13. Clean vs. stinky: the debate rages on
14. Valentine Shmalentine
15. Lost and profound?
16. Space invaders
17. Hip to be square
18. Hair we go
19. Shakin', not stirred
20. Pyromania and you
21. Life in the balance
22. How to be cool
23. And in conclusion...
Volumes: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Clean vs. stinky: the debate rages on
Feb. 8, 1995
Any substance used in the bathroom completely confuses me. Going into the Body Shop usually gives me a good case of hives, maybe even a full-blown epileptic seizure, depending on how many politically correct (yet highly fashionable!) buttons happen to be dangling in front of my face. "Animals are people, too," or "If you test on animals, I'll set you on fire." But beyond the PC catch-phrase du jour, there's something at the Body Shop that perplexes more than that magical tray-return system at Carmichael.
Basically, I don't understand soap.
"What is there to understand about soap?" I hear you ask, wondering how I can make such a foolish statement so early in the semester. "Such inane comments are usually best kept hidden until April when it's too late to quit reading the weekly Misadventure."
"Oh," I answer with a hearty chuckle, "there's plenty not to understand. Sit back, young lad, and I shall explain." And then you climp up onto my lap, we kindle a small fire, sip hot cocoa, and Grampa dan tells his tale of household cleaning products and the wonder they create in his warped little mind.
Okay, I guess I get the basic concept of soap. You're dirty, then you rub some of this "miracle substance" on your skin, and suddenly you're clean and shiny and have that high-pro-glow they tout on old Alpo commercials. But how does this process work? What mysteries are going on inside a chunk of Ivory? Why doesn't the same thing happen if you rub, say, a lobster on your skin?
And why all these different cleaning products? Shampoo is just soap you put on your head. Detergent is just soap you put on your clothes. Windex is just soap you put on your glass. Ketchup is soap you put on your french fries. Why all these different cleansing substances?
The answer is simple but silly: it's all part of America's monstrous quest to be perpetually clean as a proverbial whistle. Whoopee. Clean. Where's the exitement in that? Bah humbug. Why be clean? Oh yeah -- because everybody else is. Be a sheep, follow the crowd, don't smell bitterly offensive. (yawn)
All this soap stuff is creating a highly odor-conscious society. We have a country running around thinking with their noses when they should really be thinking with their... um... well, I'm not quite sure which part of our bodies we should be thinking with. Maybe we should be thinking with our spleens. Or our left earlobes. I DON'T KNOW; why am I wasting time on this topic?
Well, why do I ever waste time on any topic? ANSWER: Unless I come up with a suitably random and mildly entertaining column each week, I lose that federal grant.
Anyway, back to the aroma issue, let me just say that I hate cologne. I am vehemently against those expensive bottles full of smelly liquid. People who don't believe in God say that God doesn't exist.
"OBJECTION! This is irrelevant, your honor!"
Wait, I'm going somewhere with this. Like I was saying, people who don't believe in God say that God doesn't exist. So when someone offers me Obsession, I explain that I don't believe in cologne and therefore cologne doesn't exist and then I try to convince them that they have just wasted twenty dollars on a bottle of nothing and they usually respond by hitting me in the eye and then we stop being friends.
Like I said, I hate cologne.
I think everyone's goal should be to become unscented. Perfume does not accomplish this. If you take a shower and then put on cologne, you will be clean and stinky. But it's a fashionable stinky, so it becomes socially acceptable. And who decides that certain odors are good? Like Brut -- "it smells like a man." Not only would I never buy this item, but I would go to great lengths to avoid being within a ten-mile radius of it.
Everybody likes the smell of chocolate, so why isn't there "Eau de Nestle?" Basically, everyone has a different concept of what smells good. (I could turn this into a cheezy "I'm different, you're different, we're all okay" analogy, but I do have some self-respect as a columnist.) I'm suddenly reminded of a joke my friend Mike Harris told me.
"Why do farts smell?"
"I don't know, Mike Harris? Why do farts smell?"
"So deaf people can enjoy them too."
Hahahahaha.
When I was about ten, that was maybe the best joke the world had ever seen. Today, it still brings down the house. Really. Nothing like a good fart joke to lighten the mood. Man, I stood up on a table in MacPhie the other day with a megaphone screaming out that joke -- woah, I had everybody in the aisles with that one. And last semester when I was at DiBiaggio's house for that reception for President Bush -- let's just say that they don't call him Gassy George for nothing.
