Orange Army

Few things get the derelict student more excited than the rush of loud audiences at a sporting event. While we enjoy noise outside the organized “stand up and scream” chaos of athletics - I’m thinking of the occasional amateur guitar “entertainer” on the campus' main lawn - the possibility of getting a T-shirt for our efforts gives incentive and purpose to our vocal straining.

As a proud member of the Derelict Class (that’s a step below the step below the “welfare class” and a hair above the “utterly and completely useless class”), I feel an urgent need to network with other sporting enthusiasts. At the Men’s Basketball team’s last exhibition home game, I got that opportunity.

The Orange Army is a motley collection of under-performing jocks, mis-fits and C-students who organize to rout for the home team from the sideline. They wear unflattering colors and shout unflattering things at the visiting team from a platform just close enough to center stage to appease their egoism. After one look at the writhing collection of impromptu cheerleaders, I knew I had what it took.

The first five minutes were excellent. The army’s “volume is required, intelligence not essential SIR” motto fit well with my basic life philosophy. Our fearless leader, a metabolically thin student with a goofy orange hard hat inscribed with the words “Orange Army Leader,” brought us all together for a pep talk (“leave nothing untoward unsaid”) and we declared our readiness with a few “hoorahs.”

Then reality set in. Most fans - especially the visiting team’s aficionados who were seated less than thirty feet to our left - are not keen on having their viewing experience interrupted by boisterous enthusiasts like us. The event organizers sent down a security guard who stood between the visiting team’s fans and us as we shouted epithets at each other. I’d seen something similar on Jerry Springer once, but I’d never experienced it in person. I was disappointed at the security guard’s bulk, but was encouraged by the imposing weapon poised on his hip.

Anthony Brown, one of the captains for the home team, was getting mad. A couple of the referees had made horrendous calls (“Hey, Zebra! Your mom could have made that call better!”) and, while we did our best to point it out (“Yo stripes! When was the last time you had that prescription refilled?”), Brown was having a hard time keeping his emotions in check.

So he threw his headband into the stands. More specifically Brown threw his headband toward the Orange Army. It landed within a stride of me. I was elated to have a souvenir from the game. I reached out to pick it up when I noticed something.

A trail of sweat coated the hardwood from where the sweatband had first struck the ground until it ceased its movement. From where I stood, I could see that the material of the cloth was drenched; it glistened like Jeremiah Wright in a sermon. I hesitated, not wanting to carry a cup of Brown’s sweat with me the rest of the day but wanting to avoid the appearance of weakness in front of the other orange soldiers.

Finally, our fearless leader reached down and picked up up. He paused only a second before placing the soaked sweatband on his own forehead and releasing a rebel yell, which we returned. We respected him all the more for the drops which mosied down his face like tears he didn’t cry.

We’ll be out there next home game in full regalia. If you take pride in your dereliction, you’ll be there too.

My way or the Segway!

For a small private school in the third most polluted county in the nation, Pacific sure has a big campus. Call me indolent, but the trek from the Eberhardt building to South Campus is strenuous, especially for an out-of shape junior whose most demanding daily physical activity is at the breakfast table.
Especially when the arduous journey is packed in the ten-minute break between back-to-back classes.

Especially when the professor in the first class falls in love with his own eloquence and forgets the time.

For the last month I have made like Usain Bolt and hoofed my way cross country with all collegiate alacrity. My folds sway, my breath puffs and I get to class smelling like a gym locker and looking more moist than Taylor Swift at the ACM awards, but I’m not tardy.

It does, however, remain a mystery why all the seats around me are vacant.

A friend told me to purchase a skateboard. What a Californian suggestion. I suppose I should also pick up a pair of thongs and a bandanna as well? Watching me tumble through campus on a surf board with wheels, causing more property damage than OJ Simpson at a Las Vegas memorabilia dealer, might be funny in a kick-in-the crotch sort of way, but it isn’t any more appealing than running. And I’m not convinced that scrapes are superior to sweat.

The answer came to me while listening to Weird Al the other day: why not roll on a Segway? I’m already “whiter than sour cream,” what harm would the world’s first self-balancing human transporter do?

Segways, for those of you who are too hip to be up on the Silicon Valley’s most glamorous vehicle on two wheels, are personal transporters powered completely by green power. Depending on the model I purchase (a proposition that will cost me around $6,000.), I will be able to attain speeds of over 11 miles per hour.

