ISSUE 68.05 KEVIN O’BRIEN
kevinob.union@gmail.com
Editor-in-Chief
ANDY KNEIS
andyk.union@gmail.com
Managing Editor
CLAY COOPER
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Managing Editor
CHELSEA STEVENS
chelsea.union@gmail.com
Opinions Editor
NOAH KELLY
noah.union@gmail.com
Campus Director
KATY PARKER
katy.union@gmail.com
Literature Editor
MARCO BELTRAN
KEVIN SENT
MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN merm.union@gmail.com Music Editor
L
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ast week, the Union Weekly stands were not replenished with a new issue. Instead they were allowed to collect windblown trash, club solicitations, and worse yet, new issues of the Daily 49er. You may have considered the impetus for this absence. The issue was canceled for two reasons. The first being that my deserving and belabored staff needing a single Saturday in which they did not have to bear the responsibility of the newspaper, and the second being a lack of overall funding. The cancelation was planned for but regrettable nevertheless. While our Advertising Executive has been making headway, it is a struggle against the ongoing economic blight, as well as the reality that each and every staff member is not only a volunteer, but also a student. In any case, further cancelations
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APRIL 25th IS THE DEADLINE FOR THE UNION WEEKLY’S SHORT STORY CONTEST.SEND 300 WORDS TO KEVINOB. UNION@GMAIL.COM. FICTION AND NONFICTION ARE BOTH WELCOME. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. TELL YOUR FAMILY.
UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
LEO PORTUGAL
leop.union@gmail.com
JEFF BRIDGES
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CLAY COOPER
clay.union@gmail.com
Actor, Grunion Editor Art Director/Cover
PHOTO EDITOR
SHORT STORY CONTEST
cfab.union@gmailcom
Culture Editor
CONNOR O’BRIEN
should be mitigated through pricecutting, namely, printing fewer copies of each issue, so that the remainder is less at the end of the week, and an increase in advertising revenue. This week, the Union Weekly elucidates the regularity with which Long Beach is used in television and film. The conclusions being that any time you have ever seen a television show or film set in Miami, you may as well have been staring out of your window down a Long Beach street or looking out over a Long Beach shoreline. The majority of our features, like this week’s, are the product of a single writer. However, two upcoming features are open for your participation, the first being our 300 word Short Story Contest. Send your fiction or non-fiction to me at kevinob.union@gmail.com. You are guaranteed to see your work in print and you have the chance of win-
CHRIS FABELA Comics Editor
A LETTER LIKE NOTHING ELSE KEVIN O’BRIEN
marcob.union@gmail.com
Entertainment Editor
ning the esteem of your peers. The second feature, is a project headed by on of our Managing Editors, Andy Kneis, who is attempting to jam with a number of different bands to gain a greater understanding of how each band’s music works, also it might be fun. Anyone, musician or artist of any kind, band or no band, who is interested in jamming with Andy should not hesitate to email him at andyk.union@gmail.com. There will be an issue next week, you can decide your level of participation. You can make the most of an institution that exists solely to provide for one of your most essential freedoms, or sit on the sidelines and hope that it continues unfettered. Ask Away!
Finished the paper but still have questions or comments? Send them to the editor at kevinob.union@gmail.com!
JAM FEATURE OUR MANAGING EDITOR ANDY KNEIS IS GOING AROUND LONG BEACH JAMMING WITH MUSICIANS TO GET A BETTER IDEA OF WHAT MAKES THEM TICK. MUSICIANS OF ALL KINDS (SERIOUSLY! HIP-HOP, NOISE, BULGARIAN WEDDING MUSIC, ANYTHING!) SHOULD SHOOT AN EMAIL TO ANDYK.UNION@GMAIL.COM FOR A CHANCE TO PARTICIPATE AND GET YOUR MUSIC FEATURED IN THE PAPER.
GABE FERREIRA
Assistant Art Director/Cover
gabe.union@gmail.com
JEFF CHANG
jeff.chang.art@gmail.com
CONNOR O’BRIEN
connor.union@gmail.com
Head Illustrator Photo Editor/Cover
CHRIS FABELA
On-Campus Distribution
cfab.union@gmail.com
ANDY KNEIS
andyk.union@gmail.com
STEVE BESSETTE
steveb.union@gmail.com
Web Editor
Advertising Executive This Weeks Assistant Editor: COLLEEN BROWN
Contributors:
MIKE PALLOTTA, PARKER CHALMERS, MATTHEW TOWLES, BRYAN WALTON, JAMIE KARSON, FOLASHADE ALFORD, DEVIN O’NEIL, STEPHANIE HERNANDEZ, COREY LEIS, MARY FUHRMAN, DEBORAH ROWE, ALISON ERNST, LISA VAN WIJK, JANTZEN PEAKE, RICHARD LEVINSON, NICOLE STREET, JESSICA MEISELS, KELSEY WEHSELS, TANNER PARKER, KEVIN JORGE-CRUZ, CHRIS PAGE, MICHAEL IACOUCCI, JILLIAN WOLF, DANIEL PEREZ, VINCENT CHAVEZ, MONICA HOLMES, BRANDON STUHL, CHRISTINA MOTT, SHANE RUSING, KEVIN NICHOLSON, CHELSEA HOBBY, SARA HATAKEYAMA, KATIE BROWN, DANIEL SERRANO, JORDAN MAEVE, CHRIS COLEMAN, MARLON DELEON, ALLISON HUITT, JILLIAN THOMAN, KIMBERLY TORREZ, JARRED BLUNK, TYLER STAFFORD, JUSTIN JUNG, WES VERNER, KEVIN NG, JOHN VILENUEVA, GENE KANG, LILLY SEGURA, RON MITCHEL, RACHEL CLARE, ADAM FAY, ELISA ANG
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, 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 may or may not be edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length. The Union Weekly will publish anonymous letters, articles, editorials and illustrations, but 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
OPINIONS
ADVENTURES ON THE
BUS FOLASHADE ALFORD UNION STAFFER
First, a confession. I’m a liar. I know the majority of you may not care, but I promised this column way back in Fall 2010 (Issue 67.02, if you really wanna be specific). I’m back now and I’m going to prove that you can’t live without me. Well at least, ride the bus without me. My goal when riding the bus is to be left alone. That’s really everyone’s goal, but to avoid those exceptions I follow some rules. First, wear sunglasses. In most cases you don’t want to make eye contact. If you do, one of two things could happen. The first being conversation obligation. Either you or that chatty old lady will begin with something like, “Oh, hello.” It will probably be the lady that sucks you into the black hole of all shitty conversation. The chit chat will continue about a fucking hip replacement or her goddamn grandkids until you or she leaves. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate old people, just the ones on the bus. The other hole you can fall into is locking eyes with a crazy person. All it takes is one glance and they will stare at you for the rest of the ride, plotting ways to kill you. I know how fun it is to look around the bus and take in all your sad surroundings, sunglasses solve this problem. You can see them, but they can’t see you. Awesome. What if your journey takes place at dusk? Then you rely on your earphones, or for the dumbasses amongst you, Dre Beats. Seriously though, waste of goddamn money. These won’t protect you from a stare down, but they will save you from all chit chat and just random shit you don’t want to hear. If you really don’t want people to fuck with you, wear your sunglasses at night. Either you’re an asshole or crazy. The key is you win. So your bus has arrived and you’ve squeezed your way to a seat but you’re having a shitty day. Your sunglasses are at home and you’ve lost your fucking Dre Beats at the Rec Center. First, your head must feel 10 times lighter. Second, don’t worry. The solution in this case is to read. If you’re a student then you must have some kind of book with you. Oh, you don’t like to read. Well start! It’s good for you, or you can pretend. I’m sure the hobo won’t notice. If you want the most pleasant ride of all, be an overachiever. Go for the triple threat and use all three of these at the same time. Success and solitude. Or you could always sleep. I’m not too keen on that one though. That’s just asking to be fucked with or get your shit stolen. So you got something to say? Send me your questions (veghead@rocketmail.com) so I can make your life easier. Or don’t and continue chatting with Ethel about the good ol’ days.