Or maybe I'm lying.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that it's pointless to try and make yourself smell good because you'll inadvertantly cut the cheese and then nobody will care what soap or perfume or cologne you used. No, wait. That wasn't it at all.
Well, I presented these problems to Philip Googooschlump, the little-known Tufts professor who's area of specialization is helping me out with erroneous facts for columns. He read the column, mulled over my facts, and made the following diagnosis:
"I'll tell you, dan, you're a strange boy. I think what you need to do is perhaps, er, get a life. Really. How much time did you spend thinking about soap?"
So I punched him in the eye and we stopped being friends. But such is life, uh?
TOP
Valentine Shmalentine
Feb. 15, 1995
Okay, show of hands: Valentine's Day sucked, right?
For those of you allergic to calendars, yesterday was February 14th, known to most of civilized American society as Valentine's Day. Sure, there are those wild unsettled parts of the U.S. where the buffalo roam and nobody gives each other pictures of hearts and cupids on 2/14. But seldom is heard a discouraging word in those locales, so who's really complaining?
Simply put, you can't win on Valentine's Day. Complexly put, Valentine's Day doesn't not provide a plethora of not ungood things for people who aren't not you.
If you're not dating anyone then you probably see the holiday as the world's way of rubbing it in that you're not getting any. You start to feel like a Jew on Christmas, an Italian on St. Patrick's day, a Democrat on Flag Day, a human on Groundhog Day... see, there I go again. I take a fairly decent analogy and then beat it into the ground. Just beat it like an egg, like a dead horse, like Michael Jackson...
Like somebody alone on Valentine's Day.
Masturbation jokes aside, the holiday is simply an exercise in being mean to the dateless. Unfortunately, it's pretty trying on the dateful as well. [dateful (dayt'fool') n. -- 1. the opposite of dateless 2. chock full of dates 3. a small Australian bird with two beaks and a fear of hair spray 4. a misadventure in vocabulary]
Let's just suppose you have a "significant other." What do you get for this "lover?" Do you get flowers for this "person who gives you shnooky?" Giving flowers is a completely original idea and will definitely be valued for its excess creativity. To further distinguish yourself, try obscure flowers life roses or carnations. Or dandelions.
Perhaps chocolates for your "sweet baboo?" Survey says? NOSIREE. Leave the heart-shaped boxes to the grunge bands. (Holy pop-culture reference, Batman!) All right, then get a stuffed animal for your "shnooky-lumps?" Mmmm, no better way to say "I love you" than imprinting that message on a brown and blue stuffed giraffe with a balloon stapled to its face.
Aah, sweet romance!
Of course, you could always send a Jill-O-Gram. Yes, your "cuddle bunny" opens the door wearing nothing but a towel after getting back from the shower and who's there? Why, it's the Tufts University female a cappella singing group, ready to express thoughts of love and affection in the form of belting out Melissa Etheridge's "Come to My Window" in nine part harmony. Really, how many presents can you give that involve mouth percussion?
Not to disrespect the Jills in any way. It's just the idea of a singing telegram that makes me a little nervous. I almost sent one as a joke to my reclusive, misanthropic next-door neighbor just to see him look uncomfortable, but of course I forgot. So I passed up the Jill-O-Gram and sent him a Jello-Gram instead.
Basically, Valentine's Day is just a holiday devised by FTD, Hallmark, Hershey's, Republicans, and your mother. Really. The companies want you to give them money. The G.O.P. thinks that V-Day stimulates the economy and then finds a way to use this as an example of trickle-down economics. I, of course, only mention this because I wanted to use the term "trickle-down," not because I pretend to understand anything about what Republicans do.
And your mother just wants candy and flowers. Unlike your "honey pie," Mom cannot threaten to withhold sexual favors from you to get a good present (unless you're family is a lot different than mine). However, the typical parent has an innate ability to use shame and guilt to procure a neat-a-riffic flower/candy/stuffed animal/Jill-O-Gram/Chevrolet.
The main argument of the anti-Valentiners seems to be that you should give these lovely gifts to your "itsy-bitsy spider" any day of the year. Why show affection just because the calendar says it's a good idea? I mean, if the calendar told you to jump off a bridge, would you?
So what did I get for Meagan, my "main squeeze?" A cactus. No, really. I did. It's like the old Czechoslovakian proverb says, "nothing like a dried up, prickly plant to send the right message on February 14th."
You'd be surprised how many times I've gotten that in a fortune cookie.
