WHAT CHARITY SAYS ABOUT US
pg. 6-7
ISSUE 64.10 “Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.” –Alan Moore
MAIL TO THE CHIEF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MIKE “BEEF” PALLOTTA
W
ell, we took a nice little rest, and we certainly needed it after the reaction to our spoof issue. We at the Union thought the Grunion crew did a great job making fun of the Daily Forty-Niner, pointing out some of their flaws, and most of the people we heard from felt the same way. But there were a few angry phone calls and emails. Like this one, onto the mail: IM SOOOO PISSEDD!! I guess im more pissed at myself for falling for your cheap jokes!! I went out and spent 200 bucks thinking I would just go to brotman hall the next day and pick up my stimulus check!!! But NOOO it was a fucking joke, thanks a lot… I really think you guys should reimburse me my 200 bucks. Thank you for taking me on a emotional rollercoaster today!! FUCK YOU UNION Sincerely, Pisssed off, even more broke student P.S. I do really enjoy the union when they’re not breaking my heart. Dear Anonymous, This is my third attempt at writing
this response, the first two were just transcriptions of my laughter. First, who, when finding out they’re going to get some money, goes out and spends the exact amount of money they expect to receive the next day? Second, I don’t know how much more obvious the Grunion staff could’ve made it that the issue wasn’t real. I even explained the whole thing in my letter of the Union accompanying the issue. But all I have to say is this: we’re all in college to become critical thinkers and to gain that critical eye. That ability to question everything we see and hear, and to determine what the truth is on our own. We were hoping all of your critical eyes (after a couple of minutes) would at least pick up on the “u” in the misspelled “Fourty.” In Response to “An Open Letter to the Daily Forty-Niner” (published 3/23): Wow. Way to be civil. Part of reporting or giving opinions is not to simply insult and blast obscenities because you wanna keep an “urban” or “modern image”. Articles like that play a part in the breakdown of ethics by making it allow-
By Elise McCutchen
PISCES Feb 19-March 20 Though your artistic ability is impressive, it’s time to start meeting girls instead of just drawing naked pictures of them. First step: Stop wearing sweatpants. ARIES March 21-April 19 Your gangly limbs and awkward charm will be put to the test in battle when a race war erupts that, let’s face it, you’ve been pushing for. TAURUS April 20-May 20 Now that the semester is coming to an end, it’s time to start going to class instead of sitting around in your underwear watching Boomerang. Don’t worry—Tom and Jerry’s reconciliation won’t happen before May. GEMINI May 21-June 21 You’re often mistaken for Kirk Cameron, and this week, it’s in your best interest to embrace this resemblance. CANCER June 22-July 22 When Venus enters your sign at the end UNION WEEKLY
13 APRIL 2009
of the month, you may get the urge to slip rat poison in the cookies you are making for your roommate. Don’t do it! She is much better than Sex Offender Sandy, who will be sharing your cell in prison. LEO July 23-Aug 22 No one has been calling you back lately, and this is not going to change anytime soon. Accept your solitude and indulge in some ice cream and a Sex and the City marathon. Miranda gets you. VIRGO Aug 23-Sept 22 You may think your beer farts are endearing, but the moon’s presence in your fourth house suggests that your girlfriend does not. LIBRA Sept 23-Oct 22 It’s time for you to learn how to make a sandwich. Towards the middle of the month your mother will stop believing that preparing your lunch is part of an elaborate piece of performance art you’ve graciously let her be a part of.
able more and more for obscene language to filter from our everyday talk to our printed sources. Keep some decorum. Think before you publish. Much love, Juan Castaneda P.S I really mean no harm, I am fine with your opinion, just not your presentation of it. A response from the writer in question: Juan, I don’t curse to be “urban” or “modern,” but because I am an adult writing for adults on a college campus—there’s no reason to ignore how people actually speak. My language expressed my anger towards the Daily Forty-Niner and is not meant to be offensive (except maybe to them). I think everyone, even academics, can deal with reading “fuck” every once in a while. Joe Bryant Managing Editor
MIKE PALLOTTA Editor-in-Chief KATHY MIRANDA Managing Editor JOE BRYANT Managing Editor
editorinbeef@gmail.com kathym.union@gmail.com joeb.union@gmail.com
MATT DUPREE matt.dupree@gmail.com Senior Editor RACHEL RUFRANO rachel.union@gmail.com Opinions Editor JAMES KISLINGBURY jamesk.union@gmail.com News Director 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 KATIE REINMAN reinman.union@gmail.com Creative Arts Editor MICHAEL VEREMANS scarf.union@gmail.com Creative Writing Editor VICTOR CAMBA victorpc.union@gmail.com Comics Editor KATHY MIRANDA kathym.union@gmail.com Culture Editor SOPHISTICATED BEAR bear.grun@gmail.com Grunion Editor CLAY COOPER, STEVEN CAREY Graphic Designers CLAY COOPER Cover Art JOE BRYANT On-Campus Distribution CLAY COOPER clay.union@gmail.com Internet Caregiver ALLAN STEINER allan.union@gmail.com Advertising Executive
Ask Away! Need advice from a man named Beef? Any questions/comments? Well send all questions to editorinbeef@gmail.com!
Moon Editor
SCORPIO Oct 23-Nov 21 Everyone has noticed that humongous zit on your forehead. Instead of trying to hide your new partner, start treating it with the respect it deserves. Take it to a movie. Introduce it to your parents. SAGITTARIUS Nov 22-Dec 21 The weather may be getting warmer, but do not take that as your cue to start wearing shorts. Your chicken meets Chewbacca legs are likely to ward off even your closest friends. CAPRICORN Dec 22-January 19 A bear of a man has recently paid your admission to the Train of Love, next stop: second base. Don’t get off now! AQUARIUS Jan 20-Feb 18 The stars will align in your favor on the 14th, allowing for a wider range of love-making possibilities than you’re used to. Avoid getting overwhelmed and curling up into the fetal position like you did last time this happened.
VINCENT GIRIMONTE, ERIN HICKEY, ALAN PASSMAN, JASON OPPLIGER, CHRISTINE HODINH, JESSE BLAKE, DOMINIC MCDONALD, HILLARY CANTU, RUSSELL CONROY, ANDREW LEE, KEN CHO, TYLER DINLEY, ANDY KNEIS, MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN, SIMONE HARRISON, JOE HAUSER, TESSA NEVAREZ, JOHN YANG, KEVIN O’BRIEN, TRAVIS OTT-CONN, CHRIS FABELA, JOE HAMMOND, JESSICA WILLIAMS, MONA KOZLOWSKI, STEVE WORDEN, TYLER MALONE, NADIA KERYAKOS, JULIA DANCYGER 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 239, Long Beach, CA 90815 PHONE : 562.985.4867 FAX : 562.985.8161 E-MAIL : lbunion.info@gmail.com WEB : lbunion.com
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GHOST OF DEBS
REAFFIRMATION OF THE RADICAL MICHAEL VEREMANS
As the G20 summit comes to a close, ushering in a veritable liberal revolution of the global financial system, we must reaffirm the radical. We must call for an end to the horrific excesses of capitalist exploitation; we must call for an end to rape in 2009. Anarchists are shaking the gates of government buildings and dying in the streets and the looted banks in order to tell you that it’s not dead, not yet. Let’s disorient ourselves from this stranger society. The internet as a network is bringing together all of humanity into a single organism and we are still acting violently or defensively toward our comrades and to our closest friends and family. We are not a city or a country, we are a planet. You see that the individualistic isolation that we feel has led to a rash of mass murders, now covered by the news—familiacides not only in America, but across the depressed earth. We seek a swift end to the violent exploitation of our sisters and/or mothers and an end to the cocaine-fueled imbroglio that is the U.S.-Mexico border. Americans continue to powder their nose to the tune of uncountable rapes and deaths while clamoring for an administrational solution. Boycott cocaine. Instead of providing real aid and solutions, Obama has only decided to step up border security, preventing the rightful children of the land from inhabiting it and trapping thousands of economic refugees in one of the most lawless, dangerous regions in the world. Despite his international non-proliferation strides, Obama has decided to increase U.S. troop involvement in the Opium Republic of Afghanistan. When he said there would be an end to the War on Terror, I thought he just meant a semantic shift, not an expanded military operation in a non-consenting land. Look at Pakistan, wait, they have the nuke—good job Iran, now I know why Obama wants to disarm: too many “bad-guys” are packing. Hey, close the nuclear power plants too, wind and solar for all should be the motto of our state! Back to the G20, supposed economic summit where the credit cycle was restored fully without any hopes of meaningful liberalization or socialization of the global financial system. The money is being kept out of our hands at a time when we can’t trust the rich. Fuck who is getting bonuses in AIG, lets focus on the fact that our tax money is being paid to the companies that took all our money that wasn’t taxed away to begin with. Are we to keep paying our credit card bills while watching this? The crimes committed against the people have not diminished in the slightest and the injustice is constant. We must rearm ourselves in the radical, before everybody turns to political hibernation for another eight years. The revolution is here, don’t let the democrats and the moderates tell you it’s not. Let’s stop squabbling for table scraps and cut the king’s head off, then we’ll see how much there is to go around.