GOING DOWN WITH THE SHIP NEVER LET GO, LEO, NEVER LET GO LEO PORTUGAL
I
CULTURE EDITOR
’ve worked at Borders Bookstore for two-and-a-half years, and all in all it’s been a pretty good experience as far as minimum wage jobs go. At the store level (setting aside the dumb corporate stuff), it’s all been great. It’s been a relaxed work environment, and I’ve had the pleasure to work with mostly nice supervisors and coworkers. I love reading, and it’s been a source of tons of cheap and free books. And the very best part of it all, it’s where I met my girlfriend, the love of my life. But now the store I work at and 199 others are being closed. Liquidators have taken the store over and will be working to get all of the product in the store sold before it is completely shut down. The store is in total disarray from a combination of constant droves of customers grabbing this and that and leaving things here and there; and us, the employees, no longer caring. A lot of my coworkers are really bummed, and that’s the worst. Customers have walked into the store and commented that they feel like they’re at a wake. Almost every customer falls into
Image
CONNOR O’BRIEN PHOTO EDITOR
one of two distinct archetypes that just keep popping up. It’s like Groundhog Day, as my last days at this place pretty much keep repeating themselves. One type of customer will be really sad and empathetic. “I love this store,” they’ll say. Sometimes they’ll add, “I’m going to miss you guys.” To which I always reply, “We’ll miss you too.” The other kind of customer is the vulture-faced mean person type. The day before liquidation had even begun, a lady asked me if she could buy our tables. I just looked at her confounded, because I was sincerely confused and didn’t know what to say. I looked over her shoulder at the tables, which were still covered by tons and tons of books. A coworker stepped in and she basically told the customer that she would have to wait until the store was actually closed and possibly discuss it with the liquidators. The coworker was pretty pissed about the whole thing. “It’s like she’s trying to take off our clothes before we’re dead,” my coworker said. While her metaphor confused me, and got me thinking of situations of necrophilia,
I got the gist of what she meant. Some customers will say, “The prices aren’t even low. When are they going to get lower?” And the customers are right about that, really. The prices aren’t that low, with just a 20% discount on books. Yet, immediately after the announcement of the store’s closing, there were more customers in the store than I had ever seen before; twice as many as any big Christmas rush. And many were lugging around and buying $150 to $300 worth of books. It’s like they’re stocking up to prepare for some sort of impending Armageddon and they prefer eating books and birthday cards instead of canned foods. This is coupled with an onslaught of the following questions asked over and over: “Is every Borders store closing?” “No. 200 out of 600 stores.” “When is this store closed for good?” “We’re not sure. Once we sell everything. April, maybe.” “What’s happening to you guys?” “We’re getting laid off.” And so that’s how it’ll go for the next couple weeks. Hopefully it doesn’t drive us insane. Hopefully we can all find jobs. And love and happiness.
POWERADE TASTES LIKE A SOCK AND I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CARES MIKE TAYLOR UNION STAFFER
After getting my fitness on at the Rec the other day (I was lifting weights and getting pumped so I can look super buff-tanked in my sleeveless shirts, bro), I was feeling parched and dehydrated. What was the perfect solution? A Gatorade, of course. There’s one little problem with that: because of our school’s vendor contract with Coca-Cola, we only sell their product, Powerade, on campus. You might be uninformed and want to ask, what’s the difference? If this is what you’re thinking, you’re probably wearing shoes with velcro straps and
a bicycle helmet. After complaining to my friend about Powerade being the only option, I looked like a turncoat and decided to buy one because I was yearning for a sports drink. That red Powerade only heightened my disgust for the drink. It tastes like bland sugar water. It wasn’t even refreshing, as the limited taste that it did have bitterly lingered afterwards. I would have been better served by drinking out of the water fountains and saving my two dollars. I woke up sick and dehydrated the other day and wanted a Gatorade
with me. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to grab one on campus, I grabbed one at the liquor store by my house and barely missed the bus because of this transaction. I told Corey Leis about this idea for an article, and he commented, “Powerade is sick.” No, that’s not a compliment. He meant sick, like disgusting. And he’s a smart dude, so take his word for it. Powerade is disgusting; Gatorade is amazing. I just hope that we don’t actually serve that garbage to our athletic teams. UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
3
CAMPUS
ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW ONE AUSTRALIAN’S LAST GAME, LAST FRANTIC RECAP JESSICA MEISELS
F
UNION STAFFER
irst all-American Whiteout Senior Night was held at the Walter Pyramid last Saturday. After accidentally volunteering a la Chandler Bing to write a sports report when I am a film major, you’ll have to excuse my overuse of sporting terminology. It just comes so naturally. 3:58pm-Keen jean arrival. Got told if we didn’t arrive by 4:30pm there would be no seats. 3:59pm-First ones on the bleachers. 4:58pm-The local elementary school kindly lent us their cheerleaders for tonight’s game and dressed them up as college students. Cute. 5:00pm-National Anthem begins. We are told people here don’t sing, although the elderly Chinese gentleman who has turned his paper into a megaphone doesn’t seem to mind. 5:02pm-I thought Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan were going to be here. I am notably subdued. 5:08pm-Game on! The Gauchos take the lead 7-4. All the anti-bullying campaigns we are taught in school are tossed through the window as we are encouraged to boo and turn our backs to the opposing players as they wear the color blue. I may or may not have gotten too involved and yelled out some crass remarks I didn’t quite understand, but nonetheless enjoyed. 5:11pm-OMG WE ARE ON TV! Score-
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CONNOR O’BRIEN PHOTO EDITOR
board momentarily blocked from vision by screaming students in a sea of white. I’m sure your mom will spot you. 5:17pm-The crazy elderly man is now singing Journey anthems into his megaphone as a 30-year-old overweight college student takes off his shirt to show off what looks suspiciously like a REAL “Go Beach!” tattoo. 5:18pm-The 49ers are back in the lead, but only just, 8-7. The pathetically small crowd from UC Santa Barbara attempts to cheer their players on but get drowned out by the band’s rendition of Cee-Lo’s “Fuck You.” 5:48pm-Attempt to go the bathroom but get stopped by the Seat Police, who have confused guarding the seating at an LB State basketball game with something people would actually try to sneak into, like finding the secrets to working the flux capacitor. 6:14pm-49ers are down 21-22. Momentarily distracted by the hot Marines doing chin-ups behind me. 6:30pm-Where was I? Halfway, and the 49ers are up 32-29. Two Frats and a team of no-namers compete in a chin-up-off. I would tell you who won, but the Marines were hosting. 6:41pm-The crowd goes wild for the five-year-olds who keep the court clean. Child Labor Laws do not seem to be brought into question. 6:42pm-Woke up from my nap to write down the scores, 49ers ahead on 38-29. The
LBSU beats Cal Poly for Big West Championship and then handles UCSB on Saturday for good measure
one half-naked man is now two and they are chest pumping in black and yellow paint. You have to admire their commitment. 6:55pm-Five minutes on the clock and the 49ers have taken a clear lead 69-49. There is still time for this to change, but the
crowd doesn’t seem to care, victorious hugs/ yelps/chest pumps all round! 7:00pm-13 seconds still left on the clock; but who cares dammit, WE WON! 71-53. 7:02pm- Stole a few shirts and a can or 12 of red bull for the road. Go Beach!
FIRST RULE OF FILM CLUB THERE REALLY AREN’T ANY FILM CLUB RULES, JUST KIDDING STEVE BESSETTE UNION STAFFER
Usually whenever you ask anyone about how to make it in film, they’ll tell you it’s who you know, who you know, who you know. It’s not about talent, it’s about networking and selling your soul to a bunch of high-end hobnob fucks who don’t give two shits about your dream of wanting to be in the pictures. Being a freshman pre-film major, I haven’t spent too much time in the department. The time that I have spent is with the Film Club, which was started roughly six years ago or so. The purpose of Film Club is simple: get into groups, write a short, pick jobs, hire real actors, raise a budget, shoot the damn thing, edit, and maybe if you’re feelin’ lucky (well do ya, punk? That was for the film assholes), you’ll send it to some film fests. This semester, things got a little jumbled up, thanks to two people trying to steer the same ship. This spring’s actual UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
Film Club is on Mondays from 2pm-4pm in FA-1 206. Newly elected club president Anthony Croupe is prepared to keep to the production traditions of past semesters, as well as shoot a new promo for the film department, since the old one is awful and embarrassing. Croupe also added that “what’s more important than learning the exact 1080i or 720p is networking... meeting different people who can teach you different things... it’s better to have multiple people who have their own experience in different things who can help each other out.” Then there’s “Workshop Wednesdays.” At first sight of Workshop Wednesdays, it looks like just a group of ne’er-do-well film geeks led by student Todd MacInnis who want to use their lunch break for learning ultra-specifics in film technology. Amidst the rag-tag munchkins that meet in LA-2
201 from 1pm to whenever MacInnis dismisses them, there are some smart cookies in there. This was originally supposed to be Film Club, but political snags such as not having a space in the UTC building, not starting at the beginning of the semester, and no one giving a shit about what MacInnis wants, it turned into Workshop Wednesday. MacInnis’ goal is to “create art and emotion out of essentially nothing each week... [and] focus on the artistic and technical aspects of movie-making.” This sounds vaguely similar to the original Film Club, but here, you’ll actually learn the difference between 1080i and 720p and other deep cuts into super technical stuff that can make your project go from thrown together (bad) to put together (good). If you’re a pre-film major looking for experience and resumé builders, Film Club is a great place to start. Any experience is
good experience. Just know that Workshop Wednesday is not officially recognized by the school or the department. When I asked Administrative Coordinator Donna Thomas about Wednesday’s Film Club offshoot, she replied with a puzzled, “I don’t know anything about that.” Thomas did inform me that the school is impacted for budgetary reasons and lack of equipment resources, and when you apply you’ll definitely need a personal statement, a critical essay of a television show or film, some creative work, two letters of rec, and unofficial transcripts. They only let 50 people into the Narrative Production Option (not to be confused with the Theory and Practice of Cinema Option) every fall semester, so get started on that creative work. Film Club and Workshop Wednesday are great places to start networking and knowing what the hell to do when you’re on a set.