Now, let me defend this week's Misadventure by saying three things:
A. It's a day late. I know. It's still roughly relevant, or at least as relevant as the other random crap I usually discuss.
B. I have almost nothing new to say on this subject. I know. V-Day has been tackled by just about every humor columnist, and I figured that this is just part of my induction into their secret society. Another part of my induction involves a duck and a small box of rubber bands, but this procedure should not be discussed in a family publication such as this one.
C. At least I didn't say anything about the Greek system.
TOP
Lost and profound
Feb. 22, 1995
I love it when I'm walking around campus, minding my own business, and a huge revelation about my life runs up and smacks me upside the head like a Van Damme round-house spin-kick. Not that these epiphanies often arrive in the form of a famous guy with a French-sounding name attacking me, but every once in a while you get Jacques Coustau with a billy club outside of Olin ready to pull a Nancy Kerrigan on the Tobinator. Yow.
You see, there was one time last year that I was walking up the Memorial Steps. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my brain decided that this was the right time to inform me that Woody Allen is old. While sounding like quite the mundane piece of knowledge to anybody smart enough to remember all the words to "Papa Don't Preach," it comforted me more than you might think.
See, I'm a whole lot like Mick Jagger in that I can't get no satisfaction (except my grammar's better and my mouth is smaller and I'm not British or a senior citizen who still wears leather pants and pretentious-looking sunglasses.) Basically, I'm rarely satisfied with anything I do. I get depressed that the songs I write aren't as good as John Lennon's, that Eric Clapton plays guitar better than I do, and that the Tazmanian Devil can spin around so much faster than me.
Similarly, I had worked myself into a quite the nervous bout of depression/anxiety (great combination, uh?) over the fact that Woody Allen is funnier than I am and that I could never be a successful writer because I can't create something as brilliant as Annie Hall and I'm therefore doomed to fail at everything I do in life so I might as well just totally give up and sell all my worldly possessions before joining the French Foreign Legion.
Of course, it would have been worse if I had blown things out of proportion.
To quiet my overactive mind, I said "shut up, brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip," just as Homer Simpson once did. It complied. And the realization that Woody A. is old excited me because it basically gave me an excuse to be lame. My rationalization went like this (ah-one, ah-two, ah-one, two, three, four): Woody Allen has lived for a lot longer than I have and has had more time to have more experiences than me and consequently has had more interesting things to write about.
Prognosis: It's okay if I suck now and just write about middle names and cologne and equally mindless topics, because someday I'll have good things to write about and everyone will feel bad for mocking my lack of substance.
As wrong as this line of reasoning might be, it soothed my fears for a while so I unquestioningly accepted it and went back to my bungalow to hibernate. My next startling revelation occured just last week while walking uphill. I realized that I don't care if I'm rich or not. Little kids want to be rich. For a long time I wanted to be rich. But then I met Rich and came to my senses (he's a freak-and-a-half), understanding that money won't solve all my problems. "I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love," right?
Not that I'd be grossly unhappy having great gobs of money -- I'm just not in any danger of it happening. I decided that my life would be splendiferous if I just had enough money for food, utilities (roll the dice and pay 10 times the number rolled), cleaning products, and CD's. I can wear the same clothes all the time, and think about how much money you'd save if you ate nothing but Ramen noodles and tap water. Sure your skin would turn green and you'd become a flabby girly-man, but think about the economics of it.
And so this was I how I decided that I would be happy as a writer who waits tables to support myself. Yes, putting that $100,000 dollars worth of brown 'n blue education to good use by asking, "would you care for some coffee or dessert?" I'm sure my parents will be really pleased by this decision. And I'm sure they'll want some coffee or dessert.
College students think they have all the answers. We get together in groups and spew pseudo-profound statements at each other -- hell, I just wrote a column that's chock full of 'em. But despites all my small-scale epiphanies, I'm just as lost and clueless as everyone else. Lost and profound, or so I'd like to think.
So why share all this with you? Why drop my problems in your lap? Well, I feel like I've got a fairly decent rapport going with my readership and I just wanted to clue you in as to some of the more serious thoughts going on in this warped mind of mine. I know you probably prefer the silliness I usually churn out, but I just wasn't in the mood this week.
Hey, I occassionally like to fancy myself the idealistic neo-hippie, and this whole column sort of was written with that philosophy in mind. So I'll even go one step further and open up the listener lines; if you want to clue me in to some of your more serious thoughts, drop an e-mail to...