LGB THERE OR LGB SQUARE WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, WE’RE GRADUATING KEVIN O’BRIEN
G
raduation is coming up fast and so are a whole host of supplemental commencement ceremonies. Each of these ceremonies are geared towards celebrating certain groups within the student body. A principal example is Lavender Graduation, which officiates the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexual (LGBTQI) graduates of 2009. When I was first informed of Lavender Graduation, I was perplexed and I actually didn’t believe it was real. I realize this was fairly naive of me. My upbringing as a white, straight, conservative, Christian, and virginal doesn’t excuse me from being open-minded, seeing as I do possess a working mind. In utilizing said mind, I learned a lot about Lavender Graduation. With each fact I discovered, I realized what a positive exercise a supplemental graduation like this could be. The concept of Lavender Graduations was conceived by Dr. Ronni Sanlo, who held the first ceremony in 1995 at the University of Michigan. At CSULB this will only be the third annual Lavender Graduation, hosted by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center. The celebration will take place Saturday, May 16th
from 2pm to 5pm in the University Student Union Beach Auditorium. Lavender Graduation is intended to serve as a supplementary commencement ceremony alongside the General Graduation ceremony. This year’s theme is “Showing Your True Colors,” and will highlight the great diversity within the LGBTQI community. Beyond celebrating individual members of the community, Lavender Graduation will also seek to highlight the LGBTQI community as a whole and their struggles to the student body as a whole. This serves as an attempt to reach out to those of any sexual orientation or gender who may not know of the LGBT Resource Center or the large and diverse community that exists on campus. Many members of the LGBTQI struggle with their identity throughout college and it is the goal of the LGBT Resource Center, through positive public ceremonies like this one, to aid those who struggle to find peace and acceptance within society. However, don’t assume that this event is solely for members of the LGBTQI community. Those outside the community, such as their heterosexual allies, will also be celebrated and shown appreciation. Everyone, undergraduates and alumni, are encouraged to come and participate in the celebration. Graduates who wish to participate in the ceremony can RSVP by contacting Matt Cabrera at mcabrera@csulb.edu or at (562) 985-4966. There is also a fee of $35. Lavender Graduation seeks to celebrate the achievements of the LGBTQI members of CSULB, as well as bring them together. Unity and the sense of acceptance that comes from it are integral to this ceremony and ones like it. Graduation is a moment of completion, a moment in which a student‘s years of coursework pay-off with a degree, a title and a feeling. Through Lavender Graduation, this sense will be imparted to all those in the LGBTQI community and those participating in the ceremony.
A BIG, HUGE ELECTION SO GO AHEAD AND GET READY FOR IT
JOHN YANG
JOHN YANG I’m sure you’ve seen their posters around campus, maybe even their Facebook ads. It’s ASI election time again. And like most ASI elections, you’ll be lucky to know who is running for ASI president, and even more lucky to know who the senator candidates are (unless you’re their friend). It would probably be asking the world of you to vote for everything, so I’ll settle for just the ASI presidential candidates. Chris Chavez is currently the ASI vice president, sits on a plethora of committees and is banking on the fact that his years of service in ASI, Political Science Student Association, La Raza Student Association, K-Beach, and other student organizations will give him the edge he needs to win. He plans to improve student services; from improving academic advising and to establishing a direct lending program. Avis Atkins is currently the senator for the College of Liberal Arts, and has been involved with many clubs, including the Black Scholars Student Association, African Student Union, SOAR Advising, the University Honors Program and Rotaract
IN MEMORIAM
Leadership Club, and Bickerstaff Center for Student Athletes. Her plan is to make the UPass permanent, get double-sided printing at the library, and create a 24-hour study area on campus. Ricardo Linarez has had no previous involvement with ASI, but served in the Marines for 8 years and is part of Long Beach College Democrats. He plans for a bigger campus cooperation with the city and community and with ASI government and students by having town-hall style meetings to address student needs. Raul Preciado has served twice as ASI senator and is part of the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. He plans to make ASI funding go more smoothly with student organizations, improve the textbook situation, and end wasteful spending in ASI government. With all that said, most people vote without knowing too much about the candidate or their platform, that is, if they vote at all. Voting takes place online April 13th to April 15th and more info should be sent via e-mail by ASI.
Kate Yi was found murdered in her apartment on April 2, 2009 by Long Beach police. When officers arrived on scene they learned that the deceased body of an adult female had been discovered by her roommate. On April 3, that investigation lead detectives to the victim’s boyfriend, who was arrested and charged for murder. Detectives learned that the victim died after an altercation with her boyfriend occurred. The suspect has been identified as 20-year-old Jonathan Huynh. Anyone who has information should contact Long Beach PD Homicide Detectives David Rios or Daniel Mendoza at (562) 570-7244. Roommate Auria Zahed said Kate Yi was an “amazing student” who had just been admitted to the nursing program at Long Beach State. “She was very kind, caring and never judged a book by its cover.” UNION WEEKLY
13 APRIL 2009
OPINIONS THE
TROUBLE WITH TUNNELVISION
DONUT SEEm STRANGE? JAMES KISLINGBURY
I
don’t know if it’s something in the air or if it’s a change in the electromagnetic fields or if it’s just the heat, but this past week I have seen a lot of cleavage. Now, besides the obvious fact that it has gotten a bit warmer, I suspect that there’s another motive to wearing a revealing top: To show what the Lord has blessed you with. For better or worse, it’s an accepted fact that people will gawk. Now I don’t say this just to write an opinion on boobs (I am pro-breasts) and I don’t say this as a warning (but, heads up, men are scum). I say this because it’s the perfect example of a social contract, an unspoken one, one that our society requires to function. It’s a delicate peace in which, if we fixate on and pick apart, nobody wins. Which brings me to donut shops. The 24 hour ones. There’s Bartha’s on Ximeno, there’s the one by the Holé Molé which always seems to be full of perfect rambling
tramps, and there’s the one on 2nd Street across from Shorehouse which looks like it’s either being built up or torn down. Now, I’m not saying that these are money laundering operations, but they’re probably money laundering operations. There’s also one two blocks west of where I live, where on a nightly basis a drug deal goes down. Realistically, I draw 90% of my information on the drug trade from HBO TV shows so I might not be an expert. With that said, I am pretty sure that when an Explorer with mirrored windows parks with its engine running at 2am in Long Beach, it is for nefarious purposes. But, I ignore it, because it’s easier to do that than to tip-off the narcos (my lease ends in two months, what do I care?). Are the drug deals and the donuts connected? Who knows. We should probably get a wire up, though. These things we ignore for the sake of society isn’t always titties and donuts, either.
Sometimes it’s our parents. We tell ourselves that, despite their having been alive during the 1960s, in no way did they ever learn how to pack a bowl and in no way did they ever engage in a ménage à trois with a Finnish guy named Merja. We also tell ourselves that they still don’t do this stuff, too.
