault thousands of
nineties children depended on the ability to decode your images for popularity. It’s not your fault I cried myself to sleep at night, overcome by a crushing sense of inadequacy. It’s not your fault I was too inexperienced to discover the secrets bound within your pages. It’s not your fault I now need pricey prescription lenses to perform simple, everyday tasks. And it’s certainly not your fault that you’re a big, dumb jerk.
Ghost World: The obligatory indie-comic of the list. Dan Clowes created characters unlike any seen in comics at the time, complete with dry wit and youthful cynicism. Savage Dragon: Creator Erik Larson mocked everything about the ‘90s, drawing fake tits, violence, giant guns and knives, massive muscles, and everything else worthy of ridicule and did it better than the comics he was satirizing. MIKE “BEEF” PALLOTTA
BORDERS’ BORDERS: A RACE-RELATED LIT RANT MICHAEL VEREMANS So I went to my local Borders to find a required book. I walked in and like any other person, decided to search for the author on the alphabetized literature shelves. I was looking for Richard Wright, the first conscious American existentialist, acquaintance of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. But no, he was nowhere to be found. Native Son was made into a movie and defined a philosophical age in American history. What kind of book store, I wondered, wouldn’t have anything by Richard Wright? I figured they had a display of his books somewhere, so I walked around the section a little bit, and there it was: the African-American Literature section. I didn’t even think to look for Wright in the Jim Crow section of the local Borders, but there he was, among other great authors, and dozens of trashy romance novels that wouldn’t be considered literature on any level. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
Why are all these books sectioned off? Is there a Women’s Literature section and a Latino Literature section? What the fuck is going on? This would explain why I can’t find Borges in the (White) Literature section— because he’s from Argentina, he gets to go to the back of the bookstore. Of course, there was a time when minorities and women didn’t write, but that all changed in 1971 when Borders opened its doors. They made a special section for all of these quaintly separated groups so that the white reading public could find pleasure in the novelty of a black writer. Thank God for Borders and their AfricanAmerican Literature shelf, otherwise we’d never hear of writers such as Langston Hughes and Alex Haley. They sure had a lot to say, but once you’re done reading them, just put the book back on the black shelf, because they’re not real literature. It could just be a case of over-sensitivity on the part of Borders’ executives, trying to cater to traditionally underprivileged groups by giving them their own shelf
and sense of pride, but the effect is quite the opposite. The literary segregation operates in quite the same way as the separate-but-equal policy perpetrated by our notoriously repressive government. It marginalizes anew authors that I thought we could just file alphabetically like anyone else brave enough to pick up a pen. Not only are some great writers tucked into the corner under an artificial racial category forced on them by a census-hungry capito-colonial power (the one that got sick of just repressing Europeans and decided to take their game overseas) but they end up sharing the shelf with pop-novels by black authors, whereas for white literature, there is a clear separation between dime-store novels and works of epic fiction. I’d like to propose a solution: integrate our bookstores! Let’s just alphabetize these human authors and combine the racially-biased shelves into what can only be called the “normal” literature section. You may have a harder time finding that African-American author, but, just like life, it’s never that easy to put an infinitely diverse human
MICHAËL & KYLE VEREMANS
GOLDENEYE 007 RARE NINTENDO64 - 1997
“Golden, Golden Golden Eyeee.” The sentiments of our videogame playing generation could easily be summed up in Tina Turner’s outro for the theme song for the movie of the same name, GoldenEye 007. Ah, fond memories of gathering at a friend’s house with my brother and some other kids for a lazy afternoon of GoldenEye, the first game of its type, incorporating first person shooters in an interactve environment, up to four player deathmatches, and a great plot that made this video game almost better than the movie (fuck Pierce Brosnan). When GoldenEye came out in 1995, we went to see it with our father, a fan of the films since the ‘70s. Like every Bond film, there is just the right mixture of class and violence, with clever dialogue and even more clever gadgets. Since then I’ve been an avid James Bond fan, but not only because of the movie. Two years later the video game was released, changing my perspective on gaming and, indeed, reality. The ghostly maps have become labyrinths that still creep into my consciousness in dreams, the moving sky when you pan up, the faint flicker as another passes right in front of you with a grenade launcher. You could play as Jaws, but with more body mass, you were likely to get killed—Oddjob was the character to play because of his size, you had to crouch to shoot him in the face! The guns were faithfully based on ones used in
MATT DUPREE
CRASH BANDICOOT 2 NAUGHTY DOG STUDIOS PLAYSTATION - 1997
Crash Bandicoot 2 was a massive improvement on the series’ first game. Not only was saving actually possibe without having to remember codes, but the game play was more varied and fun. From riding baby polar bears to running away from giant boulders, Crash Bandicoot 2 was a game for all ages. Its lack of seriousness made it extremely enjoyable. And because the game bases itself around the same philosophy as such games as Super Mario Bros,, it is both simple and fun without being contrived and boring. The levels have an extremely high replay value. CB2 also represents some of the best graphical advances on the PS1.