NO! What am I doing? Not only have degraded myself by begging for responses, but I've chosen to do it in what is arguably the least entertaining Misadventure to date. I hate to end this so abruptly, but I have little choice, it seems.
All apologies.
Note: Next week's Misadventure should return to the standard pointless yet amusing drivel we're all so fond of. Thanks for indulging me this week.
TOP
Space Invader
Mar. 1, 1995
There are only seven kinds of "Family Circus" strips: Dolly-isms, the dead grandparents looking down from heaven, tracing someone’s complicated and wacky path, all the kids talking at once, Not Me, Billy taking over and drawing the strip so the artist can take a break, and one I can't come up with right this second. They’re all equally cute, clever and hilarious -- Pulitzer Prize material, every one.
Well, since I strive to be like Bill Keane on a regular basis, I thought that I’d let somebody else write my column this week so I can take a break. (It was either that or Reitman-isms). And it just so happened that my Martian friend Smookar was visiting this week, so I ushered him over to Horace, my trusty computer, and let him plunk out a Misadventure of his own, sort of giving a different persective of Tufts. Anyway, I'm not responsible for anything insulting he writes and complaints can be sent to his e-mail account -- smookar@martian.outer.space.edu.
(Since this is the first Features column of March, should I have started out by saying "rabbit-rabbit?" Never mind.)
And away we go:
Greetings. My name is Smookar and I inhabit the planet of Happeedayz in the Fonzarelli solar system. It was long ago that I met an Austrian cyborg who had been sent through time and space to give John Connor a wedgie that would save humanity -- this was the Tobinator. He then joined me in traveling around the galaxy in search of the one-armed martian who killed my fish. One time, I saved dan's life when he accidentally locked himself in a room with "Motownphilly" on infinite repeat. As payback, he is allowing me to write about what I have observed at this "Tufts" place of yours.
Quite confusing, I must say.
The first thing I noticed was the choice of school colors. I found it strange that a school would go to such lengths to make themselves look so hideous, though perhaps the brown and blue decor is beneficial in that it compensates for any lack of athletic ability by frightening the opposing sports team with butt-ugly uniforms. Once I visited a house that was set in a similar color arrangement. It belonged to a man named Steven -- Steven Wonder. Obviously he had the same discerning eye as your campus decorator.
Another thing that struck me as weird was your religion. In my many travels around the universe, I have never encountered worship of a large gray animal with such enormous genitals. Of course I am referring to the faith in Jumboism and its mid-campus idol. Also on this topic, I found that many people were angry about losing their religion. I do not see why the campus is so worked up over a silly R.E.M. song. Yes, we do listen to R.E.M. back on Happeedayz -- "Shiny Happee People" is a particular favorite of ours.
After reading several campus publications, I learned that Tufts students have a most curious pastime -- being pissed off. In your newspaper, there are entire sections for people to be pissed off in -- the Viewpoints and Letters to the Editor section are chock full of people just basking in their pissed-offedness. In fact, you have an entire magazine dedicated to both being pissed off and pissing others off -- The Primary Source. We do not have things like this back where I come from because we catsrate Republicans so they cannot reproduce. I suggest you take up this practice immediately.
I got hungry at one point and was brought into DeWick dining hall. This was a most perplexing place and I was particularly confused by two issues:
a) Why a university would go to such great lengths to poison its students, and
b) Why any student would ever come to this place after the first time.
Back on my home planet, our own excrement (called mashish) is valued as a delicacy. I thought that DeWick food was terrifyingly awful, and this is coming from somebody who eats their own doody and likes it.
That evening, I was taken to a party at a fraternity house where it was promised that I would learn the mating habits of Tufts people. A man in a blue uniform stopped me at the door. "Are you 21?" he asked.
"No, you have me confused with some else. I am Smookar," I replied, forgiving him for the mistaken identity.
Inside I learned how to mate with humans. Apparently, the way to woo a potential partner is to get them drunk, and then touch their anatomy in public. I decided to try this by feeding alcohol to a woman nearby, after which point I inserted a tentacle into her ear. She responded by not responding. I then rubbed her shin sensuously with my tail. She responded by yelling out "Planet Be rules!" I was impressed that she was aware of worlds beyond her own and invited her outside to my spacecraft in order to voyage to this Planet of Be. She asked me if I was a brother. I explained that I was a Happeedayzian, forgiving her for the mistaken identity. She responded by vomiting on me. I figured that this was a part of the mating ritual that my friends hadn't told me about and spewed forth all the DeWick food I could conjure up from my innards. She wiped herself off and looked at me quizzically. Then a muscle-bound man walked over to her and began fondling her glaxxos, and so I decided that he should have his turn mating with the woman.