CAMPUS
STUDENT EXCELLENCE FUND MO’ MONEY MO’ PROBLEMS
ACADEMIC CHAIRS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
$2
MULTI CULTURAL CENTER/ STUDENT CENTERS
$3
ASI RELIANCE RELIEF
HIGHLY VALUED DEGREE INITIATIVES FIRST YEAR ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAMS
$6
$7
Programs include: enhancing psychological services; expanding student health services; developing and deliver ing financial literacy programs; expanding retention efforts; enhancing parent programs with language-specific POP.
$33 $34
INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS ATHLETIC COST PER STUDENT BIG WEST
CSUF CSUN LBSU UCI UCR UCSB Cal Poly UCD Pacific
NOAH KELLY CAMPUS EDITOR
“There is never a good time to raise fees.” President Alexander said that and truer words have never been spoken. And yet, given this economic gutting the CSU system is facing, there was never a better time to raise fees than right now. Coming next semester there is going to be a $94 increase in tuition, and that doesn’t include the 10% raise in fees that are already scheduled for the fall (which might not happen if the fee increase is bought out, but that’s not likely to happen). But fees are bad, yeah, boo fees! Boo school trying to provide things for me. That really sucks to have to pay $2 more a semester to have free rides on the LB Transit busses. That really sucks to have to pay $6 more a semester for the health center, and the counseling and psychological services. Look, CSULB is one of the highest populated CSUs and yet out of the 23 campuses we are (currently) only 21st in how much we pay in fees. CSU Dominguez Hills pays more than we do. Dominguez Hills! With the $94 increase, we’re moving on up to 16th, and that’s only if no other school follows suit and increases their fees either (which is highly likely given that every
SUSTAINABILITIY/U-PASS/SHUTTLES STUDENT SUCCESS, HEALTH & WELFARE FUND
$7
INSTRUCTIONALLY-RELATED ACTIVITIES RELIANCE RELIEF
Programs include: enhancing yearround university and college-based advising; continuing JUMP Start; reducing high unit, excess time to degree programs and majors; improving high failure rate courses; continuing Summer Bridge Program; enhancing SOAR and GWAR, and others.
$2
CSU is fucked for funding). What this fee increase also does is provide ASI an additional $500,000 to spend on a variety of different services. None of the money is allowed to increase salaries, but where the money will go exactly, has yet to be decided. Where did this extra money come from? Well, Intercollegiate Athletics used to receive around $800,000 from ASI and the Instructionally-Related Activities. Now, they’re limited to $300,000 from those funds. “There has been this attitude of ‘I’ve got mine, so why should I pay for someone else?’” said Matt Dupree on Thursday when President F*King and Vice President of Student Affairs Doug Robinson came to sit down with us about the fee increase. Matt is right, there is this attitude that prevails not just in campus life, but in the country as a whole. That we shouldn’t pay for someone else. If we don’t have kids, why should we have to pay for schools? If we aren’t old, why should we pay into Medicare? This selfish attitude is what blinds us to not realizing that we need all of these things to have a functioning college environment. If you don’t play intercollegiate sports, why
PAC 10
$396.70 $422.85 $517.89 $568.10 $574.74 $660.85 $765.50 $900.04 $4,324.42
are you paying for an athletic fee? Because not only are you fully capable of participating in these sports if you so choose, but also because those same athletes are paying for your use of the writing resource center, or the student health services. “I don’t expect students to agree with this at all, but I want them to understand what this will go to fund. If this were to vanish, thousands of students would not be moving on to graduate,” said President F*King. And he’s right. CSULB has a high graduation rate, and we need to keep it that way. Having one of the cheapest educations in California even after this fee increase is worth it. For all you students who don’t go to games, and don’t get sick and go to the health center, and don’t play any sports, and aren’t part of any clubs, and don’t go to advising, and don’t ride the bus or the shuttle, and don’t apply for scholarships, and aren’t getting screwed by class closures and impacted majors: Who the fuck are you? You don’t exist. And if you did, what is it like to have such a joyless robot life? Why are you even in college, Robot? You shouldn’t go to college, you can’t even learn.
ASU WSU Wash. UCLA Cal OSU Oregon USC Stanford
$1,254.34 $2,043.28 $2,197.37 $2,400.88 $2,784.11 $3,238.41 $3,875.52 $4,739.03 $12,449.79
We at the Union would like to send out a correcton on behalf of the Daily 49er. On the front page of the Feb 24th issue of the Daily 49er, President F*King was quoted as saying, “[If extended] , everything is on the table” in regards to our funding situation. What the Daily 49er meant to write (and yes, they have fixed their online copy) was “if the taxes do not get extended.” This is a very important distinction that thankfully isn’t anywhere near the June special election. Normally fuck ups like that are pretty inconsequential and aren’t worth mentioning (we would probably have to have a full page dedicated to corrections if that were the case) but this one was a big one. I look forward to digging through the second page news jungle on Monday to find the print correction. UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
FOR SPECIAL ACCOMODATIONS OR QUESTIONS, CALL (562) 985-8576 ORGANIZED BY: WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER, CAREER DEVELOPMENT CENTER, EDUCATIONAL CAREER SERVICES, USU PROGRAM COUNCIL AND ASSOCIATED STUDENTS INC. FUNDED IN PART BY: PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN, ASSOCIATED STUDENTS INC., OFFICE OF THE ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT/ DEAN OF STUDENTS AND P.E.O. CAPTER FQ.
FILMING IN A
NEIGHBORHOOD
NEAR YOU THE SECRETS BEHIND FILMING IN LONG BEACH
Photos
CHELSEA STEVENS OPINIONS EDITOR
G
rowing up in Long Beach, I thought myself a fairly conscious kid when it came to the goings-on of my city. Life-long citizens of this place often regard it as a source of intense pride, the way someone from a small town in the Bible Belt might. However, even in my avid childhood love and patriotism for Long Beach, I was missing a huge part of its culture passing right beneath my nose. What I wasn’t aware of, at the time, was the absolutely immense amount of filming going on in every corner of the city. I would sometimes hear things like “Ashton Kutcher is at school today, you can see his trucker hat if you look over the bleachers,”
CONNOR O’BRIEN PHOTO EDITOR
or “I heard Brad Pitt’s at Blair Field, we’re going to stalk him after class.” Such big stars in a fairly unknown city like Long Beach seemed farfetched and unlikely, but it was true. The park in which I spent my weekends, the house down the street from mine, even my high school itself was constantly in use as the backdrop to countless commercials, television shows, and movies. Only in my later years, when it dawned on me that movies aren’t actually real events but staged, did I realize that I recognized the street the Channel 4 news team was driving down in Anchorman. I recognized it because it was two blocks from my house.