We would have to rethink how the very basics of our relationship with society works. If we accept these complicated things as part of our canon, this leads to a whole
slew of problems. We would have to rethink how the very basics of our relationship with society works. It leads to chaos. We would start vomitting and never stop, doors would be kicked in, there’d be no donuts after a hard night of drinking, and no more plunging v-necks. These probably aren’t the best examples of the lynch pins of civilization, but a lot of things like this require us to look the other way. The benefits of willful ignorance probably isn’t the best moral to pull away from this story, but as I’ve been told from behind an empty stein time and time again: Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery. In that case, maybe it isn’t accepting these social contracts, but being aware of them and going from there. I say this with more than a mite of trepidation though, because if we have low necklines taken away from us, that would be too heavy a burden for me to bear.
MOURNING MORE THAN kurt COBAIN ALAN PASSMAN
Illustration JAMES KISLINGBURY
It’s hard to believe that it has been 15 years since Kurt Donald Cobain did the unthinkable and offed himself with his big toe on the trigger of a shotgun. April 4th, 1994 was when the man who didn’t want to be anyone’s poster child for any sort of movement died and the 8th was when the body was found. So it’s somewhat fitting that an article like this isn’t seeing the light of day ’til many years after the fact. Like any good love story, there is a huge amount of push and pull or back and forth when it comes to the tenuous connection between myself and the music that was left behind. I was in 6th grade when it happened and I had been raised to be skeptical of anyone who was publicly idealized/idolized. My folks didn’t really get what Nirvana and their ilk were trying to do or prove, and it didn’t help that their frontman had been a very public addict; that tended to negatively sway credibility for anyone in our household. This also meant that I wasn’t initially saddened by his passing. A little shocked though, because suicide is a heavy topic to have to UNION WEEKLY
13 APRIL 2009
tackle at any period of youthful development. That said, my age and lack of an initiation into the Seattle band’s brief body of work had also something to do with it. About a year would go by and I was gifted around my 12th or 13th birthday with MTV Unplugged Live in New York, which was my first real introduction to Nirvana, as the album itself works as an annotated collection of personal greatest hits. It was the beginning of junior high/middle school and true awkwardness for me, songs like “Dumb” and “Penny Royal Tea” spoke to the confusion wholeheartedly, even if I had no idea what a “Leonard Cohen afterworld” would be like at that time. The cult of Cobain was a turn off though, as arguments with die-hards that wanted to place him next to Lennon, Hendrix and Morrison were leaving a bad taste in my young mouth. It seemed too soon and other artists and songwriters would soon come to the forefront of my personal aesthetic. I never stopped liking Nirvana, but I was a mite burnt out after awhile.
What reinvigorated this feeling was reading Charles R. Cross’ Cobain bio, Heavier than Heaven, which helped to explain and exemplify the tortured portrait of not just an artist, but the little boy he used to be. Kurt’s lyrics were deceptively simple and I was given an almost New Historicist’s understanding of the context behind them, because the book had information mined from people who actually knew him, as well as the journals that were later released. Finding out that most of Nevermind, including “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was about Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail was eyeopening. By the time the book gets to the suicide and Courtney Love publicly reading Kurt’s note to mourning fans, I started to tear up. I don’t lionize nor demonize CLo, despite what people think of her, but my heart went out to her,and mostly Francis Bean, at that moment. Being someone on this campus that was actually more cognizant of the heart of the ’90s, not just the rah-rah-Britney-tail-end
of it, I can’t help but smirk at these kids who think that they know a little bit more than me because of some open disgust for someone like Kurt. Sure, he has been so lauded by smart and dumb people alike. But, nothing right now excites me in the way that that period did. Who is breaking down the castle walls and stealing it back from mediocrity? MGMT?! Don’t get me wrong, they wrote some catchy songs recently, but there isn’t anything really seminal about them. Gen X was supposed to be the most jaded, but all I see are walking towers of broken dreams. Was he the best songwriter of that generation? No, not entirely, but this was a guy who understood the value of bands like Black Flag, Big Black, Sonic Youth and saw Sabbath as equals with The Beatles. He took sludgy Hi-Fi metallic guitar histrionics and folky harmonies, then married them with screechy Lo-Fi punk sensibilities. He was a pioneer, John Smith in flannel and beat-up Chuck Taylor’s. There aren’t enough dudes and dudettes out there anymore, if you ask me.
OPINIONS
YOU CAN TEACH A MAN TO fish
OR YOU CAN TEACH HIM HOW TO US E AN AK-47 JOSEPH hammond
W
hen most people hear the phrase “pirate infested waters,” the first thing that springs to mind is probably Johnny Depp in the film Pirates of the Caribbean. That term, however, is being used to describe the 21st century Gulf of Aden as well. Somali pirates hail from the world’s most underdeveloped countries clinging to the Horn of Africa. Somalia is the quintessential failed state (a term which has been getting some mileage recently to describe nations ranging from Iraq to Mexico). Somalia has been without a central government since 1990 and thus has been unable to police its coasts. This, coupled with some of the world’s worst poverty, has lead to the outbreak in piracy. A skilled Somali fisherman can make far more money transporting a few men with AK-47s to attack a cargo container than he can harvesting fish. Unlike the “blood thirsty” pirates of the 17th century, Somali pirates usually treat their captives well, knowing they are worth ransom money.
To solve this problem, an international task force has been created to help ships under attack from pirates. However, such a force raises concerns as well. First, the present size of the force is far too small to patrol the Gulf of Aden. At present, when a pirate attack happens Anti-piracy warships are often hundreds of miles from the attacks and have to spend days closing in on the besieged vessel. Second, having ships from many navies operating in the same area can lead to unexpected international incidents. Potential enemies of the US, such as China and Iran, jointly patrol the waters of Somalia. One such incident has already taken place. Last year, an Indian warship destroyed a vessel they described as a pirate “mothership,” which later proved to be a Thai merchant ship. Rather than taking a reactive approach to the problem, the United States would be advised to take a more proactive one. Cargo ships often slowly crawl through the pirate zone at fuel economy speeds. All vessels should be encouraged to travel at top
speed. Furthermore, the ships should be encouraged to post 24-hour lookouts, encircle themselves with barb wire, and, if necessary, place armed guards on board. These measures have worked to reduce piracy in other areas of the world, such as the straits of Malacca. Efforts should also be made to stop the flow of arms to Somalia. One of the main sources of pirate weapons is near the state of Yemen. Not only weapons, but fuel and speedboat engines are also often acquired by hijackers in Yemen. Some Yemeni nationals have even been linked to isolated attacks. Ideally this would be an approach that pays the greatest dividends, because it would not only help solve the piracy problem, but also contribute drastically to ending the cycle of violence in Somalia. Only when stability is returned to the Horn of Africa can we truly expect piracy to end. Until then, the world’s merchants should take prudent steps to limit their vulnerability to the would-be Captain Jack Sparrows of the world.
