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Ettiquette Betrayed

By Jeffrey Carl

Jeffrey Carl UR Column — University of Richmond Collegian, April 13 1995

Thanks to a bare modicum of writing skill and a more obvious fondness for bourbon which aligned with that of my journalism professors, my putative career advanced rapidly through my undergraduate years. I went from a practicum story writer for the University of Richmond Collegian student newspaper in my freshman year to Assistant News Editor in my sophomore year, then on to Greek Life Editor and IT Manager (I read MacWorld magazine!) in my junior year, and ultimately to Opinion Editor in my senior year.

For some reason that escapes me now, I acquired a humor column during this process at the beginning of my junior year. This column, titled “Over the Cliff Notes,” eventually ran for 22 installments and was over the course of two years was read by literally dozens of actual humans, only most of which where KA pledges I forced to do so. Its literary influence was quite literally incalculable, and I’m just going to leave it at that.

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. If you are one of the lucky customers who have purchased The Collegian “Books on Tape” series, then let me also say that we are responsive to our listeners. Editor’s Note: Please note that the “Books on Tape” edition carries the full text of this article as well as three bonus tracks, two of which are unreleased: “My Life as a Squirrel” and “Stairway to Heaven (extended live version).”

The point being that we are constantly besieged by requests from readers. Many say, “You go to Hell.” But many others also request that we print things which are of great value to the community and of general interest. These are thrown away.

But recently we have received numerous requests for a guide to what is probably my major area of expertise in life: manners. And your wish is our command, if you staple $20 to it. Today’s episode is part nine of a forthcoming series of mine called “Etiquette Betrayed.”

Etiquette Betrayed IX: Manners and the Arts

When attending arts events at the University of Richmond, there are a few simple rules to observe that will make your experience, and those of other arts patrons, more enjoyable. Unfortunately, most of these rules are not funny and therefore will be disregarded. Here is a quick-and-easy guide to the remainder of them:

When at Art Shows:
• It is rude to ask the artist what sort of drugs he or she was using at the time the work was created.
• Loudly announcing, “This is crap!” or “This is the artistic equivalent of 9 Divine!” will not be appreciated.
• If you can see somewhere that the artist messed up, feel free to take a crayon and correct it for them.
• At pottery exhibits, do not repeatedly ask to see the world-famous earthenware bong collection.
• If looking at a particularly dreadful abstract painting, run over to the nearest gallery employee and demand, “Where did you get these pictures of my mother?”
• It is generally in bad taste to vomit on the artwork. Vomiting on the artists is, however, acceptable.

When at Music Recitals:
• Holding up one’s lighter during sad parts is not generally acceptable.
• Nor is requesting “Freebird!” repeatedly.
• If the music is too quiet, you may play along on a kazoo to help others in the audience hear the tune.
• No one will be impressed if you tell the Shanghai Quartet, “You guys just haven’t been the same since David Lee Roth left.”
• If an opera or hymn is being sung in a foreign language, be helpful and invent English lyrics and sing them so the audience will know what is going on. Be sure to include in the lyrics the phrases “licks me like a hamster” and “I’m your cool cool monkey of love.”
• Although perfectly acceptable at Dead shows, “passing the peace pipe” at Mozart concertos is frowned upon.
• If one of the musicians impolitely begs you for heroin or vomits on you, it is probably just the drummer. Do not be offended, as this is one of their native customs. Feel free to vomit back.

When at Plays:
• Gesticulating with one’s arms and yelling wildly, “WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP” is generally unacceptable, unless it is called for in the program notes.
• Equally unacceptable are “The Chop” and “The Wave.”
• Comments like “Cats was much better than this” are not generally appreciated.
• If there hasn’t been a car chase in the first five minutes, you can just get up and leave.
• If the play is boring, feel free to stand up, wave your arms spastically and yell “FIRE!” to add that fun, free-for-all element of full-bore-linear-panic-in-a-crowd-situation that puts spice into life.
• Unless you are sitting in the balcony, vomiting on the actors may prove difficult.

Dying for a chance to put these new-found mannerisms into practice, aren’t you? Playing Thursday night through Sunday afternoon in the Camp Theater is the famous comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which one reviewer called “Just like being trampled to death by an army of dwarves, but less fun.” It stars a veritable horde of past and present Collegian columnists – Paul Caputo, Chris Wright, Brian C. Jones, Branden Waugh, Randy Baker and – who would have guessed? – me – which should tell you one thing right away: “Christ almighty, this isn’t gonna be even remotely amusing.” The word is out: it’s “Roop-tastic!” Jeffrey Lyons of “Sneak Previews” said, “It’s the feel-good musical comedy of the ‘90s, except that there is no music and it isn’t funny.” Quite frankly, if you miss it, you’ll be a sad, bitter, lonely failure for the rest of your life! Special guarantee: if you can tell which was Rosencrantz and which was Guildenstern by the end of the play, you don’t get your money back! Act now! And mind your manners.

A Day in the Life: Puff Carpluto’s ‘Things to Do’ List

By Jeffrey Carl and Paul Caputo

University of Richmond Collegian,
April 13 1995

More hyper-topical college humor! We combined our personalities into one to save time. You probably won’t get the “haircuts” joke unless you know that we had just finished the UR production of Tom Stoppard’s brilliant play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead which requires the whole cast to grow out their hair. Either way, I think it’s the best column we wrote at the University of Richmond. That’s probably not saying much, though.

We, Jeff and Paul, are busy people. Busy enough, in fact, that we recently considered merging into one person named “Puff Carpluto,” who would have more than $600 in parking tickets, to save time in our daily chores. We figured that no one would notice, since for the last three weeks we have exchanged identities anyway and each of us pretended to be the other person. Jeff’s girlfriend was reportedly unhappy, although Paul’s girlfriend was elated.

The point is that busy people like ourselves — constantly running about from class to meeting, appointment to interview, accident scene to cheap brothel, etc. — are desperate people. To prove our point, we obtained the “things to do” list for Monday of two local busy people who may sound very much like Paul and Jeff but who in fact are not Paul and Jeff, and so you should sue them and not us if you are offended.

Paul and Jeff [not their real names] are busy people. Busy enough, in fact, that they have an enormous number of things to do on their list of things to be done, which is called their “things to do” list.

Paul and Jeff’s Things to Do:

• Get haircut: This has been six months in the making. We are never acting again. All of our hats fit funny now.

• Find people with long hair, call them freaks: Hey, at UR, that’s a sport. And we can afford to make fun of people with long hair because we’re clean-cut and pleasant-looking. Plus they are, by nature, freaks.

• Kill that screaming kid on the “Sheik” Condoms commercial: This kid needs to die. That kid from the old “Encyclopedia Brittanica” commercials is next.

• Knock down Jepson school to increase parking space: We need parking. Nobody needs a leadership school. It makes sense. If we could knock down cheerleaders to make even more space, we would do that, too.

• Irritate administrators

• Return messages from irritated administrators: We’re columnists. That’s our job.

• Sign up as “Mark Ramos” for credit card offers in Commons, get free gifts: Is it possible to have too many slinkys or water bottles? We don’t think so.

• Offend last three people in school: We noticed that there were three people left at the school whom we have not offended. Those three, chosen at random, are Richard A. Munneke, J. Anderson Screws and John E. Reigle. These people are all lame. Nyah-nyah. Plus “Anderson Screws” is a funny name.

• Hoard thousands of “sporks:” This should be self-explanatory.

• Steal toilet paper from science center bathrooms: Just our way of sticking it to the man.