I became fully conscious of the magnitude of Long Beach’s filming history after gaining an internship with the Community Information branch of Long Beach’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine. I soon discovered that Long Beach is one of the only cities in the country to have a governmentcontrolled department dedicated to Hollywood: Long Beach Special Events and Filming. This bureau resides under the control of the City Manager’s office, where it acts as liaison between Tinseltown’s hotshot producers and our city’s residents. I sat down with the department’s Film Commissioner, Tasha Day, who described that this unique relation-
ship gives film producers more freedom to use any of Long Beach’s many faces to fulfill any scenic role their project might require. It’s Long Beach Film’s duty to make sure Hollywood’s production companies have access to all of these these commodities with as little hassle and paperwork as possible. “We work for the city, but we’re a film company,” Day says. “This film office is unique because you can come to one office and we’ll help you set up anything. It’s the only way the city can manage to keep up as much filming as we do.” Long Beach serves as the set for more than 800 productions every year. It’s incorporated in more than 100 feature films, more UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
DEXTER: DEXTER’S HOUSE. SEASON 4, EPISODE 1.
than 100 television series, and a myriad of commercials and ads. You’d think with all of that filming going on all over the place our streets would be constantly blocked off with orange cones and giant production vans, but they rarely are, thanks to the Special Events and Film Department. They exist to ensure that Long Beach residents can function as easily as if the film shoots never existed, and vice versa. As Day put it, “We understand that filming is an impact, but we try to make it as minimal as possible. Our job isn’t only to bring filming into the city, but that the constituents remain unaffected by it.” Seeing as even the most knowledgeable of locals have no idea as to the amount of movies and shows
filmed here, they do a pretty damn good job. Long Beach gets so much work in the film industry mostly due to its almost comical amounts of diversity. A beautiful canal system and peninsula, entirely surrounded by million-dollar boats, sits within five miles of Snoop’s stomping grounds. We happen to have the largest population of Cambodians in the world outside of Cambodia, and their neighborhood is nestled between blocks of purely Mexican households and what locals like to call the “Gay Ghetto.” All of these idiosyncrasies that make Long Beach so endearing to its residents and visitors are also what makes the city a goldmine for film producers. A movie can shoot a scene with a car explo-
BELMONT SHORE, LONG BEACH
sion, and another with a space-alien council meeting, without traveling more than a few miles. “We’ve never been ‘Long Beach’ in much of anything,” Day explained. “We can become anything from Downtown Shang Hai to Washington DC, Miami, Chicago, or New York.” The city is set up almost like a Hollywood set itself, with a variety of small pockets and neighborhoods resembling cities and stereotypes from all over the country. The hidden neighborhood of Bixby Knolls, for example, a stretch of beautiful countrystyle mansions protected behind a knot of confusing side streets, holds homes now easily recognizable for their cameos in blockbuster hits. Multiple houses in this area were used in
American Pie and American Beauty, and just down the street from these sits of the home of the infamous Ferris Bueller. Belmont Shore and Bluff Park, the neighborhoods near 2nd Street and along Ocean Boulevard, capture the same rich beach-bum aura of cities like San Diego and Miami. This makes them the perfect backdrop for movies like Anchorman, which was filmed almost exclusively in Long Beach, and shows like CSI: Miami, which was using our very own campus for this purpose just last week. My fascination with Long Beach’s past in film was first sparked by discovery of Dexter, which is also set in Miami, as I saw the Ice Truck Killer drive past the mural
ANCHORMAN
SHORELINE VILLAGE AT RAINBOW HARBOR, LONG BEACH
LETHAL WEAPON
OCEAN BLVD IN DOWNTOWN LONG BEACH
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INCEPTION: FINAL KICK
HENRY FORD BRIDGE AT THE PORT OF LONG BEACH
on the wall across the street from my middle school. With further investigation, I soon discovered that the homes of Dexter, Rita, the Ice Truck Killer, and the Trinity Killer are all located here. Almost every episode of the popular Showtime series features a well-known location, like Shoreline Village, Belmont Pool, or Mother’s Beach. Beach schools are also used in an astounding number of films and television shows. Fox’s Glee is currently being filmed at Cabrillo High School on the west side. Millikan and Wilson High Schools were used in movies like American Pie and Freedom Writers, and the lacrosse game scene of American Pie was shot right here at CSULB. My
alma mater, Long Beach Poly, is said to be the most filmed public school in the nation. Its long list of filming history is complete with everything from Coach Carter to a music video for Paris Hilton. This kind of notoriety isn’t limited to Long Beach’s homes, schools, and beaches; some surprisingly famous scenes are set in every part of the city from a wide range of movies. The council meeting of most recent Star Trek movie, when young Captain Kirk is tried for cheating in his ship-commanding exam? That’s the council room of Long Beach City Hall. Pearl Harbor’s club scene was filmed in an art deco restaurant aboard the Queen Mary, and Shoreline Drive served as the front of Stark Indus-
tries during the explosive fight scene in Iron Man. The opening events of Lethal Weapon’s took place on Alamitos and Ocean, in front of Long Beach’s iconic green-roofed apartment building. In There Will Be Blood, when Daniel Day Lewis dramatically stakes out his claim for oil, he was standing atop Signal Hill on Spring and Orange. But most impressive and shocking, for me, was a scene from last year’s recordbusting phenomenon, Inception. The dreamers’ final kick, as their van falls off a bridge and pummels into the water below, was filmed at our very own Henry Ford Bridge right past the 710 Freeway. I always thought knowing the behind-thescenes secrets of film productions would kill
the movie magic, similar to the way Disneyland will never be the same since I took that fateful trip backstage through the gates labeled “Cast Only.” On the contrary, the result of my adventures with the Long Beach film industry was quite the opposite. Knowing the locations of so many iconic scenes sit right here in my hometown adds a special touch for me and other Long Beach kids, who grew up or went to school next to places being featured in movies and shows seen all over the country. With the help of Long Beach Special Events and Film, the city can continue to keep our own little Hollywood booming, and if it continues to increase my chances of running into Michael C. Hall in the grocery store, all the better.
FEATURE FILMS FILMED IN LONG BEACH TO SEE THE FULL LIST, INCLUDING TELEVISION SERIES AND FILMS FROM 2001 AND BEFORE, GO TO: LONGBEACHFILM.COM 13 Weeks The 18 Year Old Virgin All About Steve Alone in the Dark 2 American Girl Anchorman Angels & Demons Anger Management Armored Bad Santa Balls of Fury Batman and Robin Batman Forever Because I Said So Bedtime Stories Beyond the Glory, Manut Bol Beyond the Ring Big Mammas House 2 Bill Black The Blok Goes to Hollywood Blood Shot Bring It On Yet Again The Brothers Solomon Buzz Kill Cable Guy Charlotte’s Web The Chosen One Chronicles Click Coach Carter The Comeback Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Crank Crossing Over
Eagle Eye Far Sighted Fast & Furious 4 Fired Up First Sunday Fracture Freedom Writers Fun With Dick & Jane Garfield 2 Get Smart Gigli The Good German Hesher He’s Just Not That Into You Hollywoodland How I Met My Boyfriend’s Dead Fiancée The Informant Iron Man The Island Jack Frost The Jane Austen Book Club Jarhead Jeepers Creepers Knight & Day Last Time Legally Blondes License To Wed The Longest Yard Lucky Chance Mama’s Boy Mind’s Eye Mr. And Mrs. Smith Must Love Dogs The No Sit List
Nancy Drew National Security The Perfect Game Playboys Play the Game Red Dragon Redbelt Reno 911 Rush Hour 3 Say Hello To Stan Talmadge School for Scoundrels The Soloist Spiderman Spring Breakdown Star Trek State of Play Step Brothers Super Hero Surfers Sweet Sixteen: The Movie Ten Inch Hero Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny Thank You For Smoking There Will Be Blood Three Strikes Threshold Torque Transformers I Transformers II Transformers III Two-Eleven The Undetectables United States of Leland Use As Directed UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
MUSIC
ICE TO MEET YOU MR. FREESE
ANDY CHILLS WITH LONG BEACH’S MOST PROLIFIC SESSION DRUMMER ANDY KNEIS MANAGING EDITOR
J
osh Freese has probably drummed on a song you heard today. Seriously, the guy’s everywhere. If you heard a song on the radio with live drums on it, chances are you heard Josh Freese smacking those drums into submission with a stick. You might know him as the drummer for Long Beach’s The Vandals, or as the drummer for A Perfect Circle, but he’s also played for Katy Perry, Sting, Devo, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, Avril Lavigne, and a ton of others. I could fill up this article with just the names of all the famous musicians he’s worked with, and I would if I weren’t so darn good at my job. Despite playing on albums with so many musical heavyweights, Josh manages to stay grounded here in Long Beach with his family and his giant stack of gold and platinum albums. In fact, he manages to stay so grounded, he didn’t mind taking time out of his undoubtedly more interesting South American tour with the band Paramore to talk with me. Damn, I should have called it “SouthAparatour” for a funny interview joke. You live and you learn, I guess. On top of drumming all over your iPod, Josh Freese is also a solo artist; he’s already released two solo albums, and he’s getting ready to drop a brand new EP called “My New Friends” in April. To understand where
