Discover Cal State L.A.! Summer Special Session 2011
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SUMMER SPECIAL SESSION
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www.calstatela.edu/extension/news Offered through the
College of Extended Studies and International Programs California State University, Los Angeles
ISSUE 68.09 KEVIN O’BRIEN
kevinob.union@gmail.com
Editor-in-Chief
ANDY KNEIS
andyk.union@gmail.com
Managing Editor
CLAY COOPER
clay.union@gmail.com
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
marcob.union@gmail.com
Entertainment Editor
MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN merm.union@gmail.com Music Editor
CHRIS FABELA
cfab.union@gmail.com
LEO PORTUGAL
leop.union@gmail.com
Comics Editor Culture Editor
JEFF BRIDGES
jeffbridges.grun@gmail.com
CLAY COOPER
clay.union@gmail.com
Actor, Grunion Editor Art Director
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
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 Week’s Assistant Editors:
COLLEEN BROWN, ALISON ERNST, FOLASHADE ALFORD
Contributors:
MIKE PALLOTTA, VICTOR CAMBA, PARKER CHALMERS, MATTHEW TOWLES, DEVIN O’NEIL, STEPHANIE HERNANDEZ, COREY LEIS, MARY FUHRMAN, DEBORAH ROWE, LISA VAN WIJK, JANTZEN PEAKE, JESSICA MEISELS, KELSEY WEHSELS, TANNER PARKER, KEVIN JORGE-CRUZ, CHRIS PAGE, MICHAEL IACOUCCI, DANIEL PEREZ, MONICA HOLMES, CHRISTINA MOTT, SHANE RUSING, KEVIN NICHOLSON, CHELSEA HOBBY, SARA HATAKEYAMA, KATIE BROWN, DANIEL SERRANO, JORDAN MAEVE, MARLON DELEON, ALLISON HUITT, JILLIAN THOMAN, KIMBERLY TORREZ, JARRED BLUNK, TYLER STAFFORD, JUSTIN JUNG, WES VERNER, KEVIN NG, JOHN VILENUEVA, GENE KANG, RON MITCHEL, RACHEL CLARE, ADAM FAY, ELISA ANG , ANNETTE SCANLON, SARA HAASE, CLAUDIA RODRIGUEZ, SALLY KEY, JONATHAN BALDERAS, CAREY BAXTER, SHANE RULING
KEVIN SENT A LETTER LIKE NOTHING ELSE KEVIN O’BRIEN
W
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
hat is contained within this publication is student thought. It may or may not offend you; the only constant is that the content will be earnest. While, as Editorin-Chief, I am willing to guarantee earnestness, I am unwilling to guarantee more. I do not wish to dictate the voice of the student body with strict journalistic restrictions. I would much rather experience the voice of the student body as it is. This preference for honesty over rigidity means that I am prepared to marvel at the beauty of a student’s opinion, just as I am prepared to learn from the imperfection of another student’s viewpoint. This may not be journalistic tradition, but it is our tradition. It is a funky tradition. Not funky like “Play That Funky Muisc;” funky as described by Dr. Cornel West, who said, “Funk faces brutal reality and reflects its raw consequences. But in doing so, funk is transformational, even redemptive.” We seek out the good in what others deem to be bad in an effort to grow. Each week we take what we are given: articles, illustrations, and photographs, and we make the most of it. We make an issue of the Union Weekly. Each week we celebrate that contri-
CONNOR O’BRIEN PHOTO EDITOR
bution by spending our time and effort to bring attention to those contributions in another issue of the Union Weekly. It is our appreciation of our peers’ opinions and our weekly effort that provides us with a great love for our institution. This love has compounded, for me at least, over the many years of my involvement. However, this love is not without consideration, and over the past weeks I have identified contradictions in our methods. In my effort to promote free speech I allowed any student to publish almost anything, this resulted in some students viewing the Union Weekly as a hostile environment. This I regret, I want each and every student to feel that they can walk into our offices and express themselves. I will make every attempt to rectify this perception in future issues, all students are welcome, and I will do everything in my power to assure the Union Weekly is an open and inclusive environment. This week, there will be a rally to remove the funding provided by Associated Students Incorporated that is necessary to continue the Union Weekly. I believe that the success of this rally and the extinguishing of the Union Weekly would be a critical blow to California
OODLES OF DOODLES
State University, Long Beach. I have never seen a publication of any kind even approximating the Union Weekly. It is an institution that, for nearly 34 years, has propagated student thought and opinion. It is an institution that has radically changed my life for the better. It is a bastion for free thought and humor, and a family for those who find themselves compelled to seek more than what their professors and coursework can provide them. The absence of the Union Weekly would be a significant cultural loss and immediately evident on the campus of CSULB. I bring this potentiality to your attention only because it must not be allowed to become a reality. I am confident that our funding will remain intact and we will continue to serve the student body. However, if you have ever found anything of value in the Union Weekly please communicate that to the paper and the rest of the student body. Send a letter to kevinob. union@gmail.com. Speak up today so you can be heard tomorrow. Ask Away!
Finished the paper but still have questions or comments? Send them to the editor at kevinob.union@gmail.com!
GABE FERREIRA
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
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
UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
LEIS on
OPINIONS
LIFE
COREY LEIS UNION STAFFER
DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH? AN AMATEUR WRITER’S THOUGHTS ON THE POW WOW CONTROVERSY MIKE PALLOTTA
UNION STAFFER, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
[Editor’s note: Don’t know about the controversy? Check out the Pow Wow article on pg. 6 of issue 68.07 at http://bit.ly/ij5SAI and the responses in the following issue on pg. 2-3 at http://bit.ly/hOxaGZ] here are plenty of articles in every Union to hate or love or stand up and say, “Hey, I’m not taking this anymore!” And people choose Noah Kelly’s “Pow Wow Wow Yippy Yo Yippy Yay” article? THIS article? Marco Beltran wrote multiple times that he was going to kill himself and not one word of response. Noah flips off a campus event and all of a sudden no one reads anything else written in the Union? Now, the Pow Wow was a cultural event, and American Indians have every reason to be hurt and angry by a white guy criticizing their cultures, especially a white guy who hasn’t done any research. That’s just history in action. But look at all the other, well-written articles that are trying to get you up and off your asses. Don’t focus all your efforts on one half-assed “news” article, when we’ve never claimed to be professional journalists. We’re students and we’re still learning. Not everyone on staff wants to be a journalist, I’d even say most of them don’t. All I’ve ever claimed to be is a writer, and barely that. I don’t get paid, I’m a chump who gives it out for free. That’s not to say that aspiring journalists aren’t welcome or wanted. The Union has had its share of journalists, ones who’ve gone on to become professionals, but it isn’t commonplace for us to have many on staff, since the journalism department only offers credit to students who help put together the Daily 49er. This isn’t a putdown, just the fact of the matter. That provides us with contributors who aren’t given academic or monetary incentive to write for the
T
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UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
Illustration
JEFF CHANG HEAD ILLUSTRATOR
Union, but who want to foster creativity and refine skills. Noah tried to be creative and produced a pile of shit. But that’s the unfortunate result of being a newspaper that is literally open to anyone on campus— student or faculty member—who wants to see his or her opinion in print. Sometimes that person’s voice embarrasses the campus. It comes with the territory. After accepting an apology in-person from Noah, the American Indian Student Council (AISC) released a statement calling for follow-up articles where Noah writes what he’s learned about American Indian culture. The problem with that is, I don’t care to read someone’s homework. I read the Union to take my mind off of homework—to find relief from hours of work and to be entertained. Granted, not all of the articles are entertaining, and an entertaining and insightful piece on American Indian culture is possible. But we’ve all learned that Noah is terrible at writing and now I’ll have to read an article where he bullet points some dry facts about the culture just to appease some angry voices. Shouts are coming from people off-campus—people who aren’t part of the readership or pay into the CSU or the state, and are influencing the thoughts and actions of the AISC. Some may read this and be offended. For that, I’m sorry you’re so offended. It offends me how offended you are. This isn’t an attack on one group, it’s an attack on anyone that wants to force me to read some boring bullshit. As a reader and contributor, I don’t want our students’ newspaper to be forced to waste space to appease the will of those off-campus. It’s counter-productive to turn our paper into penance. And if the AISC want an article about their culture, they can write it themselves. They are students
after all. I’d rather read a piece from someone who’s passionate about the subject. Noah Kelly wrote something bad that people didn’t like and he apologized. That’s it. If you want more from him, email him personally, set up meetings with him, set up Q&As where you ask him what he’s learned and he’ll respond. He’s not the monster he appears to be. Just don’t drag the rest of us into it—by which I mean the campus, the student body, and everyone else. Group punishment is the kind of comeuppance enacted by prison guards and second grade teachers to take away movie time or Pizza Fridays. However, the Union Weekly isn’t just a privilege, it’s an outlet for our basic rights. In a further attempt to punish everyone for one person’s thoughts, AISC’s statement also called for the funding to be cut from the Union. One student said some words you didn’t care for, thus every student must be deprived of having his or her voice heard? I am disappointed in anyone who considers that a solution. It’s like cutting off the nose to spite the face. It’s shortsighted thinking and it’s utterly ridiculous to discuss punishing a non-profit organization for something they said (a member said? A contributor said?). It impugns the entire concept of Freedom of Speech. If ASI cut the Union’s budget of roughly $35,000 a year, and that went back into everyone’s pockets, that’d be less than a dollar per student—hardly worth sacrificing the voice of the student body. Don’t let mass hysteria sway you. Noah wrote a bad article. Writers, I implore you, come in and one-up him— in a good way. Anyone on campus can write a rebuttal. That’s the whole point of why the Union’s here. That’s why it’s always been here.