"Don't forget to vomit," I whispered in his ear before I left. "She really likes that."
"Bite me," he screamed at the top of his lungs.
I found the request odd, but decided that after the cray-zee day I spent wandering around Tufts, I figured nothing was too bizarre. So I bit off his shoulder. He responded by screaming things at me (that dan says I cannot print in the Daily) and flailing his arms. Everyone around him liked this and copied this move, just like the time Fred Flinstone dropped a bowling ball on his foot and started a new dance craze. I was glad to have added to the Tufts culture.
It was very fun visiting your campus, but it is a highly wacky place with very few elements of sanity. Well, I hopefully will speak to you sometime in the future. Thank you, and dan will be back on his own next week.
We now bring you to the rest of the Features page, already in progress.
TOP
Hip to be square
Mar. 8, 1995
I recently realized that I'm not going to be a very hip adult. Not that I'm exactly the swingingest cat around now, but I sure do know how to cut a rug with any groovy chicks that swing on by my swell pad. Know what I mean, daddy-o?
But really, I'm in danger of becoming so unhip that by bum will fall off by age 35 (catch that? Anyone?) Fortunately, Huey Lewis and the News explained that it is, in fact, hip to be square. So if this is true, I'm all kinds of set. And if it's hip to be triangular, I'm stylin' beyond belief. And if it's hip to be a rhombus -- watch out, world. I might even get my own Saturday morning cartoon.
Misadventures in Oz?
Already, I wear a tweed hat that everyone says reminds them of their grandfathers. But it's a cool hat and it's got character. It gives me style points (which can be redeemed at Hotung). If I keep wearing this hat until I'm 40, I'll be a schmendrick of the worst kind. For some reason, college students can wear the same clothes as senior citizens (over 30=elderly) but look cool doing it. Like if my dad wears a Hawaiian shirt with a striped tie and plaid pants, he's a dork. If I do it, well, I'm still a dork, but I'm alternative.
So I'll have to renovate my wardrobe, or at least my hat collection. Yeah, baseball hats are another thing that can't be worn by adults. Because something in their genetic makeup, when grown-ups wear baseball hats, the brim straightens out so that it is completely flat, so as to increase the unhipness of the individual.
Another thing that will make me unable to communicate with younger generations is my musical tastes. How can I enjoy modern music as an adult if I don't enjoy modern music now? Except for Barenaked Ladies and Beastie Boys discs (and an Arrested Development album I'd rather not discuss), my CD collection is decidedly retro. I reminisce about the days of old.
COMPLETE SIDEBAR UNRELATED TO TODAY'S COLUMN, EVEN THOUGH THAT NEVER STOPPED ME BEFORE, BUT I DECIDED TO BE POLITE THIS WEEK AND CLUE YOU IN TO IT: This lack of interest in current music presents a bit of a problem for me when it comes to choosing bands for Spring Fling. Basically, whoever plays will make me unhappy. We're probably going to end up with Dave Matthews, an artist who is extraordinary only in that he's so ordinary and mediocre yet has a hugely loyal following. All I have to say to Mr. Matthews is the same thing my close personal friend Huey Lewis once said to me. "Cool is a rule, but sometimes bad is bad. A dit dit dit dit dit doo-wop."
Back to whatever point I was pretending to make:
So what will I tell my kids when they ask me about the Golden Age of Green Day? Well son, I always though Green Day deserved a good spanking. Where was I when they found Kurt Cobain's flanneled corpse? Um, I was in Chili's chowing down a vegetarian taco. What was Woodstock 2 like? Overrated and sucky. Did you ever see Phish in concert? Once. It bored me.
It's like the time I asked my dad if he ever listened to Bob Dylan. "No," he answered. "I could never understand what he was saying." Sure, he passed on a wealth of knowledge about Gilbert and Sullivan -- and boy does that come in handy at parties. Likewise, I'll be able to lecture my kids on the "Paul is dead" theory of the Beatles, and dispense my knowledge of Hendrix. But will they care? Plus, both bands had broken up long before I was born, so I lack credence. I also lack clearwater. Luckily, I'm chock full of revival.
Just like last semester when I panicked about putting on a suit and taking an office job, I'm flipping out over the perils of adulthood. Yeah, I just turned another year older last week, but I've got a nasty case of Peter Pan Syndrome and refuse to grow up. Other side effects include flying and looking like Sandy Duncan. Oh, that wacky Hogan Family.