Just think: at that breakneck pace, I will be the punctual Kahuna on campus. The Segway is also dangerous, which I like because that might rub off on me.

It’s the perfect craft for the Pacific student. So when you see a poorly adjusted white boy whizzing down the pedestrian walkways at treadmill speeds, know that I will be on time to class. Eat it Usain!

“You have very soft hands”

While prodding through campus, I saw a friend walking with a young woman I’d never met before, but whose acquaintance I immediately wanted to make. With a “hey, wait up,” I tightened the straps on my backpack and accelerated my pace until I was abreast of the duo.

I introduced myself to the young woman and extended my right hand, thumb up.

The practice of squeezing another’s hand as a sign of agreement or respect is really quite singular. It was probably originally intended as a defensive maneuver, but today is a common ritual exchanged between friend and foe alike.

Our hands made contact. We clasped. And just like that the squeeze was over.

“You have very soft hands,” she said as we returned our respective appendages to their comfort zones.

“Thank you,” I replied for lack of a better retort and to cover for a quick rush of adrenaline.

What did she mean by “soft hands?” Was she making reference to my obvious skill at ball sports, most of which require dexterous fingers, an eponymous attribute of “soft hands?” Did she mean that my hands lacked strength and intend her comments as not-so-subtle hint to encourage amity with the weight room? Was she implying that I moisturized frequently, a euphemism for another behavior entirely? Was she forcing me to come to grips (note the pun?) with my soft hands?

While my mind was gyrating, my mouth remained mute, leaving an awkward void in our dialog.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked, filling the silence. I wanted her to say “no” and give me a pumice stone to use on my palms or some acid for the skin around my nails. I wanted a rebuke for failing to maintain manly calluses or a lecture on the value of manual labor. At least then I would have a benchmark for improvement and a way of escape.

Instead she answered with a “sure,” followed by a shrug and a giggle that left me feeling lonelier than a broke supermodel after a failed facelift.

I was dejected, but quickly drew the conclusion that I would have to stop using soap, find a splintery wooden board to rub against or, maybe, just accept my soft hands.

Paper Mâché

You have probably all been there: A major paper is due in a difficult class in a few hours and you have yet to touch fingers to keyboard. The midnight deadline looms over your evening like a bad haircut, darkening your brow and generally making you feel stressed out.

The path to this common discomfort was an easy one. Whole libraries could be filled with accounts of all the things that didn’t happen on the way to the blank spot on your computer’s hardrive where your paper should be. You attended to the assignment the way Britney attends to Sean Preston and Jayden James.

You committed to one topic in front of your Professor but you will respect that promise about as much as the Obamination did his federal campaign funding pledge. Who could have known how little research there is on the Ramen noodle diet. It was a rotten topic anyway. You also told your Professor you would get him the paper early for comments, but that deadline passed with the Forth of July Fireworks.

All you want out of this is a decent grade; something that won’t disqualify you from your scholarship or embarrass your parents too badly when they see the grade. If they see the grade. What you don’t like is having to write a paper.

Most students would rather have someone jam a screwdriver through their knee than grind out an assignment. After graduation, the additional income earned because of the bachelor’s degree could be put toward knee replacement surgery.

Unfortunately for you, the sadist hotline is down and none of your friends are handy or willing with a screwdriver, leaving you with nothing but a QWERTY keyboard and your own noodle. Technology has failed you again.

The library greets you with a musky small that shouts “old books.” Actually it whispers. You look around the room at the masses of students, scrambling like ants who forgot to prepare for winter. They’re procrastinators, but you can’t really scold them since you will soon be joining in.

Your cell phone buzzes. It’s a friend from high school who wants to talk. You shouldn’t, but you do. What’s another hour when you’ve already dawdled three weeks?

Litter with care

Like most college students, I binge drink. Coffee, that is. Mornings are too harsh to face without the companionship of warm caffeine and I begin my day with 16 ounces of the real Maxwell House deal. No instant brew for me, I march down to the local java depot and pay three times the market rate for…well, for a cup of overpriced coffee.

One morning I happened to glance at my coffee cup – a cheap contrivance adorned with modern commercial art – and read the notice: “100% Biodegradable.”

Biodegradable, for those of you who couldn’t get past the third syllable, means readily compostable. You know those warm and smelly compost piles your grandma used to keep under her sink? The material of my cup was compost minus a few weeks decomposition time.

Can you say appetizing?