In light of the recent controversy enveloping the Union Weekly, I determined that this particular installment of “Leis on Life”, the idea for which having been marinating in my mind for a bit, is particularly salient. Due to the extreme ennui I experienced over winter break (see “Winter Break Blues” in this semester’s first issue for more details), I decided to undertake the colossal enterprise of organizing my CD and vinyl collection. During the process, I stumbled upon a goldmine of long-lost gems, the soundtracks of nostalgia. Most notable among these cobwebdraped albums were all my Propagandhi records. It’s not like I forgot about the band, but I hadn’t really listened to them in years. After spinning Less Talk, More Rock for the first time in a spell, I realized how informed and literate, albeit radical, this band really is in the realm of social justice. The album fanned the flames of discontent, as it were (that’s a Refused reference, y’all!), and it reinforced a lot of the perspectives I’ve been reading over the course of my tenure here at CSULB. Being an English major, I’ve been exposed to a profusion of writers who labor to illuminate socially important issues (e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, cultural insensitivity, phallocentrism, et cetera). Writers such as Chester Himes, bell hooks, Leslie Marmon Silko, Helena María Viramontes, August Wilson, and Gloria Anzaldúa are just a few among a vibrant and diverse spectrum of writers who adroitly point out how we (the collective we) continue to exploit and fuck each other over, whether we’re conscious of it or not. A few semesters ago, being immersed in works by many of these writers, I began to shoulder a lot of guilt for being who I am. This led me to start pointing out, wherever I went, the ways in which we’re all culturally insensitive, which is not a bad thing, but this was directly correlated with a decrease in the level of fun I was having in life. My friends and family thought I was turning into some kind of PC whistle blower, and I was generally a bummer to be around. Since then, I’ve stopped being so staunch in my finger pointing; however, I still bear the guilt of participating in the exploitation of fellow humans. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the cars we drive, the goddamned toilet paper we use to wipe our asses—it’s all afforded to us through another’s suffering. Living in the United States, it’s incredibly difficult for one to get around this. How does one reconcile this without giving up all the things she or he enjoys in life? This is a question I’ve been grappling with for a long time, and the more I ruminate on it, the harder it is to find a suitable answer. For now, I’m glad that I’m not indifferent. I would hope that we all are not indifferent. Feel anger, joy, love, hate, disgust, amusement—feel anything but indifference.
OPINIONS
CUBAN IDENTITY CRISIS
I’M SEXY, SASSY, AND TOTALLY WHITE CHELSEA STEVENS OPINIONS EDITOR
For the past two decades, I’ve spent the vast majority of my days as a plain, boring, run-of-the-mill white girl. I have blonde hair and blue eyes, I’m barely five feet tall, and in the summer I turn redder than a baboon’s ass. I’ve never been called anything worse than a cracker or one of Hitler’s children. Truthfully, though, I’m nowhere even close to German. I’m barely even European. I am 100% pure, bonafide half Cuban. That’s right, my mother and her parents and her parents’ parents are all straight from Cuba. Luckily, no one in my direct family tree had to make the trip via raft, though a few of my other relatives were forced to resort to some seriously creative water-traversing vehicles. My abuelita’s side were originally Portuguese, so she and every one of her four sisters had
platinum blonde hair and bright blue eyes. My abuelito looked more like a normal hispanic person, mostly due to the fact that his grandmother was an Afro-Cuban slave. I somehow managed to get all of my looks from my abuelita’s side, making me whiter than Renee Zellweger while still managing to be one-sixteenth black. Go figure. Am I proud of all this random history, even though no one gives a shit or can gather any of it from my appearance? Hell yeah! I’ve somehow fallen into the best of both worlds. Except for being a woman, I don’t have any apparent qualities that are usually discriminated against. At the same time, I get to check the little box that says “Latina: Other” whenever the school asks for my race, whatever that means, and I can apply for Latina scholarships. The advantages of being Cuban aren’t
only limited to school benefits and an arsenal of cool facts. Family parties are always ragers, with everyone laughing and yelling incomprehensible Spanish at 100 miles an hour. Partying Cubans dance like there is no tomorrow. My 89-year-old great-uncle salsas better than anyone I know. I even have some saucy Cuban dance moves, though my embarrassing white-girl booty would suggest otherwise. Cubans also have the best Latin cuisine in the whole world. Sorry Mexicans and Salvadorians, but if you don’t agree with me, it’s either because you’ve never tried it or because your parents seared your taste buds off with a white-hot knife as a baby. Either way, you seriously need to take a trip to the huge new Porto’s Bakery & Cafe that just opened up in Downey a few months ago, and allow yourself to
experience heaven at least once before you die and possibly end up in hell where there is no Cuban food. Cuban fire is not a myth and is also one of the best aspects of our culture. If I ever want to get my way, I whip out my spicy Cuban ’tude and everyone instantly cowers in fear. I may seem the size of a small elf and generally unassuming, but my Cuban insides give me an extra advantage in the sass department. You cross one Cuban, and you’ll have the whole Cuban Mafia on your ass. No matter how white I look on the outside, these things that make up what it means to be Cuban are what have defined me for my whole life. My life as a Keeblersized blonde may keep me completely detached from my Latin roots on a day-today basis, but it’s still my favorite part of my family and who I’ve become.