• Thank Pope for the brownies

• Sell Collegian equipment, pocket the money: As far as we’re concerned, the paper didn’t exist before we started writing and it won’t exist after we’re gone, [see “solipsism,” Scott Shepard, Dec. 5, 1993] so we’re selling all The Collegian’s expensive computers, photo equipment and lace doily collection–cheap— and pocketing the profits, then driving to Mexico.

• Play “Wheel of Term Papers:” We write ambiguous papers that all begin with “Knowledge is an exquisitely problematic paradox,” then pick at random which paper is for which class.

• Feed the fish

• Call “911” to report Honor Code violations

• Visit sweatshop full of underpaid illegal immigrant Norwegian joke writers in basement: Where did you think we get our jokes from?

• Sign autographs

• Call Senior Campaign, earmark our donations for construction of “Gottwald Taco Bell”

• Pay off parking tickets in new Mexican currency, the “Poncharelli”

• Eat whole quart of mayonnaise

• Join the Sirens: We do a delightful duet on “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.”

• Learn “Gym-kata”

• Publish The Collected Wit and Wisdom of Jeff Waggett: Thus far, some of our favorite examples are “To thine own self be true,” “Being quasi-Greek is like being half Macedonian and half Swedish, but different,” and “The pledge of allegiance sucks.” The book is a weighty six pages, with five and a half pages for autographs from your classmates.

• Steal Senior Gift name-engraved bricks, throw them through windows: We can put threatening messages on them, and the people will blame the person whose name is on the brick.

• Get new nickname, “Sparky” : It sounds much better than Paul’s current nickname, “Pooter,” or Jeff’s nickname, “Dickweed.”

• Win lottery

• Return to NBA after 18-month hiatus

• Make Mike Nimchek honorary member of “9 Divine:” If we’re going to make fun of people, we might as well kill two birds with one stone.

• Call up registrar’s office, declare fake majors: Such as “Hasselhoff Studies,” “VCR Repair,” “Refrigeration Technology” and “Leadership.”

• Don’t be That Guy

• Solve crimes with help of a talking car

• Believe it’s not butter

• Send ransom note for Lindbergh Baby: Hopefully, with our police department, it’ll just send the money before it figures out the case was solved in 1937.

• Come up with slogans for new fine arts building: Our favorite so far is: “They really kinda suck, but Jason Roop sure looks good in tights.”

• Track down and kill people who left Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead during intermission: Don’t think we didn’t notice.

• Return frantic phone messages from King of Canada: It’s something about declaring war or something. We’ll get around to it.

• Tape Quantum Leap and watch it six times

• Go to class: Oops. Well, you can’t do everything.

(Miki Turner contributed to this column. Don’t blame him, though, we forced him.)

Zen and the Art of Noise

By Jeffrey Carl

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. Yes, both of them.

Each week, we receive figuratively hundreds of letters asking, “Oh please please please give the world a glimpse of the column-manufacturing process The Collegian uses!” Well, this process is a heavily-guarded state secret, much like McDonald’s secret sauce (Thousand Island dressing) or the secret KA greeting (Sign: “The fat man is doing his laundry.” Countersign: “Yeah, whatever. Go away.”), and under normal circumstances anyone who found out would be killed by the élite Collegian Death Squad (assistant copy editors).

But, hell, it’s my last week as Opinion Editor (Poppy Seed dressing), and I’m feeling a little bitcrazy. It’s time the cat came out of the bag, as it were.

The first recorded column was written by Socrates in 447 B.C. It said, “The Greek system sucks,” which did not make him a popular man in Athens at the time. History tells us that the ancient Egyptians also wrote hieroglyphic columns, which all seem to have been about scarabs, eyes and weird wiggly “Prince”-looking shapes. Mesopotamians of the Bronze Age and Chaldeans of the Tupperware Age are both reported to have written numerous “humor” (Hidden Valley Ranch dressing) columns but were hindered by the low circulation of newspapers and the fact that everybody was still going to be illiterate for another 2000 years.

Columns experienced great popularity in the early Byzantine Empire, but were nearly crushed in the West after Pope John Paul George Ringo IV declared them to be “heretical as well as just plain irritating.” Thousands of unrepentant columnists were tortured, burned at the stake or beaten up by male cheerleaders.

But all was not lost: under the enlightened spirit of the Reformation and the High Renaissance, columnists once again became hunted like the dogs they were, and burned almost continuously. This continued until the Industrial Revolution (Zesty Italian dressing), when cheaper forms of fuel than “columnist-burning” were discovered.

But where – or who – or, really, why – do these columns actually come from? Who are the valiant men and women who strive each week to bring much-needed entertainment to you, the reader, and the other guy? Well, truth be told, they’re all illegal migrant workers.

Each week, hundreds of columns are harvested in the fields of Colombia by Juan Valdez, his faithful burro “Meximelt” and the rest of his literary cartel. From there, they are processed, packed in shipping grease (Hollandaise sauce) and smuggled into the United States, disguised as a shipment of “Pet Rocks.” From there they are sold on the streets, with “pushers” selling Dave Barry columns for as little as five dollars for a one-paragraph “hit.” Some states have enacted laws providing a minimum jail term of 20 years for anyone distributing Mike Royko columns to minors. Possession of “Freedom Betrayed” will get you the death penalty in Malaysia.

Ha ha ha hee hee. Just kidding. Nope, all of our columns are home-grown right here in the good old U.S. of A., except mine, which are flown in from “World Evil Headquarters” (light chicken gravy) in France.

Each columnist has a different “creative” process for writing. None of these are interesting or probably even comprehensible, and, frankly, I really just don’t want to know.

The point is that each columnist produces 750-850 “words” (Vaseline and grapefruit) which thereupon undergo a magical process that eventually ends with you, the reader, throwing the paper away after reading the “That’s What You Think” section.

Every week, each columnist reports to the Collegian office and presents his or her column before the scarlet-clad throne of the Opinion Editor in a formal ceremony. If it is amusing, well-written and intelligent it is discarded immediately, and the Opinion Editor will order his royal guards to flog the columnist and occasionally mildly behead him or her. All other columns are immediately rushed into print.

After columns have been submitted, the Opinion Editor will consecrate the writing by praying to the ancient Algerian God of Columns, “Crapola.” This process used to involve a time-consuming ritual of human sacrifice and burnt offerings, but now can be done electronically by sending E-mail to [email protected]. After that, all of the columns are entered into The Collegian’s giant mainframe Commodore 64 computer. From this stagnant pool of information, the individual columns are processed, translated into Pig Latin, encoded so that the Germans and Japanese can’t read them and run through a cheese grater. This reduces the columns to fragments of about three letters each, which are picked up off the floor and are pasted on the page in no particular order by the Opinion Editor (I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter™). Believe you me, they make a lot more sense that way.

So that’s how it all works. Now the next editor will have to figure it all out. And believe you me, I’m pretty happy to be done with this job. Four more columns to go. Yep, no way I’ll miss it. I’m not kidding.

Cooking with Fire

By Jeffrey Carl and Paul Caputo

University of Richmond Collegian,
March 9 1995

Paul Caputo and I began writing humor columns together for the University of Richmond Collegian at the beginning of my Junior year. Paul had started his term as The Collegian’s opinion section editor that year, or maybe he hadn’t. I don’t really remember. Maybe it was me, or possibly Scott Shepard. I know it happened sometime during college. At any rate, Paul and I started writing together and later with Shepard as well. It was the start of a writing partnership that would last years and ultimately result in no tangible lasting value except for some free baseball tickets. I originally had something much more positive in mind when I started writing this introduction.

with your hosts: Paul “Chef” Prudhomme and Julia Child

All right.