ALLAN STEINER
METAL GEAR SOLID KONAMI PLAYSTATION - 1998
I have such high esteem for the original Metal Gear Solid that it has me on the verge of plunking down seven hundred bucks just to play the fourth installment of the stealth-espionage game. The PS1 classic started the trend for every action game in the next ten years to have at least one sneaking level and was the first game to have wall to wall voice acting. Through original game play and a storyline that puts Tom Clancy to shame, Konami changed completely changed the landscape of the videogame world.
JAMES KISLINGBURY
STREET FIGHTER II CAPCOM GENESIS/SNES - 1991
To me, nothing embodies the spirit of political incorrectness quite like Street Fighter. There’s just something transcendent about an assortment of fighters from around the globe hopping flights to exotic
X-MEN KONAMI ARCADE - 1992
Boasting a roster of fan favorite mutants Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, plus the “whatever” character Cyclops and the rest of the shit—Storm and Dazzler—the X-Men arcade game was always a guaranteed good time whenever you dropped some quarters into it. The machine was available in two, four, and six player versions; the latter being a double-screened behemoth that would make Colossus quiver as he struggled to lift it. If you’ve never had the pleasure of playing this game, I feel sorry for you. If you can actually find an arcade, look for this game immediately. You won’t regret it.
JOSEPH BRYANT
MATT DUPREE
A WISTFULLY NOSTALGIC LOOK AT VIDEO GAMES WE RUINED OUR POOR YOUNG CORNEAS FOR
locations to beat the shit out of each other. Each of the 16 fighters (anyone who tells you the characters from Super SF2 don’t count is an idiot) from 12 nations use the stereotypes from their home nation as the source of their power, including the savage Brazilian monster Blanka, the fire-spitting yogi Dhalsim, and my personal favorite, the ultra-Soviet (and feasibly gay) bear-wrestler Zangief. Street Fighter II taught a generation of gamers that people of all colors and creeds could commune agreeably under the banner of illegal martial arts tournaments.
Guest Nerditor
NERD ALERT
various James Bond movies, such as the Moonraker laser. The levels were, for the most part, based of the film, but the options made it the kind of game you could play for hours. The deathmatches were definitely the highlight of our gameplay, with various weapons settings, hidden characters and hidden levels, GoldenEye’s world sparked our imaginations. My brother and I were never closer during that time than when we were shooting eachother on a 3D landscape. It was the first game we got for our Nintendo 64, in 1997, a time before first person shooters gained popularity and we started playing Medal of Honor and Counterstrike. By the time we had gotten over that game Counterstrike it had been won numerous times, all cheats and secret levels were unlocked and everyone of my friends had all of the maps memorized: where are the guns, where are good vantage points and hiding spots.
UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
ENTERTAINMENT CAN YOU DIG THAT MOVIE? A FEW GOOD MOVIES THAT DEFINED THE ‘90s
For my money, Clerks is the best thing Kevin Smith has ever done. It’ll probably stay that way for me, because it changed the way I look at cinema. It told me that you didn’t have to have money or a doctorate in Shakespearian theater to make a legitimately compelling film. Anyone, so long as they had a sufficient mix of madness and talent, could whip together a film as well as if not better than Hollywood and its billions of dollars. And if you aren’t in the mood to be inspired, it’s also got some phenomenal jokes about cocks. JAMES KISLINGBURY
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)
T
he ‘90s started off with arguably the greatest action movie of all time. I dare you to defy my logic. The movie has Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his most famous role of all time and doing it better than in ’84, plus…well, I guess that’s enough reason right there. However, if you need further evidence: Robert Patrick plays the best antagonist that the world had seen since Darth Vader—T-1000. Patrick’s cold, calculated demeanor rivaled Arnold’s in his portrayal of the shape-shifting upgrade to the original T-800 exoskeleton. And beyond the acting aspect of the character, the T-1000 was made of liquid metal! He could turn his hands into blades and various skewering devices! He absorbed bullets! And, at the time, it looked realistic. T2 was the majority of the public’s first exposure to extensive use of CGI in a film. But perhaps most importantly, T2 spurred Hollywood into changing the way they made the summer blockbuster. From there on, the studios would forever try to top each other in the amount of bullets, explosions, and high-speed pursuits their summer movies contained at the cost of compelling story-telling. Don’t forget that T2 did it first and best, plus it had a kick ass story. JOSEPH BRYANT
CLERKS (1994)
There are a lot of reasons why Clerks shouldn’t exist. It’s cheap looking, the camera work sucks, and the acting is pretty iffy. Despite all of that, it is one of the most important independent films of the ‘90s (I probably don’t need to qualify it with “independent” or “‘90s”). The reason it works is because at the heart of the movie is the one thing money can’t seem to buy: A decent screenplay. Kevin Smith’s screenplay watches like an Oscar Wilde play with more dick jokes. It’s as funny as it is moving and it’s as dumb as it is smart. Not bad for his first time out. UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
CLUELESS (1995) The important thing about Cher Horowitz, main character of the 1995 film Clueless (played by the delightfully animated Alicia Silverstone), is that she wasn’t just the most popular girl in school, she was a girl on a mission. Cher was your everyday rich girl who spent most of her days at the mall, buying new clothes, and getting her hair done, but in Clueless, she became much more than a ditz with her Daddy’s credit card. A frontrunner in 90s teen flicks, Clueless became the spitting image of the era it made fun of: a generation in the pursuit of “cool.” Filled with endless pop culture references and witty remarks, Clueless did a successful job of portraying the superficiality of the typical high school atmosphere, while also convincing us that these spoiled brats can actually be likable (save for that asshole Elton, ugh, as if!). Clueless succeeded in ways Mean Girls didn’t by presenting us with a set of cliques that weren’t actually as stereotypical as they seemed, and humanizing a culture that would otherwise be characterized as shallow and unintelligent. Clueless was able to poke fun at a generation who’s claim to fame was attending parties in the valley, drinking a lot of booze, and putting Daddy’s credit card to good use. But what’s more important to note is that it wasn’t just about being a rebel or looking cool, it was about being able to find a true identity among a generation so unique. KATHY MIRANDA