So I'm trying to deal with the cold hard fact that I'm going to be the kind of adult who wears black socks and flip-flops, grumbles about how things were tougher "back in my day," and XXX. Or maybe the Peter Pan disease will affect me such that I'll marry a curvacious aerobics instructor when I'm in my sixties.
They say the heart of rock 'n roll is still beating, and from what I've seen they're wrong.
TOP
Hair we go
Mar. 15, 1995
I have recently become quite the authority on hair. This is mostly due to the fact that I have gained a healthy amount of it as of late. Not because a rich uncle bequeathed it to me in his will (blecch), but because I planted the chia seeds correctly and decided to grown it out. On my head, on my chin, between my fingers -- wait, no that's dirt between my fingers. Basically, I'm in danger of becoming Nick Tortelli from Cheers. Carla said that her ex-husband was so hairy that the first time she saw him naked, she couldn't even tell he was naked.
This is my destiny. The Emporer has foreseen it. (Insert sound effect of James Earl Jones breathing heavily)
For years I've been wanting to grow out my hair. "What would this bush of steel wool look like longer?" I wondered. I just never had the guts. The guts to look stupid for several months and to create such a menace to society. Really. The Surgeon General has declared my hair a controlled substance. And now that I have more of it -- when my professors call on me, I answer quite slowly, a TA with kaleidescope eyes.
So I finally threw all my styling products out the proverbial window and decided to let my fingers do the walking and my follicles do the talking. I figured that I could get away with long hair as a college student. As a grownup with a real job (that fateful day may actually arrive) I'll probably need to get a haircut to avoid a pay cut.
Ooooh, dan. You sounded just like Dirty Harry when you said that.
Now that I'm sporting a 'do reminiscent of the Jackson 5 at their Motown prime, I look completely different. My close personal friend David Byrne of the Talking Heads once sang, "I've changed my hairstyle so many times I don't know what I look like." It's true. The hair makes the man, and one little alteration in length or part position changes an appearance completely.
Think of Bob Dole, a man who honestly believes that his own diarreah is because of Clinton and the democrats. Dole always looks so serious and angry and in dire need of a cookie. A real sour-puss. Now picture him with pig-tails. Aha -- a new image entirely. Suddenly the mean Senate Majority Leader looks a whole lot like Pippi Longstocking, a much more fun and lovable character. New haircut=new person. Hell, he might even crack a smile for the first time since he had gas as a baby.
Picture your mother (yeah, I'm talkin' about yo' mama). Now picture her completely bald, sporting the Telly Savalas, Mr. Clean, Dean Reitman look. Weird, eh? Now picture her with a mohawk. Now put the knife down, take a deep breath and count to ten. I didn't mean anything by that except to show that different hairstyles completely change the way a person looks.
Likewise, facial hair makes a huge difference. For some reason, a moustache severly changes a person's face, but a beard doesn't. Don't ask for logic here, it's just one of those things that just is. You must blindly accept it, just as you blindly accept that what they serve you in Carmichael is really sausage and not something more rodent-oriented. Actually, beards do change appearance. Like, picture your mother with a ZZ Top or Jerry Garcia look.
PUT DOWN THE BAZOOKA.
I am wholly and completely jealous of anyone who has hair that falls down. Like that Paula Abdul song, mine goes straight up, although I'm invoking Isaac Newton and hoping that what comes up will eventually start to come down. However, if there's one thing on the planet that would violate the laws of gravity and nature, I would guess that it is my hair.
(sigh)
And everyone keeps telling me to get haircut. But to cut it now that I'm in the awkward "in-between" stage would be to admit defeat. Sure, I'd look presentable, but I would have looked amazingly goofy for months without any true result. It's like when my close personal friends the Beatles came to America for the first time. One reporter asked the foursome with the lengthy mop-tops when they were going to get haircuts.
"I had one yesterday," deadpanned George. "You should have seen him the day before," added Ringo.
Like the old Chinese proverb says, "If it's good enough for Ringo, it's good enough for me," so I ain't cuttin' my mane any time soon. The entire concept of hair is really strange. It's a bunch of thin fibers spilling out of your head, yet our society gets so excited about them. I get so excited about them.
Really, the only answer is for everyone to start wearing potted plants on their heads all the time.
TOP
Shakin', not stirred
Mar. 29, 1995
Over break, I went out to dinner with my parents. