Howard Ho hho@media.ucla.edu
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Where, oh where, could UCLA celebrities have gone? Where, oh
where, could they be?
Welcome to the educational column, where we usually expand the
silly putty that is your mind. However, today’s column must
be interrupted for a special news bulletin. That’s right, we
are taking time out to cover the controversial search for Elvis
Costello, who has been missing since he became UCLA’s Artist
in Residence.
I’m at ground zero, the UCLA Guest House, where Costello
apparently disappeared one day after having taken the prestigious
UCLA position along with one of those minty chocolates on the
pillow. Police have speculated kidnapping or excessive obsession by
a psychopath groupie who has taken Costello, bound and gagged, to a
ranch hideaway.
However, crack investigators at UCLA’s very own Daily
Bruin believe Costello’s disappearance may be just another
case of celebrity snobbery, taking the benefits of UCLA’s
good name while not giving back. Of course, the ultimate test of
Costello’s whereabouts will be to see whether he shows up at
his concert in Ackerman Grand Ballroom tonight. Trust me, the Daily
Bruin will be there to bring you the truth!
Costello’s concert will be his second on campus since
receiving his UCLA position. His other engagements have been most
recently at Berkeley and Saratoga, and his recent interviews run
the gamut of top media, from the Associated Press to Rolling Stone
to Entertainment Weekly. Yet for all his visibility, he remains
curiously out of reach for Daily Bruin interviewers, who think that
this crooner might make a pretty interesting story. His behavior
does not seem to befit someone in the role of Artist in Residence,
who is supposed to, according to Performing Arts programs,
“create new works and collaborative pieces and will involve
themselves with the UCLA program throughout the year.”
The truth is that the Daily Bruin gets the shaft sometimes.
We’re seen as being a campus paper and therefore somehow
immature. Who can blame people? After all, half of you think we
suck anyway and get the Daily Bruin simply for the crossword
puzzle.
But, in my moment of heartfelt idealism, I feel the Daily Bruin
must be at least capable of covering on-campus events and
personalities. It would be a shame if the UCLA basketball team
decided to reject interview requests because they were too busy
studying.
Sure, Michelle Kwan may have given us the shaft when we asked
for an interview, because she was busy preparing for the Winter
Olympics. But her Feb. 18 appearance on the cover of Newsweek, in
an exclusive article that followed her around for a day, showed the
Daily Bruin her true colors. It’s a pity that she fell in
competition.
Other musical acts, from Joshua Bell (Elvis Costello) to Michael
Nyman (Elvis Costello), have made Royce Hall appearances but
disappear without a trace when it comes to interviewing them for an
article to promote their shows. What this amounts to is a sideline
blurb mentioning that they came, they played, they fled (they
Elvised).
UCLA is our territory, our bag. Oh, Elvis, can you hear us? If
artists come to UCLA but don’t give us the time of day, then
we can’t do our job, which is informing the campus of what is
actually going on, rather than just the events where people were
happy to get interviewed. Don’t shut us out, Costello. You
live here, man.
One last note: don’t be a Spalding Gray, who stiffly gave
me one-word answers for my questions, because he found out I
didn’t see his films but only read his book. All I can say is
that I’ll never waste my time paying attention to anything he
does ever again.
As for Costello, he apparently has decided to continue his
stints as Artist in Residence at prestigious colleges like the
Sorbonne, Oxford and Heald, which essentially means you can look
for Costello to be vacationing in the Bahamas next year. Costello
still has an open invitation to talk to anyone here at the Daily
Bruin ““ we’ll see if we can pencil him in.
The sad thing is that we like his music. We think Elvis is cool,
but he needs to get it together. He could have been a kick-ass
Artist in Residence and set the tone for the program to prosper in
the future, but he destroyed his opportunity and now will suck
heinously forever.