THE MATRIX (1999)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day may have started off the ‘90s trend of summer blockbusters, but The Matrix topped all other contenders for #1 blockbuster of the decade. The Matrix is not the #1 movie in the sense of best (that honor still goes to T2), but it managed to pack in everything it possibly could without bending its deeply metaphysical concept too lucratively far. And although it didn’t borrow the theme completely from T2, the concept of robots overthrowing humanity had never been taken so far—and hasn’t been since. So what did the Wachowskis cram into their science-fiction epic? Try gunfights, Kung Fu, robots, computers, world domination, sci-fi ships, enslavement, helicopters, philosophy, trench coats, cell phones, sunglasses, Terminator-like Agents, copious slow motion, revolution, and messianic undertones. I’m probably forgetting at least ten other things as well. It’s a bummer that the subpar sequels have somewhat tainted my ability to enjoy the original, knowing that the first is all a set-up for one of the most anticlimactic endings in the history of film. If nothing else, at least it gave nerds something to talk about when they were with the cool kids, even if they were pretentious about it. JOSEPH BRYANT
AN ODE TO THE ANIMAL MOVIES OF THE ‘90s They still make plenty of animal movies today but they aren’t nearly as good as the ones we had in the ‘90s. Back then there were more live animals and less CGI and more importantly, there were iconic animal characters that people couldn’t help but love. Although it was quite difficult, since there was a plethora of amazing animal films to choose from, I was able to narrow it down to my top five. 5) Free Willy When you learn that Willy was homesick for his family, it makes you never want to go to a water show again. Surprisingly, a story consisting of a friendship between a boy and an Orca ended up being a lot more memorable, dramatic and successful than expected. Free Willy was a badass animal flick that is often forgotten, but was totally representative of the ‘90s. 4) Joe’s Apartment MTV Films couldn’t go wrong with the slogan “Sex, Bugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll.” It’s not every day that you see a movie with singing and dancing cockroaches that have an insane ability to build gardens. I’m certainly not one to feel any sort of warmth or sympathy for cockroaches, but Joe’s Apartment surprisingly makes me feel otherwise. 3) Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey The Golden Retriever named Shadow, the Himalayan cat named Sassy, and the American Bulldog mix named Chance are unforgettable characters from the best cat and dog movie ever. I watched this movie way too many times when I was a kid and it’s still as mesmerizing to me today. Homeward Bound is one of those films that I’m going to force my kids to watch someday just so I’ll have an excuse to watch it again. 2) Jumanji How badly do you wish you could play Jumanji in real life? Okay, maybe I’d rather watch Robin Williams play it instead so I don’t have to deal with the madness. Jumanji takes the cake for being one of the most elaborate yet cool animal films. Besides the epic journey with tons of jungle animals, Bill the cop was hilarious and Kirsten Dunst was good even back then. 1) Air Bud Ever since I saw the Golden Retriever named Buddy escape from his cruel alcoholic clown owner to dominate Josh’s middle school basketball team, no other dog film has ever topped Air Bud. It’s unfortunate that they made like six sequels cause the original was an incredibly captivating piece of cinematic dogwork that completely slam dunked my heart. LEAH McKISSOCK
ENTERTAINMENT
S
ure, TGIF may have been fundamental to any Friday night in the ‘90s, but come Saturday (the best day of the week) SNICK took over. TGIF had some unforgettable hits, but those shows were made for the whole family to watch, SNICK on the other hand, was just for us. We had two hours of TV a week specifically created to please our little gak-loving bastard minds, and here’s a look back on some of those classic shows:
THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE
Whenever I hear Polaris’ “Hey Sandy,” my heart jumps and my palms get sweaty. Sometimes I even have difficulty breathing in my excitement. Yeah, it’s a great song, but that’s not even the half of it. To me, “Hey Sandy” means one thing and one thing only: Pete & Pete. Pete & Pete is hands down, no contest, the greatest kids’ show in the history of television. Period. Sure, it boasted guest stars like Steve Buscemi and Iggy Pop and yeah, maybe I had a massive crush on Big Pete, but even without those elements, the show would shine. This is because Pete & Pete understood the one basic principle that modern kids’ shows seem to have let slip away—that children are capable of intelligent thought. The Twin Peaks of the under-twelve set, Pete & Pete never condescended and never apologized for being exactly what it was: a quirky, clever and just plain enjoyable work of genius. It wasn’t so much a kids’ show as an adults’ show that adults were too square to get. While parents balked at the idea of an episode about an underwear inspector, or the idea of Little Pete having a tattoo named Petunia, or even two brothers having the same name, their children shrugged and said “why not?” Pete & Pete did the youth of the nineties a great service—it conclusively proved that we were smarter than our parents. ERIN HICKEY
CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL It’s not easy growing up, but at least the 90s gave us Clarissa Explains It All. This Nickelodeon comedy is the root of all nostalgia when it comes to remembering my boob-tube induced adoloscence. Clarissa, who is played by the sweet Melissa Joan Hart, represented the entire pre-teen generation as the girl who was “just like us,” complete with the psuedo-rebellious nature and affinity for tacky fashion. The show’s plots resembled a normal teenage life, with Clarissa cleverly talking
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...traumatizing! That’s right, Are You Afraid of the Dark? scared the shit out of me on more than one occasion and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Particularly, I remember an episode (“The Tale of the Dark Music”) featuring a kid with a haunted closet (shut up) that set forth a creature of unspeakable evil whenever music in the general vicinity was turned up too loud. The episode ends when the main character locks his younger brother in said closet, blasts Metallica at him and effectively commits fratricide…on a kids’ show! Maybe it’s the Canadian accents (“Sorey!”) or my general fondness for the original SNICK line-up (where’s my Round House box set?), but this show still holds a very special place in my rotting heart. Sadly the complete seasons are only available on Canadian DVD, but a “Freaky Favorites” compilation featuring eight of the show’s best(?) episodes is currently available here in the States. MILES LEMAIRE
THE SECRET WORLD OF ALEX MACK
THE REN & STIMPY SHOW I stand by what I said about Pete & Pete being the greatest kids’ show ever, mainly because Ren & Stimpy was by no means a kids’ show. Nonetheless, it was my all-time favorite show as a child. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t actually allowed to watch it—and not for the reasons you’d think, either. My parents had no problem whatsoever with the gross-out humor or the extreme close-ups of Ren’s gunkcaked eyes. They didn’t even mind the latent drug references in “Space Madness.” No, the single solitary reason I wasn’t allowed to watch Ren & Stimpy is that I would cry every time Ren was mean to Stimpy. Needless to say, that happened pretty frequently. Of course, I’d also cry everytime they’d tell me I couldn’t watch it. They caved in the end, and I’m a better person because of it. ERIN HICKEY
How jealous was I of Alex Mack? Really freakin’ jealous. What I wouldn’t have given to turn into an irridescent puddle of silver sludge and slide under doors at a moment’s notice. Not to mention the whole telekinesis thing and the ability to “zap” her enemies. So what if she has to hide her powers from her parents and friends? And yeah, maybe there is a government agency out to capture and experiment on her. So what? She’s a freakin’ superhero! As if being a superhero wasn’t cool enough, Alex definitely knew how to rock the backwards baseball cap. She even owned a baseball cap without a brim, specifically intended for backwards-wearing. She also had the only accessory that was considered cooler than a backwards hat in the nineties: a male best friend. Heck, he was pretty dreamy too. Mega crushville. Oh, Alex Mack, why can’t I be you? ERIN HICKEY UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
KATIE REINMAN, MIKE PALLOTTA, JOSEPH BRYANT
A LOOK BACK AT THE BEST OF THE CLASSIC SNICK SHOWS FROM THE ‘90s
ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?
Illustrations
SUBMITTED FOR THE APPROVAL
her way through the melodrama of pre-teen concerns; an unconventional family, an annoying little brother Ferguson, a.k.a Ferg Breath, and of course, homework. Clarissa enthusiastically solved our problems for us without ever questioning the certitude of even the most trivial of teenage issues. Not all of us had a best friend who climbed a ladder to get into our room or an entire teenage population to talk to about our problems, but for Clarissa, life was just as confusing as it was for any other 15 year-old—which is why we couldn’t stop watching. Sure, Clarissa Explains It All basks in the self-indulgence of an adolescent, sometimes annoying 15 year-old girl, but you just couldn’t help it. She was witty, smart, and overall just a good kid with a rebellious fashion sense. And well, she had what every kid wanted then, her own TV show! Call the show cliché, call it a poor attempt at portraying a teenager’s desire for non-conformity, but hey, welcome to the ‘90s! If nothing else, by breaking the fourth wall, this show perfectly captures what every confused teenage kid felt like growing up and exactly what they wanted to know—we love this show because essentially, it’s about us! Thanks Nickelodeon, you were once the only thing we ever needed! KATHY MIRANDA
COMICS
Crayon Box by David Faulk david.a.faulk@gmail.com
I am a Jellyfish! Get it? by Steven Carey
225 FT & PT Jobs DISNEYLAND
Food Service
The world's global food service company, Sodexo, is now at Disneyland. If food is your passion, Sodexo is your move. We will coordinate with your school schedule, offering days, afternoons, evenings and weekends. วง )7 37 &XOLQDU\ -REV วง 3RVLWLRQV IRU &RRNV &DVKLHUV 'ULYHUV DQG 8WLOLW\ วง )XOO 7LPH -REV RYHU KRXUV ZHHN LQFOXGH %HQHILWV
is accepting applications for Editor-in-Chief. Inexperienced need not apply. Pick up an application at USU Administration Office 216. Good Luck! Applications Due April 10th, 2008 UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
วง )UHH 3DUNLQJ DQG 'LVQH\ODQG 3DUN 3DVV IRU DOO (PSOR\HHV วง *HW 3DLG :KLOH <RX /HDUQ 2Q WKH -RE 6NLOOV
Call our Job Hotline today at 714-343-0016. Pick up and drop off applications at the regional office: 711 Kimberly Ave., #170, Placentia, CA 92870 (off of Orangethorpe; for directions call 716-650-6826 x23650). EOE.
CREATIVE ARTS KATIE REINMAN
UNION WEEKLY
19 March 2008
17
CULTURE
THE LIFESTYLE OF GREATER LOS ANGELES
When we heard about the idea of a Nineties issue, our first instinct was to deconstruct a specific look. Instead, we’ve chosen a few people we believe defined the era all on their own. Come reminisce with us on the style icons that have inspired fashion trends and pop culture for the better and for worst. Much love for the Nineties, Rachel and Kathy
Kurt Cobain
Men Are From Mars, Women Are For Venus John Gray
Judy Funnie
Romeo & Juliet
Perfume
Patrick Suskind
Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can’t We? The Cranberries 1993
Surfer Rosa The Pixies 1992
William Shakespeare
Let It Beet The Beets 1994
The Fresh Prince
The Autobiography of Malcom X Malcolm X
The Message
Grandmaster Flash 1982
CULTURE ON CULTURE because yogurt is for lovers JAMES KISLINGBURY The first time I ever heard about Pinkberry was when my friend Paul told me that it was a great place to pick up Asian chicks. It is also apparently a place to get yogurt (or “yoghourt” if you’re from the UK or just a dick). At the time I wasn’t really into the whole yogurt thing and there was something unseemly about picking up on Asian high school girls that I couldn’t put my finger on. So, I avoided Pinkberry and I focused on less trendy dessert items. Items like boba. Like most things I don’t understand, I chose to ignore it for as long as I could. And then, suddenly, before I knew it these dang yogurt places are everywhere. I think they’re opening one up in my living room, much to the delight of my Asian-loving roommates. Despite my best efforts I eventually broke down and went to a few of these places, which made me realize UNION WEEKLY
19 MARCH 2008
something about myself: I love frozen yogurt. This is trouble because a single cup of Pinkberry runs about the same amount of money as the GDP of a medium sized South American nation. In a tragic twist, I found myself addicted but unable to pay for the goods I craved. Luckily, before I had to revisit freshman year in the long dark alleyway behind Olive Garden, Yogurtland opened up across from campus on 7th Street (right smack between a Dairy Queen, a boba joint, and a cafe). Not only were there more selections of the bacteriainfused frozen dairy product, but it was also cheaper. Way cheaper. The only downside to this place is that it has the ambiance of an interrogation room at Guantanamo Bay. White rooms. Deafening music. Blinding lights. Every time I go in there I feel the sudden urge to spill the beans. Spill the beans on what? I don’t know. But the yogurt is pretty good. So there’s that. So, if you’ve got a medium-sized inheritance burning a hole in your pocket or you’re tired of ice cream, go ahead and treat yourself some frozen yogurt. There’s no better time to be a fan of the stuff and no easier time to go broke because of the stuff. Or you could just hit on chicks. The world’s your oyster, really.