We’ve had it up to here with all these whiny Collegian “The Greek system sucks/the Jepson School sucks/Libertarians rule the universe/ and there aren’t enough sidewalks here” columns. We’ve decided that we’re going to just hand the whole Opinion section over to public access. We figure, being seniors about to be thrust out into the real world where food is not just made for us and slapped onto trays like in elementary school apple-sauce-and-salisbury-steak-with-ketchup-leftover-surprise, the first order of business is food, and how to make it. Damned if we know, but we’ll try to squeeze some cheap jokes out of it. For you’re reading pleasure, here are Julia Child and Paul Prudhomme, with “Cooking With Fire.”Editor’s Note: The persons herein identified have nothing to do with theoretically actual persons who might exist named something crazy like “Julia Child” or “Paul Prudhomme” and so we really hope they don’t sue us. This is called a disclaimer, common to nervous newspapers everywhere.

Julia Child: Welcome to “Cooking with Fire.” Tonight we’ll be showing you how to prepare several fine dishes, most of which are non-carcinogenic. First is soufflé du jambon vert. First we will need three liters of wine…

Paul “Chef” Prudhomme: You need three liters?

JC: The soufflé gets four ounces. I get the rest. [begins drinking]

PCP: I see. Did you drive here?Editor’s Note: This attempt at a humorous look at alcoholism is obviously in bad taste and frankly not the sort of thing condoned by this newspaper ever at all even once even the slightest tiny bit, except during Christmas parties and weeknights. Kids, don’t try this at home. Please continue.

JC: As I was saying, we marinate the jambon vert and add just a dash of thyme … a squirt of vanilla … and a sprinkle of fairy dust. [drinks]

PCP: Fairy dust? What the Hell is fairy dust?

JC: Never you mind. I stole it from those damn Keebler Elves. I won’t even tell you what I had to do to get it. But they won’t be bothering us anymore. Ha ha ha ha. Anyway… [drinks] Then I heat the skillet to 450 degrees and leave some old, oily rags sitting on top of it. While that is cooking, Paul, why don’t you show us something else that you’ve whipped up?

PCP: Well, this in this pot here is called Chicken Pot Pie…

JC: Ooh. Exotic.

PCP: And this is … this can’t be right. The teleprompter here says this is called “Baked Tauntaun.”

JC:What the Hell is a tauntaun?

Teleprompter Guy: [runs, crazed onto the stage and exits] You’ll freeze before you reach the first marker, Captain Solo! I welcome our new ant masters!

JC and PCP: Yeah. Whatever.

PCP: Anyhoo, I have a great little bundle of taste explosion here called Corned Beef Hash O’Brien-style.

JC: And how much sherry do you need for that dish?

PCP: Umm, well, you really don’t need any, I suppose…

JC: In that case I’ll just drink the rest myself. [oily rags begin to smolder]

PCP: Whatever floats your boat … Well, the first step in making an absolutely smashing Chicken Pot Pie is to remove it from the little tinfoil thingy it is encased in …

JC: Ooh. Space-age technology.

PCP: And then you put it into the microwave here, like so…

JC: Really? [chug-a-lugs gin] Never would have occurred to me…

PCP: And then comes the especially tricky part: You’ve got these two settings on the microwave here. It is absolutely imperative that you use “defrost.” If you put it on “cook,” your brain will explode into thousands of tiny, smoking little bits.

JC: Hmm. And that’s an important safety tip for our viewers at home, isn’t it?

PCP: Right-O. So while that’s cooking, let’s turn to the Corned Beef Hash. You take it out of the can like this … and then you just gulp it down right out of the can.

JC: I see. What is the “O’ Brien” part for?

PCP: Not sure. Never got that far. Anyway, this stuff gives me gas like an Exxon station.

JC: Which is a great time for us to turn here to this neat little treat I’m preparing here.

PCP: What’s it called?

JC:“Harvey Wallbanger à la carte.”Editor’s Note: Did you see that one coming? This is what is known in cheap joke terms as a “running gag.” This not only follows federal guidelines for recycling, but also creates humor through repetition as well as freeing the writers from having to make up any new jokes. Please do go on.

JC: And after you add the Sloe Gin you stir, and gulp it all down in one shot. Ignore occasional vomiting afterwards.

PCP: This little tangy taste treat I’ve got here is perfect for accompanying a nice dry white wine or…

JC: Sounds great. [drinks]

PCP: Whatever … Well, it’s called Cream of Wheat. What do you think?

JC: It’s as good as I remember.

PCP: Yes, but wait until I add my secret ingredient.

JC: Vodka? [drinks]

PCP: No, it’s our friend the mongoose! Mongoose, “the other red meat,” is available at your friendly neighborhood grocery outlet, I’m sure, and adds a tangy spice of exotic flavor-splosion-liciousness to the most mundane of dishes! Mongoose paté, anyone? Mongoose and truffles? Treat the kids when they come home from school to a zesty surprise of Mongoose and jelly sandwiches. Plus they make great pets.

JC: Those bastards at the National Mongoose Council got to you, didn’t they?

PCP:You can’t prove that.

JC: OK, look. You know you can’t cook, and I know you can’t cook. So why don’t we just forget about all this “You take the stuff and you throw it in the bowl and put it on the stove” stuff and get down to business?

PCP:What are you saying, Julia?

JC:Ithink that you’re a beautiful, beautiful man.

PCP:Thank you. Stop touching me.

JC: [whispering, with her hand on Paul’s leg] I think Ilove you.

PCP: Thank you.

JC: Are you in a fraternity?

PCP: No.

JC:Oh, forget it then. Let’s get back to cooking. Do we have any Ramen Noodles?

PCP: Well, I’ve got a little surprise I call “Boar for One.”

JC: One?[now searching the cabinets for Ny-Quil to drink]

PCP: Well, the full name is “Boar for one Really Fat Guy.” But I digress. Anyhoo, we need a boar.

JC: In the newspaper? We’ve got several. But I digress.

PCP: Nobody noticed. Anyway, I happen to have a boar here … what’s that smell?

JC: Is it the boar? It’s a wee bit musky.

PCP: No … never mind. [oily rags burst into flame, killing three and wounding six]

JC: So what do we do with the boar?

PCP: We kill it first.

JC: That’s disgusting.

PCP: No, what’s disgusting is when I get really hungry and don’t kill it.

JC: Okay, let me do it.

PCP:Iwas just kidding, we’re not going to … Oh my God … What are you doing?! No!

JC: Ooh! Is that part supposed to be squishy?

PCP:Oh, dear God. Well, we gotta a dead boar here, so we might as well cook it. But just for the record, I was kidding.

JC:I’ll go collect all of its bits. [starts drinking again]

PCP:OK, so you take its … umm … Well, you take all the bits that don’t have hair on them and throw them into a big ol’ pot.

JC:I’ll do it.

PCP:Ifigured. Now, umm … Iguess you should go ahead and boil them.

JC: Whoo-hoo! [passes out]

PCP: We turn now to the Chicken and Bacon à la D-Hall — incidentally this is French for “fiery kiln explosion” — which are being cooked in these two pans. Please note that they are separate entrées. Julia, will you…? Well, Julia is vomiting right now, so I will add the dash of…

JC: [revived] Booooot and raaaaaally! [begins drinking leftover vinegar]

PCP: Gotcha. Anyway, I’m going to sample the chicken, which has been marinated in pepper and acetone, to give it that proper “breaded masking tape” taste. I’ll just take a bit here … and a bit here … Hell, I’ll eat the whole damned thing. Julia won’t notice, she’s funneling spare cooking grease for the alcohol content, and we won’t tell her, will we?