Are you competitive, yet team oriented? Enjoy selling and being rewarded for your efforts? If this is you, then you are just the person we are looking for to join our sales team as a Credit Manager. As a Credit Manager, you will play a key role within a small close-knit team, utilizing referrals and company provided sales leads to sell a variety of financial services products. The Credit Manager works with customers on the phone and in person throughout the credit application and approval process. Compensation package includes a base salary, plus an incentive plan based on sales volume. Required qualifications 0-1 year sales experi Are you competitive, yet team oriented? Enjoy selling and being rewarded for your efforts? If this is you, then you are just the person we are looking for to join our sales team as a Credit Manager. Apply online at www.wellsfargo.com/careers — requisition #: 3251674 UNION WEEKLY
13 APRIL 2009
Illustration
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but it was my idea to put my face at the top of this column. And while I’ll admit to at least part of that decision being motivated by narcissism, there were other factors. It put an easily recognizable header on an overly complex title, and it made it a little more personable and hopefully more enticing to potential readers. And if that means I get to fluff my ego with a little more face-time in this fair publication (cover photos thus far: 5), then so much the better. But even the best-laid plans of narcissistic men go oft awry, and a Tuesday bus ride last week laid this truism all too bare for me. I love riding the bus. Once you get past the sometimes wildly erratic schedule and people who smell bad, it’s a beautiful way of getting around Long Beach (and the only way to do it for free with your Student ID). There’s no worrying about traffic, plenty of time to sit back and enjoy the sights of the historic district (from a safe distance), and frequent opportunities to feel like a workin’ stiff while I’m on my way to anything but work. Every so often I see someone reading the Union on the bus, and last Tuesday I saw a guy in his late thirties with an issue open to the Opinions page (or as I call it, the Matt’s Column page). I’ve never really had anyone recognize me from the picture, but I was convinced this was my moment. I took a seat across from him and set myself to trying to look exactly like my photo (the eyebrows are the hardest part). Nothing. He may just not have noticed me, but I began to take his disregard personally (which is weird, since I usually prefer to be left alone on the bus). I began tapping my foot to draw attention and humming softly (and then increasingly loudly) under my breath. Why the hell was this not working? He even chuckled a few times! Maybe even at my column (though possibly at another article on the same page)! This stonewalling continued all the way to my bus stop, so I planned one final gesture to grab his attention and consequently his lavish praise for my work. I sprung up quickly, jumping about 4 inches off the ground and landing with a stomp and a mumbled “Here we go!” as I made my way to the door, bobbing and swaggering for maximum effect. “Hey, buddy.” he said. I froze. This was it; this was the moment I had been waiting for since I first forced my image onto the column. I turned around slowly, giving my best “I have no idea what you’re flagging me down for” look. He looked up at me timidly, folded closed his Union, and pointed at the bench I had just left. “You dropped your cellphone on the chair there.” I’m gonna need a bigger photo.
MATT DUPREE
MATT DUPREE
WHAT CHARITY SAYS ABOUT US
BY JASON OPPLIGER
ART BY CLAY COOPER
UNION WEEKLY
13 APRIL 2009
Emorut Raymond
I
want to know why. But they don’t tell me that. I’ll say how it starts in just a moment. But for now, this is what I know about him in its entirety: “Emorut Raymond was born at Agonyo village, Soroti District, North-Eastern Uganda. He has siblings. The father deserted the home. The mother re-married. The child now lives with the grandparents who are peasants but the yield is not enough to feed, clothe and educate the children. The family’s average annual income is less than US $100. There is no other source of income. They live in a grassthatched house made of wattle and mud walls. They are Catholics by faith and Iteso by tribe. The child was brought to this project for help by the grandfather. Emorut Raymond is not in school due to tender age. He enjoys playing with toys. His health and general progress is good. Your kind sponsorship will be a blessing to this needy youngster.” And I know his furious eyes. And I know his concerted brow. I know only these things because that was the totality included in the boilerplate e-mail and .jpg attachment that was sent to my Yahoo! Webmail inbox, the night I sponsored the face. That face rips the curtains off the walls of this world, draping down and crashing with layered thuds, asunder all around me. The sky shakes and it is ripped in half. That approximating disgust in the eyes, that almostrage, that simmering, that pain, that searing flame intensity; against some grey backdrop. That, so jolted from this existence. What the fuck? Where does this fit in? How can this be of any concern to my little life of exaggerated problems? And how can the cold and sterile connection tubes of electric circuits, the miles of cables crossing under oceans, the billowing waves of all types flooding the air, the flashing of pixels in my eyes, filling in little boxes with numbers—they want to know the date my credit card expires, they want to know my street address, and I remember this feeling of buying from the internet, of pacifying passing desires with things. How can that be the same as feeding this child? As some sort of humanity? I know these blinking lines and the highlighted boxes well though. They are how I buy things from the internet. And so here are my credit card numbers: and I punch them in. Emorut Raymond was born at Agonyo village, Soroti District, North-Eastern Uganga. He stares into me. Bleak and terrifying.
There is such a truth, just glaring and blinding of nothing into all of me. And yet I know better. I know this visual emotion-porn in action. And I know of how clean and easy this is, of how it accomplishes almost nothing. But still, after this photo, after that blazing stare, I can’t let it go. It espouses in me the vague desire to abandon this life of goal orientation and spend the rest of my days helping everyone around that I can find to be helped. And I want to know why. Have you ever felt this? Even though I want to change your life somehow, let’s be clear here: This Is All About Me. Every word you will encounter in this little diddy here; that will be coming from my hands. Spiraling out of my brain in a giant waterspout of inability and subjectivity and misconceptions and biases and all sorts of shiny shit that any human being (but especially me) just can’t escape: And it will all come back to me. I will attempt to pretend that this has anything to do with the face of that impoverished Ugandan outcast that exists in the same world that I do; but does not share my world at all (rationalize then, in the meantime of these parenthesis, the idea that we both have fears and joys and love and then consider his secret moments and how he has seen beauty in something I will never see and how he has felt despair of chasm depths that I cannot know, just as he will never know my hopes, and how we both have the same definition of the word “life”), but I will only be writing about myself. Watch my selfishness flourish. Stick around to see the germination of my self-indulgent megalomania. I know I probably can’t change your life. But maybe, if the synapses fire just right, and if I try hard enough and somehow anything can push through the turbid mush of my steaming brain, maybe, just maybe, I can change mine. But…It starts like this: On city streets and all that cement covering up the dirt. Spotted black with gum and grime and the wear of groaning LBT buses. And the cars pass, and then more, and then they are honking. Angry at each other. And then there’s Vons. I go here to buy toothpaste. A cornucopia of products fans out like an elaborate color-coded, piled four-shelves-high, eight-feet-wide, banner: packages and brands, with Mint Paste, Cool Mint Gel, Colgate, Whitening, Baking Soda, and Cavity Protection with flavors like Citrus Splash and Extreme Cinnamon Ice. All of the toothpaste ever conceived by our great race with our combined years of brilliance in laboratories bustling with brilliant men. These funny creatures that spend all their time thinking. Our Tooth Paste. I can give you any kind. Let your imagination soar! And I pick one. Something that I think I liked before. I can choose all of it. Anything I fucking want. Then the doors back into the 4th street real world dust. Yet still, I want. And human beings squint at the sky, the sun unabated by cloud-cover. And the world just zips and moves. The capsules cruise on, Zip-Locked little people in Tupperware little cars. The exhaust billows. My feet scratch the sidewalk. Some rubber on rock. Then cars and their thick black tires roll by with a happy buzz. And so here we are. In this city. I live here. And with no connection to it. Inundated with trivial choices that extend with importance to such small degree that nanomatter appears
