63.07

OPINIONS THE MELTING POT COMES TO A BOIL RACISM PENETRATES OUR DIVERSE CAMPUS MICHAEL LOZANO

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could have told her to put it away, but I didn’t. If there’s going to be racism, I don’t want it hiding, I need it exposed. More than 40 percent of Americans in 2003 considered Islam more prone to teach violence than other religions. But this shirt design only deepens today’s ingroup and out-group divide. The shirt was being sold at the vendor shop number three, directly in front of the 49er bookstore. The seller, unquestioningly displaying the merchandise, was probably out to make a living. It wasn’t too respectable, but I didn’t think it was her fault.

The real problem was that I just didn’t want racism sold on our campus, I don’t want it anywhere. I need to hold the source accountable. I gave the owner a call.

After a few steady questions, I came across a stunning twist: The owner of the company was an Arab himself.

Tony Salama, 30-years-old and American born, is of Egyptian descent. His motivations behind such a design?

“We’re big cartoon geeks and we thought Mario Bros. was funny, “ said Salama. Hmm, I didn’t know plumbers used bombs. I further asked if he thought the shirt would perpetuate stereotypes, to which Salama replied with a simple, “No, I don’t think so.” In regards to its

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potential offensiveness, considering the Muslim Student Association and Arab populations on campus, he said: “I didn’t really think about it. My friends think it’s funny.

If it offended anyone at the school, I won’t sell it. I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. Tomorrow it won’t be there.” And the day after, it wasn’t there. I guess he’s a man of his word... partially. My final request was for him to ban the shirt from any future shops and online, in which he said he’ll “take it down completely.” The shirt can still be purchased from their website.

He may be an honest guy; the interview was filled with apologies. But despite all intentions, the effect remains the same: consumers, vulnerable as a stifling nation at war, will intake agitative attitudes towards an ever so distinct group.

Of course, one shirt may not do much, but repetitive themes become ingrained. And as history shows, as people become hostile, people become dehumanized. I would call on consumers to be wary before it’s too late, but we already are seeing genocidal tendencies—abroad and at home.

Recall the unlawful incarceration of misidentified people at Guantanamo Bay, or the government round up of ArabAmericans after 9/11, or even the recent Dunkin’ Donuts scandal. We are witness to the inevitabilities of rampant imagery. This shirt serves as one small accomplice.

Not far down the opposite end of the vendor way resides a colorful shop with contrasting themes.

Detailing it are flags of multiple nations, dragged in peace emblems, and tables assorted with diverse jewelry. Meet Ali Najafi, born in Iran, 1979. “I’m in the pot, but it’s not melting yet,” said the store vendor.

Najafi responded to the shirt by saying, “This is just like when they fought the Japanese, they were saying, ‘Oh those ugly japs!’ You can stereotype any group that you

(Actual T-Shirt Design)

want to push over.” After informing Najafi that the shirt was distributed from an Arab, he commented that “It doesn’t matter what culture you are.” He further recited a Persian proverb, saying that “from a pot whatever pours that is inside it. If there’s junk inside the person, it can put the people down, if it’s good stuff, it can make the people more positive.”

The media carry a grand responsibility in exercising freedom of expression. But I don’t think a positive role is being fulfilled considering the racist antagonisms we see today. As Salama says, “Believe me, I live with it everyday. You get sick of it after a while.”

A proper solution to all this? Najafi recommends: “Education! Tell them to read about the culture!

Algebra, Physics, Astrology... All this came from the Middle East. Jesus was from the Middle East!” I also offer you an everyday solution: Take time to figure the following phrase’s ever-so-pertinent meaning so that the next time you greet someone, you will appreciate the person’s mere existence, acknowledge the presence of sweet serenity by saying “As-Salaam Alaikum.”

This was a big week if you follow dictionary news. The Collins English Dictionary, runty cousin to the Oxford, has decided to remove 24 of its terms in exchange for 2,000 new ones. Now, I hate words as much as the next guy, but this seems a bit ham-handed as a modernization effort. Besides, these are important words! I can’t remember a week going by that I didn’t need to use the word Malison (n. a curse.). Well, except maybe last week.

First of all, dictionaries are meant to be arcane and esoteric. If dictionaries were Agrestic (adj. rustic and uncouth), they wouldn’t be the Roborant (adj. growing in strength), comprehensive source by which to pad term papers with Recrement (n. waste matter) and referee scrabble matches. You would think this would be Apodeictic (adj. demonstrably true), and that the invasion of these newer words would be Compossible (adj. Possible in coexistence with others) with the old lexical guard. Even in the current wave of anti-smart sentiment, our authorities on vocabulary shouldn’t Vilipend (v. condemn, judge harshly) these aging words.

The Collins Dictionary has so far remained Oppugnant (n. hostile, combative) in keeping silent about the words that will be added, leaving the question Griseous (adj. gray or grayish) as to what we’re getting in exchange for losing these old words. Obviously, the words on the chopping block are not without some Caducity (n. weakness), but it’d be nice to know what we’re getting in exchange for them. And since the Niddering (adj. cowardly) dictionary folks have stuck us with this degree of Caliginosity (adj. darkness, dimness), I can only Vaticinate (v. prophesy, foretell) as to what the new words will be. Of course, you don’t need to get Fatidical (adj. prophetic) to guess that at least a third of the words will have to do with new technology or Internet terms, and at least a third of those will be Olid (adj. foul, smelly) with outdatedness within ten years (remember “the information superhighway”?). And surely they don’t actually think that this is some sort of Abstergent (adj. cleansing) gesture to Exuviate (v. cast off, clear) the lexical cobwebs and clear a path for these new words. No matter how Fubsy (adj. short, squat) the new definitions may be, there will still be a net gain in dictionary size.

Personally, I’ll miss these words. There’s a Mansuetude (adj. gentleness) to them, a worn-in comfort, like running your fingers over an heirloom periapt, that comes from believing that perhaps the founding fathers may have described the sound of birds taking flight as a “Skirr over Chesapeake Bay.” The new words may have more frequent usage in the blogosphere, but they simply cannot exude the Nitid (adj. lustrous, bright) charm of “Embrangle” (it means exactly what it sounds like).

And as you can see, all these words still have some use left in them. Well, all of them except Muliebrity (adj. the state of being an adult female). That word can go fuck itself.

A BATTLE OF REGIONAL TERMINOLOGY JOE BRYANT

C

an you smell it in the air? It’s pungent and stings your eyes. War is coming. Are you on the right side? We’ve all heard the rumors—whispers hissed in ears and small tiffs breaking out in front of the Nugget. I myself almost got into a fight with fellow Union staffer, Michael Veremans, while walking down the Friendship Walk last Wednesday. But it’s soon to explode into an epidemic of proportions that this campus has never seen.

And I sincerely doubt they’re ready to handle a situation of that magnitude.

I’m talking, of course, about “birdies” and “waterfalls.” As most Californians from the greater Long Beach area (and my Orange County homies, too) know, the term “birdie” refers to the act of drinking without touching your lips to the edge of a bottle or glass. You can say, “Hey man, I’m parched. Can I have a birdie?” or for the more demanding there’s “Let me have a birdie.” And then, elegant and poised, you lift your friend’s beverage a half of an inch above your parted lips, and allow the liquid to fall into your mouth.

And therein lies the dilemma. Most people from Los Angeles and up North call the birdie a “waterfall,” which makes sense on one level.

The liquid does, in fact, fall, but who’s to say

WE GET IT, YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED CAITLIN CHIMES IN ON WEDDING DAY OVER-KILL CAITLIN CUTT I just got a job at a catering company and this Friday was the first time I had ever worked a wedding. And ya know, a wedding can be an absolutely ridiculous event that makes everyone, especially the married couple, and especially the bride, look like a bigger pain in the ass than any of those High School Musical kids.

I’ll start with the ceremony. At this wedding, the couple poured layers of different colored sand in a glass bowl, braded three pieces of rope together, and lit one candle that the same time—all of this was supposed to symbolize marriage. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some kind of wedding ceremony package.

Package “A” just has the sand bowl thing, “B” has that and the rope thing, etc. I bet, with package “D”, you get to release white doves and butterflies. Okay, then there were the vows. The couple had written their own vows, they took traditional vows, and they both sang a song to each other.

An hour later at the reception, the guests were granted the privilege of signing a photo album of the

newly weds making out all over this beach at sunset.

Also, each table had a name. Each name was one of their favorite places (like Reno or Disneyland), and an explanation of why it was one of their favorite places.

There were tiny pictures of them in frames on all the tables too. This was the gift for their guests. You’re welcome. Finally, there was this ridiculous slide show (to the tune of “Up Town Girl” and “You Got a Friend In Me”) which had stupid baby pictures which the newly weds pretended to be embarrassed about.

But for me, the final straw was the father/daughter dance, which was to Bob Carlyle’s “Butterfly Kisses.”

Not since the copyright of “Happy Birthday” has someone capitalized on sentimentality so shamelessly.

If someone reading this likes that song, it’s time to watch rated—R movies, throw away all your Eeyore stuffed animals and your journals from high school and stop watching whole seasons of Gilmore Girls in one sitting. And as for this new couple, I wish them all the luck in the world. Maybe by the end of that wedding they managed to convince themselves they wanted to get married.

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13 OCTOBER 2008

Illustration

MATT DUPREE

BIRDIES VS. WATER-FALLACIES

that the liquid is water at all? I would say more often than not (seven out of every ten times according to statistics), people ask for birdies when their friend has soda.

Despite regional grievances, we can all agree that birdie is simpler and more fun to say than waterfall. Sound them out, now. Bur-dee. Wasn’t that fun? Wah-ter-fall.

Ugh, that was awful, wasn’t it? So many syllables! That’s one less syllable you could have said and a good millisecond you could have used for drinking purposes.

Birdie is derived from the animals of the same name, which are admittedly not as epic of a sight as a waterfall the proportion of Niagra Falls, but goddamn are they cute. If you aren’t already outside, go outside and look at some sparrows. So cute!