So there I was, standing in the cold with a fresh cup of joe, waiting for the recycled fibers to start falling apart and give me my second warm shower of the day, when it hit me like a bad mid-term grade: Where should I dispose of my cup?

Tossing a carefully engineered, enviro-friendly container in with all the other landfill garbage seemed like a big waste, pun intended (sorry). But I couldn’t justify placing it with the aluminum cans either.

And while the cup was environmentally friendly, the lid was made of unrecycled petroleum-based plastic, which would resist rot for decades. The cardboard insulation sleeve promised similar decomposition stubbornness.

I would have to throw it out in parts, like a serial killer disposing of a body.

But what of the coffee inside my cup?

It was probably made from conflict roast farmed by underprivileged farmers on the “wrong” side of Columbia. And the cocoa in the mocha was arguably from child laborers in the Congo. And the half and half was probably sucked from abused cattle masquerading as “happy cows” in the cheese commercials.

So I dug a hole in my backyard lawn and laid my cup to rest.

Ode to my notebook

I am an awful student. In class, I make disgusting noises, fidget, doodle, pick at things that shouldn’t be picked at, wink randomly, make inappropriate comments to my classmates and sweat uncontrollably. My mind wanders so much that I can’t keep on one line of reasoning for more than a few seconds and my cognitive ability makes Jessica Simpson look smart. I get bad grades, can never answer a question in class and am so cantankerous that some of my classmates refuse to study with me.

I have other issues too – I can’t get dates, have a nervous twitch in my left eye and sometimes think I’m Elvis – but let’s focus on my educational problems for now.

My notebook knows more than I do. Before every lecture, I obediently remove my spiral bound sheets from their special place in my backpack and flip through to where the last class let off. When the professor starts speaking my pen starts writing and words go from my ears to my fingers without ever crossing the cognitive part of my brain.

Some evenings I will flip through my notes and wonder how so much content was introduced without my noticing. Graphs, equations, people and dates limp off the page looking like a foreign language. Sometimes I vaguely remember the moment of their introduction, but most of the time I look at these random facts the way I look at six month-old yogurt in the back of the fridge: How did that get there?

My doodles, forgotten over the course of the day despite the hours I spend preparing them, look like artful masterpieces in a second examination. In fact, I think some of today’s “masterpieces” may even be doodles in wooden frames.

I wish my notebook could go to class for me. It would sit quietly in some corner and record things. Instead of relying on neurons for memory, it would use the indelible markings of pen and ink as a permanent ledger of the professor’s thoughts.

My notebook wouldn’t get distracted. Although sometimes I think notebooks can be romantically involved, the drama of life rarely penetrates the simple mind of an inanimate object and even the most suave pad of college rule doesn’t have romantic entanglements. Class content alone would dominate my notebook’s mind.

My notebook wouldn’t ask dumb questions or be at all disruptive. It might shuffle a bit now and again to turn a page, but its noises would always be appropriate for a class environment. My notebook would be in everyone’s study group and give notes to all the students who missed class.

If my notebook could take tests, write papers and do homework, I would really be in business. I would have to be careful that none of my impromptu artwork made it onto an exam, but my notebook is pretty smart about these things. Most professors test from lecture material anyway and a clean regurgitation of class content without human emotion would get a top grade every time.

I am trying to figure out a way to make this work; when I do, watch out. My notebook will rule the day.

Backpack Infidelity

It was the kind of experience that would compel Tom Cruise to issue a litany of religiously significant acronyms or force Keira Knightley to start eating. It was a dark occasion, but in an un-Oscar worthy way. A weaker soul might have left the room sobbing or, worse, tried to pull the old accessory switcheroo (think Quick Change magic, not Winona Ryder in a department store).

No, it wasn’t a tête-à-tête with Hillary Clinton, although that would have been frightful. Rather, I witnessed a homeless man carrying a backpack that was the same model, color and texture as my own. Of course, I knew the backpack wasn’t mine – my own sack was in a safe place – but the fact that they looked so similar had me instantly incensed.

Had my connection with the homeless man occurred over any other accessory, I might have let it pass. But not a backpack. Backpacks are as personal as the people they ride on. Like the tiny papooses of California’s first inhabitants, they accompany their guardians unhaltingly, sometimes swinging gently at the side. On other, more turbulent occasions, they lay double strapped and tightened in for extra security. The backpack is an intimate accessory, because it gets to put its straps where most other people can only dream of putting their hands.

Seeing your backpack ride on someone else's back is like discovering your Rolex is fake, except worse, because even a fake Rolex can be faithful.