monstrous. We choose our toothpaste catered to the most specific of considerations and we pick every tiny insignificant speck of everything. Somewhere in there life is occurring. Yet, all these choices are cementing to me the fiercely unimportant nature of my life; I am a life of meaningless choices. There is this constant hum of all that, a fevered push, of super-highway time blurring the images of the real. And when it comes time to make actual decisions concerning my real life, I am left considering them as if they are intended to clean my teeth. Yes? And sometimes I think about what I truly need in life. Emorut Raymond was born at Agonyo village, Soroti District, North-Eastern Uganda. He has siblings. They live in grass-thatched house made of wattle and mud walls. On the internet you can scroll through these flat mug shot pictures of emaciated little kids. You can choose the one that gets your money. You don’t like the kid from Thailand? No worries. Just click on the kids from Uganda. They’re better anyway. They will make a way better cover for the newspaper. Or they will look better on your refrigerator. And this is not inherently wrong. This: buying back your humanity with automatic deductions—but it is not real. It is the simulation of being connected to fellow man. So what now? I send money to Uganda now. And I have never met the woman that lives on the other side of my bedroom wall. Sometimes I pass strangers walking on the street and we avoid each other’s eyes. Every month twenty four dollars will be automatically deducted from my bank account and sent to a country that I do not know the exact location of. I want to know why. Because the stirring in the heart is here at moments and it swirls in those acrid, white-hot-heat guttural screams of the soul which launch themselves into the air exploding upon impact on the sky and raining down fire of the night in that shrouded-clouded-ominousdark sky. And in these moments I see the world as the scathing landscape of social Darwinism and our bestial selfishness, but I see good in the minutia of even smaller moments of fellow man and that somewherekindness that materializes as if by magic at certain moments. But are you still with me? I walk down the street thinking about how Abraham Lincoln has a difficult time enjoying being so well-respected as a decaying nothingness. Because dead things do not relish in their iconic history. They just stay very not alive. So then, I’m asking politely for you to introspect. What is worth accomplishing? What is worth the tremendous effort expended to do said anything? Do you reach for greatness? Will greatness exclude you from death? Motivations for actions. All I want you to do is consider your own life. Contemplate the reasons for your actions. What is important? I want you to consider the toothpaste. And the myriad of other distractions and products for me to consume that I do not really want or need or would have ever even been able to conjure in a lifetime of work, if not for their implicit existence. All I’m asking is: Why? Emorut Raymond was born at Agonyo village, Soroti District, North-Eastern
Uganda. He has siblings. The father deserted the home. Remember too: This has nothing to do with you. You are just an accessory to my Narcissism. I am some person, a human, sitting in my apartment writing this. It is important to acknowledge that fact especially. And you are reading this probably because you are waiting for the bus. I am a person writing this. I am Living Life. And you are as well. We are all in this together. I drive in my car and I gloss over all of it. And then there is the overhwhelmingness when you consider, stuck in traffic, the totality of life of every other person in every other car writhing on that 405. And how they all want to be somewhere. Just as I do. And then there is that face, vivid and vast, with its grey backdrop and the knowledge that ushers then of legions in realism and visceral connection to the grappling survival of not just one. “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” -Martin Luther King Jr. And someone once shot and killed the man who said that. So here we are again. And I can understand so little. I am at odds with giving this service money and as I fill out the boxes of payment they want to know if I have a Visa or a MasterCard. I have a Visa. Remember: This is all about me. A callow, slovenly Jr. Muckraker with no sense of truth. I have lived for twenty-three years now. I know almost nothing. I urge you, regardless of that, to think heavily about the world around you. To dissect what it is. View this existence through the lens of what is capable of mattering. Investigate your motivations for your actions. To live. I will not pretend to give advice though. Because I know so very little. I do know a paragraph about Emorut Raymond and I know that photo. Those dredged down eyes, they stare at me still, the photo pinned above my desk. I know only the vaguest of information about this human being. I know that I help for this human to eat food as to not starve. But in this knowledge there remains such a difficulty in comprehending, truly, this existence in any tangible sense. Emorut Raymond will be able to eat because of automatic deductions from my bank account. I can barely grasp this. I think of toothpaste. I think of how, when I walk down the street instead of driving, I can see flowers. I think of all the unreal things. And I think of you. I think about how, after you finish this sentence, you will continue living the rest of your life, you will return to the undulating constancy of the all of it, swimming in the stream of this continuation, you will forget all about Emorut Raymond, born at Agonyo village, Soroti District, North-Eastern Uganga, and even if you felt a momentary pause, an inkling of how maybe you might want to salvage some unexplored adventure of living; about how you see through the fabrication that I see as our daily existence: you will forget it all. We will together emerge unchanged. None of it will matter. And I want to know why. [Editor’s Note: Jason used the Christian Children’s Fund to support Emorut. For the interested, their organization can be reached at ChristianChildrensFund.org] UNION WEEKLY
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MUSIC inside the lb music scene with
T
RACHEL RUFRANO
he local music scene is something to be loathed. Every kid with a guitar and a Ramones t-shirt thinks they can start a band, which is fine, but for the music appreciators in Long Beach, it means we have to sift through all that crap. Sit through enough shows at DiPiazza’s, though, and you’re bound to discover that there is some actual talent in this town. Brown & Blue may just be that talent, and they have the moxie to prove that they can make it in this city. UW: Do you want to explain where you got the name “Brown & Blue?” Danny: When I started the band by myself I was living in my parents’ house alone because they had all left and that’s when I wrote most of the songs—in my room—and the house was being remodeled so there was brown butcher paper and blue masking tape… UW: Is that symbolic? Danny: No. UW: So it’s like, “I love lamp”? Danny: We were actually teetering between I Love Lamp and Brown & Blue. UW: What are you guys trying to achieve with your music? Danny: World domination. Anthony: God damn, I just want to make decent recordings and have people listen to them. Danny: We’d like to play to good crowds on successful tours. We want people to enjoy the music that we enjoy playing. Ricky: And have fun doing it. Danny: And three strippers in every room. UW: How are you guys making it in the local music scene? Is it difficult? Disillusioning? Danny: It’s actually going really well right now. Anthony: It’s great that you bring that up
BROWN & BLUE
From left to right: Ray Cruces, Bass; Bert, guitar; Danny Nogueiras, guitar/vocals; Ricky Cruces, guitar/harmonica; Anthony Vezirian, drums.
actually. We have a deal with DiPiazza’s now where we’re playing shows once a month. We played with Mothers Sons and Matt Costa was there. Danny: We’re doing alright. UW: What about a record? Danny: We’re making a record this week. Then we’re going to shop it around and if [a label] doesn’t pick it up, we’re going to put it out ourselves. We have someone helping us out. If we do that we’ll get some good promotion and a more wide-spread release. UW: What do you guys think of the Long Beach music scene? Danny: It’s good. Ricky: It’s terrible. Danny: I think it needs organization. It’s hard because there’s not really one venue that everyone is happy with, but as far as the bands go, it’s pretty good. Anthony: Que Sera’s got a good stage, but… UW: Where’s the best place to play in Long Beach if you want to be heard? Danny: I don’t think there’s any one place for that. The Art Theatre is great, but it doesn’t happen very often. It’s not so much a place as it is networking with the other bands and playing with other musi-
cians in the scene. You aren’t going to be heard just staying in one place—you have to network. Bert: Someone plays your show then they call you in a month and you play their show. Danny: Yeah, it’s more about making friends than playing a certain venue. UW: What’s your advice to local Long Beach bands? Danny: Work hard and be friendly with other bands. Ricky: Be patient. Danny: You aren’t going to be making money…for a while. And you need to form relationships and connections. Anthony: As long as you’re confident with the product and you’re working hard… Ricky: Don’t dip your pen in the company ink. UW: So you guys aren’t sleeping together, is what you’re saying? Ricky: Not anymore, anyways. UW: What if you guys never get picked up by a label? Danny: If we never go anywhere, we’ll still be playing. Ricky and I have been playing this music for three years and haven’t gotten anywhere significant, but we’re still playing and we’re working harder now than we ever have.
bob DYLAN : Still The VOice Of A Generation ERIN HICKEY When Love and Theft was released, I was a freshman in high school. 14 years-old and still in my punk phase, I stood in line at the record store with the last copy of the album they had in stock. As I got to the register, I was accosted by a man in his late fifties. “That’s my album,” he said. “I was going to buy that.” Taken aback, I explained to him that while technically the album was Bob Dylan’s, I had gotten to the record store first, and the copy in question was rightfully mine. “What’s a snot-nosed little punk kid like you want with a Dylan album anyway?” he asked, sneering at my combat boots. I shrugged, and said “No one’s more punk rock than Dylan, man.” The record store clerk chimed in, “Guess he’s still the voice of a generation,” to which the man replied, “Yeah, UNION WEEKLY
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the voice of my generation.” As I pulled out my wallet to pay, the man tried once more to get me to hand the album over. “Just let me have the album. I’ve been following Dylan since I was your age. I mean it’s not even going to be good. He hasn’t made a good album since Blood on The Tracks.” This offended me on a personal level. I asked him why he even wanted the album if he didn’t think it would be good, and he told me that he had to complete his collection. I completed my transaction and told him (as politely as a snot-nosed little punk kid could), to go buy a Donovan album. I suspected then, and am sure now, that Bob Dylan would not have approved of that one man’s monopoly of Dylan fandom. Dylan is not the voice of one generation, but of every generation. That a freshman in high school
could find him still relevant in 2001 proves that. The man from the record store lost touch with whatever it was that drew him to Dylan’s music to begin with, and became, not a fan, but a collector. Well, Dylan’s music is meant to be listened to, not collected, and I’m glad I didn’t let that infidel have the record (even if I did help to perpetuate his generation’s disdain for mine). Now here’s the good news: Sony is hosting a record release party for Bob Dylan’s eagerly anticipated new album, Together Through Life, which is open exclusively to our generation. The event is tailored specifically to collegeaged fans (though it is 21+), and will feature two Dylan cover bands, as well as the opportunity to hear Together Through Life in full before it is released. And that man from the record store? He’s not invited.
Anthony: You’ve got to build a discography for yourself. If you have five albums you’re going to be heard. Danny: Granted, we’d love to make money and not have day-jobs, but we’ll be playing either way. UW: How about building a fan-base? Danny: We have a pretty loyal fan-base everywhere we go now. Ricky: Yeah, I’m starting to notice that people know the words to our songs, now. UW: How would you guys describe your sound? Bert: It’s too poppy for the folk people and too folk-y for the pop people. Ray: Can’t we just be general and say indie folk-rock? [laughs] Anthony: We’re just trying to be badass. Bert: I don’t know that we’re going for a persona. [Some bands] have a gimmicky persona but we’re just… Ray: We’re just us. Bert: Maybe our band has an image, but it isn’t something we’ve created. Ray: Yeah, it’s just us being us. Listen to Brown & Blue online at MySpace.com/BrownandBlueMusic
SPORTS
BEACH CALENDER Thursday 7:00pm, Women’s Water Polo vs. UC Irvine FRIDAY 6:30pm, Dirtbags vs. Cal State Northridge @ Blair Field
MAYBE WE’LL WYNN NOW LADIES’ B-BALL GETS A NEW COACH & ITS SHIT TOGETHER
SATURDAY
12:00pm, Women’s Water Polo vs. UC Santa Barbara 1:00pm, Softball vs. UCSB 2:00pm, Dirtbags vs. CSU Northridge @ Blair Field 3:00pm, Softball vs. UCSB
SUNDAY 12:00pm, Women’s Water Polo vs. USC 1:00pm, Dirtbags vs. CSU Northridge @ Blair Field 1:00pm, Softball vs. UCSB
JOE BRYANT
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et’s be honest: with a win/loss ratio of 8 to 21 this past season, our Women’s Basketball team had its ass kicked last season. Luckily for the Beach, athletics is bringing in Jody Wynn, a shiny new head coach that just happens to have been the senior assistant, recruiting coordinator and head scout at USC for the last five seasons. I had a chance to speak with Wynn last Saturday. “As a player—through high school, through college, and as a coach—I’ve never been a part of a losing season, and we want to win,” said Wynn. “The past is the past and the future is ahead of us right now, and we’re going to work hard to have a successful season.”
Wynn’s record speaks for itself— she brought USC four nationallyranked recruiting classes during her stint there (including the number one recruiting class of 2006). She’s a wellknown aggressive recruiter, which is hopefully just what Women’s Basketball needs to bring home major Big West victories next season. “We have eight scholarships of the nine [returning] seniors to fill, so I don’t know if we’re going to fill all eight, but you know, recruitment starts next week and [continues] all summer long and we have some people in mind that we definitely have to get in here to Long Beach State.”
Coach Wynn is a firm believer in players showing their mettle before making any final decisions about a starting roster. “Right now we have no starters,” said Wynn at an earlier press conference. “Everyone will have to earn it in practice.” That includes all nine of those returning seniors. It’s nice to see a coach that has a healthy perspective of the coachplayer dynamic. “I played for three head coaches in my four years at USC, so I understand what they’re going through, and I’m here for them... Hopefully we’ll have a good season this year that can propel us into our future.”
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ENTERTAINMENT FRIENDSHIP IS FUCKING METAL ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, A NEW DOC ABOUT THE BAND YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU LOVED MATT DUPREE
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et me begin by saying that the first few moments of the trailer made me believe this was a mockumentary in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. I had never heard of Anvil, and I don’t imagine too many people in the audience know them either. They’re a heavy metal band that formed in 1978 by Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner (no shit, the Spinal Tap similarities continue), and despite being 30 years beyond the heyday of their beloved hair metal, they still rock hard and dream of achieving the fame that passed them over for their touring mates Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and The Scorpions. These days, the guys split their time between work, family, and heavy metal, and Anvil! The Story of Anvil chronicles their attempts to reboot their careers with a new tour and a new album. The guys are downright hilarious. Lips is still the same fun-loving frontman he was in the ’80s, and director Sacha Gervasi con-
jures plenty of laughs at the loving expense of metal and its sometimes ridiculous fans (okay, more than sometimes). But the real skill is in how delightfully innocent Gervasi makes it all seem. Even those who would never listen to metal will find Lips and Robb irresistibly charming in an almost childlike way. And while Gervasi is obviously enamored with their music, he doesn’t paint them as glorious harbingers of a musical revolution. One of the biggest laughs in the film is Lips’ explanation of their first song “Thumb Hang,” a tribute to the Inquisition practice of hanging blasphemers by their thumbs that’s eerily similar to a certain scene in a certain Christopher Guest mockumentary. But for all its lighthearted joking, this is easily the most emotionally powerful movie that you’ll see this year. There were several moments of tear-jerking awe as the guys deal with the mounting pressures with the strength of their friendship, the love of their families, and their unstoppable pursuit of their art. When Lips looks at his old-
er sister, who has just agreed to lend him thousands of dollars to fund a new record, and says “Family’s important shit, man,” I know it sounds crazy, but I just about ran out and called my family to tell them how much I love them. Truly, the film presents these men as they are, dreamers whose passion never died under the stress of being disregarded and whose devotion to their families never wavered. I can say with all certainty this is the best music documentary I’ve ever seen, and will likely hold (for a music fan like me) as the best trip to the theatre I’ll have this year. You will leave the theatre an instant Anvil fan, yearning to buy their albums and go to their shows not just to hear their music, but also to support them in their quest for fame. Check it out at the Nuart in Santa Monica this week, or the Edwards at UC Irvine on April 17th.
REPORTED OBSERVATIONS ON OBSERVE AND REPORT MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN Less than a month after I Love You, Man, the so-called “Comedy Mafia” drops Observe and Report, starring the Apatow brand’s most bankable star, Seth Rogen. While I Love You, Man stuck to the tried and true “bromance” genre that has been popular this decade, Observe and Report is a step in a different direction for the Knocked Up star. Rogen is allowed to go balls out here, and the result is a character that is literally insane and despicable. The genius of Observe and Report is that it capitalizes on the added layers of filth and stretches the boundaries of modern comedy. Director Jody Hill adds something new to Rogen’s playbook—violence and grit. The movie follows the exploits of Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen), the head of security at Forest Ridge Mall. Ronnie is a perpetual fuck-up who lives at home with his alcoholic mom, all the while battling perverts at work and his own bi-polarity. When a serial flasher exposes himself to his crush, Brandi (Anna Faris), Ronnie decides that catching this creep will be his ticket to stardom. The UNION WEEKLY
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only thing standing between Ronnie and his goal is Detective Harrison, a total asshole played to perfection by Ray Liotta. The great collection of comedic talent really take this simple plot structure over the top. Rogen is obviously the star of the film and a lot of the movie’s success rests in his capable hands, however the bit parts from such greats as Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride compliment Ronnie Banhardt’s unstable sweetness. Anna Faris’ self-centered party animal character, while funny, is one of the least developed parts of the film. Faris still works well with what she was given and creates some laughs with her over-the-top, Scary Movie brand of humor. Ray Liotta has so much built-in credibility from Goodfellas that the film only benefits from his inclusion. Barnhardt’s crew features some great character work from Michael Peña as Dennis, Ronnie’s right hand man. Dennis is a flamboyant “outlaw,” the buddy cop scenes with him and Ronnie are instant classics for shock value alone. But Ansari and McBride are Observe and Report’s scene-stealers. The two fit so well into the free association Apa-
Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) can do more damage with his Maglite in five seconds than our music editor can to his self-esteem just by looking in a mirror. tow-style of humor that it makes me anxious for their future projects. One thing that has bugged me about this film is the sad fact that it probably won’t make half the money that the Kevin James vehicle Paul Blart: Mall Cop made. On the surface, these films must be compared. They both feature an unstable mall cop with a weird crush on a mall worker, but that’s where the similarities end. Paul Blart was
an uncreative disappointment, but because of its family-friendliness it made bundles of money. Observe and Report, on the other hand, is far edgier and simply more innovative, and yet, it will most likely get the shaft. I hope I’m wrong, but it seems inevitable.