DON’T TELL ME WHO I AM THAT’S FOR ME TO DECIDE FOLASHADE ALFORD UNION STAFFER
I’m black. I’ve spent a lifetime and will probably spend more trying to figure out what exactly that means, not only for me, but for an entire race. It’s a little insane to me that an entire culture can be gathered into a few words. The connotation that also comes from those defining words varies. When somebody hears that I’m black or they see me (surprise!) they might assume, “Oh shit, this girl loves rap.” Now this is true but I’m not a fucking expert. Don’t look to me to be the lyric expert, to drop some “dope beats” and “bust some rhymes” for you. I’m not gonna be good, and you’ll be disappointed. I think the worst thing we can do is assume. I know that’s difficult; society drills
these stereotypes into us as a way to group people. That’s unfair, not only to the group being stereotyped, but to yourself. You miss out on a culture that you could enjoy just because you assume certain things. Not everybody fits into a perfect box that can categorize them. We’re all made up of so many different cultures and races and soon there’s going to be a little piece of everything in everybody. That’s what makes people so interesting: the little parts that make them who they are. Yes somebody can be white, but not all white people are the same, or even Europeans for that matter (though my father would say otherwise). There are Italians, Brits, and French people, each with their own culture.
Let my introduce myself. My name is Folashade, and I’m black. If that’s all you take away from me, I’ll feel a little insulted. Somewhere somebody decided there was a code, and you are black if you do x, y and z. I say fuck that. I’m black and I also love things outside of my culture like ballet and classical music (seriously, Tchaikovsky is the shit!). I’m black and I don’t eat fried chicken, I’m a vegetarian. I’m black and I love watermelon, but who the fuck doesn’t? It’s delicious! Every day I spend my time adopting things into my personal culture, those things that I want people to see when they think about who I am. Don’t feel like you’re not allowed to enjoy something because it is from another culture. That’s bullshit, we’re all a part of the
collective human culture. Who’s to say that we can’t share and appreciate what everyone has to offer? Something I try to do is not look at somebody and assume I know who they are or what they are. What I’m more interested in is learning about their personal culture and all the beautiful things that make them unique. All the fun facts I wouldn’t have known about them otherwise. So I invite you all, just go have a fucking conversation with somebody, but throw all your assumptions out the window. Just listen to what they have to say. Let’s enjoy all the things that make us who we are and stop trying to define people or allow assumptions to be cast on us. Let’s define ourselves. UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
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CAMPUS
LUCY NGUYEN ASI PRESIDENT
STEPHEN THOMAS
MICHAEL QUIBUYEN
ASI VICE PRESIDENT
AUSTIN METOYER
RAVEENA GILL
USU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OJAALA AHMAD SENATOR AT LARGE
JACOB RICE
SENATOR, ENGINEERING
BALLOT MEASURE 1: FOOTBALL
NO
SENATOR AT LARGE
MERON REDA
JESSICA CORRAL
SENATOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
LIZELLE FELIX
SENATOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
ASHA NETTLES
USU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
UZOAMAKA UMEH
SENATOR, ENGINEERING
ASI TREASURER
TE-KAI SHANG SENATOR, BUSINESS
ROSE VALLE
SENATOR, EDUCATION
USU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
DYLAN BISHOP
JALEN BLACK
SENATOR AT LARGE
SENATOR, BUSINESS
GEORGE LAM
SENATOR, LIBERAL ARTS
SENATOR AT LARGE
JESSICA GARCIA SENATOR, ARTS
SAGAR RAMACHANDRA TAYLOR MCWILLIAMS SENATOR, LIBERAL ARTS
CRAIG HIPP
SENATOR AT LARGE
JORGE SORANA SENATOR, ARTS
USU BOARD OF TRUSTEES
JASON NEAS
SENATOR AT LARGE
JOSE ESPELETA
DALIA HERNANDEZ
SENATOR, NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATH
MANUEL NIETO SENATOR, NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATH
NOOR ALTOMA ACADEMIC SENATOR
JAMES SUAZO
ACADEMIC SENATOR
BALLOT MEASURE 2: BYLAWS
YES
ASI ELECTED OFFICIALS FOR 2011-12 YOUR FUTURE MINISTERS OF TRUTH, PEACE, AND LOVE NOAH KELLY
I
CAMPUS EDITOR
f you were like most of the student base, you didn’t vote for the ASI elections. If you were one of the 9 percent or so that did, congratulations on not winning an iPad! But seriously, even though there were only 9 percent of the students who voted, this was actually the second highest turnout since the votes went online. That’s saying something: students don’t really care about the ASI elections. Some of the candidates were also running unopposed. The Senators at Large had six seats available, and only six students enUNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
tered the election. The Board of Trustees had five seats available and only four people ran. Many of the colleges, like Education, Business, and Health and Human Services had seats for everyone who ran. If you’re not graduating the year after next, and looking for some free, extra responsibility, there’s a good chance you could win an ASI election just by virtue of showing up. I wish I could win my criminal court cases this easily! The biggest, and closest contended piece of these elections was the Ballot Measure 1: Referendum to Bring Back 49er Football.
This measure brought the highest number of voters at 3,085, and was actually incredibly close. With 52 percent of the vote, the Referendum was shot down. As stated in the voter guide, and the information on the online voting card, the Referendum was merely only to suggest to President Alexander that he should reinstate the NCAA football program, along with three other sports. Alexander has also been quoted as saying that he would acknowledge the suggestion, but ultimately refuse it should it actually win in the ASI elections. Another interesting note of the referen-
dum was that it required some 2,000 signatures to actually get on the ballot to begin with, yet only 1,479 students voted for it to pass. Student support can be a precocious thing, especially when you can garner a signature right then and there. In other news about the elections, Lucy Nguyen won in a landslide against freshman Alyssa Gelinas. And a ballot measure asking for ASI to be able to amend their bylaws in a speedier fashion was approved. In more relevant news, don’t expect a lot to change, or to notice any changes.
CAMPUS
STATE OF THE BEACH YOUR WEEKLY NEWS IN BRIEF
LEO PORTUGAL & CONNOR O’BRIEN CULTURE EDITOR
PHOTO EDITOR
Hello, dear reader, we hope you had a nice spring break; now it’s time to take off our break pants and put on our big boy school pants. Connor and Leo here to help ease you back into the swing of things with helpful suggestions for what you should do with your life. This first one is like a poem or a rap or something similar. Enjoy!
Wednesday, at 5pm, Brook Hodge (architecture, fashion and design curator) will be guest speaking in the UT. If you are dumb and don’t know where it is, it’s near the Macintosh Building. You can find Connor there sitting alone. Be nice. Walk into the room and shout his name to get his attention and figure out who he is. Sit next to him and be his friend.
On Monday, Women’s Golf play in the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate games all day at Half Moon Bay. Do people go watch golf? Is that a thing? To find out, call (562) 985-4949. Oh wait, I just Google Mapped it and it’s near San Jose. No way, Jose (see what I did there?).
On Thursday, the Career Development Center is hosting the Engineering, Science & Technology Job Fair, 12-4pm at the USU. Companies with cool-sounding names like SpaceX, Extron Electronics, and the Southern California Gas Company will be represented. For further information, call (562) 985-4151.
On Tuesday, the Dirtbags welcome San Diego State Aztecs to Blair Field at 6:30pm. Watch out for their sacrifice bunts. For further information or tickets, call (562) 985-4949.