10
REASONS To Advertise With the New
$4.99 Breakfast Crepes
Within
Walking Distance From Campus!
w/ Potatos (Monday-Friday) 8AM-11AM
For Advertising info:
email ryan@lbunion.com or call (562) 985-4867
1.
3.
Vast Audience: The CSULB campus is a vast and diverse group of over 40,000 students, faculty and staff. And since outside publications aren’t allowed to distribute on-campus, the Union Weekly is in a unique position to reach those tens of thousands of potential customers.
2.
Helping Students: The Union Weekly has survived for over 30 years because of the talent and determination of an entirely student staff who do it because they love it. And when you support us with your advertisement, you become part of that legacy.
4.
Multiple Run Discounts: We want your business, not your money. That’s why we’ve put incentives in to encourage you to think of your ad as we do: a partnership, not just a transaction.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Off-Campus Distribution: Our student audience tends to wander so we go with them to ensure that the Union Weekly’s presence doesn’t stop at Long Beach State. That is, after all, the best way to reach the predominantly commuter-based masses that are our fellow students. An Enjoyable Read: Unlike some stodgier newspapers we could name, the Union Weekly’s goal is to both inform and entertain our readers. So when you advertise with us, you can be certain that readers aren’t just skimming articles or scanning headlines. So your ad will get noticed, not neglected. Repeat Business: Our readers are creatures of habit. They snag a new issue of the Union Weekly every week, and they can factor your business into their schedule just as easily. Who knows, your place might be someone’s favorite hangout and they don’t even know it yet.
Non-Profit Discounts: It’s hard to spend money when you’re not trying to make any. That’s why the Union Weekly will always extend a helping hand to those selfless volunteer groups in need of some well-deserved publicity.
The Students’ Voice: The Union Weekly was founded on the idea that students who have something to say deserve a chance to express themselves. That spirit of egalitarianism and respect carries over into everything we do. Remember, we’re a college newspaper: we can do whatever we want.
No More Design Headaches: We know not everyone has the time and materials to put together a dynamic and effective ad, but we do. We can work with you to make sure your advertisement demonstrates the same commitment to professionalism and flair as your business.
Campus
Anaheim Rd.
Stude baker Rd.
Absolute Minimum Rates: We understand how tough it can be to budget for advertising, so we keep our ad rates as low as we possibly can. That way you can spend your money on other, more important things (such as increasing tuition fees, if you’re like us).
Delightful Crepes
22 Frwy/7th Street
1190 Studebaker Rd. Long Beach CA 90815 (562) 594-9400 Fax: (562) 594-4863
Call ins welcome
“Little Midget Cleavage.”
The Grunion
Volume 62 Issue 8
Wednesday, March 19th 2008
City Board Announces Plans to Fix StreetRiddled Potholes
“Can Ya Feel It?” asks Fred Durst of the band Limp Bizkit, emerging from a time capsule buried in 1998.