JC: Missss Tessmacherrrrr! Bring me the head of Steve Gutenberg on a silver platter! Marinate it lightly! Damn the torpedoes! [vomits repeatedly]

PCP: Oh, dear. I knew Ishould have thrown away that old Turkey Tetrazzini weeks ago. Let’s move on to another dish. And I mean that in a strictly professional way.

PCP: Well, it looks like all we have time for is boxed mac and cheese.

JC: Takes me back…

PCP: The first step in cooking gourmet mac and cheese is to remove all of the boars’ hair from the boiling water.

JC: I’ll do that. Owwwwwwwwww!

PCP: But not with your hand. Once you’ve done that, you dump the mac and cheese into the water and pray that this segment will end soon. While it boils, you want to stir the mac and cheese noodles with a blunt object, preferrably an old copy of the Web.Editor’s Note: This fictitious journal theoretically called “The Web” has nothing to do with any possible actual publications which might, under certain circumstances, be called “The Web” or something. Please don’t sue us. Now back to the column.

JC: I knew they were good for something.

PCP: Now you want to wait for seven minutes. After you mix the milk, butter and cheese powder in a bowl — if you run out of cheese powder, sawdust makes a fine replacement— you can pass the time watching Knight Rider on USA because, chances are, they’re running that episode with the evil KITT named KARR, and Michael Knight’s twin tries to kidnap…

JC: Shut up, pretzel boy, and get back to cooking!

PCP: OK, it should be ready by now. Taste these noodles Julia…

JC: [Crunching down] Oh, my God, I lost a tooth.

PCP: OK, they’re not quite ready yet. Let’s move on to something else before it’s too late.

JC: We got carrot sticks!

PCP: You can’t cook carrot sticks.

JC: Loooooove me some carrot sticks.

PCP: You’re drunk.

JC: [shouting] Show ’em how to make puddin’! People loooooove puddin’!

PCP: Our next dish is…

JC: Brad Pitt!

PCP:Shut up! OK, we’re going to make a big heap of mushroom-sauerkraut casserole. First you take a handful of mushrooms.

JC: I’ll show you a handful of mushroomsh. Shay … you, the fat guy … you review moviesh or shomethin’, dontcha?

PCP: [swallowing handfuls of soufflé] I think you’ve got me confused with…

JC: Waita shecond. Paul Prudhomme my assh. You’re Dom Deluise! You shon of a bitschhh…

PCP: Oh, dear … looks like we gotta go.

JC: [singing, in her best John Denver voice] Rocky Mountain Hiiiigh … youuu gotta know when to hoooold ’em…

PCP: Seeya next week everybody!

I Lied

By Jeffrey Carl

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

Editor’s Note: I’m back.

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. We also pride ourselves on the fact that we are all ex-members of “Menudo.” We are even more prideful that most of us have never been on a David Hasselhoff Pay-Per-View special. What we do not, however, pride ourselves on is our occasionally tense relationship with the University community. How do we know people don’t like us? When the “Letters to the Editor” written in flaming dog-doo that simply say “Collegian must die ha ha” begin adding up, you just get that feeling.

Furthermore, people sometimes get so irate that they threaten direct action, like beating us up to prove that athletes aren’t big dumb guys after all, or even sending vague death threats with absolutely dreadful grammar. And sometimes, somebody says that he or she is going to sue us.

I do not react well to lawsuits. They make me break out. I’m not going to tell you where. They make me grouchy, irritable and they give me that “not so fresh” feeling. As far as I’m concerned, lawsuits can lick me. So, normally I do everything I can to stay away from possible lawsuits, like degrading, humiliating and insulting everyone I can think of in the newspaper.

So you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks ago, Iget a message that Ihave been threatened with legal action. And by a fellow columnist, no less. I don’t feel free to betray his identity here, but it was Mike Nimchek. So, anyway, I was informed that he was considering suing me for libel, in regards to scandalous remarks that Imade about him in the midst of a “retirement” column about how nobody has a sense of humor anymore. I imagine possibly that Mike, being helpful and seeing that perhaps not everybody got the point, felt he should be kind enough to illustrate it graphically by threatening me with the possibility of legal action.

This is a dumb move.

Never try to sue me. Why? Because I’m a struggling young college student! Ihave no money! Never sue poor people! If you win, what are you going to get? My soul? My collection of “Squeegees of All Nations?” My three-foot-tall laundry pile/biology experiment? I don’t even have pledges anymore to barter or sell. In fact, if you took me for everything Ihave, considering my current Visa bill, you’d probably lose money. So, basically, “Duh.”

Furthermore, lawsuits (the state sport of Pennsylvania) are such a horribly uncreative way of exacting revenge. If you want to get back at somebody, you certainly don’t want to do it in some way that involves lots of paperwork and Judge Wapner. Consider perhaps the following:

• Pour superglue in their locks
• Using the awesome power of the Death Star, destroy their home planet of Alderaan
• Staple stuff to their foreheads
• Call upon Papa Legba to destroy their loa in the spirit world, or call upon Vito the Fish to destroy their car in the real world
• Blackmail! Blackmail!
• Get everyone to start calling them “Spanky” or something equally embarrassing-sounding
• Kill everyone in their family
• Whenever they approach you, maintain a sullen silence, then when they leave the room, stick your tongue out at them
• Casually invite them to stand underneath a 16-ton weight suspended by a pulley, then drop it on them
• Stage an elaborate set-up brutal triple murder and frame them for it, watch as they are convicted and given consecutive life sentences, and then start sending their cellmate “Huggy Bear” love letters, supposedly from their new roomie
• Trick them into opening the box which they think holds the remote control for detonating the nuclear missile speeding towards the San Andreas fault, but which in reality contains pure Kryptonite, which will kill them
• Make a “peace offering” of brownies made with Ex-Lax
• Casually invite them to stand in front of a particle accelerator, then annihilate them in a 10-billion-degree burst of proton/antiproton collisions
• Clean their dishes, but spit on them
• As soon as you get out of prison, shadow them everywhere, hang on to the bottom of their car when they try to drive away, climb on to their boat, and then sing the entire score of “The H.M.S. Pinafore” by Gilbert and Sullivan to them
• Replace their computer’s processor chips with “Chips Ahoy”
• Vomit on them, or
• Write a snide column about revenge methods. The ball is in your court. Next time you consider suing someone, try doing something a little more creative. Or better yet, get a sense of humor and a life.

Good night and God bless.

Adios, Aloha, Ave Atque Vale, Et Cetera

By Jeffrey Carl

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: This guy is just a columnist. He doesn’t reflect the opinions of the editors. He’s just some jerk we found in the gutter and chained to a Macintosh and we don’t like him anyway and he smells bad and … hey … wait a second. I’ve been writing these “Editor’s notes” for close to two years now and I just realized … I am the editor of this section. Uh … screw all that other stuff I said before. This “Jeff Carl” person is obviously a damn fine American and it is the firm opinion of the editor that you should bow three times a day, face Apartment 302 and worship him, plus send all your money. Good night and God bless.

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. Yeah, my ass we do. Anyway.

I hereby quit.

I’m sick of all this crapola [Spanish for “9 Divine”]. This is my final column.

But why, you ask?

In my brief, three-year career in journalism, Ihave been threatened with a lawsuit, been threatened with having “the living s–t” beaten out of me by people I called “sissy boys” [see last week], received stern letters from my professors about using bad words, been damn-near disowned by my fraternity, shot at (okay, so that didn’t actually have as much to do with being a “journalist” as being a “trespasser”), received hate mail from the Westmoreland County librarian, gotten fan mail from the Callao County Medium Security Correctional Facility and been called everything from “a poop-brain” to “a poop-head.”