this EP comes from, we’ve got to go way back in time to 2009 when Josh was releasing his second solo album Since 1972. In response to Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails’ “Go To Hell, Record Labels” online releasing model, Josh put out his album with special “price packages.” These packages went from the expected: Seven dollars for a digital download, 15 for a CD/DVD package; to the extremely unusual: 10,000 dollars will get you a trip to Disneyland and Josh’s luxurious Volvo 940, 20,000 dollars gets you a minigolf date with Josh, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, and Maynard of Tool AND two songs written about you (and tons more). Even though Josh “wasn’t expecting at all to sell” these huge packages, and was really aiming “to get people to laugh,” he created a lot of hype around his album, and before he knew it, “the things started selling.” And that’s where this new EP comes from. People started paying some serious cash, and as per the agreement, Josh wrote songs about four of these deep-pocketed fans. Just a quick note for future buyers: although Josh gave fans the choice between P.F. Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory as a potential dining spot, Josh prefers P.F. Chang’s since it’s closer to his house. It is clearly the better, classier choice anyway. Josh is such a professional, it seemed like
he didn’t even have trouble writing numerous songs for these near-strangers. All he had to do was write a song like he normally does, and then write lyrics about “these guys and the experience [they] had together.” Josh even went above and beyond, making music videos with his four new friends and editing them on his laptop during his downtime on the road. Recognizing how much these guys paid for their time with Josh, he realized he “really had to deliver,” and deliver he did. These songs capture Josh’s laid back personality, and they seem to capture the fun and antics Josh and his new friends were up to during their time together. I didn’t catch as many P.F. Chang’s references or Cheesecake Factory disses as I was hoping for, but that may be my own personal bias which has no place in this professional, journalistic article. Josh’s experience in the studio must have certainly helped him crank out fun songs about strangers. Josh’s easy-going attitude seems to derive from his ability to adapt to any musical situation. With breakthroughs in recording and music editing technology, Josh points out that it’s “rare that [he goes] into a studio and there’s a bunch of musicians playing in a room together. It happens still [...] but most of the time, the music is already done, and I go and meet a producer and a comput-
er. It’s basically like playing to a stereo where the drums are muted. Drum karaoke.” He talks with the producer about what he’s looking for, then he hops behind the kit and does his stuff. The producer ultimately has final say, though, and can edit and mess around with Josh’s recordings at will: “They take the best parts just like you were editing a video. It doesn’t have to be all one take.” While Josh is obviously a drum master, what seems to keep him going as a session drummer is his ability to adapt to different situations both musically and with different clients and producers: “You have to be a good listener. You have to be aware of what the other musicians are doing around you.” Sting himself seems to sum up this mentality perfect when he told Josh “playing music with you felt like putting on an old coat.” While comparing someone to an old coat might seem like a pretty backhanded compliment, as a musician and as a person like Josh who is thrown into so many different musical situations, fitting like an old, comfortable coat is exactly what he wants to do. And he does it well right here in Long Beach. Special shout-out to Josh’s PR Rep Monica, who was just as accommodating and friendly as her client. You are the Josh Freese of PR. Cool.
GODSPEED RETURNETH
LEGENDARY POST ROCK BAND TAKES THE STAGE AFTER FIVE YEARS MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN MUSIC EDITOR
Ariving at the Fox Theater I was immediatly struck by how many of my friends were in attendence, but more than that, how many people were packed into the theater. Obviously the eight years the band has taken off have only strenghtened their fanbase. The lights were dim as the members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor took the stage at the beautiful Fox Theater in Pomona. Splashed across the stage the words “Hope” handwritten in a chaotic fashion. The text was all the audience experienced for the first five minutes as the band was bathed in darkness. That word Hope purposefully chosen out of all other word playing off the failed optimism in the years since Obama took office, a time period which Godspeed missed out on during their hiatus. This sense of optimism and despair would carry on throughout the band’s set that night. Using a wide variety of instrumentation, mixing traditional orchestral instruments like violins and cellos, pairing them with a UNION WEEKLY
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rock arangement of guitar, bass, and drums and throwing in some noise elements in the form of effects pedals, Godspeed is able to create almost spiritual soundscapes which ebb and flow with an effortless beauty. Despite the detached stage presence exhbited by the band members there was something special about seeing them live with a full audience, everyone trembling and holding their breath as the music swelled to orgiastic heights. The only complaint I had with the crowd was that many members of the audience couldn’t control their excitement during the bands breakdowns, leading to loud shrieks from the audience during quiet and introspective moments in the arrangement. I gotta say, a little annoying. Also annoying was a certain security guard who insisted on talking as loudly as humanly possible for the first couple of songs until the hive mind let him know how insufferably annoying he was being. The projections helped to create a narrative arch to the bands experimenta-
tions, while simultaneously giving the audience something to focus on in place of a charismatic front man. While Godspeed’s expert time signature changes and progressive drumming was at its height, the band bombarded the audience with images of handwritten text, books, rail ways, and most impressively, time lapsed footage of a steel mill. The combination of emotionally engaging music and seemingly meaningless images is a really neat trick on the part of the band as it caused my mind to go into over drive adding more signifigance to the blur of images than they probably deserved. The show stopping moment came when the band started playing fan favorite “East Hastings” from F#A#∞, the band’s de-
but album, and also most famously from 28 Days Later. While some of the songs played earlier in the night had their fair share of fans excited, “East Hastings” is the one that united everyone. The drum patterns in this song mixed with the very familiar violin and cello breakdown make
the track perhaps Godspeed’s most symphonic track to date. It definitely helped that the projection was the incredibly bad ass time-lapsed steel mill. As the incredible mass of people emptied out into the Pamona night thoroughly satisfied, I could only think about how overwhelmed I felt the whole set. Unlike many of the noise bands that Godspeed has inspired, this feeling wasn’t harsh or negative but one of absolute contentment bordering on the spiritual. I think that accounts for why so many people had come all the way out to Pamona to sell out the show. Sure there were some people who were there just for the hipster points, but I think Godspeed is one of those bands that resonates with a huge swath of people and once you are exposed to their music it sort of stays with you and changes you. I know they were a huge influence on me so many years ago, and seeing them last week was one of the most significant concert experiences of my life.
MUSIC
REVIEWING SOME MOTHA FUCKING SHIT FIVE FUCKING REVIEWS FROM FOUR FUCKERS BRIGHT EYES: THE PEOPLES KEY KATY PARKER
I
LITERATURE EDITOR
am nothing more than a normalass person who enjoys a bit of music in life. I have zero technical skill or knowledge of music and therefore have no intention of trying to procure any kind of informed commentary about something gorgeous and complex and beyond me. I will describe my impression of The People’s Key as though I were a baby deer wobbling through a fresh, dewy forest with the goo from my mother’s womb still evaporating off of my fur in the sunlight. Not coincidentally, I love Bright Eyes and the writing of Conor Oberst with the ingrained passion of a 15 year-old. This album was like a warm hug from an old friend... who moved away and came back covered in weird tattoos talking about time travel and spaceships. The first track begins with a commentary by Danny Brewer, and friend of Oberst’s, explaining how reptiles descended from the sky and started interbreeding with humans. Because of this, and because I really fell in love with Oberst’s more accessible, earlier work (good ol’ songs about plane crashes/cocaine abuse/ crippling depression), I was hesitant. But I was persistent too! Close listening and careful thought have come to reveal compelling and beautiful ideas within the writing. The lyrics are strikingly self-reflective and seem to demonstrate a calm, almost optimistic near-acceptance of life as it is, which is something I have never encountered in my experience with Oberst’s work, at least not to this extent. You can hear it in “Shell Games” and “Triple Spiral.” His voice has even changed — it’s unwavering and stronger than before. Someone else will have to tell you about the music. All I can say is that I’d never recognize the drumming in “Jejune Stars,” that “Ladder Song” is haunting and pretty, and that “Firewall” is just the gosh darn coolest, at least once you get past the lizard sex.
JAMES BLAKE: JAMES BLAKE GENE KANG CONTRIBUTOR
In 2010, the 22-year-old London electronic producer and singer, James Blake, made a name for himself in the blogosphere. In his first two EPs, The Bells Sketch
and CMYK, Blake illustrated his musical interests in Dubstep and Electronica. Although Klaveirwerke’s style didn’t alter as much as his first two EPs, the album displayed Blake’s affection towards classical music. With three solid EPs released within a year and each one resonating with its own unique sound, it the direction Blake was heading towards was unclear. A month after the release of his third EP, The Restless, Blake reworked and released Feist’s “Limit To Your Love” for his upcoming self-titled album. From the lyrics to the instrumentation, Blake’s self-titled album takes a very minimal approach that encompasses a wall of space and pauses. With these pauses, Blake is able to expose his raw and soulful voice that amply fills in these necessary silences. In “Wilhelm’s Scream,” Blake manipulates his voice by articulating each word as if they were pitches projecting from an instrument. Deliberately positioned in the middle of the album between the chaotic “I Never Learnt To Share” and the sadness of acceptance in “Limit To Your Love,” “Lindesfarne I & II,” are tracks that exhibit Blake’s bare voice. Blake has created a masterpiece that melts a broad spectrum of styles and does so without creating a clusterfuck. Although it’s only February, I’m certain that this album will resonate with me til December and most likely for a long time.