Aw, so fucking cute you wanna just hug all of ‘em! And to be fair, how many waterfalls are beautiful? So many of them are muddy and filled with bile and sewage and shit.

Yes, there are birds that aren’t cute—but if they aren’t then they’re more than likely look badass or unique.

Cranes? Unique. Crows? Badass—they tear shit up! Vultures—okay they’re actually really fucking ugly and not badass at all (fucking scavengers), but I wouldn’t classify them as “birdies” either. Turkeys are also pretty fucking ugly.

Prepare for battle, 49ers.

Pick a side (the right one) and fall in line. In lieu of a lack of shields and weaponry (the latter being outlawed on campus), grab a binder or that Norton Anthology that’s been gathering dust on your shelf while you read Sparknotes. And while you’re at it, can I have a birdie?

JAMES KISLINGBURY

OPINIONS

OPINIONS HIGHER EDUCATION MEANS HIGHER TUITION FEAR THE BUDGET CUTS ANTHONY SHAW

C Illustration JAMES KISLINGBURY

alifornia is one of the greatest places in the world to live. We have the best weather, plenty of sunshine, miles of sandy beaches, majestic mountains, and beautiful people. We also live in a land of deserts, drought and earthquakes. Ours is a land of great diversity, whether you’re looking at people, plants, animals, or landscapes. It can be said that we have it all, or at the least, we have a little bit of everything.

This diversity is immediately obvious when you take a look at the students who attend classes in the California State University (CSU) system. Spread out over twenty-three campuses, the CSU serves a very non-traditional student body. As of May 2007, 57 percent of CSU students are students of color. At the same time, 30 percent of CSU students are firstgeneration college students. Throw in the fact that the average age of CSU students is twenty-five, and you have a very unique student population.

This population has needs and demands that are specific to this state. First of all, we depend more

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on grants, loans, and other forms of financial aid than do traditional students. This means that we are acutely sensitive to the fee increases currently being imposed on the CSU by the Governor and the Board of Trustees. The fee increases I mention are truly staggering. Since 2002, undergraduate student fees have increased by one hundred fourteen percent! Not only do these fee hikes increase the burden on low-income, working-class families and students, they also severely limit the level of access to higher education available to our unique student body.

This restriction of access has come about through cuts to the CSU system’s budget. Since 2003/04, and including this year’s budget cuts, the CSU budget has been reduced by over $700 million dollars! This year’s cut to the CSU budget was $215 million. Through massive reductions to the CSU budget, the availability of classes has been greatly reduced and overcrowding has increased.

Fewer course sections mean more students are packed like sardines into their classes. If you have ever been in an overcrowded class, you know how uncomfortable it is.

This restriction of access has one more glaring impact on all students, regardless of race, background, or age. The truth is that fewer course sections and more budget cuts will lengthen the time it takes for us to graduate. As it stands now, the average CSU student needs six years to graduate. That number could soon be seven. There was a time when average students graduated in four years, and people in school for seven years were called “doctors.” If we, the students of California State University, want to graduate in four or five years, then we need to make our voices heard.

This fall, the Alliance for the CSU was instrumental

in restoring $97.6 million to the CSU budget and in retaining Cal Grant B. Contact CSU Students for Quality Education at yourvoice_csulb@yahoo.com or stop by one of our weekly tables to get involved and/or to join the statewide Alliance for the CSU. We have had success before. By working together, we can continue to protect our education and our goals.

ISSUE 63.07 vince.union@gmail.com kathym.union@gmail.com

MATT DUPREE

matt.dupree@gmail.com Senior Editor KATRINA SAWHNEY katrina.union@gmail.com News Director RACHEL RUFRANO rachel.union@gmail.com Opinions Editor VINCENT GIRIMONTE vince.union@gmail.com Sports Editor CAITLIN CUTT caitlincutt.union@gmail.com Literature Editor & PR JOE BRYANT joeb.union@gmail.com Entertainment Editor SEAN BOULGER seanb.union@gmail.com Music Editor & PR KATHY MIRANDA kathym.union@gmail.com Culture Editor VICTOR CAMBA victorpc.union@gmail.com Comics Editor KATIE REINMAN reinman.union@gmail.com Creative Arts Editor MICHAEL VEREMANS scarf.union@gmail.com Creative Writing Editor SOPHISTICATED BEAR bear.grun@gmail.com Grunion Editor CLAY COOPER, STEVEN CAREY Graphic Designers CHRIS LEE photos4union@gmail.com Photo Editor JOE BRYANT Copy Editing Coordinator, On-Campus Distribution CLAY COOPER clay.union@gmail.com Internet Caregiver KATRINA SAWHNEY katrina.union@gmail.com Advertising Executive ALLAN STEINER allan.union@gmail.com Advertising Executive ANDREW WILSON, ALAN PASSMAN, JASON OPPLIGER, CHRISTINE HODINH, JESSE BLAKE, JAMES KISLINGBURY, DOMINIC MCDONALD, HILLARY CANTU, RUSSELL CONROY, KEN C., BRIAN NEWHARD, ANDREW LEE, TYLER DINLEY, DANNY OSTERWEIL, SERGIO ASCENCIO, MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN, MICHAEL LOZANO, JANEL LAZA, ANTHONY SHAW, CHELSEA ROSENTHAL, KATRINA GUEVARA, ANDY KNEIS, JESSICA WILLIAMS Contributors 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

MAIL TO THE CHIEF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MIKE “BEEF” PALLOTTA

I

t’s hard to stay healthy in college, we all know that.

What we all don’t know is that there’s this rad Health Center on campus that provides free healthcare and extra cheap medicine at prices that you could afford just by gathering all the spare change on your desktop. We at the Union figured it was just as good a time as any to showcase this wonderful godsend that we have on campus. And If you’re anything like me, you grew up with healthcare, but once you turned 18 that was it and you basically became a Christian Scientist, praying the sickness away.

Once I got to CSULB and paid the tuition I was ready and willing to find any means to save a buck. I quickly became privy to some info about the health services here on campus and my prayers came true! In that I wouldn’t have to pray anymore (it’s a chore really). Anti-biotics for my yearly sinus infection for dirt cheap? Fuck yes. Minor cough in the morning? Made an appointment that same day at 3pm. Is that my pinky going numb? Could be carpal-tunnel. Got it checked out. Easy-peasey.

Being a hypochondriac has never been so affordable or worth your while.

But it’s not the only free (or close to free) service this school provides. Over the summer I had next-to-no money, some time on my hands, and a severe addiction to watching movies, so when I heard that this school had a pretty decent collection of DVDs in the library (not to mention a fair amount of Criterion DVDs) I coerced my buddy into driving me to campus and renting movies using his student ID. Yeah. I was like a 10-year-old pleading to go to Toys “R” Us. Free movies! And you can rent up to three at a time! Why the fuck not, right? Now that I’m here, I can cut out the middle man, or include him and rent six at a time!

The point I’m trying to make here is that this school has so many cheap, affordable services to provide us, we just have to be willing to keep an eye out for ‘em.

Now onto the mail: Dear Beef, Recently (today) I picked up an issue of this week’s Union only to be deeply disturbed with what I saw on the cover. I was shocked. I was appalled. Some may even say that I was shocked AND appalled. The sheer vileness of what my eyes met was enough to leave me wholly discomforted and yes, even slightly offended.

No, I’m not talking about being flipped off, because fuck dude, I don’t give a shit about some fucking vulgarity.

No, I’m talking about the finger in question, or, more importantly, the fingernail attached to that finger. Have you SEEN that shit? I mean, eww. Like, that doesn’t even fall into the category of “fingernail.” I believe that is what is referred to as a “nub.” This is far beyond just nail biting, this is like borderline obsessive mental disorder or some shit like those chicks who compulsively pull out their hair.

I do believe you should council the owner of this finger to seek some kind of therapy for their obsessive nail biting mental disorder, especially if their other 9 fingers

look as such. Just a thought.

Deeply concerned, Raquel Dear Raquel, First of all, thank you for your concern. I’d like to take this opportunity to come out and say that it was, in fact, my finger prominently featured on the cover (one of the many perks of being the Chief), which unfortunately resulted in me having to bare my soul to the world. You so aptly picked up on my mental disorder via the length of my fingernail. You’re right, I’m a nail-biter. I apologize if I disrupted your eating habits for the day or if my fingernail preoccupied your thoughts while in class. It’s a tough image to get out your head.

Raquel, you are right, I have a problem. A mental disorder of sorts. But I’d like to let you know that I’m taking the first step and seeing someone at the glorious Health Center we have here on campus. Although I doubt they’ll be able to help me out with my neurosis, nervousness, or boredom (which all lead directly to my nail-biting). It’s a terrible habit, but if I stop the voices will only get louder.

Dear Beef, Shut up.

Anonymous Dear Anonymous, Fair enough.

Dear Beef, I was sitting up the other night way too late, watching The Cosby Show. After the first commercial break, I realized something: If the family in The Cosby Show is called The Huxtables, why is it called The Cosby Show?

Love, Reeling over Re-run’s It’s symbolism. Durr.

Dear Beef, The other night you asked me if I would marry you if you stood in front of my house with a boom box playing “In Your Eyes.” While I’m not sure if you were serious, I wanted to know why, out of all the movie moments, you chose that one to indirectly propose to me. Is that the most romantic movie moment?

Love, You’re not-yet-confirmed, hypothetical fiancée Dear future wife and subject of multiple sexual techniques, That moment not only is the perfect blend of on-screen romance, an overcast sky, John Cusack, and musical tenderness, but it tugs at the heart-strings in ways unseen since An Affair to Remember. Lloyd Dobler’s (John Cusack) humor and devotion, not to mention friendly, approach to dating is a template for all else to follow. He’s an endearing character, and the fact that he can love a pretty girl who seems to have too much teeth for her own good is something for all romantics to admire. He shows us that we can accept women no matter their teeth and see them for who they truly are.

Ask Away!

Need advice from a man named Beef? Well send all questions to editorinbeef@gmail.com!

UNION WEEKLY

13 OCTOBER 2008

STEVEN CAREY

editorinbeef@gmail.com

COVER ART

MIKE “BEEF” PALLOTTA Editor-In-Chief VINCENT GIRIMONTE Managing Editor KATHY MIRANDA Managing Editor

“First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.” —Steve Martin

NEWS

NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW, ```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` BUT DON’T ```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````` JAMES KISLINGBURY ```````````````` Peace Talks with the Taliban `````

SEXY IS BACK

TAG THE WORLD BRINGS IT TO CANCER JOE BRYANT

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e’ve all seen them: our fellow 49ers trolling the campus, proudly displaying the causes they support like Superman and his “S.” There’s that hipster in your U.S. History seminar garbed in a “Save Darfur” t-shirt, or that chick in Chem with the Livestrong bracelet. Everyone’s made the jokes—these people don’t want to support a good cause unless they can accessorize with it—and that’s exactly what Tag The World is counting on.

Robert Parks-Valletta isn’t what you’d call your atypical CSULB alum; he’s had a modest start as an actor, landing roles in the soap operas The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives, but now he’s back on campus promoting his brand new non-profit organization, hoping students’ apparent love for trendy statements could help a good cause or two.

“Tag The World is a campaign,” says Parks-Valletta.

“We work with over 20 charities under five causes. So we work with children, cancer, animals, ‘go green’ and Africa.” Robert is of the firm belief that focusing on individual causes limits what can be done in each field.

“We’re saying it’s about the cause. It’s about cancer. It doesn’t matter what your story is behind cancer, it could be any facet.”

Robert hopes that the draw between Tag the World is its titular hip factor. You can purchase your very own Tag the World tag necklace for 80 bucks. There are five in total—each one a talisman representing one of the five causes. “Up to now you have [had] the yellow wrist band, a bumper sticker—something that shows support, but it’s nothing you’d really want to wear to a nice dinner.” Supporters can also personalize their tags— Parks-Valletta has his DiGeorge’s Syndrome-inflicted brother’s birthday engraved into his Children Tag. For those of us with less dough, they offer “casual clothing too… fashionable things you would normally buy.”

When asked if he thought it was sad that non-profits had to rely on trend-setting in order to bring in our demographic, Parks-Valletta said, “I don’t want to say it’s sad, but I want to say it’s a new way of thinking

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13 OCTOBER 2008

Robert Parks-Valletta (above) heads up the non-profit organization Tag the World, on campus Oct. 16th.

to relate to charities. It’s not ‘give us your money,’ it’s ‘buy what you normally buy and have it go to charity.’”

But, as Parks-Valletta himself mentioned earlier, Lance Armstrong’s yellow wristbands spearheaded the concept that charities can be cool, which exploded its way into nigh every cause’s online store. And Hot Topic.

Robert Parks-Valletta knows that celebrities tend to draw crowds, so he’s loaded his October 16th event at the Pyramid with them. Tag the World’s Celebrity Slam basketball game boasts a who’s who of C-list actors and reality TV stars, and he’s making sure to bring on the boobs. “The spokeswomen from Tag The World are five Deal or No Deal girls, who represent each cause that happened in their lives. The girl who represents cancer had cancer,” and so on. “It’s all different areas of celebrities, but all around that general young, hip, kind of funny or sexy, fashionable kind of celebrities that are our age range. You know, it’s not the Denzel Washingtons—who are celebrities obviously, and cool, but this is the younger crowd we’re going for.”

Tag the World presumes to have discovered the solution to getting more students to donate money, but the facts aren’t so simple. Most students don’t donate because they have little to no cash and 80 dollars is a lot to expect—even if there are alternatives presumably more reasonably priced. As trendy as Livestrong bracelets are, at least they’re only a few clams. There’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself, or your story, but does it have to be so expensive? If nothing else at least Robert Parks-Valletta has his heart in the right place.

You can visit Tag the World online at tagtheworld.com, though the official store does not launch until after the Celebrity Slam. Celebrity Slam is hosted in the Pyramid on October 16th. Doors open at 7pm and the game starts at 8pm. He says to bring your flashlight. Seriously.

As you may know, there’s been something of a tussle in the nation of Afghanistan for the past seven years. According to the BBC, President Hamid Karzai’s brother recently met with ex-Taliban members as a step towards peace talks.

“Didn’t we defeat the Taliban?” The answer to that is: Yes... and no. While the US and her allies did oust them in 2001, the Taliban, not unlike cockroaches, refused to be exterminated. Lately, ”Taliban” has also become a catch-all term for the various insurgent groups disrupting the central Afghan government’s rule. Despite efforts to finish them off, it appears that they aren’t going away any time soon.

The crux of the Taliban’s demands is immediate evacuation of the 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. As you can imagine, this is something of an impossibility, since foreign troops are responsible for the majority of the stability of Karzai’s government and without them the nation would be thrown into (more) chaos. So, what exactly was discussed remains to be seen. It’s safe to say that NATO won’t be departing and the Taliban being legitimized isn’t going to happen either.

In Brief Speaking of terrorism, apparently Barack Obama “pals” around with one, according to Sarah Palin and John McCain. A new ad accuses Obama of being “friends” with Bill Ayers, a co-founder of Weatherman—a radical anti-Vietnam War organization. While Ayers was a member of the organization, he was never convicted. It seems that Obama and Ayers aren’t quite as buddy-buddy as the GOP claims, but as we all know Barack is a crypto-Zoroastrian bent on selling our nation to Cobra Command, so it isn’t entirely impossible that 8-year-old Obama was complicit in the bombing of various federal government buildings. I mean: can you prove he wasn’t?

And on the other side of political non-news, “Troopergate” has been plaguing Governor Palin.

Besides an excuse for the news media to affix “gate” to something, the case regards whether or not Palin might have personally gained from the dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who in turn might have been pressured to dismiss state trooper Mike Wooten, who was involved in a custody battle with Palin’s sister. It seems that her staff was involved in the firing of Wooten, though it is unclear whether or not Palin was directly involved in the incident. Or something. Maybe.

SPORTS

THE BUSH LEAGUER VINCENT GIRIMONTE

This week: NBA Stream O’ the Consciousness TBL is tired of football and baseball.

A friend of mine asked me to give an NBA preview, but to be honest it’s still a little early for “serious” pre-season analysis, at least for TBL.

GREAT CROWD, GREAT GAME DRAMA IN THE ‘MYD, LBSU OVER CAL POLY IN THRILLER

A

VINCENT GIRIMONTE

h, Greek Night. Say what you will about our brothers and sisters, but there is no denying their intoxicating influence on Friday night volleyball.

And stakes were high last Friday in the Walter Pyramid, with fraternities and sororities oozing out of the South bleachers, creating the much-appreciated daunting environment for visiting Cal Poly. The Mustangs (ranked 22nd nationally) had beaten coach Brian Gimmillaro’s Women’s Volleyball team five straight times, and will likely prove to be LBSU’s chief adversary for this year’s Big West Title. Hence the emotion that persisted from the first serve until the final point in the fifth set, which went to LBSU in their 3-2 victory over the Mustangs. Calls were disputed, celebrations went off like volcanic eruptions, and there was more body paint in the stands than a production of Cirque de Soleil.

“Women’s volleyball is an incredibly emotional game,” said Gimmillaro, looking a little relieved after a three-hour match.

He credits his players and the fans for the cooperation that ultimately lead to the emotional victory.

“There isn’t a crowd without a good game and there isn’t a game without a good crowd.”

Like all great episodes of drama, it was rough in the beginning. After LBSU won the first five points of set one, Cal Poly roared back with shouts of “show some emotion” from Mustang coach, Jon Stevenson, taking the first in an impressive comeback, 25-23.

Mustang outside hitter Kylie Atherstone is two-time Big West Player of the Year. Those in attendance probably could have guessed this from the get-go—the ball just sounded different coming off her hands. She finished the game with 19 kills, which is more impressive when considering LBSU altered their strategy after the first set in order to neutralize her presence.

“Sometimes I feel like kids aren’t quite as perfect as I was when I was a kid,” said Gimmillaro, referring to his team’s lapse in the first game. “We got a little excited, we got away from [the game plan]…that was a problem.”

But the 49ers responded in the second and third set, “executing the game plan” with solid play from outside hitters Caitlin Ledoux and Quincy Verdin. When they get going, think of Ledoux and Verdin as two Lawrence Taylors rushing the edge from opposite ends (football season!). They can be that good.

If there has been one question mark for 2008, the albatross wrapped firmly around this year’s lofty aspirations, it’s been the play at the net; the stalwart middle blocker has yet to emerge for LBSU Volleyball.

But Friday saw Britney Herzog, along with the more consistent play of Naomi Washington, emerge as a promising force. Midway through the second set, Herzog thwarted several Cal Poly attacks with blocks, and put a few home for good measure to help set the tone for the rest of the contest.

Gimmillaro admits that the match was in question until about the 11th point in the fifth. For argument’s sake, freshman Cat Highmark’s hussle on the second point was the one that captured the night’s pace and ultimately pushed LBSU to victory. Highmark chased down an errant ball towards the back line, eliciting deafening cheers from the crowd, then managed to spike one home. It was just that kind of night.

It would appear things are looking up for LBSU Volleyball.

A big time victory over a conference foe makes one optimistic, as does a fan base fired up after a five-set thriller. Let’s call it a statement game. How ‘bout it, coach?

“Statement game, no,” said Gimmillaro. “My statement is ‘I’m glad we won.’”

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13 OCTOBER 2008

CLAY COOPER

Obligatory Clippers news: Elgin Baylor is no longer the GM, and my, what a run it has been. I read somewhere that he was a better player than GM—they called him Iceman during his prime—and let’s hope he is remembered that way. But Baylor’s case is all too common. It’s a Benjamin Button scenario that many Hall of Famers can’t escape, i.e. falling through their career ass backwards. Think of Isaiah Thomas and our buddy Kevin McHale. Hell, even MJ has succumbed. Somebody get these guys career counseling after they retire. I understand the competitive spirit doesn’t fade well, but if you’re not sitting next to a microphone on game day, you need to be gambling on the golf course.