Being a columnist isn’t all kibbles and bits, you know. Comedy is a serious business. Do you realize how difficult it is to fill 800 words with stupid cracks at 9 Divine whilst overusing the term “a mild cheese sauce?”

Frankly, it’s really not worth it. I’ve worked for The Collegian for three years now, and what has it even given me? Pain! Anguish! Hangnails … Leg cramps … Dogs piddle on me … “Chicks” for some reason just don’t “dig” me … They pay me in stupid worthless beads and shiny bottlecaps just because I listened to Nimchek’s advice and insisted in getting all my pay in “fiat currency” … Chick-Fil-A still refuses to give any sort of “Columnist Discount,” although most liquor stores do … and I still haven’t been named “WCGASenator of the Month.”

Ergo [Latin for “therefore”], I’m giving this crappy [Latin for “like crap”] racket up. Maybe I’ll do something that people respect more, like clubbing baby seals or mugging blind nuns.

Once upon a time I thought that plenty of people here lacked a sense of humor. Well, I believe I’ve spent the last two years proving it.

In that time, I’ve systematically attempted to cheese off everybody there is to cheese – if you haven’t been offended, don’t worry, it was a clerical error, please send in your name and I’ll offend you personally – and you know what? Some people actually didn’t think that my abusing them and dragging their name through the mud was funny.

But, you may ask, aren’t there any benefits to being a Collegian columnist?

No.

But, admittedly, you do get to complain about things. You also have the ability to irritate people on a campus-wide scale, instead of just those in close proximity to you. In fact, you can inspire people you’ve never even met before to hate you.

Also, Collegian columnists have lucrative endorsement deals with Charter Westbrook hospital (“Depressed? Can’t stop crying? Still writing 800 words about ‘9 Divine’ and ‘a mild cheese sauce?’ Get help.”)

Maybe it would just be easier – certainly more lucrative – for all of the columnists here to give up writing and use their new-found fame to market their own products:

• Paul Caputo’s “It’s All Greek to Me” souvlaki and gyros restaurant. All the food is bitter.

• The Scott Shepard Keg-erator: icy cold, inhuman, mechanical and usually full of alcohol.

• Mike Nimchek’s “Sanskrit Translations of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ anthology” : obscure, well-nigh-impossible to read and completely paraphrased from Ayn Rand.

• The Brian C. Jones Safety Handgun: lots of bullets and no points.

• And the Jeffrey D. R. S. Carl Automatic Monkey Shucker: It’s just … strange.

The point of all this being that I’ve had it. “But what you said wasn’t true,” people will say.

Excuses, excuses. If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass hopping.

Of course it isn’t true. It’s a joke. Jokes are not real. Do I really think RCSGA senators should be used as firewood? No. Do I really suggest an InterVarsity ChristianFellowship “Rush event” with a “Fish and Loaves Picnic?” No. Am Ian eight-foot-tall marsupial with small vestigial wings and a thick German accent? Well, kind of. No! I make fun of myself more than I make fun of anyone else. Having a sense of humor is not that important. Having a sense of humor about yourself is. You have no right to laugh at anyone else if you can’t laugh at yourself.

I tried to point out how silly it was to take some things seriously (popularity, envy, sorority Rush, scurvy, the Black Plague) by making them seem as silly as possible. I tried to make everybody laugh, regardless of who got their feelings hurt or how tasteless it might have been. I took no prisoners and butchered every sacred cow and served it up as “cole slaw” at The Pier, assuming everyone else would laugh at their own foolishness as easily as I did. I was wrong.

And now I really don’t care enough to keep at it. Truth be told, there’s plenty of other things to do with my free time, most of which don’t involve smelling the asbestos and film developer in The Collegian’s office (proven probably not to always necessarily cause cancer in some laboratory pledges) and none of which involve getting fan mail from prison.

I could take up bungee jumping … learn ritual suicide techniques (for the next time I’m in Indiana) … be a roadie for the 1995 Monsters of Rock tour with Van Halen and Timbuk3 … stay home and watch every hour of the O.J. Simpson trial coverage on E! anchored by Kathleen Sullivan, a fashion consultant and a blob of grayish mold shaped like Walter Cronkite … or just run around campus screaming “Yahtzee!” at the top of my lungs. The possibilities are endless.

And I won’t miss it at all.

The Official University of Richmond Dictionary/Thesaurus/ Encyclopedia and Souvenir Placemat

By The Dead Editors’ Society (Jeffrey Carl, Paul Caputo and Scott Shepard)

University of Richmond Collegian, February 16 1995

This was our brazen attempt to just plain offend everybody that we hadn’t offended so far. I will now admit that I completely ripped off the “Ring Dance is just like a bar mitzvah but with sex in the elevators” joke from P. J. O’Rourke. On one hand, this was a tremendous amount of fun for three callow young aspiring humorists to write: doing our best to offend university administration officials and skewer our college’s sacred cows in the service of cheap laughs for our fellow students. On the other hand, it features (like much of my college-era writing) a pretty astounding amount of casual misogyny and homophobia, which seemed funny and au courant at the time but is terribly embarrassing in retrospect. All my old stuff is here in unexpurgated form not because I’m proud of it, but because I don’t believe in “Han shot first” revisionism – this is what I wrote and how out of date it now seems is part of its historical value.

Mr. Shepard starring as Noah Webster

Mr. Carl as Daniel Webster

Mr. Caputo appearing as That Little Kid Webster

Welcome to the University of Richmond. Now that the school year is nearly two-thirds done, the members of the Dead Editor’s Society thought that, as a service to the community, we would provide an informative yet pointless compendium of terms peculiar to life here in the Spider Web (also known as Valhalla, Nirvana, and Traffic Court). We hope that this compact yet nutritious guide (please feel free to rip it out and hang it on your wall) will prove useful for you as you progress through the hills and valleys of the little college which even West-enders with flags in their front yards consider pretentious.

aerobics (from Greek æros, or “floppy parts,” and bikos, or “a-jigglin’ like crazy”): 1.n. A bizarre ritual somehow involving spandex and Evian. 2.n. A small furry mammal.

Baptists (Bap’ teests): coll. n. A discredited cult formerly associated with the University.

birth control (ging’ rich): 1.n. The fact that the Safety Shuttle stops running at 2 a.m. 2.adj. see Flagboy

brick (You arrr’ bas ket bawl’) 1.n. A building device that the University of Richmond obviously thinks you can buy like it’s Legos. 2. I mean, come on, now, this stuff is expensive. This is our tuition you’re playing with. 3. Oh, I see, you have enough brick to build an entire leadership school, but you can’t spend 30 extra dollars on concrete to finish the tower on Jepson. 4. You make me sick.

CAB (Kabob’): n. An on-campus organization dedicated to making independents with no friends feel worse than they already do. Members of the group can be seen in the top floor of the Commons painting signs that say things like, “No friends? How ’bout coming to see a weak comedian in The Pier by yourself?”

Caputo, Paul “The Fish” (from the French kaput, or “not,” and püter, or “funny.”): The last remaining specimen of an otherwise extinct species. Should be approached with caution, especially if carrying bacon, working for The Web, or responsible for canceling Quantum Leap.

Carl, Jeff (Weee’ zul): n. After being abandoned by his parents at birth, this esoteric, bitter columnist was raised by a small family of campus dogs. After gaining entrance to UR on a minority short guy scholarship, he was taken in by a bunch of KA pledges and taught how to speak and wear flannel.