Metaphorically round the second base of life as the Dirtbags take on UC Davis, Friday at 6:30pm, leg it past third as they play UC Davis again Saturday at 5:30pm, and then charge headlong
through the catcher into home (still metaphorically) as the Dirtbags play UC Davis again on Sunday at 1pm (all games at Blair Field). Speaking of baseball, Manny Ramirez used to visit the Borders Bookstore I work at (he’d buy BMW magazines, not books) and he signed one of my baseball cards! And the best thing on campus, the Union Weekly, holds meetings every Friday at 2pm in the USU Courtyard next to the Wells Fargo and Sbarro. Everyone is invited! And the Union Weekly’s Connor and Leo will be playing racquetball at the Rec Center right before the meeting (1pm - 2pm). Bring a buddy and play us in a doubles match! Meet your heroes (us)! We’ll sign your balls! On Saturday, be prepared to watch Women’s Tennis vs. Cal Poly at 11am on the campus tennis courts while some stupid tennis girl’s mom yells at you to “move
your head, you’re ruining the game!” Also, fun game idea: try and find the guy that controls the scoreboard. I mean, he has to be able to see the game to know what the score is, right? Where is this guy? I can never find him! On Sunday, the opening reception of the BFA Illustration and Animation exhibition will be held from 5-7pm. A bunch of CSULB’s extremely talented artists have their best artwork featured, including our very own Victor Camba! Go get ‘em Victor, you da best! If you can’t make the opening reception, go fuck yourself. And when you’re done doing that, the exhibit is also open next Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday: 12-5pm. Start your engines and buckle up! On second thought, turn all y’alls engines off and wait a while. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach isn’t until April 15-17. This event is not to be confused with those old assholes, the Grandpa Pricks of Long Beach.
UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
DEVIN O’NEILL UNION STAFFER
C
alifornia State University Long Beach is a terrible place for someone who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life. Ideally the university is a field on which one is encouraged to find out what one wants to do. Here, as an undergrad, before the lowering of the hammer of specialization, we have the opportunity to realize our full potential; to come to understand what it is we are to do with our lives. We’re supposed to eventually pick a
UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
major, based on this information we gather about ourselves in our early classes, and we have a buffet of possible life paths ahead of us due to the generous supportive hands of public education. This is the ideal, not the current reality. Whether or not it was ever the reality is a question open to debate, but it is certainly not the reality now. It’s only fair that I reveal my biases, which are considerable. I’m a senior who would’ve graduated last
semester, if I wasn’t being forced to take Spanish 101B and Comm 110. Spanish will at least be useful. I was informed by my Comm Studies counselor that the 110 class (Interpersonal Communication) would be waste of my time, since I’d done so well in upper-division Comm classes, but that I had to take it anyway. I was unsatisfied by this, so I took this information to Amy Bippus, the Comm department head.
“
Some forces are attempting to force students to graduate, other forces are attempting to enforce nonsensical graduation requirements
mode after that, but he stopped me with his next line of inquiry: given the opportunity to self-direct in that way, for most students, what would the result be? That shut me up. I was caught in the twin jaws of a trap: pluralism vs. elitism. I know full well that many liberal arts students have no interest in doing anything but coasting through their education and fulfilling their requirements, and that many have no idea what to do upon graduation. Can this be blamed entirely on the professors? Clearly not. Yet Dr. Cargyle thinks faculty should shoulder at least some of that responsibility, and that’s where the “enlightenment” bit comes in. He believes that, left to our own devices, a lot of us would just sit in our cars, listen to Katy Perry, and eat McDonalds. Because of this, a model that forces some standardization, that forces students to learn things they may not be interested in or that might not be relevant, is necessary. Because many students don’t have any idea what’s relevant to them and what isn’t. Is he wrong about you, or is he right on the money? I had no answer for this. I’m glad I’m not making decisions on behalf of the student body, after hearing that question posed. This, then, is a picture of the forces at work at our school, and it’s clear that we can’t really expect a system mandated to educate the unwashed masses of California (the CSU system, yes, that’s the system I mean) to have the resources, like some elite schools do, to tailor itself to individual student taste. This leaves us where we are: buffeted by conflicting forces, and engaged with decision makers who sometimes have their best interests at heart, sometimes ours, but tend, regard-
less, to believe they’re doing the right thing. And they fight with each other. The idea of The University doing something to you in this context becomes absurd, because the University is at war even with itself. So what do we do? Well, we have a question to ask first: are we capable of educating ourselves, or do we rely on our professors to do that for us? Are we self-directed, do we figure out our own lives and goals, or do we need to be ordered about in order to be motivated? Are we somewhere in between? I think students need to be alerted to the fact that a self-directed approach is possible, because a lot of them don’t know. He and I agreed about that. I was very close to someone who did everything she was supposed to do during college here—she was a president’s scholar, got As, went to all her classes, and had absolutely no job waiting for her when she graduated. She proceeded to have a breakdown and a life crisis, which she’s since recovered from admirably, but is this the way it must go if you decide to major in the liberal arts? Is this pain an inevitability? Go to your professor’s office hours. Network. Think about what you actually want to do with your life. Involve yourself in projects and communities outside as well as inside the school, and figure out what your interests and passions are. Then, use this information to squeeze every last drop of benefit you possibly can out of our admittedly beleaguered educational system. That’s what it’s there for. And if the school tries to get in your way, fight them. They have their agendas, so we, in turn, need to have ours.
“
During that meeting I was subject to more condescension than I have ever received at the hands of an academic professional, and I’ve presented at some pretty nasty conferences. I was simultaneously told that the class was necessary for my enrichment if I only would cop the right attitude and that I should take it off-campus so I could skip parts of it. The rhetoric I was fed was absurd, insulting, and ultimately disappointing. At the same time this was going on, I was having holds placed on my registration because I wasn’t graduating fast enough, which actually hindered me from getting the classes the department was requiring of me. On top of that, I was informed by another counselor that I, a double-major, might be forced to graduate with only one of my degrees due to unit caps and other efforts on the part of the university to get rid of seniors. I wasn’t having this, but some students might not be as wantonly rebellious as I am. This experience would just be an example of recalcitrant bitching on my part if it were an isolated one, and no other students were being affected. It isn’t. Some forces are attempting to force students to graduate, other forces are attempting to enforce nonsensical graduation requirements, and the senior students are caught in the middle. One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, and students are suffering as a result. In terms of graduation requirements “nonsensical” is a loaded word, so I want to explore that a little bit. Why does a university require the things it requires? This question is connected to another, more basic question: what is the purpose of the public university today? Clearly, we can’t answer this question in one article, but we can at least challenge the idea that the university’s purpose and mission are self-evident, especially in the current educational and economic climate. I don’t think they are. I interviewed Dr. Aaron Cargyle, an eminently accomplished tenured faculty member in Comm studies, with the central point being precisely this question. The Pandora’s Box this single line of inquiry opened was unanticipated even by me. The entire interview is available at lbunion.com. Dr. Cargyle took my deceptively simple question and broke it into several sections. First, he sketched a binary between pragmatism and idealism as conflicting forces in American colleges. In other words, getting you a job is not the University’s only, or even
primary, goal. Pragmatic workforce skills compete on the University agenda with enlightenment era idealism, according to him: the idea that we should be improving ourselves, as citizens and as beings, during the course of our college career, and that to some extent knowledge is its own reward. This is very difficult for students to hear in the midst of an economic crisis. We come to this school, and we spend a significant amount of money, and we expect, or at least hope, that we’ll secure ourselves meaningful, productive lives in the process. We were probably all told that college would help us get a job, and far fewer of us were probably instructed to go to college because it would broaden our perspectives and ourselves or “enlighten us.” When I got goal-oriented in that way, Dr. Cargyle got a little more aggressive, and with good reason: educators who want to provide cultural and personal “enlightenment” to students are constantly met with resistance from both the university system and the students themselves. This, apparently, is the source of the conflict that so many students are caught in the middle of: the departments want to advance their agendas, and the overarching administration of the school wants to make money. And the best way to make money is to get people graduated so new freshmen can be inducted. Graduating seniors and their concerns, in this model, are the lowest priority.