This wasn’t nearly Stream O’ the Consciousness enough. So... my favorite NBA nickname of all-time is easily, without a doubt, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe. Names like that just don’t happen anymore, like milk in a glass bottle.

There were a lot of these guys, and they were loud. For three hours emotions went back and forth, “a roller-coaster ride” as Coach G said, and the match was still up for grabs until the final point. The 49ers won the match 23-25, 25-23, 25-22, 21-25, 15-9.

Photo

Ron Artest is a Houston Rocket. I can’t think of a more appropriate city for Ron than Houston; finally he’ll be able to relate to a town’s despondency without playing in Detroit.

I’m catching the fear. The “uh-oh Boston is going to win another title” fear.

The worst fear. The most obnoxious fear.

The most sobriety-inspiring fear. There were few who predicted a Celtic romp through the Western Conference, and for ones that did, you probably had to remind them that Kevin McHale no longer plays and yes, you had seen the commercial with MJ and Bird playing horse and Bird is undoubtedly better than MJ. So do the Lakers change anything?

No, no, no. Just be thankful Kobe Bryant isn’t in charge. He would have traded rising center Andrew Bynum for Jason Kidd and his mustachio’d family. I hate to use words that befuddle the TBL demographic, but here you go, Laker fans: patience. You didn’t win last year because you were softer than Freddie Mercury’s slippers in the post. Bynum back helps a great deal. I should think Phil and co. have learned their lesson.

Patience. You’re in the odd position of having to wait for something to develop.

It only seems unfair.

LITERATURE A GLANCE AT SPARKNOTES

HOW TO GET THROUGH SPEEDY NOTES QUICKLY

SEAN BOULGER

A

s I sat in my comfortable, mahogany-decorated study a few nights ago, I decided that it was high time I engage myself in some of the rich American culture that I’m surrounded by. The rustic fire crackled in front of me as I adjusted my fez and took a leisurely pull from my corncob pipe, and I wondered exactly what would be the best way to wrap myself in a blanket of American identity for the evening. Finally, I settled on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. What better novel to whet my literary palette than this classic tale of adultery and suspense, right? Also, they made a movie out of it with Demi Moore, so it can’t be that bad, right? Of course, it only took one look at my rich mahogany bookshelf to see that The Scarlett Letter was nowhere to be found. This, of course, was not to deter me, as I quickly pulled up my Internet Web Browser and searched for my favorite thing in the world: Sparknotes.

Written at a time when America was trying very hard to establish its own independent identity from

UNION WEEKLY 13 OCTOBER 2008

the British in everything from writing to government, The Scarlet Letter is the tale of a young woman spurned by her community after committing adultery in 17th-century Boston. Of course, the woman commits adultery because her husband is away, and Demi Moore’s character, Hester Prynne (the ugliest name ever), apparently just can’t keep her legs shut for anything longer than a few months. Eventually she has a child, and the whole town figures out she’s a floozy, because Here’s a couple different versions of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter that expand her husband obviously upon the sparknotes. isn’t around to put a baby inside her. So what do they do? They take her out comes back, there’s a guy who dies, and…this book of her house, put a letter “A” on her shirt, and then is way too long. Even the Sparknotes are too fucking yell at her a whole bunch. Seriously. They “harangue” long; I only made it through the Plot Overview and her. But I think maybe some literary scholars got this part of the first chapter (of which there are XXIV), wrong—maybe they’re just haranguing her because and based on what I read, the story just came across her name is so goddamn ugly. as a very heavy-handed morality tale. I don’t care that At any rate, she and her illegitimate child have Demi Moore wanted to get laid while her husband to live on the outskirts of town, constantly dealing was away. Why does everybody else? Clearly, The with town officials trying to take Hester’s daughter Scarlet Letter is a book whose events simply didn’t away. Why the two didn’t simply go somewhere else, I need to happen. can’t figure out. Eventually, Hester’s missing husband

H

i. I’m Caitlin. How are you feeling today?

I’m feeling pretty good. Well, while I’m writing this I’m feeling okay. I have no clue when you picked this issue up. This weather’s been kinda weird, huh? My mom always said that when the weather is fluctuating the way it is right now, people get sick. She always made me take Vitamin C during the change of seasons. I have no idea if it helped. I don’t remember a lot of colds as a kid, though. I know this seems a little weird, but I’m about to get really personal with you and I want you to feel comfortable. The thing is, I want to talk about our health, and heath is a very personal subject. It is about our bodies after all. So, for the sake of this article, let’s just say for the next 1,300 words or so, we’re old friends and we can be honest.

Are you healthy? If your answer is “Yes” how do you know? Have you been to the doctor recently? You should go check out our Student Health Services.

You can get a check-up there. If you haven’t been to our Student Health Services building yet, you’re not alone. In fact, I didn’t know just how great our health center was until I sat down with Dr. Carbuto. He’s the director of our health center on campus.

INTERVIEW CONTINUED PAGE 10 UNION WEEKLY

13 OCTOBER 2008

9

a healthy conversation Dr. Carbuto: We have seniors who walk in here their last semester and say, “Oh, I didn’t know you were here!” …They don’t know what we offer…We have a pharmacy that sells things at incredibly cheap rates— things like Tylenol for a dollar. If you get sick our antibiotics are two or three dollars. People don’t know they can come to the pharmacy and just get over-thecounter stuff. If someone has a cold, we have what’s called a “cold care package”. It has an antihistamine, a decongestant, and I think it has tissues. That stuff, if you buy it separately, it can be nine, ten dollars. We also have nutrition counseling. We have master students in nutrition that come in and do an hour [of] individual counseling with each student. They’ll go over their diet, and help them make a plan. We have sexual health awareness classes. Women who want to get on birth control, who have never had a pap-smear, [the class] goes over the options; it goes over STDs, and it goes over STIs. We have a lot of people who come in for screening.

Union Weekly: What would you like to see happen in the future?

DR: We want students to come in when they’re not sick and look around. As far as actually coming in [for something specific], you can call in advance and make an appointment. We have a fairly large staff: we have three full time physicians, I’m the administrator now, we have two gynecological/women’s health providers that are down stairs, and then we have two nurse practitioners, two physician assistants, and we just hired a part time doctor. It’s a big staff… Sometimes I think people think we’re students ourselves.

They’ll say, “I’ll go to my regular doctor” but we are regular doctors… I’ve been in college health since ‘94; I was at USC from 94’ until 2001. I came in [here] as the chief

10

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health physician, now I’m acting director.

UW: Where did the idea for a student health center come from?

DR: Student health centers were designed to keep a student healthy, and to allow them to go about the business of being students without having to go outside—to be inconvenienced by going off campus. We’re here to help students in their mission. We provide services really inexpensively. If you get this stuff on the outside, the cost is really high and

had undergone four open-heart surgeries by 2000. Just before my fourth surgery, my mom was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. She fought breast cancer for four years and lost her fight in 2004.

Even with our insurance, our medical bills were so high by the time she passed, we had to sell our house and we were dropped from our health insurance.

Then, in the summer of 2006, I started to feel sick. Not like a cold. I saw little flickering lights in my eyes and

citizen of Orange County at the time, I qualified for a program called MSI. It’s an emergency insurance plan that covers people who make less that $25,000 per year, who don’t have insurance, and who need emergency surgery. The whole thing was covered—by Orange County.

students don’t have that kind of money.

We actually have the lowest [prices] out of all the CSUs. UW: Most students have insurance, right?

DR: There’s a large population that’s uninsured here. It’s a high percentage. I’d say almost 50/50… we’re [some students’] primary source of health care. That’s a large population here. Around age twentythree, most kids are dropped from their parents’ health care. They have to make a decision between books or health care.

Most kids choose books.

UW: So if this is a student’s primary health care here, what are they missing out on?

DR: It’s mostly when something more significant happens…then they’ll have to go to an ER…The price of that kind of care is pretty high. If you break your leg, we can give you an x-ray here, but we can’t do anything beyond that.

my heart would palpitate so violently I would have to stop what I was doing and sit down - unless I was already sitting down. I knew what this was. I was so scared I was going to have surgery. Let me be clear here: I was afraid that I would ruin myself financially because I didn’t have insurance, not that I would potentially have to undergo open heart surgery. The trauma of past medical bills scared me more than the trauma of past recovery.

So, at this point I was still attending a junior college, one that also had a health center of its own. In November of 2006, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I made an appointment there assuming that if I really had a problem, they’d catch it and at least I’d save money on a preliminary exam confirming what I deep down already knew. Two hours after walking into the OCC health center, I was being admitted into HOAG hospital. It turned out I needed a valve replacement. Go figure.

Then, a miracle: because I was a

Health care is what mediates your relationship with your body. Money is what pays for your lifestyle. Money and health care are not the same thing.

But that’s how we all think these days.

I started this article saying that I wanted to talk about health, we ended up talking about money, and I bet you didn’t even notice the jump. You’re not stupid or anything, it’s just the way it is for all of us. I believe in a national health care system. But it’s not just because it would save someone like me some money. I believe in the idea because I have seen versions of it, working well, with my own eyes, in the United States, in Orange County, and on our campus. But until we establish a better system, take advantage of the amazing opportunity you have in our incredibly comprehensive, staggeringly accessible Student Health Services.

This is a place where you can begin a conversation about you health, and your health is what they’ll stick to.

{

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Around age twenty-three, most kids are dropped from their parents health care. They have to make a decision between books or health care.

I’ve been that student who has had [to] deal with things that were “more significant” than a sprained ankle. I myself

UW: Why are the prices so low at the Student Health Center?

DR: We have bulk buying power through the state of California. We aren’t here for profit. They buy things through funds, and that’s why they can sell it to us for so low.

UW: Do you think we should have a national health care plan?

DR: I believe health care is a right, not a privilege.