CLOUD NOTHINGS: CLOUD NOTHINGS STEVE BESSETTE UNION STAFFER
Cloud Nothings’ self titled album could either be just plain annoying or mildly nostalgic (but still not iPod worthy). It’s catchier and slightly more listenable than early 2000s pop punk, sounding very sophomore year of high school in a relatively large beach city in SoCal. Maybe something your friends would listen to at a skate park (or at least you’d hum it in your head while dropping into a quarter-pipe). Second song “Not Important” comes a little more brash, like the shit my notso-rebellious younger sister would listen to loudly when my parents grounded her. It has scratchy-throated belting, but then suddenly changes back to their more chilled out power chord ballad sound. Besides the clean distortion guitars and constant beating on the cymbals, the album doesn’t start off with much energy. The unexiting “Forget You All The Time” batting fourth doesn’t help out at all.
Middle track “Heartbeat” is the best song in my opinion, but not enough to be its saving grace. It’s only a minute long and half is devoid of vocals. I like the short repetitive phrasing of just vocals (when they arrive) and a guitar lick, to full band, then back to just vocals/guitar lick, etc. If it went on for 10 more seconds, it wouldn’t have worked. It’s brevity made it better. It keeps a pretty solid pace throughout, since every song (save “Heartbeat”) is roughly three minutes long and sticks to the same quick tempo and three or four chord progression verses. It’s pretty average and there’s nothing too enthralling about it. The simplicity brings it into being ordinary. I feel like the energy they were trying to capture never really hit its mark. If I were you I’d skip this one, or give it to your young high school sibling. I don’t know, they might not like it that much either.
DESTROYER: KAPUTT GENE KANG CONTRIBUTOR
During high school, I was introduced to a plethora of independent bands that diversified from Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, and Destroyer. Among these bands, I didn’t really “get” Destroyer. With every yelp, scream, and screech that came from Bejar’s mouth, it was agonizing to listen to and it formulated an anxious and uncomfortable feeling to my ears. To put it simply, Destroyer was a band that I decided to completely ignore. This all happened in 2006 and I am glad that I decided to give Destroyer another try when the popgem single, “Chinatown,” was released late last year for their 2011 album, Kaputt. With over 15 years of musicianship and 10 studio albums, Dan Bejar, the singersongwriter of Destroyer has accomplished success at the age of 38. Kaputt is heavily influenced from the ’80s era of music and it becomes evident with each song being jam-packed with dainty new-age synthesizers and lush, smooth jazz saxophone and trumpet solos. In Kaputt, Bejar has toned down his yelps and screeches and has actually become pleasant and soothing to hear. What makes Bejar’s style so distinct among many other musicians is his poetic style in lyrics. Bejar occasionally spits out random Pavement-esque phrases, but does so in an orderly manner. With the help of Sibel Thrasher, a backup vocalist on Kaputt, her voice shadows Bejar’s voice and adds an overall subtle ef-
fect. One of the defining moments on this album is “Suicide Note for Kara Walker” -an eight-minute jewel that carries an ambient, hazy intro and an intimate flute solo that creates a perpetual feeling of despair. It doesn’t take a music critic to know that this album is enjoyable and pop-y right off the bat. Take some time and listen to the entirety of this album and you’ll be hooked.
TENNIS: CAPE DORY JOHN VILLANUEVA CONTRIBUTOR
In a time when the pop landscape has seemingly been overrun by bands channeling (or attempting to) The Beach Boys via Phil Spector, where young bored 20 something stoners dust off their old baby amps and out-of-tune Squires to start a band named after something picked off the Chillwave name generator, the band Tennis seems to offer a new perspective concerning the music of the high seas. Fronted by a husband and wife (and there’s a drummer somewhere in there, but whatever), the band took their inspiration from a trip...ON A BOAT! Hence, the nautical theme of the music. Following the template of other beach bands, Tennis have seemingly adapted it for the East Coast, the name itself evoking thoughts of the agonizingly boring sport of tidy, upper-class men wearing extremely short shorts. The sound, mostly composed of simple guitar lines with a rhythm section whose sole purpose seems to be emulating the sound of ’50s girl groups, brings class and innocence to the jagged, sunburst guitars and faux world weary/drugged out nihilist lyricism of bands like Beach Fossils and Christmas Island. It’s a displacement of the sunny California sound, from surfing the sandy beaches of Santa Monica, to sailing the coast of Maine. Think music for the fringe Vampire Weekend crowd who took “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” a bit too seriously. Song’s like “Cape Dory,” and “South Carolina” exemplify this even further, making use of enough seafaring imagery to drown Poseidon himself (or at least sink that terrible, terrible album cover to the depths of the ocean where it can never be witnessed again). Overall, the album Cape Dory, if somewhat one-note, is a fun album that can be enjoyed time and time again, without the need to be in close proximity of a large body of water. UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2010
ENTERTAINMENT Get your fuck on with these flicks we turned erotic Union MALE Staff
W
PORNOLOGISTS
ith all these adaptions, I guess it’s more of a re-imagining, of movies and TV shows into porn (See Reservoir Dogs XXX, The Simpsons Porn, and Justice League XXX) we (mostly the Entertainment editor and stupid things he finds hilarious) thought we could make a couple bucks off of our ideas by submitting some of our pornifications of current movies to some of the major porn producers. Maybe we’ll make so much money that we won’t have to eat our older issues to survive. Crank (Crank xXx) Chev Chelios is back with his outrageous adrenaline-filled adventures. In this porn installment to the franchise, Chev finds himself in a box at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Chev wakes up and tries to escape by saying stuff like “Aw Hell” and “What’s all this then?” but nothing works. Suddenly, a cell phone starts ringing. It turns out that his captors, some mob types that have a vaguely Russian accent, tell Chev if he doesn’t keep his boner for over an hour, his heart will explode. There should be lots of scenes of Chev trying to get a boner, like pounding Viagra,
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jumping out of a building, and at least one of him yelling “Give me a boner now” to his own penis. In the end, he finds out that Xander Cage, of xXx (the Vin Diesel movie) fame, is the Russian and that Xander set this up so they could meet and eventually fall in love. But then Xander gets fat, and Chev loses his boner and dies while playing the piano on stage at their 25th anniversary. Secretariat (Sexretariat) “My father’s legacy is not his money. My father’s legacy is the will to cum”—Penny Lane. That’s it. That’s all we could think of. It’s the same movie, except at the end Penny has sex with the horse to celebrate the victory. 127 Hours (127 Hours: In a Rock) We start immediately with James Franco, stuck between a fallen rock and his destiny. He takes out his trusty pocketknife and saws through flesh, veins, muscle, and bone. FLASH FORWARD: he’s sitting at his favorite bar downtown, drinking shitty beer with one arm and a stump. He’s thinking, “Here I am, with a stump, no woman will ever want to sex me. My poor boner will be lonely forever.”
But then a sultry blonde sits next to him and without saying a word they are on their way to James Franco’s super hip apartment. Before they’re even through the door, Franco and this nameless woman are all over each other. They move to his tweed/wool couch and he whips out his stump and starts pleasuring her. Within seconds she’s yelling at the top of her lungs in orgasmic euphoria. James Franco awakens… he’s not in his apartment, but still stuck between the rock. He was just sticking his penis into a vaginashaped crevice in the rock that still squeezes him. “Oh, well,” he thinks. “At least I won’t die a virgin.” The Walking Dead (The Fucking Dead) Rick wakes in an empty hospital, naked and both legs suffering from atrophy. He rolls off the bed, slamming his body on the cold linoleum floor, and heads for the door. He hears the moaning of something on the other side, grunting and groaning that sounds more animal than human. Rick leans his back against the door and starts thinking about his wife and his child, about how much he missed them. Suddenly he
gets a rock hard erection and starts jerking off as hard as possible while screaming the word “fuck” and crying into his chest. His zombified wife burst through the window and they have so much sex, but it’s not necrophilia because she’s sort of alive. Inception (CONCEPTION) I bet you didn’t know that during the filming of porn movies that accidents can happen. Including pregnancies. In order to bring up this important issue, Conception was birthed. It starts off with Leo DICKaprio impregnating a hot French chick, condomless. He’s implanting a seed in her womb, without her knowing. In violent lust she throws him off the bed, and this starts “the kick.” DICKaprio wakes up and realizes that he is actually being impregnated by employer Ken Watanabe while they are falling off a giant dick-shaped bridge. Kick #2 is initiated, and DICKaprio wakes up inside his mom’s womb, where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s penis is jabbing into his soft skull because he is a motherfucker of sorts. BWOOOOOOOMP. BWOOOOOOOMP. BWOOOOOOOMP.