I, at first, took great offense to the paternalistic tone embedded in the idea of the professors “enlightening” students. I asked what was wrong with going to a place where I could get just what I wanted, career-wise or otherwise, out of my education? Why did I need “enlightened” faculty and administration making these decisions for me (my bias surfaces, of course: “why do I have to take COMM110”). I was thinking of free-form, self-directed programs the likes of which I’ve seen at CalArts and other top-end schools. Cargyle leveled me with his response “If you want that, why don’t you just go to University of Phoenix?” Ouch. I was ready to launch into full-on defense UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
MUSIC
BLACK METAL 101 ERIC BRYAN WIZENED MASTER
H
eavy metal, as an all-subgenre encompassing entity, has been largely seen as an aggressive, if not hateful music since its very inception. Disdained as a musical ignoramus, mainstream society looked upon it from a height deemed great, and made it the scapegoat for teenage violence, satanic murders, and really all the other things that happen in response to a culture that watches Two and a Half Men eagerly. In response, the heavy metal community has largely tried to disprove such stereotypes, taking on everyone from Giraldo Rivera to the US Supreme Court. However, there is a facet of that same community that rejects the mainstream altogether. That to some degree, mocks those implications by delving into them. That says kill your parents, fuck your god, hope is for the weak. That “a follower of dreams is a follower no less.”
This is black metal. Arguably the first genre of metal created expressly to repulse the mainstream, black metal is the logical output of the alternative musical world that was the early 80s. Combining the darkness of bands like Black Sabbath and Pentagram, the speed of Motorhead and the then burgeoning hardcore scene, early black metal bands like Bathory, Venom and Hellhammer took that primordial ooze, spit Wagner into it, and brewed it in a cabin in the woods. Some bands, such as the “Black Metal” term-coining Venom, merely exploited 1970s interest in Satan, making a quick buck on the devil’s back. However, in both the undercurrent of legitimate malevolence of the aforementioned Bathory and Hellhammer, and in the possibly naïve minds of the young bands hearing early black metal at the time, the genre was born.
THE HISTORY OF BLACK METAL
There have been several movements in the genre since, ranging from the infamous Norwegian movement that spawned Burzum and Mayhem, to the current indie-kid “see-I’m-not-close-minded” run of American drone bands such as Wolves in the Throne Room. Bands have gone on to draw significant influence from merely their surroundings, creating wholly unique black metal sounds just based on country. That said, whether it be the first sloppy chord of Hellhammer’s “Messiah,” the understated melody of Rotting Christ’s “King of A Stellar War,” or the droning dirges Cobalt’s “Dry Body,” there is a definite tone that maintains throughout. Andrew Chumbly once said, “He who is illuminated by the brightest light will cast the darkest shadow.” This is the essence of black metal, lurking in the shadows of the light.
First Wave (1983-1989): Based in brutality, and crass speed (with the exception of Mercyful Fate). Second Wave (1989-1996): Cleaner musically in some cases, the genre is pushed melodically and structurally. Semi-Modern (1996-2003): Musically experimental, the genre is readily pushed outward, bringing in elements of other metal varieties, as well as industrial and progressive music. Modern (2003-Present): Wide spanning, building on experimental roots set in the second and third waves. Black metal as a term expands almost exponentially.
SCALE OF
NOT METAL CREED
RAFFI JUSTIN BIEBER PHIL COLLINS
WHITE STRIPES
SUBLIME
ARCADE FIRE
AVRIL LAVIGNE THE BEATLES UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
NINE INCH NAILS
NIRVANA
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE AC/DC
PIXIES
BLACK SABBATH CRASS
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
TOOL
DRAGONFORCE
MUSIC
ESSENTIAL BLACK METAL ALBUMS MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN MUSIC EDITOR
GORGOROTH - PENTAGRAM Gorgoroth’s debut album is one of the rawest black metal albums ever made. The album’s style is faster and more aggressive than just about any album in the genre. With that ferocity, Gorgoroth is able to create a record that grabs the listener from the first riff and never lets go. Unlike the rest of the selections on this list, Pentagram is always in attack mode. The guitars are always at a buzz saw pace, and the vocals are always fierce. The longest track is a measely 5 minutes long, which in black metal
time is a blink of an eye. Gorgoroth are notorious for keeping their lyrics close to their chest, but on Pentagram it wouldn’t matter much anyway. Hat, the singer for Gorgoroth at the time, is so unhinged that he is able to project the band’s message of spirtual pain and anger without a translator or a lyrics sheet. Opener, “Begravelsesnatt,” is pure distilled hate. The blast beat drumming provided by Goat Pervertor (the best name for a drummer ever) propels the song forward at a
disgusting pace, and the distorted guitars are about as textbook black metal as you can get. From there the album only gets more fucked up. Keeping the pained growls from Hat and the intense punk influenced minimalism going throughout the album’s eight tracks, Gorgoroth doesn’t give the listener much time to resist against the burtality they are distributing. It might not be the most experimental or introspective black metal album ever made, but it is certainly one of the most catchy, dirty and angry releases in history.
BURZUM - FILOSOFEM They say you never forget your first time, and for me, Burzum’s Filosofem was my first black metal album. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t immediatley smitten, but by the third listen I was sold. This was the first album recorded on traditional instruments that came close to capturing the barbarism, bleakness, and innovation of noise music. In fact, Filosofem manages to transcend even those comparisons and create something far
darker and noisier than even Merzbow or Wolf Eyes could come up with. This album also bares the distinction of being the last Burzum album before Varg, the man behind Burzum’s infamous imprisonment. Varg, of course, went to prison for burning down several churches and the murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous. The insane levels of brutality surrounding Varg’s life seeps into this record. The result is something so vital and exciting that it is hard
to compare it to any other record. “Jesus’ Tod” is a confluence of sustained lightning-fast shredding, Varg’s wolf-like growls and layers and layers of fuzz. It’s this low production value that gives this album its soul. This album also reflects some of black metal’s more experimental tendencies as it features some more downtempo, ambient piano tracks which play off the fierce tracks really well. The layers of static and fuzz create a spiritual abyss which gives this album its lasting power.
COBALT - GIN While black metal has traditionally been considered a Scandinavian thing, this release from Colorado heroes Cobalt prove once and for all the geography doesn’t matter when creating music. That isn’t to say that Gin isn’t lacking in American influences. For starters, singer Phil M disparte cSorley has spent some time in Iraq as an army scout. On a deeper level though, McSorley and multi-instrumentalist Erik Wun-
der have managed to rework black metal to suit their needs. Boldly, they have removed the lo-fi production which defines the Scandinavian black metal style. Instead, Cobalt allow their instrumentation to come to the fore. Now free to experiment, Gin meanders from accoustic American folk music to straight up knock-down, drag-out black metal. Another refreshing change: Cobalt manages to switch the philosophical influences
on their album from trite concepts like Norse Mythology or Nazism and replaces them with American pioneers of bleakness, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. To get to the point, the album goes hard. The riffs on this album come hard and heavy. Cobalt don’t drop the ball on any front. Gin is an album that defines a new ethos in black metal. One unafraid of messing with the formula. Smartly, however, Cobalt hasn’t gotten rid of the spirit of the genre.
MAMALEEK - KURDAITCHA And now for something completely diffrent. Mamaleek is a fairly mysterious project from San Francisco which pushes the boundaries of black metal furthar then anyone has dared before. On Kurdiaitcha, Mamaleek bring in a heavy dose of electronics into the mix along with their eclectic world music tastes. The death rattle screams are still there, the sense of unease is still there, but everything else about Kurdaitcha is topsy-turvey.