DRUG WARS Acyclovir (Zovirax)

Ibuprofen (Motrin)

400mg #30

SHS Pharmacy Price:

$2.20

Rite Aid: $328.30 (#60)

800mg #30

Albuterol (Proventil) Inhaler #1 400mg #30

SHS: $2.20 Rite Aid:

Tetracycline 250mg #100

SHS: $3.45 Rite Aid: $19.99

$328.30 (#60)

Cephalexin (Keflex) 500mg #30

SHS: $2.35 Rite Aid:

$12.99

Allegra

180mg #30 SHS: $42.30 Rite Aid:

$79.99

SHS: $1.00 Rite Aid: $9.99

Metrondizole (Flagyl) 500mg #30

SHS: $1.60 Rite Aid: $152.99 (#30)

MIrcette-28 (1 month) SHS:

$17.60

Rite Aid:

$65.99

A COMPARISON OF THE HEALTH CENTER’S PRICES TO RITE AID’S Flunisolide Alesse - 28 (1 month)

Ortho-Cyclen (1 month) SHS: $11.70 Rite Aid:

$37.99

SHS:

$12.65

Rite Aid:

$29.99

25ml

Ortho-TriCyclen

(1 month) SHS: $12.65 Rite Aid:

$47.99

Phenazopyridine 200mg #30 SHS: $4.65 Rite Aid:

SHS:

$15.40

Rite Aid:

$39.99

$12.99

Ranitidine (Zantac) 150mg #30 SHS:

$1.65

Rite Aid:

$225.43

S.H.S.

A trip to your local pharmacy can be pretty expensive, which is probably why students can’t believe that the Student Health Center sells most of the prescription and over-the-counter drugs you could need at such low prices. Even if all you have is a headache, the Health Center sells 800mg Motrin for $1.00, even

though drug stores really only carry 200mg for as much as $10. Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo usually runs for about $63, but you can pick up the same birth control at school for $5. These drugs are available to every tuition-paying student and it’s strange to think that many of us don’t even know about it.

C.A.P.S.

underused by the majority of the campus. Although they largely focus on regulating stress, they offer individual short-term counseling, group counseling, psychoeducational presentation and crisis intervention. If you’re confronted with an issue that can’t be resolved in a few sessions, they’ll refer you to local psychiatrists in your area that accept your health insurance. The main concern when dealing with universal health care on a national scale is that the doctors may be less qualified, but CAPS proves that this isn’t necessarily true, even if

it is on a much smaller scale. They employ eight qualified psychologists with Ph.Ds and Ed.Ds from universities like Berkeley, USC, the California School of Professional Psychology, and so on. They also employ three closely supervised graduate interns.

Their counseling and workshops cover any issue — whether it’s just school stress or depression and anxiety, CAPS would never overlook a student’s concerns the way the students seem to have overlooked their phenomenal services.

The Counseling and Psychological Services is available to paying students at no cost, Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm or by phone call in special circumstances, but the program is still largely

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MUSIC their tracks. The Discovery Channel and Sci-Fi Channel have converged to bring about their melodies. Overall, the cosmic combo have a serious yet blithe take on philosophy, in which their whimsical tunes help to cope with the complex-labeled mysteries of life.

“From Stardust to Sentience” sounds like an awkward introduction to another dimension, which happens to be the inside of a pinball machine. A little ball bounces back and forth in the playfield, while it

IT’S TIME TO ROLL A FATTY

WITH HIGH PLACES, WHOSE NAME REFLECTS THEIR MUSIC KATRINA GUEVARA

is being kept alive from the gutter.

“Cosmonaut” has no relation to the USSR. Instead, it orbits around the existence and limitations of human beings with Mary’s chants. It discusses evolution as we know it, from the chimps to the superhuman.

Other hits include “Head Spins,” “Shared Islands,” and “New Grace.” Their tunes have such transient halflives, though they are still going after new heights that have never been explored by the human archetype.

S

pace exploration has changed the ways of the human race. It has not only opened our hearts and minds to the infinite possibilities of what’s out there, but it has also invaded our imagination. These thoughts have prompted questions like, “Who are we?” or “Are we alone?” However, for High Places, it’s the weightless pondering, like “exactly where we came from and exactly where we’ll go,” that has baffled their musically-inclined minds. Just last week, Mary Pearson contacted me saying that she was on tour in Seattle, and that she’s on the road again with her counterpart, Rob Barber. Originating from Brooklyn, New York, the pair were introduced through a mutual friend circa 2005. A collaboration was inevitable as both their individual projects collided, sonically booming for the common good. September marked the release of their LP High Places under Thrill Jockey Records, and they are currently in the process of producing music videos for their singles. Their music has the inner core of trance and electronic, though they layer their genre with experimental sounds. They claim to be influenced by iron, calcium, and vitamins, but they’re more influenced by the element of fiction.

Layers and dimensions construct their symphonies through natural and artificial sounds that are droning yet enchanting at the same time. A mix of nebulous clouds and mystical creations have formed together for

TV ON THE RADIO DEAR SCIENCE Interscope MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN

TV on the Radio recently released Dear Science, the band’s third album. This album is exactly the kind of rock record that I obsess over: It is uplifting and complex without being pretentious. The band had impressed me before with the track “Wolf Like Me” on their last record, Return to Cookie Mountain, but they never really took root in my musical universe, as I felt the album was too static. Dear Science perfectly blends the familiar indie approach with elements of funk and symphonic arrangements, creating a record that is constantly changing and always delighting its listeners. Ultimately Dear Science is a tremendously uplifting record that captures post9/11 anxiety and celebrates the human spirit.

Dear Science starts off with “Halfway House,” a slow jam that is immediately catchy, but overstays its welcome. The record picks up, however, starting with “Dancing Choose,” a tremendous track driven by singer Tunde Adebimpe’s lightning-fast verses and silky smooth chorus. TVOTR keep the hits rollUNION WEEKLY

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Rob Barber and Mary Pearson of High Places invite you to journey deep into the forest with them, where you can join in their tradition of making mustaches out of things that aren’t supposed to be mustaches. Mary’s hair, for example.

ing with “Golden Age” another standout track that blends strings and horns into a really catchy pop song. The result is an incredibly optimistic tune that shows off both Adebimpe’s songwriting and the band’s musical acumen. “Red Dress” begins with a mission statement for the disc: “fuck your war, ‘cause I’m fat and in love and the bombs are falling on me fo’ sho.” This gives the album a sense of place that colors the tunes that follow.

While Adebimpe provides TV on the Radio with its heart, David Sitek and Kyp Malone give the band its skeleton. The instrumentals on Dear Science are as breathtaking as they are masterfully executed.

“Golden Age” bounces along on the back of a gliding bass line and beautiful electronic flourishes that give the song its weight. On the other end of the spectrum is “Family Tree,” a haunting ballad punctuated by stirring strings and piano. TVOTR have crafted one of the most fluid records in recent memory.

The band have a masterful album structure that rewards playing Dear Science straight through by creating the same swells and lulls that make tracks like “Love Dog” shine within the track list itself. The structure defiantly helps the band’s credibility but at the end of the day it’s the upbeat jams that define TVOTR. “Dancing Choose,” “Golden Age” and “Red Dress” are simply the most life-affirming tracks a band has put together in a long time, and if these tracks don’t have you shouting along with the chorus, then there is something wrong with you.

TRICK OR TREAT: HARD HAUNTED MANSION IS SO GOOD IT’S SCARY MATT DUPREE

If you’re anything like me, the usual Halloween activities for those beyond trick-or-treating age have worn themselves out almost entirely. There aren’t any good scary movies coming to theaters and staying home means having to deal with kids trying to get your candy. Luckily, this Halloween falls on the night of the most impressive dance festival in Los Angeles history.

Besides the needs-no-introduction presence of Electrocrats Justice and Soulwax, the undercard sports all-star groups Simian Mobile Disco (whose album Attack Decay Sustain Release redefined what it means to be a DJ act), and German producer Boys Noize.

Among the more interesting (if not as popular) acts are Crookers, giant-killers of dirty electro that continually outshine their source material in their remixes; and Crystal Castles, a hyperkinetic duo that melds 8-bit swagger with a detroit-punk sense of propriety. Not to mention that this will be one of the first performances by DJ AM since surviving the well-publicized plane crash that took the lives of 4 passengers.

But for my money, the can’t-miss acts this year are Daedalus (google a “Monome”), Deadmau5 (freaky mouse mask!!!), and the motherfucking TV Sheriff. So go ahead and cancel your lame apartment costume bash, and get your HARD tickets now. visit www.hardfest.com for more info.

MUSIC MUSIC FRENCH REVOLUTION

THE UNION WEEKLY SITS DOWN WITH M83 JESSICA WILLIAMS

M

any of us had barely been born in the ‘80s.

We can only deduce what being a teenager in the ‘80s was like by watching Ferris Bueller films and reading the Sweet Valley High series. ‘80s teenage angst is an essence that artist M83 has successfully captured and bottled up in a neat little package with their latest LP, Saturdays=Youth. Their past four albums have made M83 known for smooth, soft vocals laced gracefully over strong synthesizers and compelling guitar riffs. With each album released it seems like M83 just keeps getting better. Saturdays=Youth is the result of M83 taking a chance and trying a new sound, with of a more “pop” feel, with production by Ken Thomas (Sigur Rós and the Cocteau Twins) and Ewan Pearson (Ladytron and The Rapture). I usually hate when bands do this, but for Saturdays=Youth, it’s quite all right.

The Union recently caught up with Anthony Gonzalez of M83 to talk about his life when he was a teenager, how much Paris sucks, and the inspiration behind his latest album.

Union Weekly: Tell me about your latest album Saturdays=Youth. What is the inspiration behind it?

M83: Most of the inspiration comes from the ‘80s, so it’s a lot of the movies and music coming from then. Directors like John Hughes were a big influence on me for this album.

Bands from the ‘80s like the Cocteau Twins and Depeche Mode are also a big influence for me. I would like to say that this album is a tribute to the ’80s and being a teenager experiencing it.

UW: What was it like for you being a teenager?