LITERATURE
SO HOT RIGHT NOW FEVER CHART: A CRAZY-GOOD, CRAZY DUDE STORY LEO PORTUGAL
F
CULTURE EDITOR
ever Chart follows Jerome Coe, a wellmeaning and mild-mannered man, happy to go about his life, doing menial work (his most notable job being a world champion grilled cheese sandwich crafter), and fawning over girls. Coe, however, is also prone to the occasional mental breakdown, where he sees comic book-style word bubbles appear over peoples’ heads before descending into madness. This is the wonderful debut novel of author Bill Cotter, who has spent years in mental hospitals himself, and after having many bad experiences wanted to take some real stabs at the psychiatric system in the United States. Thanks for writing what you know and doing it well, Bill. This isn’t a novel solely about total insanity, however, as most of the characters inhabiting this world are seemingly only mildly crazy. And these are “characters” in every sense of the word. While they are not necessarily totally realistic, they’re interesting and lovable, and this is fiction, and they make me happy so leave me alone, alright?
Much like the characters, most of the story is pretty crazy, but in an absolutely fun way. It’s part kooky adventure, part love story, and all hilarious and witty. The book opens with a bang (there’s an explosion pretty early on), and Cotter moves Coe’s story at a fast pace throughout, moving from place to place and event to event in a way that had me thoroughly enthralled. The only thing that kept me from reading nonstop were Cotter’s often brilliant turns of phrase that would smack me in the face and leave me awestruck, forcing me to reread a particularly interesting description, or a subtly hilarious joke. Cotter is a talented wordsmith, and I just couldn’t wait to see what was next. I was always pleased by what I saw, even upon a second reading. The opening pages of Fever Chart can be found online (www.mcsweeneys. net/2009/8/14cotter.html). If you find that short sample enjoyable, be happy with the knowledge that the whole of Fever Chart is out there waiting for you.
A MOGWORLD AFTER ALL IF YOU CAN MANAGE TO PUT DOWN YOUR CONTROLLER, TRY THIS BOOK. MAYBE ALSO GO OUTSIDE.
COVER ART BY RON REGE
WESLEY VERNER CONTRIBUTOR
Some of you may know me. Some of you may not. I like reading, and I like reading good books. I think everyone does. So I’ve taken it upon myself to read books for you so that you don’t have to get stuck reading the bad ones. This week, it’s Mogworld by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, a video game critic who talks really fast and hates everything. If you like video games, go check out Yahtzee’s show, “Zero Punctuation” at escapistmagazine. com. If you don’t, don’t bother, because you won’t understand anything he talks about. So, this week, I’m going to take a page out of Mr. Croshaw’s book and give him a dose of his own medicine. In the spirit of this, please read this review and pretend I’m speaking rather quickly with a British accent. Mogworld is a book that explores what happens when a video game developer programs an MMO (that’s “massively-multi player-online” for all you non-nerds out there... think World of Warcraft because it’s the best example you’ll be able to comprehend) and the NPCs (non-player-characters) gain self-awareness. Also, a lot of other
stuff happens, and it’s really all confusing, and it doesn’t get explained until [sound of a dramatic inhalation] the end. But it is pretty funny, and the main character is an undead mage who was raised by a necromancer who messed up his [sound of a dramatic inhalation] ritual, and so all of his new zombie lackeys have free will. The whole first part of the book dissolves into a [sound of a dramatic inhalation] Monty Python-esque comedy routine that’s really quite entertaining, if not quaint, and throughout the whole book… I’ll start at the beginning. The main character, Jim, is a secondyear magic student at a College of Magical Studies. The school is attacked by Barbarian and Fighter students from across the border and Jim… dies. It is described as the single most brilliant thing to ever happen to him. Then, he gets raised by said necromancer and now is unable to die permanently, and the whole book chronicles his quest to become dead… again. Frankly, a lot of it is confusing and silly. Now that’s not to say it’s not good. While the good that is Mogworld is not
“I’m going to eat my fingers because they have spontaneously and inexplicably been transformed into chicken nuggets” good, it’s not the bad that is “My dumbshit neighbor just tried eating his fingers because they had spontaneously and inexplicably been transformed into chicken nuggets, but he retained all nerve function and blood flow, and now his screaming won’t allow me to relax for my mid-afternoon nap” that is, say, Crime and Punishment. Come on, you know what I’m talking about. That, “I’d rather be trying to dig glass out from under my fingernails than read this fucking book” feeling you get when you get to another stupid section about Roskolnikov moping about because he killed someone, and now he feels bad about it but still doesn’t want to get caught because he’d go to prison and OH NO, POOR ROSKOLNIKOV. Overall, I liked Mogworld. It was funny, but not over-the-top. It had a good story and a nice ending which I will not, no way, never gonna happen, go in to. It has pirates and magic and as much love as you can have in a story about a couple of un-
dead humans. But if you understood any of that third paragraph or are familiar at all with Yahtzee’s videos at The Escapist, then give yourself a wedgie and scream “I AM A NERD!!!!” as loud as possible. And be sure to video tape it.
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OPEN-MIC POETRY NIGHT ON TUESDAY, MARCH 8 AT BARNES & NOBLE (MARINA PACIFICA LOCATION) AT 7PM. ALL WRITERS WELCOME. MAYBE IF YOU READ A COOL POEM, SOMEONE WILL BUY YOU A BEER? PLEASE CALL 562-4312253 FOR MORE INFORMATION.
UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
CULTURE
ST E V E S
STEVE BESSETTE UNION STAFFER
Illustration
D
ungeons and Dragons: don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Nope. Please, for the love of all that is holy and sacred, if anyone ever brings up how “totally fun” D&D is, barrage them with verbal abuse until they are on their knees with outstretched arms, praying to crawl back into their mother’s hollow womb and die. When I got back from winter break, my roommate had bought a D&D starter pack. First thing out of my mouth was, “Go to hell.” Second thing, I knew I had to watch and find what was so captivating about the strange sub-culture that my roommate’s friends now basked in. To protect these poor kids from being persecuted, I’ll tell you their D&D names here, which doesn’t help much because their names are nerdy references. They were Daleksec (Dr. Who), Necron (Green Lantern), Theodora
ELISA ANG CONTRIBUTOR
Wolfsbane (slutty name from the Dark Ages), and Daniel He (who is a total idiot for using his real name. Facebook him and shit on his wall). My roommate was the Dungeon Master. Since they were just starting out, they were on one of the first missions taken out of the starter kit. The Dungeon Master explained, “Right now we’re chasing after this guy who robs an old man, and we’re on the way to the troll’s lair to find him.” That’s the structure of D&D: you go on a mission, complete it, then go onto the next one, continue. The missions are played out on this giant napkin/map that you can fold out and turn over for different environments, depending on what mission you’re undertaking. One of the main proponents of D&D is the D20, a 20-sided die that controls a lot of shit. Hardcore D&D players, also known as “eternal virgins,” wear necklaces
GROWING UP WITH D&D NOAH KELLY
STINKYBEEF THE GALLANT
Unlike my younger, friendless coworker Steve (above), D&D was pretty integral to my adolescent maturation. I grew up in a house where my older siblings played roleplaying games, my older brother playing many of them (Heroes, D&D, Shadowrun, Vampire, several others) and my sister playing more gimmicky games like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game. Yeah, I dunno. I was inundated with these games from a very young age, where I got to feebly attempt to wrap my mind around some of the most abstract rules I had ever encountered in a game without boards, and more dice than a Crown Royal bag could hold. Of course when I hit middle school, I began to acquire my own rule books. This was back in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons days where every fucking character class had their own rule book. I would gather my friends, create our characters, work with each other, and fight with each other harder than we have ever fought before. Rule mongering, power gaming, dice thieving, and flat out deception and backstabbing was rampant in my gaming group, especially when I was playing. My favorite character to play was a halfling (hobbit, but Tolkein sued) thief named Shyde Shadowthief. I know, I was 12, fuck you. I played a character of the alignment of “neutral good,” which meant I was supposed to do good deeds for goodness sake. Instead I played more of a chaotic-evil UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
character, who essentially was a shmuck who thrived on schadenfreude. I would steal items from sleeping group members, lie about what treasure we found, feel naked if I wasn’t wearing my custom outfitted clothes that had tons of secret pockets to hide gems in if my party searched my bags (and they did frequently). But all this was entirely crucial to understanding empathy, and how to properly act in a group for cooperation’s sake. Ruining a game was fun, but it really alienated me from my friends. They nicknamed me Clyde Stinkybeef, and dedicated a song to me about how I smelled of rancid meat. At first I laughed it off, but I definitely felt the sting. When the tables were turned on me, it wasn’t fun anymore. That was just one of the many lessons I learned (like the time my best friend Alex killed my character with his pet puma just because I set fire to his sacred grove, the fucking baby) from the forced interaction and deeper contextual meaning D&D brought to my life. When we would go to the local hobby shop to play on the weekends, we were confronted with the adult versions of ourselves. They shouted louder, slammed tables harder, scrutinized rules more intensely and smelled grosser. They all had Charisma ranging in threes to a max of eight. We learned a valuable lesson every Saturday, that this was just a game. But we also learned how to eventually treat each other with a little more humanity because of it.