But what to do? The backpack Bill of Rights, a sacred document among those who believe themselves more than just an empty sac and who want to peregrinate with pride, explicitly prohibits harming other backpacks, even those that are riding with another. So I gave the homeless man a quarter and had a DTR with my backpack where I explained everything I’d seen.

My backpack and I have been together since high school and our relationship has already survived a couple years of college. It’s been tough, but we’ve stuck side-by-side through it all. I raised the possibility that maybe we weren’t giving each other enough space and that each should allow the other more room.

And what do you know? It turned out to be an innocent misunderstanding. I was reading way too much into a guiltless situation. Now I feel a lot better knowing that someone has my back.

All Hail Google!

Within a decade, Google will be the biggest corporate power in the world. Forget the oil companies, whose biggest hope for future growth lies under discouraging layers of ice. Forget Wal-Mart, whose profits will soon follow its free-falling image. It won’t be long before the internet search giant tops them all.

And what a beautiful world it will be. You will wake up every morning to the smell of your favorite morning beverage, which Google will either remember from past mornings or serve by command after you watch a series of targeted short advertisement from contending brands. The shower will be set to the perfect warmth, calculated to the last significant digit based on outdoor temperature and predictive likelihood of catching cold (a new feature that will then be in “beta-testing”).

Forget where you left your car keys? Google will graciously let you search for the missing item in its exhaustive tape record of your life. Don’t like private moments showing up in the archive? No problem; Google will eliminate those sections of tape from your search results. The corporate office will, of course, maintain a copy for personal entertainment.

Reading material will be a synthesis of popular sources based on the current events of the day and any personal interests you may have. Google will know what you like.

Choices in diet, transportation, housing, friendship and even romantic companionship will all be decided by habit-evidenced preferences. That’s right, your boyfriend or girlfriend will be chosen by Google, using an algorithm that finds and identifies persons with mutual coincidence of penchants, which tech speak for “liking the same music.”

You could also do a Google search, if you’re feeling particularly lonely (or is it lucky?).

After legislation is passed to clear the way, Google will vote for you in a manner more objective then any human being ever could. Candidate selections will be determined by the news articles you favorite and entries you make on your blog, because everyone will keep a blog. Google Voting will be hassle free and will allow 100% of the electorate to have a say.

“Google” is Russian for “total global domination under the guise of ‘doing no evil,’” a concept the Russians have struggled to learn, but Google has down to a science. We are on the path now but in a few years, life will be efficient, smart and, above all, searchable.

The 'Great' Wall

SAN DIEGO, CA (FCN) – The Bush administration is putting its full backing behind plans to complete the San Diego border fence, a policy which some experts say could reduce the flow of illegal immigrants by as many as three per year. Homeland Security Secretary Micheal Chertoff has agreed to new plans which supersede existing state laws with the auspicious goal of completing the fence.

Click here to keep reading "The 'Great' Wall," originally published in The Pacifican...

A Songwriter's Take on Stockton

One of FCN's contributors was recently named humor columnist for his school's newspaper, The Pacifican. As prodigious as that sounds (and it really does have the ring of prodigy), the new position has fewer readers than even the lowly Funny Class Notes, which is saying something. It also means a whole new passel of editors, each of whom is infinitely more irritating than the other FCN writers (which, again, is saying something), will have to peruse his work before it goes to print.

A little disclaimer: These columns are written for a slightly different format than FCN. First, the nature of the publication encourages local topics and humor that may not be even remotely stimulating for those reading outside the target area. You'll have to either smile and play along or go visit Google News when the local material is discussed. Second, they still haven't figured out a way to make newspapers carry hyperlinks. I wrote the New York Times months ago about this problem and not only did they do nothing about it, they didn't publish my letter. To solve this problem, you can imagine the hyperlink by printing out the column and underlining any text that probably would have a link if published online.

The Pacifican's editor-in-chief tells us that some of the columns will be posted online, but if the IT guys at school are as inconsistent as Uncle Wally, many of them will be in print only. When the internet is benevolent, we will try to pass the article onto you.

Here's the latest column:

Forbes Magazine is famous for sponsoring riveting popularity contests based on arbitrary criteria. “The World’s Most Expensive Whiskeys” presents several pricey ways to get drunk, including Macallan Fine & Rare, aged since 1926 and sold at $3,600 a shot. With a price like that, I’m going to need another...

Click here to keep reading "A Songwriter's Take on Stockton."