M83: For me, being a teenager was a great period of my life. It was one of the best times of my life so far; I really loved it, and I only have great memories from that period. I was playing in a band, I was hanging out with my friends on the weekends, I was smoking weed and listening to new music for me at the time. I discovered so many good bands and so many good movies during this period. I also made a lot of great friends. It was a crucial period in my life.

UW: How is Saturdays=Youth different from your other albums?

M83: This one is more pop than the previous one.

It is also easier to listen to. There are more vocals in it as well. This album is more like a collection compared to the previous ones. There are eleven tracks and they are all very different from each other. I worked with two different producers on this one and it sounds really ‘80s.

UW: What was it like to work with Ken Thomas and Ewan Pearson?

M83: First of all, it was really intimidating to work with Ken Thomas. He is such a great producer and he had worked on many great records from the ‘80s that I love. But it was a really great experience for me because Ken Thomas is such an amazing producer and he is such a kind guy.

He was very helpful for me and gave me a lot of musical advice. I really love the way he treated my songs for this album. The exact same thing goes for Ewan Pearson; he gave the album something more modern. He also did a lot of work on the percussion stuff and the drumming and the electrical side of this album.

UW: How was that experience for you?

M83: It was great to work with different people because sometimes when you keep working alone it gets difficult. I really enjoyed that period in my life and it was a wonderful experience to work away from home.

UW: What is your process in writing a song?

M83: The most important thing for me to write a good song is to be in “the good place.” It all depends on the atmosphere of the place I am working in. For example, I used to live in Paris for two years and I really didn’t like the city. So I didn’t make music at the time. It was so difficult for me to make music in Paris because I didn’t like the atmosphere. It is really important to feel confident enough to write. I always have to be in the right atmosphere.

UW: Are you on tour right now?

M83: I started touring two days ago. We just did one night and it went pretty well. I am really excited to go to America again and play some new songs.

UW: What experience do you hope listeners will get from Saturdays=Youth?

M83: As long as the people have feelings about it. It’s important to try to connect to people when you’re making music. Even if it’s a bit dramatic and sometimes melancholic, I think it’s good to give people energy and positive feelings.

UW: How did you get started making music?

M83: I really started to make music when I was a kid. I started to learn piano, but I really didn’t like it. I started to make music again when I was 12 and I started to learn guitar. As soon as I started playing guitar I wanted to make music.

UW: What’s next for M83?

M83: I am really focused on the tour right now and I will try to write a new album by the beginning of the new year.

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ENTERTAINMENT YAWN OF THE DEAD QUARANTINE SPREADS DISSAPOINTMENT THROUGHOUT THEATERS

MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN

I

t was a Friday night and inside a theater in Huntington Beach, a film was hurtling towards its terrifying conclusion, and there I was paralyzed, not with fear, but with mind-numbing boredom. The film? Quarantine, the latest entry in to the zombie genre, directed by John Erick Dowdle in his first major Hollywood gig.

This film initially intrigued me with its claustrophobic trailer, and secondly with the relatively positive reviews it received from the otherwise zombie-phobic critics. As a die hard zombie fan I found this film to be an unworthy successor to the Night of the Living Dead tradition.

The film lacks originality and character development, but more damning is the complete dearth of scares, which I attribute to the first-person camera angle.

In this dull remake, we follow Angela and Scott, a reporter and cameraman from a local news station doing a piece on the L.A. Police Department. The film is shot entirely through Scott’s camera, which creates more problems than it does scares. In the film’s opening act, we get to meet Fletch and Jake, two wise-cracking firemen who show Angela around the firehouse. I’m

not sure whether it’s the actors’ or the director’s fault, but this scene drags on and on and does nothing to build tension or character. Once the inevitable call comes to investigate a disturbance at a nearby apartment building, the film jumps from lighthearted to nerve-wracking almost immediately, hitting all the zombie film clichés along the way. The crew meet up with two police officers before they encounter an old woman foaming at the mouth, who quickly attacks one of the officers, killing him instantly. From there it becomes a mad dash to stay This character was made at ILM, where designers struggled to generate what they alive as the inhabitants of the believe our Music Editor’s bastard child would look like if he could find the right hole. apartment building learn that the Center for Disease Control is barricading them in to Resident Evil, and more like watching your friend play the building. Needless to say, the rag tag group fails to for hours on end. As this group continued to make lifestay unified and one by one fall victim to the virus. All threatening mistake after mistake I began to grow impathe time, Angela and Scott keep their cameras rolling, tient. By the second half of the film, the audience started believing that the public, “deserves to know what hap- to turn on the film and laugh at Dowdle’s complete lack of pened [t]here.” creativity. I was past the point of laughter and was simply The use of a single camera allows Dowdle to narrow amazed that this film was given a wide release. the audience’s perspective and set them up for big scares.

I believe this tactic was an obvious tribute to the Resident Evil video games, which is fine except that it really does take away from the film. The problem is that the scares come too often. The film begins to feel less like a homage

YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN’T SEEN...

DEAD MAN (1995) JAMES KISLINGBURY Jim Jarmusch tends to make films that are rather difficult to watch. He’s an indie iconoclast, a director that doesn’t change his style based on box office returns or test screenings. His films aren’t made for mass consumption, they’re often disjointed and rarely wrap up satisfactorily. Jarmusch isn’t an elitist though. Instead, he is one of the few filmmakers around who is just in it for art’s sake. Dead Man is probably his most accessible film and like the main character that sits between the land of the living and that of the dead, this film successfully inhabits the worlds of both indie and mainstream cinema.

Johnny Depp plays the eponymous dead man, William Blake, a dandy who ventures out to the furthest edge of the American frontier. Shortly after arriving in a squalid town called Machine, he finds that the job he was summoned for has been filled by someone else.

Destitute, without a home or family, Blake takes up with a local lady of ill repute, causing her ex-fiancé to shoot them both. Blake escapes the scene of carnage on a stolen horse and shortly thereafter he is discovered by an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who tells him that the bullet inside him cannot be removed and will eventually kill him. The two then set off on a pilgrimage for the Pacific Ocean, all the while dodging bounty hunters, marshalls and philistines of every size and shape. In addition to Depp and Farmer are an ensemble that includes Robert Mitchum (in his final role), John Hurt, Iggy Pop, Alfred Molina, Gabriel Byrne, Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, and Billy Bob Thornton.

UNION WEEKLY

13 OCTOBER 2008

It’s a rare occasion that I can even tolerate looking at Johnny Depp. Most of this is due to the fact that for the past five years he seems to insist on playing either creepy child molesters in lame Tim Burton movies or a drug-addled, transvestite Charlie Chaplin in the godless abomination that is the Pirates of the Caribbean series. So, it is with a certain amount of crow-eating that I admit that Johnny Depp is perfectly suited for Dead Man. The fact that he looks completely out of place in the film’s grim world plays to his favor. Performances like this one are why Johnny Depp can get away with being in movies based on theme park rides.

In addition to Mr. Depp, I also tend to cringe whenever I see American Indians in film. This is because the indigenous people of the Americas are rarely shown as anything more than feather and bead wearing impediments to white people. Most western films were made in the ‘40s and ‘50s so most images of Indians in the media are unfortunately a result of a less enlightened viewpoint. The racism comes from a place of ignorance, not malice, so for the most part I ignore these lame tropes. What is unforgivable, though, is that more often than not Indians are presented as completely and utterly boring.

Jarmusch’s tale breaks from past formula and treats American Indians with more taste and depth than just about any other western out there. It’s also very interesting that it manages to weave a narrative involving Indians into a genre that has traditionally been about killing them or stealing their land. Jarmusch’s film shows the indigenous people as a wide variety of nations with radically different cultures. Imagine that.

Dead Man is the perfect example of how the west-

ern, a genre that has fallen out of favor since the 1970s, is still a viable and relevant source of excellent stories. It shows how you can use an old aesthetic, color palette, and genre to churn out something that is not only fresh, but also completely wonderful. Dead Man demonstrates the importance of westerns and it also shows how a film can stray from accepted formula and still be enjoyable for “mainstream” moviegoers.

ENTERTAINMENT IT’S GETTIN’ HOT IN HAIR ACTORS TAKE OFF ALL OF THEIR CLOTHES ALLAN STEINER

E

very once in a while, a theatre performance comes around that is as moving as it is relevant.

Director Joanne Gordon’s vision of Hair is one such performance. Taking place in the midst of the draft for Vietnam, the play was originally an outcry against one of America’s most hated wars. Now it plays the part of a metaphor for the war in Iraq. Gordon makes this comparison obvious without allowing it to interfere with the actual content of the show by book-ending the production with lists of the casualties from both wars.

On the surface, the show seems to tell the story of a group of loveable hippies singing, dancing, and doing drugs. But dig a little deeper and you will find that the show is more about the fear and naiveté that the characters experience as well as the promotion of love over war.

Before entering the theatre, ushers request that you remove your cell phones from the theatre completely as to prevent people from using their camera phones

during the show’s nude scene at the finale of Act I. The I definitely recommend seeing this show here on scene, which has caused much controversy since the campus. Seeing Hair done elsewhere will probably cost play first opened, is infamously the first time that full twice or three times the price of seeing it at Cal State nudity was seen in a Broadway production.

Long Beach. And chances are any other performance Hair is one of Broadway’s most famous and influential would be less beautiful and artistically accomplished. musicals, but Gordon’s production doesn’t feel like a Hair is showing every Wednesday and Thursday copy-and-paste replica of past interpretations. Instead at 7:30pm, and Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm from now it feels brand new. The show achieves this by being self- until October 25th. General admission is $15. Students aware and avoiding the usual pitfalls of college theatre— and older folks get in for 12 bucks. Tickets can be it’s a professionally executed production that engages purchased over the phone at (562) 985-5526 or online the audience. The entire show keeps the audience in the at www.csulb.edu/depts/theatre. moment by continuously engulfing them in the world of the theatre.