with this die. Once you roll the D20, there are a few other dice called “modifiers,” which decide strength or weakness depending on the action you’re taking (for instance high/low stamina attacks, or how likely you’ll choose hentai over other porn). The most irritating element of this game is all the friggin’ numbers. All players have a character sheet that keeps track of their strength points, experience points, special moves, etc. These numbers come into play depending on the roll of the modifier dice. There are also cards everyone is dealt, which also have numbers that affect certain moves.
Before a single move can be made, you have to do some math with your skill sheet, the die, and your card. This is where the Dungeon Master comes in to help people keep all the adding and subtracting in order, then telling people how to properly move. Missions can last from 30 minutes to three hours or longer. Different missions include normal traveling ones where you just fight stuff along the way, conversational missions with irritating accents, and ones where you fight off continuing attacks from medieval monsters. If you’re interesting in playing D&D, please think twice and consider who you are as a human being; then, if that doesn’t matter to you, go buy the starter kit at a hobby shop. But seriously, don’t play D&D. You will never be taken seriously as an adult ever. Ever.
COMICS
CEPHALOPODA
CONTRIBUTOR
PJ KNEISL UNION STAFFER
UNION STAFFER
ANSWERS
5 4 6 2
8 1 3 5
3 5 2 7
4 6 8 1
7 9 1 6
HARD
9 2 7 8
6 3 5 4
2 8 4 9
1 7 9 3
HARD
EASY
EASY
VINCENT CHAVEZ
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ON PINS AND NEEDLES
5 8 2 1 9 3 7 6 4 1 3 4 6 7 2 9 5 8 6 9 7 8 5 4 1 3 2
AORTA VI
JORDAN-MAEVE
UNION WEEKLY
28 FEBRUARY 2011
Disclaimer:
This page is satire. We are not ASI, nor do we represent the CSULB campus. Email any questions, concerns, DOGS pics, to jeffbridges.grun@gmail.com, then go to hell.
Volume 68 Issue 5
Monday, February 28th, 2011
BREAKING: Nicki Minaj Ate A Butt And Grew A Bigger Butt BY TEEJAY DINKLE Ample hipped hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj was recently caught up in a scandal involving her ingesting human buttocks. According to reliable sources, the source of Nicki Minaj’s proportions are not what one might expect such as genetics or exercise or whatever, they are actually created by Minaj feasting on the butt of fallen humans. Her backside is growing each day as her butt intake stays consistent. Scientists fear that it may grow to an unmanageable size if Nicki does not stop consuming butts. Accusations began when Minaj was seen in a popular LA club last weekend laughing maniacally as she feasted on a large plate with a bunch of butts piled on top of it. She was shouting for the clubgoers to dance for her amusement, and they begrudgingly obliged. Reports have indicated that her butt grew while she was at the club. She made a line above her head, indicating her height when sitting down. Before she left, the line was not visible, as her butt had grown so much, her head was blocking the line previously drawn. This evidence has caused a media uproar. Minaj has yet to comment on
her club accusations. Some argue that the goings on at the club were not the only evidence for Nicki’s butt-eating butt-growing tactics. In fact, several of her songs have mentioned this. In fact, searches have shown that Minaj’s most frequent rhymes have to do with butts and eating and growing. A local scientist has confirmed that eating a butt is the simplest and most efficient way to increase butt power, but its moral and legal consequences mean that it rarely is ever implemented. “In fact, by eating any part of a human, you gain that part’s power,” the scientist said. The source of Minaj’s large butt intake is unknown. Several buttless corpses were found floating in a Los Angeles runoff drain, but police were not able to confirm Minaj or any of her crew as the killers. “Their butts could have fallen off after their death,” one detective said. “We still aren’t sure how the butts detached.” No word on whether Minaj will face jailtime for her insidious acts, but one thing that is confirmed is that she has a butt that won’t quit. Sorry, that was a typo, I mean acquit. A bad joke to end a bad article. Thanks.
LBUNION.COM
Air Bud Runs For President: Not In Constitution, Says Referee Shrugging BY JEFF BRIDGES, ACTOR Air Bud has announced his campaign to run for president of the United States. This decision has caused some controversy in some circles which believe that the President should be a human. Air Bud and his supporters have to disagree, though. After a careful and thorough reading of the constitution, nowhere in its infinite wisdom does it say that sports dogs cannot become leader of the free world. A referee at the White House was there to confirm it: “It’s nowhere in the constitution,” he said shrugging his shoulders innocently. “I’ll have to allow it.” The crowd supporting Air Bud started whooping and hollering in celebration of the news, while Air Bud’s opponents all threw their hats to the ground in frustration. Now that a referee has allowed Air Bud’s campaign to continue, he has begun to make some lofty promises of big laughs and wacky hijinks at the White House during his term. Air Bud has stated that at least once a month, he will run under a bad guy’s legs (maybe a terrorist?) causing him to become confused and providing big laughs for the American public. Additionally, Air Bud promises to put his paw over his eyes and make a dog noise in reaction to some form
Air Bud gives his inagural speech in front of the White House, which will soon be named the White Dog House! The referee is powerless to stop this adorable change in American politics.
of bad foreign policy or when told the exact amount of America’s national debt. In regards to how Air Bud will be able to sign documents or give speeches, Air Bud’s trainer assures the public that Air Bud will instead play sports such as football, baseball, and even soccer to determine his decision on the big questions that America needs to know. We are assured the sports playing will be very cute, and that the other team of jerks will be wearing shirts that label the issue they are representing. Air Bud will first take on a team of kids with
shirts labeled “abortion.” If he is able to win, everyone gets all the abortions they want! If he loses, no more abortions ever. A quick, easy, and controversy-proof way to solve the big issues that are dividing America. The big question remains: is Air Bud a Redoglican or a Dogocrat? Ha ha, no way to know for sure, check out his big InDogural speech to find out! The speech will be followed by several more puns as Air Bud takes on Guantanamo Bay prisoners at baseball. They are playing for their lives. Good luck, fellas. You’re gonna need it.
INSIDE
Area Dog Likes Carrots On Sunday, after accidentally dropping a carrot, local dog owner Ben Brinkley noticed his dog Murphy has taken a liking to the vegetable. “It’s weird,” said Brinkley. “I didn’t think dogs even ate carrots. It doesn’t seem like a thing they’d like, but check out Murphy! He’s really going to town on that carrot.” Brinkley proceeded to let a few of his friends know about the dog’s preference. He’s even thinking of inviting a few friends to bring over carrots to feed them to the dog just to prove how much his dog loves them. page CD
First Dog Sleeps on Truman Doctrine, Too Cute To Stay Mad Says Obama The Obama family’s dog, Bo, recently got into some mischief when he was spotted taking a nap on the Truman Doctrine last Saturday. The document, which aided Greece and Turkey in preventing possible Soviet attacks, is considered an extremely important document in American history. Although it is extremely important, its importance was overshadowed by Bo’s extreme cuteness when napping on the document. “Aw look, he’s dreaming,” said Obama. “I can’t move him right now and disturb him. I’ll just clean up the doctrine later,” he said, holding his wife close by his side. This moment was well worth any potential damage. page TD
Science Sez: A Dog’s Tail is 100% Hair page HD