LITERATURE CLIMBING UP ON BUNKER HILL JoHN FANTE’S 100th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED IN LOS ANGELES RACHEL RUFRANO
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al State Long Beach professor and Fante biographer, Stephen Cooper, still remembers a time when no one had heard of John Fante. “This is a little bit like a dream to me,” he announced to the crowded Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles last Tuesday night. Cooper was seated on stage with five other panelists: David Kipen, director of literature at the National Endowment for the Arts; KCRW’s Frances Anderton; Richard Schave, founder of Esotouric; and John Fante’s son and daughter, Jim Fante and Victoria Fante Cohen, respectively. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Fante’s 100th birthday than in a room full of die-hard Fante fans, geeking out about the state of Los Angeles, Fante’s life and work, and the great impact Ask the Dust has had on our lives. Anderton, native Brit and converted Angelino read an excerpt of Ask the Dust, the book she brought with her during her
move to Los Angeles. It seems fitting that she would connect with character Arturo Bandini’s struggle to find an identity in such a diverse city: “Los Angeles, give me some of you! …Los Angeles came to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.” It’s strange to think how much more likely it would be to hear someone quote Kerouac or Bukowski, when it was Bukowski himself who said, “Fante was my god,” but there’s a good reason for that. In 1939, just as Stackpole & Sons was preparing to put Ask the Dust on the shelves, Adolf Hitler sued the publishing company for an unauthorized American pressing of Mein Kampf. Ultimately, the company lost to Hitler, and all of the money that would have been spent marketing Fante as the new Steinbeck went to lawyers, and Fante never received the recognition he truly deserved.
Seventy years later, Fante has enough fans in Los Angeles to fill a 295-seat theater, and many more all over the world, but for anyone who knows the semi-autobiographical Arturo Bandini, Fante didn’t live the life of a celebrated seminal author. We can easily imagine him in long-lost Bunker Hill, subsisting on oranges, delusional with dreams of fame and fortune, and waiting anxiously for his next paycheck. Although Fante wasn’t living the story while he wrote it, his son, Jim Fante, concedes that there wasn’t much distinction between the two, “They’re one in the same. [My father] was every bit as fiery, if not more so, than Arturo Bandini.” Despite his struggle to become a respected artist in someone else’s world (his family emigrated from Italy to the Italian ghetto in Boulder, Colorado, where he eventually left for Los Angeles), Fante kept writing. Jim told the theater about the night he found out his father had diabetes, “He lost his sight and eventually both of his legs.
Somewhere in the midst of that he lost his mind.” But it wasn’t long before he received a phone call from his mother. “He’s writing a book,” she told Jim. “How can he write a book? He doesn’t even know who he is!” “Oh, you’ll see.” Fante dictated Dreams of Bunker Hill in its entirety to his wife, just two years before he died. But Fante hasn’t left us, he is only beginning to enter our lives, the way Bandini has, the way Los Angeles has, the way his legacy has. Happy 100th birthday Fante. If there’s a Bunker Hill up there, I’ll lift a big jug of milk and propose a toast—to leaving one world for another.
Literature of the No Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas TYLER MALONE When asked to do anything, Bartleby, from Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” would simply “prefer not to.” With Bartleby as his patron saint, the hunchbacked narrator of Enrique Vila-Matas’s novel Bartleby & Co. writes his “book of notes without a text.” Feigning illness to gain an extended leave from work, he secretly compiles a book of notes, which explores the labyrinthine history of the “literature of the No.” The narrator, therefore, becomes an investigator of what he calls “Bartleby syndrome in literature.” “Bartleby syndrome in literature” and “literature of the No” are books which were begun and never finished, ideas for novels that never came to fruition, and, most importantly, authors who have merely decided to no longer write—writers who have gone the way of Bartleby and simply preferred not to. The narrator moves under the assumption that “writing that one cannot write, is also writing.” Therefore, “text of the No” becomes as much of a book as any other book. The pages that comprise Bartleby & Co. are the footnotes to a text—a “text of the No” that exists somewhere beyond this book. The narrator explains, “I shall write footnotes commenting on a text that is invisible, which does not mean it does not exist, since this phantom text could very well end up held in suspension in the literature of the next millennium.” The writers discussed in Bartleby & UNION WEEKLY
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Co. vary from the famous Bartlebys of literature, like the oft-read French poet Arthur Rimbaud who famously gave up writing before he reached the age of 21, to Clément Cadou, whose aspirations to become a writer were destroyed the night he met the Polish literary giant Witold Gombrowicz, and who spent the rest of his life, instead of writing, feeling like a piece of furniture and painting self-portraits of himself as such. Bartleby & Co. has hints of Fernando Pessoa, Jorge-Luis Borges, Roberto Bolaño, Italo Svevo, Robert Walser, and Franz Kafka, among others. The only other novel by Vila-Matas in English translation is Montano’s Malady, which deals with the curious affliction of “literature sickness”— where one is unable to distinguish between reality and fiction. This catalogue of “phantom books” and authors afflicted with “Bartleby syndrome” is one of the most beautiful and philosophical novels that I have read in recent years and has me waiting with bated breath for more novels by Vila-Matas to be translated. It is an interesting study of what it means to be an artist, and what it means for an artist to choose silence. A series of footnotes to a “phantom text,” this textual non-text becomes a paragon of paradoxicality. From the get-go, it is a text without a text, about books (that are not books), by writers who preferred not to write. It is the ur-text of un-text.
CREATIVE ARTS
A hint of blue serenity flickers but proof of ignorance glows: green condemns her beneath the sea. Sharks rip through gulfweed and grow fiercer with every bite. Thousands more
consume each other without restraint and the mermaid cancels the feast of freedom, since afterwards they would swim away in deficient schools to their corners of the sea, full of her irreplaceable dreams and yet perversely dissatisfied.
Artist: Julia Dancyger Author: Nadia Keryakos UNION WEEKLY
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CULTURE Hashish, the Gentleman’s Smoke michael veremans
Photos
KATHY MIRANDA
E
arly hemp cultivators in Central Asia realized that when they collected and ingested the pollen that clung to their hands after harvest, they experienced an elevated, spiritual feeling. Since then, various preparations of concentrated cannabis have been present throughout European and Asian cultures as variously sacramental, intoxicating, aphrodisiac, and medicinal from times unrecorded ’til today. Hashish is purported to have been used by the assassin king in Persia to induce ecstatic states among his murder-thirsty followers during their hermetic rampages. Although this may have been a piece of orientalizing propaganda used to enforce various hashish prohibitions throughout history, Nas will attest to its revolutionary qualities in his rhyme. The rich, earthy vapor of hashish spread from centuries of local use in the Middle East to Europe in the beginning of the 19th century through Ottoman contact and Napoleonic soldiers returning from Egypt. Although hash imported from the Middle East and North Africa is popular all over Europe, hash culture and production in Europe today is centered in the Netherlands. Most coffeeshops offer a menu with various types and qualities of hashish, both domestic and imported. Hash is made by collecting the THC crystals while removing the plant matter from cannabis, leading to concentrations as high at 99.9%, which appears as golden oil. Bubble hash, full melt, press, Lebanese Blonde, honey
oil, kief, shiva crystals—this is what the ageless culture of concentrated cannabis has blossomed to in California from an Old World staple to a New World phenomenon. Hash is widely regarded as the classiest way to wind down and when you don’t want to burn a joint or shotgun a gravity bong, a languid hit of the hash-pipe will medicate any connoisseur thoroughly. It is important for contemporary Hashishins to know what they are smoking: —Master Kush hash, in either flakey brown or black melt, is one of the finest varieties that I’ve tried in Long Beach. The initial smell is strong and chocolate-y, with vitamin and spice undertones and the smoke is incredible. Exactly what one looks for in a hash high, at once relaxed and focused with an undeniable intoxicating effect seems closer to gin that cannabis. —Shiva crystals are a relatively new form of hash preparation
Master Kush Hash
UNION WEEKLY
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that I had not previously heard of. The crystals are light brown and slightly crumbly, varying in sizes. They look somewhat like regular press hash, but the smell is incredibly potent and they bubble and melt when lit—I recommend laying down a bed of G13 if you’re not smoking out of a special hash-pipe. Pineapple OG shiva crystal smoke is reminiscent of the exact strain and fruit, with a sweet sativa high that is rare in concentrate and Purple Kush shiva crystals have a deeper hashy flavor, and a powerful head high without sacrificing physical mobility. You don’t have to be Oscar Wilde to have a world-class smoke: your friendly neighborhood cannabis distributors may offer hash on occasion. Also, most cannabis clubs in California offer a variety of concentrates, although their legal status is currently dubious because of the lack of preparation regulation. Despite that, it is well worth the risk for the discriminating Gentleman or Lady.