Dance, Ring (from Latin ringos, or “daddy” and dancius, or “is drunk”): 1.n. A bizarre mating ritual, pretty much like a bar mitzvah but with sex in the elevators. 2.n. A light chicken gravy.

employment (?) noun, maybe? How the Hell should we know. We’re liberal arts majors. Ask the guys in the damned green eyeshades and Oh, and, can you lend me a few dollars?

e-mail (E! Entertainment):n. It used to be that it took days and even weeks to get a message from one place to another, but now, because of technological advances and because the computers are down again, you can’t get it there at all.

Flagboy:

FLAGBOY

Year Games ERA GPA W-L

’91-2 32 4.11 3.23 0-6

’92-3 4 (strike) 82.33 12 0-35

’93-4 29 Yes No 0-143

’94-5 63 3.14 -6 0-Westhampton

• Named to the John Madden All-Flagboy team three years in a row

• Is result of secret Nazi genetic experiments

flange (flange’): 1.adj. Kind of minty. 2.pron. Anything found in the lake.

GDI (God-damned Independent): 1.n. A seldom-glimpsed, usu. hermitlike species often found in Thomas Hall on Friday nights. 2.n. A rare, infectious disease. see also Caputo

Goldberg, Marquis Leonard de: Former bassist for the Grateful Dead, 1971-75. Later founder of the Leonard Goldberg Soul Explosion.

Harwood, Dame Patricia: Dean of Westhampton College and sixth in line for the British crown. Former world crumpet-spitting champion. Known during her ’60s radical days as “Patty X.”

hook up (lay pipe’): 1.v. Well, it’s like when you get together with somebody who you aren’t involved with but when you would, like, go out with them but you wouldn’t go out with them and you certainly aren’t dating, even though you might be together. 2.vavavoom verb. Ba-ka-chooka-wang, ba-ka-chooka-woo 3.pron. Okay, okay, we have no idea personally (except Paul says he has this girlfriend in Canada but Scott and Jeff don’t believe him) but we’ve heard it’s neat.

The Honor Council (Turn’ coats): 1.n. Oh, right, like they never cheated on anything in high school. 2.n. U. Va. wannabes.

intellectual curiosity (in tel ec’ shul kur EEEE’ os it E): n. A discredited cult formerly associated with the University.

Jepson School of Leadership Studies (Jet’ son): n. A discredited cult formerly associated with the University.

Loch Westhampton (Fes’ ter ing Slime’ Pit): n. Home to Jimmy Hoffa and countless KA pledges who did not quite make the grade, this scenic area been the setting for such Hollywood classics as “On Golden Pond,” “A River Runs Through It” and “The Blob.”

Lord Alison: The fifth Earl of Sussex, British Prime Minister 1934-40; former World Gym-kata champion and Reichskommissar of Austria. see also entry on her cousin Lord Alison Bartles and Jaymes

male cheerleaders: n. Sissy boys.

Mateer, Richard M.D.: Won the 1951 Nobel Prize in biology for his discovery of the infamous Vitamin “F,” which was later revealed to just be 7-Up. Also played Sgt. Deedee McCall on the popular TV show “Hunter” for three seasons.

mulch (durt): n. The store of wealth and medium of exchange at the University. The great explosion of mulch stores in recent years has set off an inflation spiral which has result in $1,000-per-year tuition increases for the past five years. see also Senior Campaign

multiculturalism (exac’ tly like it’s spel’ led) n. An intellectual practice currently in vogue at the University. The most controversial such exercise found Protestants and Catholics coming together for mutual understanding at the Chaplaincy. The event was marked by only sporadic gunfire.

9 Divine (Me nu’ do): 1.n. The artists formerly known as talented. 2.n. A mild cheese sauce.

num-chuks (nim’ chek): 1.n. A terrifying Japansese weapon of death 2.n. A terrifying American columnist of Fiat Currency. see entries under Freedom Betrayed, suicide.

Or Whatever: Or whatever. see Yeah, right.

orientation (Al’ ca TRAZ): 1.n. A yearly event occuring in the third week of every August, participants in orientation have often been known to run screaming from the campus to take up employment with the U.S. Postal Service.

pledge (suc’ ker): see serf

RCSGA (RoopColegSchlafGestapoAufwiedersehn): A secret paramilitary organization suspected of involvement with the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Munich Putsch of 1923, the North nomination of 1994 and the naming of “Edible Bites.” Apparently, they also make cool animals out of tied baloons. see Or Whatever.

Roop, Archwarlock Jason of: Neutral-Chaotic magic user. +20 HP, AC -3. Spells of: “Sleep” (level 3), “Magic Fireball” (level 4), and “Really Cool Breakdancing” (level 9). Can only be killed by magic users level 6 and above, or during a full moon by piercing his heart with an arrow-shaped Gardenburger.

Ryland Hall (Throat wo’ bbler Man’ grove) n. The dual-winged building half-way between the academic quad (see also “What?”) and the Hotel Jeter, Ryland Hall houses the University soup kitchen and the unemployment office.

Senior Campaign (Los Señor Campagnöla) n. see also Napoleon’s Russian Campaign, 1812; Hitler’s Russian Campaign, 1941; and Walter Mondale’s Presidential Campaign, 1984.

sex (ro’ op): 1.n. Nothing to see here. Please keep moving. 2.v. A light chicken gravy.

Shanghai Quartet (Som’ i nex) n. A group of four Oriental musicians which the administration keeps locked in the basement of the FAB, brought out to lull unsuspecting alumni to sleep while the administration steals their credit cards.

Shatner, Sir William: Great Shakespearean actor famed for his roles as Hamlet, Othello, and T.J. Hooker. Why is he in here? Your guess is as good as ours.

Shepard, Reichsmarschall Scott von (Kur’ mit the Fash’ ist Frog): intrans. v. A sinister entity bent upon conquering the world and then making everbody eat grits. see also Burn Todd Flora

social security : n. Joining a fraternity.

T. C. Williams School of Law (La Skool’): 1.n. Formerly a breeding ground for lawyer larvæ until it was fumigated. The vacated building now serves as a new Palestinian Homeland. 2.n. The source of plenty of nasty letters after that last crack.

The Collegian (Køleejeeañ) 1.n. A periodical published weekly on Thursdays, the Collegian has been recognized since the demise of Pravda as the greatest international purveyor of Communist propaganda. 2.n. Home of the colossal 1/2 lb. Spiegelburger and Libel Fries, with all the trimmings, for only $3.99. Offer ends soon.

The Fan (The Fan’): n. The guy who actually showed up for a basketball game this year

The Messenger (from the Greek mesan, or “book of,” and garos, “lame poetry”) n. Reputedly a literary journal, the Messenger provides physical evidence that modernity cannot produce art.

The Octaves (Awk’ tayves): 1.n. A group of eight musical notes 2.n. A group of eight or more musical sissy-boys.

The Row (Da Rîu): n. A picturesque garden district on the border between the City of Richmond and Hell, this area has maintained its antique, Victorian architecture and beauty by use of a barley-and-hops-based fertilization system and by extensive use of chattel labor. see also serfs

The Web (The Web’): n. An elite strike force. Its mission: to defeat the evil forces of Cobra and its ally, Destro. see also entry under lame

Trash violation (Noo’ sance): n. Driving around in a big-ass monster truck, watching NASCAR and spitting Copenhagen at the cat and … oops. Sorry, that’s a white trash violation.

University Players (fuh reeks’): 1.n. A group of people who put on gaudy makeup, dress up in the opposite sex’s clothing and say strange things. They also do plays. 2.n. A zesty cheese sauce.