Most notably absent from Mamaleek’s brew is any sort of attempt at traditional black metal drumming patterns. Percussion is provided by industrial clatter and electronic beats. Guitar work is much closer to My Bloody Valentine than Metallica. Yet still unmistakably bleak. It is truly astonishing the range this album shows. “My Body Rock Long Fever” is a piano-driven piece, while “Sinner Won’t Die No More” is just an ugly piece of punishing noise
layered on top of gypsy clatter. Through it all, Mamaleek manage to create a unifying sound which is sort of a synthesis of these disparate influences they’re working on. The middle eastern infulences work with the guitars, the noise elements work with the vocals creating a perfect harmony This album is genre destroying, horrifying, and beautiful. If you want to hang on to the creepy purity of the early 80s then skip this album, but if you want to see the future of black metal, look no further.
METALNESS MASTODON
CARPATHIAN FOREST
BIG BLACK
SUN O)))
THE LOCUST
GORGOROTH
ROTTING CHRIST
BURZUM
PELICAN
PUBLIC ENEMY SLAYER
METAL
BORIS MY BLOODY VALENTINE METALLICA
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE
BALTHORY
CELTIC FROST
GNAW THEIR TONGUES UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
ENTERTAINMENT
WEIRDOS FIGHTING? TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 Vincent chavez
I
UNION STAFFER, DOG BOY
had given up hope. Ten years had passed without so much as a whisper from Capcom on the subject of a follow-up to their fighting franchise Marvel vs. Capcom. But, lo and behold, Capcom has decided to give me a reason to live. In its long-awaited third incarnation Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds satisfies the pugilistic desires of Marvel fanboys, Capcom devotees, fighting game fanatics, and lovers of great games alike. Visually, the game employs a comic book aesthetic filled with bright colors and splashy effects. Hyper combos are especially dazzling. When initiated the screen is ripped to ribbons, creating the illusion that the television screen is a comic book page. Furthering the theme, as your fighters progress through arcade mode they will dispense trash-talk in the form of dialogue boxes. The game’s sound also offers little gems. Characters spout oneliners in their familiar voices. And for the MvC faithful wondering what tune would replace the character selection screen music (the endearingly annoying “Take You for a Ride”), have no fear for Capcom has produced a slick update, “Take You for a Ride (Remix).” I nearly died from nostalgia. Nearly. But who cares how it looks and sounds?
Fighting fans are dying to know how their beloved three-on-three brawler plays. Fans of the series will find that MvC 3 has lost none of its frenetic chaos in the transformation to 3D. What has changed is the controller setup. The main change is the addition of a special button that launches opponents in the air, which opens the door for air and team aerial combos. As a result, the combo system is rewardingly complex. Mission mode, which has players attempt 10 combos for every playable character, showcases the rich complexity with challenges ranging from I-could-do-this-in-my-sleep to this-is-fucking-impossible. The developers have also incorporated a simplified version of the control scheme for newcomers called simple play. Speaking of simplifications, the character roster has seen a reduction from its giant-sized 56 fighter list to the still quite impressive 36 it has now (which doesn’t include downloadable characters!). But what a motley crew of freaks and geeks Capcom has managed to wrangle into one game: the geniuses are evil (Dr. Doom, Wesker, M.O.D.O.K.), the assassins are gun-toting (Dante, Deadpool, Trish), and the balls are odd (Arthur, Tron, Viewtiful Joe). But MvC 3 is not without its faults. One would be that character endings are be-
yond underwhelming. Beat arcade mode with any character and you are treated with two panels of original artwork (which I call “shartwork” due to its lack of creativity and overall shitty-ness) accompanied by some scrolling text written by the Hulk. I find it hard to believe that Capcom couldn’t scrape together something more rewarding than this. And this is my main problem with the game; MvC 3 lacks rewarding unlockable content and game mode variety. Without these extras (unlockable characters or stages, extra game modes like survival mode or time attack mode, behind-the-scenes foot-
age) the game loses a considerable amount of replayability that is so important to fighting games, where beating weirdos to a pulp can get repetitive. These criticisms hardly hamper the overall MvC 3 experience. Capcom has produced a product that welcomes newcomers while also furthering the fighting game renaissance started by Street Fighter IV. But before I send you running to your local Gamestop, let me be clear that you will lose hours of your life mastering complex combos, fighting opponents online, and developing fighting strategies. Excelsioryuken!
REEL REVIEWS!
THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE LIKE, RIGHT? Folashade ALFORD
UNION STAFFER, AFRO AFFICIONADO
Your Highness
I’m sure you have all seen the trailer for this movie. And all I can say about Natalie Portman is DAT ASS. Seriously, good shit. James Franco is good as always I think it’s nearly impossible to make him look ugly even with shitty wigs. I mean, even in Pineapple Express he was still hot. So basically James Franco is like some princely dude, and he and his broham (and brother in the movie) Danny McBride are trying to get their palace and shit back. Also, Zooey Deschanel is in it and plays like some princess who gets kidnapped by an evil wizard. So along the way Franco and McBride run into Portman and she’s like some super tough fighter woman and helps ‘em out. It’s really funny so go see it, I guess. UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
ARTHUR
Hmm, so apparently this is a remake of a movie made in 1981. I’m not the biggest fan of remakes, but it’s got Russell Brand in it so I guess you should give it a shot. Helen Mirren plays the nanny of a billionaire’s son who doesn’t know how to grow up. His parents are trying to force Brand’s character into marrying Jennifer Garner, who’s a total crazy dominatrix. Even though Brand is kinda into the kinky stuff he’s not super duper in love with her. If he doesn’t marry her, his parents will take away all his monies. Anyways, he meets this super nice teacher lady chick and totally falls in love with her. He also kinda doesn’t want to get a job. So dominatrix it is! Winning!
BORN TO BE WILD
Adorable orphan orangatans and elephants? Count me in! So these cute little animals’ mommies and daddies got shot up by a poacher and now they have nothing. So sad. Now they have to bust a mission and their asses to get to some kinda safety. They go all across Africa trying to avoid lions, tigers, and bears. Don’t ask me where the fucking bears came from. They recently invaded and shit, so get mad at them. Anyways, so these adorbz animals encounter some really chill humans who they’re not really sure they can trust. Then they find out they just want to help them live, so it’s all good, lil’ homies. Also this whole thing is a documentary, so it’s all true. But you don’t have to take my word for it... Reading Rainbow!
LITERATURE
YOU BE THE EDITOR, JERK
MATCH THE TITLES AT THE BOTTOM TO THE CORRECT BOOK REVIEW! PRETTY TRICKY. 1. ____________ by Jonathan Safran Foer made me stop eating animals because it seemed like a really uncool thing to do. 2. This sequel to The Name of the Wind continues Kvothe’s adventures out of the University (Rothfuss’ hip and cool version of Hogwarts, if such a thing is possible) and continues to tell a story that continues to garner my undying love. 3. ___________________ by Percival Everett is a hilarious novel about a man named Not Sidney Poitier who gets adopted by Ted Turner and goes on the comic journey that the silly first half of this sentence implies. - LEO PORTUGAL
5. ________________ by Franz Kafka is your typical story in which a young male protagonist (Gregor) awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a large ugly bug, forcing his parents to become better providers for the family and take care of this hideous thing that they aren’t even sure is their son; as time progresses, less and less note is taken of Gregor, and eventually he dies like a bug because he feels like a burden on his family, and then his family leaves happy that he died. - ALISON ERNST 6. Kudos to Faulkner for writing this kinda crazy amazing book, ___________. The stream of consciousness is pretty tight; where else can I read the thoughts of a dead and decaying woman?