Not to be dismissed is the show’s music. Even with a four-piece orchestra and a cast the size of a small army, it’s hard to believe how professional the music sounds. Both the harmonies and the solos sound amazing, combined with the fact that the songs are beautiful on their own makes for a really exciting experience.

Some of the performers were a little hard to hear at times, but other than that there was nothing about the show that I didn’t like. By the end of the show, the entire audience is invited up on stage to dance with the cast, which seems like a fitting end for a show Claude (played by David Wiese, center) just got drafted into Vietnam. He’ll whose message is that we are all equal ultimately become an adrenaline junkie and shoot up a McDonald’s. and should treat each other as such.

ENTERTECHMENT NO COUNTRY FOR OLD WEB DANNY OSTERWEIL I double click the multi-colored orb on my desktop and up pops a sleek, blue-capped window. This is Chrome, a new web browser from Google. It’s still in the early stages of development, but I’ve been playing around with it for the past month and have come to appreciate some of its more innovative features.

The first thing I notice when opening Chrome is that Google has done away with most of the window dressings which tend to annoy me in other browsers.

There is no file menu at the top of the window or thick layer of search assistants. In fact, Chrome has banished search bars altogether, combining the functions of the address bar and search bar into what they call an “Omnibox.” Simply type a web address or keyword into the

Omnibox, hit enter, and Presto! Chrome will even make search suggestions as you type. The clean design allows you to focus on the content of web pages, rather than being distracted by a chaotic interface.

Chrome has maximized security by implementing a specialized way of dealing with tabs—each one is selfcontained and cannot affect its neighbor. To elaborate: malicious software in one tab is unable to snatch sensitive information from other tabs, protecting data such as credit card numbers. Also, if one tab crashes, the system as a whole will not be affected. Simply closing a bad tab will eliminate the problem, and preserve that finely crafted Facebook message.

Anyone concerned with privacy will appreciate the browsing feature called “Incognito mode.” Opening an Incognito window ensures secrecy by dumping browsing history and web searches as soon as the window is closed.

Browsing porno on Granny’s PC has never felt so liberating.

Another great feature of Chrome is the grid of thumbnails which present themselves each time you open the browser or a new tab. These images display live previews of your nine most viewed web pages almost like a speed dial. This provides one click access to your most useful web resources or favorite time-wasters.

Overall, I was pleased with Chrome, but my one complaint came with its stability. Here I found Firefox had the edge. I encountered some pages crashing, and loading content such as web videos was a little hit-andmiss. I understand that Chrome is still in its beta phase, so hopefully these kinks will be worked out in time.

While Chrome is still a work in progress, its focus on efficient design, security upgrades, and privacy options make it an attractive alternative to Firefox, and offers a look into the future of web browsers.

UNION WEEKLY

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Janel Laza UNION WEEKLY

13 OCTOBER 2008

ILLUSTRATIONS

KATIE REINMAN

There were 3 zones.

My hotel room is rented by the week, stuck between two rooms rented by the hour. In the mornings, when the stereophonic slams of bed-frames ping-pong off the walls, I put on a sweater and visit the manager’s apartment. We sip cheap coffee brewed with tap water and play chess on the porch. The manager is older than sliced bread, and he likes to offer psalms taken from his long and boring life. The only channels that come in clearly on the motel televisions are pornographic, So I have to borrow the old manager’s newspaper to read the box scores. He asks me to read to the local section. While executive secretaries hike their skirts and businessmen break wedding vows, I recite histories of 6-car pileups and shopping mall grand openings. When the old man sets up the chess board, he puts the king and queen in backwards. what you’ve got to realize, the manager croaks when he speaks.

Everyone, but everyone, is out to get at yer.

He collects my pawns as if they were his own children.

There is sugar in the kitchen cupboard, but he has never offered it to me. In this desert, the sun burns away the clouds by 9am and all the locals invest in durable sunglasses. More than anything else, that’s how you spot a tourist. Flimsy, stylish sunglasses.

They stop by on their way out from the world’s tallest thermometer down the street, but they never stay. They take a long look at the sun-cooked, smutty motel and keep driving.

Pricks. Best night’s sleep they’ll never get. The old manager never offers me his name. He’s a terrible chess player.

So concerned for the welfare of his king and queen he leaves them huddled together, unmoving. Until they’re left at end game alone, surrounded on all sides by an endless desert.

his scattered Cochin verse here represents the body of poetic work by Matthew Luc-Bertrand Dupree. For years, chasing his voice and his dreams, job or no, verse has developed for Matt into self-exploration. Miles on his car and cigarettes in the universal ashtray tack up to experience there pale gold, shining in every riverbed in California. Matt is building a hemisphere of images—sand mostly— consistent and infected with a rare beauty that attests literarily and temporally to a life of vivid experiences not near over.

How temporally you ask? Well read them…

There is an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that pervades almost every single poem here. They are past tense, longing but compartmentalized, in Matt’s words, they flood the presence from, “… the graveyard where I buried my childhood.” These are the shadows, ghosts of Northern California and a one Wal-Mart town. The pre-postmodernist Borges viewed time as a product of the present, and we see

The first zone was the survivors, maimed and blind, they hated you without knowing you existed.

The second, all rubble and limbs, pieces of things that broke in that grand experiment. then the third, the last, a washed-out ghost town burnt white as stationery stock, now only black tallies in the streets, shadows etched into buildings, to mark that anyone had been here.

In the lazy smell of flooded brush taking refuge beneath the dash of the long-dead International.

My father stood sentry at the door, splitting the callous glow of the hallway, two stars in an ink-stained sky.

Eyes closed, I saw the neon green grass of the graveyard where I buried my childhood.

The raindrops marched across me so densely, I couldn’t tell if I was crying.

An angel, with the curling beauty of a girl I knew, lifts me up above the blooming weeds, above the planted loved ones, above the winding rivers of grief, and we kissed. If only in a dream, we kissed.

There were a thousand cherry trees blossoming without her. Without anyone, the way I dreamt I could.

As god slept circling like a spy satellite we thought we knew.

Life was a quilt, tattered and undying, built on secrets and sunsets.

Hiding in the fiery tides of that first sort of magic, Our pillows growing damp with jealousy.

Maybe we knew one of these nights would capture us.

Curious figures in the watercolor-fog, one of these nights would create us. this meta-socialist unity in the life and death of the future and past, a cycle in the body of work.

The poem “What The Bomb Did To Hiroshima” is a perfect portrait of unity of life and death, existing in the same bomb crater, same poem. This is not to say he treats time flexibly, but self-reflexive, a testament to his interest in the artistic affects of drugs, a shrine to the god of death, known as Heroin. Dusty middle-California is the default setting in these works, which reminds me back to Camus’ North Africa where everything is opiated and sun-drenched.

Where all times exist at the same time.

I hear Blood Brothers, Neon Blonde: those chaotic scenes depicting the opulence of desolation and dissolution. The two environmental influences—the ocean and the desert—represent the paradox of Los Angeles, the dialectical of the beaches to the wastelands, populated but endless tracts of sand. And the democracy of sand is undeniably related to ideas of communism, but also repetition. Matt’s use of redundancy accents the rich ideas that can only see reinter-

pretation through resurfacing, “It all goes on forever, as if to suggest/that anything can go on forever.”

In between a Mediterranean paradise and vast oil-derrick deserts, we face the very isolation as Meursault—Murderer. The omnipresence of sandscapes establishes isolation as a motif, lonely in the crowd, but also recalls images of the people of the dust tracing their way from Mesopotamia towards the sun. But the desert isn’t the agent of alienation, it is warmth to a lonely man, the vastness of the imagination and the comic spirit after all.

Matt’s penchant for Palanhiuk and his resonant scenes of violence stems from empathy to the plight of the murderer and the plight of the dead. He can laugh at those images, but they never go away. Matt doesn’t want them to—in desire and anxiety, he wants a life like any other: “The manager is older than/sliced bread, and he likes to offer psalms taken from his/long and boring life.”

MICHAËL VEREMANS UNION WEEKLY

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COMICS You’re STUCK Here! by Victor! Perfecto

yourestuckhere@gmail.com

Crossword puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission.

Caramel > You by Ken C. Across

Drunken Penguin Presents... by James Kislingbury

penguin.incarnate@gmail.com

1- Like some history 5- Discharged a debt 9- Sums owing 14- Second letter of the Greek alphabet 15- Gossamer 16- Mixed bags 17- Student who has earned a letter 19- More mature 20- Out there 21- Currency unit in Nigeria 23- Casserole dish 25- Cry of a cat 26- Not emp.

29- Before 30- Temporariness 33- Lofty nest 34- Device for applying ocular rinse 35- Rhythm 38- Attempt 40- Presidential battleground state 41- Percentage of light reflected by a planet 44- Glossy fabric 47- Pertaining to a beetle 49- Buffoon 52- Hasten

53- ___ Brooks, filmaker responsible for “Blazing Saddles” 54- Compel 56- Ultimate 58- Approached 59- Pertaining to the small intestine 62- Rake 64- Paris “thanks” 65- Actor Epps 66- Uniform 67- First name in photography 68- Cautious 69- Leftovers

Down

1- Flattened at the poles 2- Marijuana cigarette 3- Clothing 4- “See ya!”

5- Partner 6- Goal, intention 7- Teheran’s country 8- Electric generator 9- Portal 10- First name in scat 11- Auction action 12- Digit of the foot 13- Georgia, once: Abbr.

18- Best of the best

22- Able was ___...

24- Send forth 26- Having wealth 27- Sewing case 28- Word processing error 31- Intrinsically 32- Boxer Spinks 33- To ___ (perfectly) 35- German composer 36- “The Time Machine” race 37- Up to it 39- Dextrous, lively 42- Place of residence 43- Amenable 45- Tanning place 46- Surmise 48- Aztec god of rain 49- Get there 50- Views 51- Seated 55- Western 56- Confront 57- Bean town?

59- ___ little teapot...