Late ‘90s Time Capsule Fails To Spark Any Interest Whatsoever BY EARL GREY GRUNION DEMAGOGUE Memphis, TENN—A time capsule buried in 1998 by a group of students at Humphrey Elementary School in Memphis was unearthed yesterday, exactly 10 years after it was initially assembled However, the artifacts chosen to be included as “Presents From the Past” by Mrs. Stander’s 6th grade class of ‘98 were found to be decisively underwhelming by onlookers. “There was just a Furby, a Con Air DVD, some old cell phones, and Britney Spears’ first album,” observed Sara Kilborne, a local high school Freshman. “I mean, I still have that CD. I thought this [expletive] was supposed to be like old and funny,” Enclosed with the time capsule was a note signed by the entire class that read. “To the people of the future: please enjoy
the remnants of our forgotten time.” The letter went on to explain a number of items inside, including the cell phone, which was “a device used by a single person to communicate with another using sattelite frequencies, and has probably since been replaced by brain implants that allow for telepathic speech.” Humphrey Elementery Principal Greg Russell said, “It appears Mrs. Stander’s class vastly overestimated the leaps humanity would collectively make in ten years.” “We also overestimated the novetly of opening up a time capsule 10 years after it was buried.” The only surprise of the event was when Fred Durst, lead singer of the band Limp Bizkit, crawled suddenly out of the plastic capsule, wireless mic in hand, and proceeContinued on Page A2
Disclaimer: This page is satire. We are not ASI, nor do we represent the CSULB campus. Send rags to EarlGrey@lbunion.com
LBUNION.COM
Area Rebel Sits in Dad’s Chair, Asks For It
BY A DRUNKEN SAILOR GRUNION MOONCUP
BY SOPHISTICATED GRIZZLY BEAR GRUNION SANDWICH EATER
Long Beach, CA—At a press conference last Monday, Mayor Bob Foster announced the first in a series of plans to improve the lives of Long Beach automotive culture. The plan was born after a number of complaints about the condition of Long Beach roads were dropped in the city comment box by local automotive repair shops. “We don’t got no customers now,” one read, “alls of wheels is straight nowtimes.” Though there is no way to be sure, The Grunion’s on-staff Mechanic-to-English translator believes that the mechanics’ main gripe is the sudden influx of proper tire symmetry, eliminating the need for frequent realignment, a major source of revenue for most auto repair companies. “I am well aware that the condition of our fair city’s potholes has become a problem, and I will do everything in my power to fix this issue,” Foster assured the crowd, consisting mostly of greasemonkeys. Foster’s plan centers around the removal of all street that is currently obstructing Long Beach potholes, and includes a proposal to return all existing potholes to non-drivable conditions. Future plans include the addition of more construction sites, reducing the majority of roads to single lanes and increasing the likelihood that commuters will encounter more pothole than street on their daily journeys. This, coupled with the widespread scattering of nails and glass-shards, will ensure business for auto repair shops and allow Long Beach mechanics to rest easy, knowing that in the future their tires will be both flat and poorly aligned.
Milwaukee, WI—In a recent attempt to ruffle feathers, local upstart Rodney Upstart decided to shed his gentlemanly image and forever cement himself as a scamp by situating his rear end conveniently in his father’s chair. “He just hunkers down every night with that smug look on his face and that remote in hand. God I just—God!” said the fed-up Upstart. Not realizing what a feat it would be, Rodney was almost overpowered by not only the muskiness of the chair but also the lack of comfort the chair provided. According to Rodney, the groove his father—Jonathan Upstart—had made over the years had become so wide and deep that he could barely feel any cushion touching the sides of his behind, and was pretty sure something wooden was stabbing his thigh. No matter the hardships, Rodney was willing to prove himself as a scamp about town, and waited for his father to return home, toolbox in hand and awe on face. Upon entering the living room, Jonathan was at first stupefied by his son’s rebelliousness, but after a few moments he merely set down his toolbox and removed his Electrician’s Union cap. At this point, Jonathan—appearing blasé about the whole situation—crossed his arms, showing off his forearm muscles and coarse arm hair. Rodney responded to his father’s intimidation by looking past him and pretending to be unaware of his current location.
INSIDE Girl Looks Like Your Ex Before She Gained All That Weight
That girl you just passed in the cereal aisle looks a lot like your ex did before she got too comfortable and began letting herself go a bit. You would approach her but you’ve already seen what lies behind that curtain. PAGE FU
Middle Aged College Student Just Saw Garden State
Area mother of three and Cal State creative writing undergrad Sandra Grossberg recenly watched Garden State for the first time following a suggestion from a guy in her poetry workshop. She claims the film was “life changing” and won’t shut the fuck up about it. PAGE C3
“Cat and Baby” Picture No Longer Outdoor Red Hat Society Event Cute for Grieving Couple PAGE E5 PAGE P0 Ruined by Gust of Wind