4. Cormac McCarthy’s _______________ 7. _________ by Carl Hiaasen is full of mysis the Black Metalest book ever. tery and comedy, and I’m totally going to ruin this for you, but the best death in the - MICHAEL MERMELSTEIN book is when a guy dies via dolphin boner.
11. _________ is a tick. 8. ________by Cormac McCarthy is a harrowing tale about the literal and figurative journey of a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world trying to survive; it’s also one of the saddest books I’ve ever read; get your tissue box ready. 9. __________ by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman follows the mix up of the Antichrist and the mission to find him; you’d best believe it’s fucking hilarious. 10. _____________ by Jon Krakauer (check out the equally amazing film adaptation) might take the cake for most awe-inspiring and infuriating thing I’ve ever read; it’s also super depressing but introspective; trip to Alaska anyone?
12. _____________________ is perhaps the greatest, most underrated novel ever written. 13. ______________________ is extraordinarily boring for non-fishermen. - SHANE RUSING 14. _________________ by Dalton Trumbo is an incredible pacifist novel that is completely devoid of convoluted narrative, subtle descriptions of the most horrible bodily disfigurements, and commas. - STEVE BESSETTE
-FOLASHADE ALFORD
15. The main character has almost no redeeming qualities. He starts with good intentions and then immediately hates his creation. It’s kind of like me and the Literature page. - KATY PARKER
MOBY DICK AR THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA IAN G E R N D I E I F I T Y T I H D O S R E P ’ METAMO Y E AY MAN RPHOSIS OT SIDNE D M N AS I L N E O M S A I I O N W ATIVE U G BL E S H AM I INTO TH ISLANDS IN THE STRE TONG T GOT HFR E Y EATING AN N W GOOD OMENS N U I L H AN E D KENSTEIN JO IMALS THE ROAD You gave up! Redeem yourself by reading one of these books. 1. Eating Animals 2. The Wise Man’s Fear 3. I Am Not Sidney Poitier 4. Blood Meridian 5. The Metamorphosis 6. As I Lay Dying 7. Native Tongue 8. The Road 9. Good Omens 10. Into the Wild 11. Moby Dick 12. Islands in the Stream 13. The Old Man and the Sea 14. Johnny Got His Gun 15. Frankenstein
MAJOR CHANGES BACHELOR OF ARTS OR JUST BS? FOLASHADE ALFORD UNION STAFFER
Last semester I was ass-deep in chemistry, biology, and math. I’m telling you all, I hated every fucking minute of it, and I was doing really poorly. I had just come off a previous, shitty semester, so I was already bogged down with pressure and expectations. The only thing I looked forward to was my creative non-fiction class. It was a fun class, so you all should take it, even if you’re not a writer and you just wanna try it out. It was super easy, and I took it with Suzanne Greenberg, an awesome professor. Anyway, every time I came to my writing class, I remembered how much I loved
to write. I was excited to go to class, and I genuinely loved the process of writing and the critiques. While I did get an “A” in that class, I failed my other classes miserably, and I’m currently on academic probation. YAY! These were lessons definitely learned, but I found my passion again. So here I am in my second year, still a declared Marine Biology major. I’m going to switch to Creative Writing, but I’m a little terrified. Not only is it scary as shit to start over, but it’s super exciting. Every day I think about future prospects, but I also worry about possible failure. Mostly I think about
good shit. It wasn’t easy getting my mom on board. She seemed a little disappointed initially, but we talked about it, and she started to get excited about my other opportunities. The possibilities are endless. I can write for a magazine, a blog, become a poet, or write short stories or scripts. I can even write a book about all the crazy things in my life. I can interview celebrities (Donald Glover, I’m coming for you!) or musicians. I might become famous. I might not. Either way, the future looks exciting. To all you writers: we have options. The money may not be plentiful, but we’re creative
and talented as fuck. We can do it! I believe in you and us and me. To all you non-writers, you may have something lurking in your future, a passion you forgot about or one you haven’t found. I know sometimes it seems that we have to go to college to get a degree to make money and get a good job. What’s the point if we can’t be happy doing it? I’d rather be poor and happy. There are plenty of rich, successful, miserable people who spend time and money on therapy to try to be happy. So what do I want to do with my major? Honestly, I have little to no fucking clue right now. All I know is that I love to write. Right now, that’s enough. UNION WEEKLY
4 APRIL 2011
CULTURE
G-E-T…N-A-K-E-D! GET NAKED! A LIFE ART MODEL EXPOSES HERSELF CAREY BAXTER CONTRIBUTOR
W
riters, artists, and performers often speak of baring their metaphorical selves when presenting their work, their innermost emotions splayed out on the page, canvas, or stage for all to see. When I was 19, I was too impatient to wait for my days of writerly fame, so I just got naked instead. I wanted my body to be appreciated in its pristine condition, and I didn’t really want to be a stripper or a prostitute, so I became a nude model for artists instead. On the evening of my first modeling session I nervously packed a little bag with a white robe and chicken timer (to time the poses). I walked over to the Katherine and Tom Belk Visual Arts Center at Davidson College (near Charlotte, North Carolina) and was greeted by the preppy guy who coordinated the figure drawing sessions (and who would very soon, I thought, see me naked). I went into the bathroom and changed into my robe, the tiles cold on my bare feet. Then I walked into the paint-and-clay-smell-
ing classroom and tried not too look anybody in the eye. As the model, I was allowed to choose the music for the session, which was great because I would like the music, but stressful because I would be judged not only by my naked body but also my musical taste. I chose Bob Dylan. I thought he was plenty artsy and fairly relaxing. When it was time for the session to start the coordinator said, “Okay, we’re gonna start off with 10 oneminute poses, then break and come back for 5 and 10-minute poses. Okay, Carey, if you’re ready.” Heart racing, I looked down, untied my robe and let it slide off my arms and onto a chair. Then I stepped up onto the platform above the fast-scribbling hands. Okay, I’m naked, I thought. I felt oddly relieved. There was no going back now! They’d all seen me naked, so grabbing my robe and running away screaming would be futile. Now all I had to do was breathe and think of interesting poses. It was often difficult and sometimes very uncomfortable to remain like a statue for up to 20 minutes at
a time, but it was worth it. When I was modeling I felt like I was making an important contribution to the art world, and it didn’t hurt that nude modeling paid really well! During longer poses, I had time to enjoy my heightened consciousness. I was very aware of how the landscape of my body might be seen by the artists, and I was forced to be comfortable with it—to accept everything my body had in those naked moments. I was also forced to do nothing. In a culture of constant stimulation, nude modeling was an amazing relief from routine. It was also entertaining to see people’s representations of me during the breaks. One woman depicted my breasts as two huge yellow bananas in the collage she was making. I think my most interesting class was a sculpture class at the Maryland Institute College of Art. I was seated on a rotating platform, and every two minutes a student would come up and rotate me a few more inches. I felt like I was being cooked in a microwave of probing eyes.