The Virgin Vault (Lo’ ra Ro’ bins): 1.n. Like a haunted house, a rite of passage for young males to see if they can spend the night there 2.n. A dormitory converted from a small castle that used to serve as Cobra and Destro’s headquarters. see The Web

WCGA: Just like RCSGA, but with paint pens.

Writing Center (Dor’ ks): n. A team of students, most of whom wear Superfriends Underoos, whose idea of humor is telling freshmen to rewrite 15-page papers the night before they’re due.

Zip-eh-dee-doo-dah (Zip’ a de doo dah): n. Zip-eh-dee-day.

The 1st Annual URKEL Awards

By Jeffrey Carl and Paul Caputo

University of Richmond Collegian, February 2 1995

The only thing I recall about his one is that we had to work for a while to come up with an acronym to make “U.R.K.E.L.” After that, I think we wrote this one in a hurry. And it shows! Not in a good way!

We’ve been watching too much TV.

At any rate, it seems that each station has decided to have its own awards. ESPN has the Espys. You have the Golden Globes, the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Tonys and the ACEAwards. Even the weather channel is having its first ever “Radar Image” Awards, hosted by Chevy Chase and a zany yet lovable tropical storm heading NNE at 15 mph.

We don’t like jumping on any fad bandwagons. On the other hand, we are fresh out of ideas and we have this half a page to fill. So we are proud to present the URKEL(University of Richmond Kommunity Enrichment Laurels) Awards. Here are your hosts, Boris Yeltsin and Heather Locklear.

Boris: Dobrii pozdotshlavaya, i perestroika Chechnya. [Translation: Hello and welcome to the awards. Exits are here, here, here and here.]

Heather:Oh, Boris. You’re so funny, and pudgy, too.

Boris:Boingy boingy. [Do not touch me.]

Heather: Well, let’s get on with the awards.

Boris: Boingy boingy. [There is baloney in my slacks.]

Heather:That’s right. Our first trophy, the most coveted prize of the evening, is the “Scott Shepard/Ticket Lady Memorial Award for Pure Evil.” Boris, who are the nominees?

Boris: Zhlobny grovitsa, shto Skot Shepardd… [Obviously, Scott Shepard…] i Tikyeta Babushka [and the Ticket Lady…] i tovarischa trotsky glorp Bambishka [and, for no particular reason, Bambi.]

Heather: And — it’s a tie! — the surprise winners are … Alison Bartel Lord and “The Web,” for conduct above and beyond the call of pure evil. Each winner receives a trophy, a free ad in The Collegian, and a parking ticket.

Boris:Da, i nyet Webski Schmebski. [I get the feeling that The Web is really going to clean house tonight.] Et tollanum tyrranicus, sic semper Cæsarium. [Also, I’m completely stoned.]

Heather: Tee hee. [Ha ha.] Our next award is the Jason B. Roop Monolith for savage, ruthless political conflict. Boris Baby — the nominees, please?

Boris: Ich bien ein Hausfrau, und Reichschancellor Morrill… [First is President Morrill, for his execution of political dissenters and Wake Forest saboteurs…] mit der Pebbles ein D-Hallzeitungliebchenschaftbund… [and Pebbles from the D-Hall for her brutal repression of the disturbances in Chechnya…] und der Strudelmeister Oktoberfesten Rommelswagen Prince. [and the artist formerly known as “Prince.”]

Heather: Oh, Boris, you’re a cutie-pie. And — it’s a tie! — the surprise winners are … the evil aliens from “V,” and The Web.

Boris: Steille nacht, heilege nacht! [We have a special award next.] Heureux anniversaire! [Also, I am going to vomit.]

Heather: That’s right, we have the Erik Estrada Award for International Diplomacy. Who are the nominees?

Boris: ¿Donde estás, Señor Butt-head? Mucho Jepsonistas nachos… [First is The Jepson School of Leadership Studies, for its resolution of the crisis in Bosnia…] chilito meximelt pintos chicken soft taco… [and Police Chief Dillard, for this year’s all-time low of campus crime incidents involving the Klingon Empire…] chimichangas su pecho es muy grande. [and, for no particular reason, Phi Delt and SPE.]

Heather: Ooh … toughie there. And — it’s a tie! — the surprise winners are … Henry Kissinger and The Web! That’s funny, what has Henry Kissinger done for world diplomacy?

Boris: Je t’aime plus que j’aime Jean-Luc Picard! Il est le capitáin formidablé! [I have heard that you can suck a golf ball through a garden hose.]

Heather: That doesn’t sound like Russian.

Boris: Suck it up, babe. [Pozhgorodny slovo Kazakhstan, Zhivago.]

Heather: Righty ho. And now, it’s time for the award we’ve all been waiting for.

Boris: Da. [That’s right, sweet buns.] Gort: klaatu, verada, nikto. [It’s time for the ever-coveted Collegian Award for Irresponsible Journalism …]

Heather: The nominees are the “Richmond Times-Dispatch,” for endorsing Oliver North and Pope-abuse … “The Family Circus,” for the “Little Billy is trapped in a Turkish prison” series … and Jeff Carl and Paul Caputo, for offending just about everybody there is to offend.

Boris:Omikron delta kaq YSX!… [Those guys really tweak my nipples! …] oogah-chaka, oogah-chaka, oogah, oogah oogah-chaka. [er … So to speak.]

Heather: And — it’s a tie! — the surprise winners are “The Web” and “The Web.”

Boris: Merde! [Boy, is that zany. Ha ha.] Zhleb. [I destroyed Communism just to get even with all the Politburo members who kept calling me “Spanky.”] Gazhlop. [Also, vote for Mom in the WCGA elections.]

Heather: That’s all for the televised segment of these awards. Stay tuned for the bottom of the page.

Boris: Dobrii nyoch, i Stalingrad. [Good night and God bless. These are the opinions of two deranged people and stop blaming it on The Collegian.] Sayonara. [Also, I’m not wearing any underwear.]

It’s Science! With Dr. Plutonium

By Jeffrey Carl

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: We don’t really know where this came from. We got a call from the Science Center one day asking if we still had a “human newspaper” here, and then we heard lots of shouting and giggling in German. Then this showed up. The point being: there are some questions that you just don’t want to know the answer to.

We here in the Science Center pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers, ha ha. This new feature in your newspaper, read by many humans not suspecting its true nature as propaganda for the planet Frothgar, but I digress, this new feature will allow you, the reader, to send in burning – or shall we say, “Oxidizing?” ha ha ha – questions about science and nature, not realizing of course that our secret Gottwald building experiments will destroy this puny planet and enslave the universe by using a mild cheese sauce to break the warp barrier, ha ha never mind you didn’t read that last part and let’s get to the first letter anyway.

Many people believe that science teachers like myself are strange because they wander around with slide rules and polyester slacks and tell jokes about proton decay. Ha ha this is funny because all we science people in Gottwald laboratories are completely normal and there is nothing wrong and there is nothing for humans to fear and there are certainly not Zondorg death squadrons hovering above your planet’s atmosphere at this moment anyway.

Let us read the first science question sent in to us by humans who will soon be roasting in the depths of the Sarlacc Pit like all others who resist us ha ha ha just kidding I meant the first reader question.

Q: Where does Nerf™ come from?

A: Nerf™ grows in the hills of Colombia where it is harvested by Juan Valdez© and his trusty burro, Pepe. Nerf is not actually “planted,” but seems to grow in a field around this glowing green meteorite which fell to earth during the sixties. Señor Valdez must be careful to not let his children play in the Nerf fields™ after sundown or the Nerf plants will eat them. Nerf1, in its raw form, is a stimulant 200 times more powerful than cocaine, but for some reason is merely processed into small children’s toys and Pier specials. But it is certainly not being experimented with in the basement of the Gottwald building as a source of mind-control rays for giant squid. No, that is not happening at all and I think it is funny ha-ha that you even mention it. Next question?

Q: What is the funniest science joke you know?

A: It starts, “What if

(x2y √90210 + PBJ2 (footnote) ≈ xÿ/5Ø – ∞)”

and ends, “so the Scotsman said, ‘No it’s not a bagpipe, but don’t stop playing.’”

That joke is very funny ha-ha and all we scientists think it is very amusing, for you see we do have senses of humor and find very much to be what you humans call “ha-ha,” which proves very thank you much that we are not secretly robots programmed to suck out human brains. Ha ha. Next?

Q: How do computers work?

A: Research indicates that there are thousands of tiny, tiny monkeys (called “semiconductors” because they wear railroad conductor outfits and they are very, very tiny) which live in the boxes called “computers.” Each time a key is pressed on a keyboard, a tiny, tiny electric shock is delivered to the monkeys and they become agitated and do work, so don’t ever drop your computer because the monkeys would get out and after all those electric shocks, they are very, very bitter. These monkeys have all been trained to add and subtract and play “Tetris” and so they turn the gears and levers inside the “computer” to make it work. Here in Gottwald Laboratories3, in a secret room in the basement which says on the door “Do not enter – Pier Specials inside,” we are working on a special new computer4 used exclusively to compute GPAs with five special, totally insane monkeys called “Pentiums.”

Q: What other exciting new technologies are being invented and perfected in Gottwald Laboratories each night as we sleep and are totally unaware of?

A: Nein! Nothing! We have no plans to clone Hitler’s left foot and use it to dominate this puny planet, and we are certainly not using giant mind-controlled squid™ to develop newer and more virulent Pier Value Meals™5! Ha ha and we are just kidding anyways.

Q: Could you explain the relationship between quantum mechanics6 and neutrino behavior, in 25 words or less?

A: No.

An entirely unsuitable explanation can be found in S. Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” which only takes about two hours to read. A more complete explanation can be found in Hawking’s “A Long, Drawn-Out, Excruciatingly Dull History of Time,” which moves as slow as time itself and takes over 12 billion years to read.

Q: You don’t sound like a scientist. You sound like Jeff Carl after three fifths of cheap bourbon7.

A: Let me assure you ha ha very funny what you just said that it has no basis in truth and I have never even met this “Oberstführer von Karl” person and I don’t like him anyway, plus Iunderstand that he is not funny and he is the result of secret Nazi genetic experiments anyway.

By the way of course we are not conducting any experiments of that kind here, especially not developing hordes of telekinetic badgers who will cause havoc and plague or bringing Keith Richards back to life. Ha ha it has been very good talking with you and please do not go into any of the locked doors in the basement of the Science Center. Auf wiedersiehn!

^Footnotes:

1 Nerf is a registered trademark of Wham-O® Corp., which is, if you think about it, even stupider-sounding than “Nerf.”

2 This equation was originally proved by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew of Muppet Labs™ and his assistant Beaker. Then it was proven that they themselves were in fact Muppets and so you probably shouldn’t take anything they say too seriously.

3 Herb J. Ibid, “Blitzkrieg Fahrvergnügen,” p. 66

4 Ibid., p. 66

5 Soylent Green is made from people.

6 These are people who repair the time machine from “Quantum Leap.” For more information on this show, see the USA Network or your average lame Paul Caputo column.

7 Usually “Wild Turkey” or “Old Crow” but sometimes as cheap as “Old Kentucky Dog Sweat” or “Ripple.”

Campus Entertainment Guide

By Jeffrey Carl

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. So don’t be thinkin’ we aren’t, man, ’cause if you did, well … you’d pretty much just be wrong then.

Ahem. So in the interest of all those zany youngsters out there looking for some entertainment on campus who can’t find it by hitting the sauce like the rest of us, we publish here an exhaustive and completely irresponsible guide to campus entertainment (excluding of course the aforementioned white man’s fire water) for the rest of the year.

The Collegian Compendium of Campus Weekend Entertainment (Excluding of course the Demon Rum)

KARAOKE! KARAOKE!:
The Campus Activities Board provides you with numerous ways to escape the clutches of the sinful bottle for this and every weekend through the year. And, like the old song goes, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of Lazer Karaoke!” Sway to the beat and get down with your bad self while your fellow students humiliate themselves by being too drunk to read the words to the song and then calmly vomiting on everyone in the first two rows.

CAB is also featuring hip new movies every weekend, including “Speed,” “Ishtar” and the Christmas classic “Hot Buttered Elves.”

OOH LÁ LA … FOREIGN MOVIES:
While some critics point out that it is almost impossible to sit through a foreign film without a few drops of “Dutch Courage” beforehand, Boatwright Library continues to provide these little cultural experiences ostensibly for those not drinking “The Devil’s Hair Tonic.”

Highlights from this year’s offerings include Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Huis Clos,” Jean-Paul Murat’s “Le Grande Fromage” and Jean-Claude van Damme’s “Buckets of Blood Pouring Out of People’s Heads.”

LOCAL MUSIC SCENE:
Contrary to popular myth, people don’t go downtown to bars to drink sweet, sweet booze. Instead, most are there to see and hear the smells of the booming Richmond music scene. Numerous groovy bands make the rounds downtown and are easy to catch: Fighting Gravity (formerly Boy-O-Boy), Schnitzel (formerly Supertramp), Spanking Monkeys, Sluts at Warp Factor Six and The Jello Turbines. One of the most popular bands, Agents of Good Roots, has recently broken up and reformed as two splinter groups: Travel Agents and Agents of Good Roop.

THEATRICS:
Our campus Weird Theatre People Dept. has served up a menu of piping-hot creamy bowlfuls of delicious, nutrient-rich entertainment for this year. This weekend, in fact, brings “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” with music by Stephen Sondheim. It is the story of a wily Roman slave, Pseudolus, who must unite two lovers, fool a Roman Captain, insure domestic tranquility, prove Fermat’s Theorem of isoceles equilibrium, pass a federal balanced-budget amendment, foil the creepy old man in the glowing ghost suit who is trying to scare everybody away from the amusement park so he can buy the land real cheap, convince Mr. Roper that he is gay so he can stay with Janet and Chrissie – and even remember his lines.

Pseudolus is probably my favorite character in the piece. A role of enormous variety and nuance, and played by an actor of such … let me put it this way … whoever that guy is, he’s one zany bastard.

Second semester provides another theatrical coup de grace (French for “cut the grass”) with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” by Tom “The Brain” Stoppard, former manager of WWF champion “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, who wrote the Broadway classic “Grease.”

Interestingly enough, “Rosencrantz” is set to feature – no foolin’ – a small gaggle of noted Collegian columnists and writers, past and present. The cast includes Rosencrantz (Branden Waugh), Guildenstern (the other title character), Paul Caputo (Scorpio), Brian C. Jones (B.C. 54? – 6 A.D.), Randy Baker (the part of “Randy” is played by the clarinet) and even Jason Roop (Chaotic/Neutral Magic User, +20 HP).
Be sure to catch the theater on the small screen in “the vile gangster Quonset the Hutt” theater located behind the Physical Plant building, in the dumpster.
Q-Hut productions slated for this year include “All in the Timing” by David Ives, “Grease™” by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and the first part of the acclaimed “Angels in Bikinis” trilogy, “Baywatch Approaches.” Tailgates are recommended before student plays.

So don’t miss out on the action. And remember – if you’ve had even half as much fun reading this as I have had writing it, I’ve had twice as much fun as you.