Honey Bud
Shiva Crystals
COMICS Crossword puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission.
Across 1- Plot 7- Outer edge 10- Ali _____ & the 40 thieves 14- Augur of ancient Rome 15- Swelled head 16- Beige cousin 17- Diminutive 18- Day-___ 19- Bummer 20- Divide into sections 23- Two equal an opinion 26- Numero ___ 27- Stork, e.g. 28- Genuine 29- New Deal org. 30- Unit of electrical resistance 31- Person to whom property is transferred 33- Hindu title 34- Bandage brand 37- For each 38- Unwell 39- Long, thin snakelike fish 40- Automotive vehicle 41- Madrid Mrs. 42- That, in Toledo 43- Interruption 45- ___ bin ein Berliner
46- Coal scuttle 47- Historical chapters 48- View 51- First name in horror films 52- Ohio, e.g. 53- Surpassing 56- I could ___ horse! 57- The loneliest number 58- Condiment 62- Busy 63- Towel word 64- Must 65- Sandy tract 66- Toronto’s prov. 67- Off-course
Down 1- Tree syrup 2- Stage signal 3- DDE’s predecessor 4- Letter 5- Doles (out) 6- Corp. VIP, briefly 7- Queen 8- Inuit dwelling 9- Earth’s satellite 10- Mad confusion 11- Bitterly pungent 12- To make of brass 13- Tool for boring holes 21- Black gum 22- For a short time
23- Dice game 24- Conger catcher 25- Currency unit in Nigeria 29- From Cardiff 30- Mountain nymph 32- Sisters’ daughters 33- Unit of time 34- Legend maker 35- Unit of weight in gemstones 36- Get the lead out? 44- Pioneer 45- From birth 46- Not disposed to cheat 48- Lieu 49- Slatted wooden box 50- Kind of kitchen 51- Russian revolutionary leader 52- Villain’s look 54- Silver salmon 55- Sea eagle 59- Ore. neighbor 60- RR stop 61- Like Phoenix in summer
Koo Koo and Luke by Jesse Blake
Caramel > You by Ken C.
Dinosaur Fights Octopus by Joe Bryant
www.funatronics.com/kookoo
joeb.union@gmail.com
Meanwhile...
e-mail editor Victor Camba: victorpc.union@gmail.com Or drop off comments at the Union office Student Union Office 239
ANSWERS Goonis 3000 by alex P.M.
UNION WEEKLY
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Disclaimer:
This page is satire. We are not ASI, nor do we represent the CSULB campus. Anal Carbuncle. Send rags to bear.grun@gmail.com
“Hey Bob Dylan.”
Volume 64 Issue 10
Monday, March 13th, 2009
LBUNION.COM
Biofuel Car Runs Off of Nerd’s Face
Area Racists Tired of Racist Stigma
“What we’ve done is hooked Tobias to a series of tubes that—well, it’s very complicated, and scientific,” said President Kummschlott. “Basically we run swabs over his face for at least 8 hours a day, and the drainage is collected below him in a giant basin that also doubles as an HD TV, which only plays Doctor Who and reruns of Sliders to keep him sedated. Those 8 hours of grease swabbing alone will give 1,000 Dorkus owners enough fuel for a month. And if Tobias Redden (above, virgin, not automobile) showcasing the environmentally friendly Honda Dorkus. he has some whiteheads for our personal, financial gain,” we get to pop? Hot damn, there’s BY SEXUAL RANDY said North American Honda nothing better for the consumer’s LOS ANGELES, CA — Last President Richard Kummschlott mileage.” Saturday, executives at Honda in a press release. “That nerd will The Dorkus starts at a reasonrevealed their new line of envi- never amount to anything, beyond able price of $18,000, despite the ronmentally friendly, biofuel au- our reasonably priced car that you groundbreaking technology that tomobiles that run solely off of and your entire family can enjoy.” makes it marketable to people the greasy face of Tobias Redden, Biofuel vehicles, such as the that love the environment and a self-acknowledged nerd. new Honda Dorkus, tradition- fucking hate nerds. “We just want Redden, 24, still has not grown ally run off of an elixir of either the customer to be happy,” said out of his awkward acne stage and ethanol or methanol mixed with Kummschlott. “Also, Tobias wantmore than likely never will. He traditional gasoline. But with ed to forgo any pay as long as he will live a life totally devoid of any Honda’s patented diesel engine could watch as much Sci-Fi chandignity or pussy, say leading ex- converted to run off of oils, Mal- nel as he wanted and had unlimperts in dweebology. orkus, the vehicle can essentially ited access to Asian porn and lu“The least we can do to help use grease, like that of Tobias brication.” An anonymous source young Tobias is give him recogni- Redden’s face, to fuel trips to Ti- within Honda has said that these tion that he does not deserve and juana, Las Vegas or other places accommodations were made only exploit his social shortcomings where Redden would never be under the stipulation that Redden and sub par grooming standards popular or get laid. constantly be on suicide watch.
BY GAELIC FORESKYNE
really discouraging. Did you know that in 1890, only 27% of Irish people were allowed to have jobs, but by 1990 that statistic has risen to almost 30%?” After a ten minute spiel on “regressive anti-phallocracy” he added, “You know, the proper term isn’t ‘racist,’ it’s ‘reverse-tolerant.’” He too called me a “honky.” Local welfare recipient Leroy Leroy Dubois spoke to us about the suffering he’s faced for his beliefs. He’s lost his wife, his child, and been kicked out of several dozen Sizzlers for his distaste of other ethnicities. “I have this image in my brain, I see my children playing on a completely separate part of the park from [minority children], it really gives me something to hope for. A man can dream.”
CITY OF ORANGE, CA — A group of racists marched on the City of Orange’s city hall, claiming that they are “fed up” with the stigma of being racists. “We’re marching to show people that we’re people just like anyone else!” said Erik Hegel. After a pause he added, “Well, maybe not anyone else.” The marchers ranged from several former mayors of Los Alamitos to real estate agents to Korean grocers to three-dozen men named “Leroy.” Among the marchers was radical black separatist Ndugu Farrakhan. “A lot of people think that only white people can be racists. That’s just malarkey. I can hate black people just as much as the next man.” He then called me a “honky” and was then taken onto a giant burning wheel hovering in the sky. Sociologist Dr. H.R. Balkowitz, an expert in racial relations and ethnic constructs in America, has followed beleaguered communities of racists around the world. “Over and over again I see the dominant culture stifling the expression and traditions of racist goons A group of reverse-tolerants march for their right to hate people around the world. It’s of different ethnicities without invoking scorn from society.
INSIDE
Terry Crapman Voted Worst Guy in Town By Everyone
Seriously Terry, your name sucks. Go sit on a tomato. Everyone is tired of you and your name. Quit showing up to parties you aren’t invited to. You pretty much ruined my birthday last month with your presence and then also my life was ruined by your name. It sucks. Go away. PAGE B9
Recent Study Proves Ja Rule is Awesome
After years of controversy, science has proven that popular rapper Ja Rule is cool. A scientist with a lab full of beakers confirms that Rule’s raspy raps “sound awesome.” “Any further disses on Ja’s flows will result in a hefty fine,” says the scientist as he puts a liquid in a tube. PAGE W4
Terrorist Sleeper Cell Uncovered PAGE 9H
Angels Starting Pitcher Traded to Angels PAGE A34