Illustration
SARA HAASE CONTRIBUTOR
MOVING DOWN THE FOOD CHAIN VEGETARIANS UNITE! JONATHAN BALDERAS CONTRIBUTOR
After reading last week’s article “The Last Meat-Free Meal” by Alison Ernst, I came to a realization: being a vegetarian/vegan in the U.S. is one of the harder obstacles in life. I personally am vegan, meaning no meat, milk, eggs, honey, etc. As a friend of mine once said: If it has a face, I don’t eat of it. [Editor’s Note: Do clams have faces? Can I eat clam chowder and remain vegetarian?] Typical dinner mishaps include ordering food at restaurants with sections labeled “vegan” only to find out that it is in fact vegetarian, dealing with the occasional rude omnivore, and the classic having a friend get coffee only to find the soy was really 2% (Vegans don’t drink milk? My bad). Some of us (including me) actually try to avoid, as
many animal products as we can, meaning fur, wool, leather, etc. But we’re not crazy. To help clear up a few things (because it’s good to meet an omnivore who understands basic veganism): Yes, it’s okay to kill bacteria, so we drink beer, wash our hands, and all that good stuff. We apply the anti-exploitation philosophy to sentient beings; anything with a central nervous system and capable of feeling pain. We are perfectly capable of thriving off of non-animal products. The myth that vegans are sickly and thin probably comes from the few vegans that do not get adequate nutrition/calories. But who can blame them? We live in a non-vegan world, and it’s hard to do. Fear not those who are vegetarian or veg-
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an, because even on campus it’s possible to prevent starvation. The easiest thing to do is bring a lunch! The extra 10 minutes to make something to eat for later helps your body and your wallet. Vegan foods (including some rare items) are available at Trader Joe’s, right down Bellflower and are impressively priced when compared to their animal substitutes. You can bring a half lunch, meaning bring salad toppings yourself (nuts, fruits, tofu, mushrooms, etc.) so that you can order just the greens and have a custom salad, wrap, sandwich, whatever you feel like having that day. Experiment with veggie snacks; veggies are ridiculously cheaper than processed snacks, and various places around campus have a variety of sauces for your carrots, celery, or whatever floats your
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boat. If you have to buy something though, your choices are limited. Subway has a great veggie patty sandwich that’s part of its $5 deal! For snacks, one of the best ideas is to go to the nearby Ralph’s on 7th St. (across from campus) and get high-fiber cereal; they’re large (most are 20oz), keep you full and energized (whole grains and complex carbs) and are cheap ($1.50-5.00 depending on sale). I know it may seem unfair at times that vegans/vegetarians can’t have the same amount of choices or diversity of foods as omnivores, but the movement is fairly new and will take time to adjust. So as long as we raise awareness, and set up a good example of what it means to live the lifestyle, the change comes naturally.
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CHELSEA STEVENS OPINIONS EDITOR
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Volume 68 Issue 9
Monday, April 4th, 2011
I’m Going CRAZY With All These Vestigial Organs In Me!!! BY JEFF BRIDGES, ACTOR Listen, I’ve been doing my best to be a fun guy and make a cool page but I can’t concentrate anymore. I’m fed up. I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to make a single Grun until I get these bullshit vestigial organs out of me. I’ve been walking around for way too long with all these useless organs inside me taking up space and precious blood and life force. Vestigial basically just means “trash that is attached to you.” Imagine how awesome my life would be if I didn’t have an appendix. I could live my life in comfort and pleasure knowing nothing inside me was in danger of exploding. I could rest easy knowing that my innards had plenty of room to breathe and hang out inside of me instead of being cramped up by some awful, useless organ that everyone hates. Don’t even get me started on the appendix. I can’t even read books any more because of how much I hate appendixes. If I even see the word I can’t stop myself from punching all around my abdomen hoping I can cause some kind of pain for the appendix. You’re not wanted appendix, go back to where you came from. Ugh, and tonsils? I wish I could punch the back of my throat but the best I can do is just flick everything
Disclaimer:
This page is satire. We are not ASI, nor do we represent the CSULB campus. Email any questions, concerns, sins, to jeffbridges.grun@gmail.com, then go to hell.
LBUNION.COM
BREAKING: 99% of America Never Apologized to Nate Dogg for Napster BY TEEJAY DINKLE
back there. You too, uvula, what do you do back there anyway? I’m starting to think you might be vestigial too. Tonsils just cause more problems in the body. They sit there and waste space, not doing anything, and sometimes they are so awful they ruin your whole throat and a doctor mercifully takes them out and rewards you with all the ice cream you can eat for doing the right thing and throwing your tonsils in the trash where they can be vestigial without bothering anybody. Also, there exists a horrible, unspeakable bone called the coccyx, also known as the butt-bone. It leaves me speechless to know that everyone’s butt could be so much more efficient and perfect if the coccyx did not exist. I don’t even sit down anymore. I especially do not use conventional toilets. I just have a big zipper in my home that I shit into. My coccyx does not deserve the comfort of a ergonomically designed toilet seat. Dentists have the right idea with wisdom teeth. Just pull them out of everyone as violently as possible and then charge them a ton of money so they learn their lesson. All doctors should do this for all vestigial organs. I will be first in line. Get them out of me. Get them out now. Just remember, it does not pay to be vestigial.
Evil is not something just lurking in the shadows, evil is present in a majority of the American public. With the recent death of Nate Dogg, this evil has been revealed for all the world to see. Americans have offically lost their chance to apologize to Nate Dogg about the millions of songs they stole from him over the music sharing program Napster. While Nate Dogg was not a vocal opposer of the file-sharing program, he still felt its effects. “He didn’t want to make a big fuss,” said his brother Snoop Dogg. “He was pretty disappointed that barely anyone ever apologized to him for the creation Napster, and for the public turning a blind eye on the downloading of many of his cherished songs. That disappointment was something he had inside him until the day he died.” Upon hearing of his death, a palpable wave of shame hit the American public. Jeff Stankmeln, a local youth explained his situation on the day he heard the news: “I couldn’t believe it. My mind flashed back to 1999, I was 15, and I was downloading some of my favorite Nate Dogg tracks. I told myself it was no big deal, I’d apologize to
A group upon discovering the death of Nate Dogg. Our cameraman was able to capture the intense shame that washed over the crowd as they realized they downloaded many of his songs.
him later for not paying for his music. Unfortunately, I never got the chance. I heard about the news, and I was speechless. All that came out of my mouth was ‘It’s too late.’” In a statement released by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), executive Ken Jeany stated that the death of Nate Dogg is “a tragic loss, only overshadowed by the tragedy that barely anyone apologized to him for their selfish piracy.” The RIAA, which has become infamous for their prosecution of those guilty of music piracy, is not only concerned with the le-
gality of file-sharing, but they also consider it “downright rude.” Jeany communicated an important message to all those who allowed their friends and family to download songs: “The death of Nate Dogg drives home how mean it is to download someone’s music that they worked very hard on and not even apologize. Hopefully this tragedy can lead to increased awareness. Next time you see Sheryl Crow or Dave Grohl or any other artist, apologize to them, even if you never downloaded their songs. It will mean the world to them.”
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Satan Turned My Bones Into Shit Okay, so I was going about my normal schedule of sinning and coveting and all the usual sort of stuff, and all of a sudden I felt weird. After some investigating, I found that my bones had been turned into human shit. I collapsed into a pile of flesh, blood, and shit. Talk about a bad Monday, first I step in a huge puddle on my way to work and now this. If someone could bring the pile of shit and skin on the street a sandwich or a drink that would be great. Everyone keeps ignoring me and it’s hurting my feelings. Hello? Anyone? page STN
Science Sez: The Bottom of the Apple is Called an Apple Asshole After extensive research on the history of the apple, from its entymology in ancient Greece to the more recent Apple Computers, scientists have uncovered some surprising information about the different parts of an apple. First, the top of an apple is the stem, as many know. However, the lesser known bottom part of an apple has been revealed to be called an “apple asshole.” While it may seem crass, this is the technical term for this previously nameless part of the popular fruit. Share this in one of your classes and impress your professor! page DVL
Family Photo: Rip Torn, Kelly Ripa, and Slash page
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