60- Spy novelist Deighton 61- Hesitant sounds 63- Purse

“I made this!”

e-mail editor Victor Camba: yourestuckhere@gmail.com Or drop off comments at the Union office Student Union Office 256a

Son of Bad Pun Comics by Union Labor

UNION WEEKLY

13 OCTOBER 2008

ANSWERS

CULTURE

that’s not enough ranch: a condiment survey

the answers you didn’t know you demanded

JOE BRYANT

Shit-Ton: Assload: Dick Spit:

R

anch dressing is agreeably one of the greater dipping sauces available to the fast food connoisseur. Sure, it’s incredibly high in fat and calories—being a concoction of sour cream, mayo and buttermilk will do that—but it’s so damn good.

Personally I use my ranch with fries and chicken strips.

Y’know, the usual. After laying into the ranch any establishment gives me, I always find myself with another chicken strip and only the most meager amount of the ambrosia dressing hiding in the corners. My guess is your story is similar. You’re always disappointed by the result of your inquiry, “Can I have some ranch, please?”

It’s never satisfactory; what did you get? Two packets?

Three if you’re lucky?

Bestowing ourselves with the moniker Ranch

Rangers, myself, Rachel Rufrano and Michael Mermelstein have taken it upon ourselves to answer the ultimate questions: Just how much ranch is a shitton of ranch? How much is an assload? How about a dick-spit? We traveled to all of the major fast food burger joints—McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box and Carl’s Jr.—to bring the answers to the people. Our elite squad of Ranch Rangers collected the data at all of the same franchises on separate occasions, using the formulaic question, “Can I get a(n) _____ of ranch?” and filling in the blank accordingly. Merm looked into an assload for us, Rachel was brave enough to ask for a dick-spit, and I threw my all behind a shit-ton.

As you can tell by our data, most of the eateries

market on your calendar

wouldn’t give any more than the usual one or two packages. The most generous employee I spoke with worked for Ronald. She offered to give me one of the rather large ranch dressing pouches that are usually reserved for one of the few healthy options on their menu (i.e., salads), but those honestly don’t taste very good. I’m pretty sure the ranch in the pouches is different from the personal packets. Maybe the pouches have less fat, which would definitely explain the decrease in quality. Either that or the plastic gives it a nasty aftertaste that’s about comparable to burnt neoprene.

What do such weak numbers tell us about the fast food industry? They clearly don’t listen. Or maybe it’s corporate policy. When questioned by Ranch Ranger Merm, one Carl’s Jr. employee admitted that she was only allow to relinquish two packets of their “house dressing” (by the by, I’m fairly certain you can’t call ranch your house dressing—that’s just lazy).

When I ask for a shit-ton of ranch, I expect the employee to dig into a bucket and pull out at least one handful of packets—preferably two. An assload? I’d say three to five packets would be reasonable, with the data leaning towards five. A dick-spit? Well, I guess our numbers are about right actually.

Overall I’d say our experiment was a rather disappointing endeavor, but at least I have a few shit-tons of ranch in my fridge now. So that’s pretty cool.

erin hickey dishes on the long beach southeast farmers’ market

If you have recurring nightmares, in which angry environmentalists chase you down the street, wielding pitchforks and screaming, “Buy local, you evil supermarket-supporting bigot,” I feel your pain. Mine usually end in being caught by the environmentalists and sprayed with pesticides, while they carve the words “You are what you eat” into my skin and I ponder aloud, “But how do I know if my food is local?” Fortunately for all us enosiophobics out there, the solution lies right here in Long Beach.

To say that the Long Beach Southeast Farmers’ Market boasts a veritable cornucopia of joyous produce would be pompous, wordy, and extremely accurate. But, while the produce certainly is abundant (and joyous), the market itself could not be further from pompous and wordy.

Collapsible canopies house honest-togoodness, real live farmers, armed only with fruit, vegetables, and

straightforward hand-written signs that read “peaches” or “squash.” The farmers are approachable, and willing to answer questions. Not sure what okra is exactly? Ask, and you’ll probably come away not only more knowledgeable, but with a pocketful of recipes and tips.

Most of the produce is priced significantly lower than what you’d find at your average supermarket, a deal which is only sweetened by the knowledge that 90 percent of the money you spend goes straight into the farmers’ pockets. On top of that, the market only allows California farmers to sell their goods. That means your food has a lot fewer miles to travel, making you responsible for a significantly smaller amount of carbon emissions. Fresher food and a cleaner conscience—who could ask for more?

Ethical rewards aside, locally grown food really does taste better. Why? Because it’s given time to ripen, which also means it’s healthier, since many crucial nutrients— along with almost all of the flavor—develop in the final stages of ripening. Supermarket tomatoes, for example, are picked when they are green (to ensure they

don’t rot before they’ve reached the store), then gassed with chemicals that bring out their “natural” red color.

They may look pretty, but they’re noticeably blander than vine-ripened tomatoes.

“Alright,” you say. “I get it! Stop beating me over the head with this hippie bullshit and tell me how to get there already!” You probably don’t realize how strange it looks to yell at a newspaper, crazy. The Southeast Farmers’ Market takes place every Sunday from 9am to 2pm on Marina Drive behind the Whole Foods. If you choose to drive, there is plenty of free parking or, thanks to U-Pass, you can take the bus for free. The Passport D and the 171 are good options if you live on campus. Keep in mind that the farmers market is cash only, so stop at the ATM beforehand. To make sureyour dollar goes as far as possible, be sure to walk through the entire farmers market, comparing prices and quality (many vendors offer samples of their fruit) before you buy anything.

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Disclaimer:

“Need I remind you that that theater is so much fucking drama.”

This page is satire. We are not ASI, nor do we represent the CSULB campus. Cum geyser. Send rags to bear.grun@gmail.com

Volume 63 Issue 7

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Serial Killer Elated Over Casting Decision

This Stripper is Totally Into Me OP-ED BY RAFFI TIFFOMP

Timothy Wier (above left) can’t wait to meet Casey Affleck (above right) so he can let Affleck “pick [his] brain for motivation.”

BY SEXUAL RANDY NEW YORK, NY—Convicted and imprisoned in Ryker’s Island, serial killer Timothy Wier, 48, seems to have a bounce in his step after hearing the news that Casey Affleck, star of Gone Baby Gone, will be portraying him in the upcoming film chronicling his rape and murdering of 16 middle-aged Puerto Rican men in the summer of 1984. Prison guard and notorious ass-grabber Officer Jim Pussler was the first to notice the murderer’s newfound giddiness.

“It’s so strange, normally he’s pretty quiet,” says Pussler. “In the seven years I’ve worked here I’ve only ever seen him play solitaire and read, but ever since word of this movie got around he just half-smiles and stares at his walls a lot. He put up pictures of the dude playing him all over his cell.”

The film, El Verano del Fuego, follows

LBUNION.COM

Wier (Affleck) from his early childhood when he sexually assaulted his first middle-aged Puerto Rican man at the age of six all the way to his trial and subsequent imprisonment. In a recent interview with E! Online, Affleck spoke of the film excitedly, stating that he could not wait to do the scene in which “[his] character uses a cock ring to choke a man to death after sodomizing him.”

Wier says that he is not surprised at all by director Roman Polanski’s casting choice. “Casey’s the obvious choice if you think about it,” says Wier without showing any teeth. “He has the acting chops to justify a role so complex. I operate on multiple levels—I’m handsome, charming, and I’ll also stick my Johnson in your brown eye if you’re some middle-aged Puerto Rican faggot. He’s perfect for me. No contest.”

Continued on Page M

There I am, minding my own business, sipping on a large virgin pina colada at my local juice bar/tittery, when I met the girl I love. I’m not much on romance or romanticism, but there was something about the way this colleen gave me the eye that made me melt like so many failed attempts at homemade fried ice cream.

Her name was Cairistonia and she wore a rhinestone halter-top and matching chaps. I’m usually a pretty cool cucumber, especially when it comes to the lady-types, but her stare bore into me like a diamond and I couldn’t help but feel a spark of fondness (oddly enough, another lady, Diamond, stared at me as though I had burned down a kitten orphanage. I think it’s because she coveted my daring combo of Birkenstocks and black socks). When I met her gaze, I realized this night was about to go off the em-effing chain.

“Strippers are to be met with scorn and confused erections, not with human affection,” you say, and up until last Saturday, I would have agreed with you, but dudes (and possibly, confused ladies) you’ve never been on the receiving end of a stripper that was totally into you. As the Good Dude says, “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his track suit.”

This fine lady took me past the aisles of deadbeats in Hawaiian shirts and the slow guy working the bathroom into the Shangri La of the nudie bar scene: The

Raffi Tiffomp (above) reenacting his pose from Saturday night.

Sparkling Wine Room. There, for three minutes at a time, anything goes, so long as you can put your dignity aside and shell out twenty-five bucks. After sitting on a stool that smelled of ammonia, she gave me a wink and we were off. Because a certain recent court case I am legally forbidden from publicly describing my orgasms, but let me tell you my track suit saw more action than Audie Murphy stitched to Lee Marvin and shot into Naziwerewolfistan.

I came bunches is what I’m saying.

And it was more than just ruining a few yards of nylon pants, this was love, dudes. This chick dug me.

Plus, she told me, “I don’t normally do this,” and handed me her number.

I called her the next morning and I got no service signal, but I think that was due to human error on my part.

Point is, I got It. Ladies cannot deny my pants dampening abilities and neither can you, dear reader.

INSIDE

Quiet Student in Class Not Shy, Just Better Than You Tight-lipped student Troy Johnston was thought to be shy by many of his classmates, but in a recent interview Johnston stated he simply did not want to waste any of his “smart breath” on the “retard plebeians” in his English 100 class.

PAGE 42

Local Girl Enjoys Music, Having Fun Sources at Facebook.com show that local resident Jenny Stuart enjoys passing the time with friends and listening to the radio. She enjoys listening to “everything but country and rap” on her “cute” pink iPod. Sources also say that Stuart had a “really fun night” last Friday.

PAGE L7

Crosby Steals Nation’s Young PAGE 4+20

Gene Wilder Found In Malibu Home, Not Dead PAGE YF74