Monday, October 6, 1997
Let’s make our campus safe from undesirables
COLUMN: Join us, friend, in driving out freaks with
nonconformist attitudes
Welcome, incoming freshmen.
My name is Woodrow J. Adams and I’ve got a few tips for you for
your stay these next few years at UCLA. But first, allow me to
indulge you with a few background notes on who I am and from where
I am coming, so to speak.
Firstly, I enjoy a fine ale, one that boasts a rich, frothy head
and fills you up like a hearty meal. Or a cheap beer, that exudes a
bouquet not unlike that of a rotting, algae-laden fish tank, and
goes down like rat piss. You know. It depends on my mood – whether
I’m looking to just get drunk or I’m looking to get sent off my
rails.
I also appreciate a hard-rockin’ tune on KROQ. What I like about
that station is that they only play the very latest hits, so I
always know what’s "hip" or "trendy." And I’ve also noticed that
the more times they play a song, the more I like it. It’s
comforting that way, because then I never have to worry about
developing my own unique musical tastes that others might find
disturbingly unusual.
But my favorite pastime involves my education at UCLA. Well, not
so much the knowledge or insights I’ve gained from my classes
there, but rather the thought that they will one day lead me to a
high-paying career where I can schmooze with well-kept corporate
tight-asses and wine and dine my way to the top, all solely through
spewing countless hours of bullshit that not even I believe in. Fat
city, baby. I’ll knock ’em dead.
But, no, freshmen, that’s not what I’m really here to talk to
you about. What I endeavor for you to know about in this fine
Westwood area, where the clean, sterile streets reek of cultural
undernourishment and the residue of smog sticks to the sides of
freshly-constructed stucco buildings like festering abscess
secretions, is how to treat the freaks. That’s right, every campus
has them, from the University of Washington to Johns Hopkins, and
now they’ve made their way into UCLA.
Easily distinguishable marks of this breed of social deviant
include multiple piercings in unusual places, such as the tongue,
lip and nose – even the nipple, I’ve heard, for many males of the
species, which seems to indite their tendencies toward such
activities as "entertaining" and being "really good dancers," if
you get my drift.
Then there’s the oh-so-trendy, unmistakable tattoo, which you
know they’re gonna want removed in about ten years when they grow
up and get a job, after all of their childish idealism has fallen
by the wayside along with their green hair, which by the way, looks
so attractive resting on their thrift-store clad shoulders. Yeah,
like loud, wide-lapeled polyester shirts ever looked good even in
the ’70s when people at least had an excuse for not knowing any
better. I mean, it was in the wake of the ’60s – all we could
really expect the young nation to do was figure out how to take
showers again. Expecting tactful dressing skills would of course be
too much to ask.
But I’m off on a tangent. What I really want to stress, incoming
freshmen, is that we need to harass these miscreants whenever
possible, so that they either learn to exchange their scruffy
dreadlocks for frosted Jennifer Aniston-styled hair, or just get
the hell off of our school’s manicured lawns and Big-Cat lined
walkways, where we enjoy the dust from construction sites always
seeping into our nasal passages. After all, it reminds us that UCLA
is a place for progress, for bright futures which don’t involve
carrying our lunch in boxes like the weathered, blue-collar Joes
working the rigs, tearing up our perfectly paved roads just to
replace them with newer perfectly paved roads.
No, we can afford to eat at Taco Bell for our mid-day snack. And
we’re damn proud of that. Did you know that our campus Baskin
Robbins does more business than any other individual vender of that
brand of ice cream? It’s called excess, Kids. And here at UCLA we
can be proud to revel in that excess – which is why we must destroy
the minimalist preaching, Zen-loving freaks!
How can we go about completing this task, you may ask? Well, for
starters, yelling "FREAK!" and laughing raucously at them from out
the window of your Ford Explorer 4×4 is always a nice way to let
them know they’re not welcome. Then, just staring at them like
you’ve never seen someone that abnormal before wandering around our
oasis of similarly dressed clumps of like-minded masses seems to
help.
But my personal favorite is to ask them a series of stupid,
and/or irrelevant questions such as "How did you get your hair that
color? Does it wash out?" or "Do your parents know you did that to
yourself?" or "Why would you want to look that way? Don’t you want
to be pretty?" seem to work equally as well.
Hopefully, if we continue to work on this one, we should be able
to create the bland and completely mundane environment here at UCLA
which we so desperately strive to have oozing out of every pore of
our tanned and lotioned skin, a la Bath and Body Works. And maybe
one day, we can get those film students here to start making movies
that people actually want to see, like "Air Force One" or "Lost
World." You know, films with a lot of action, not just slow,
artsy-fartsy techniques. Who cares about plot when you can have a
hot chick and a lot of suspense?
Say good-bye to freaks, hello to the real world and be proud to
call yourself a Bruin. That’s what I say, incoming freshmen.
Your Pal,
Woodrow J. Adams
This week, Vanessa VanderZanden has blue hair. However, due to
her recent desire to conform to social norms, she may cut it, dye
it brown and take up needlepoint, living out her days with her
estranged third aunt somewhere in Omaha.
Vanessa VanderZanden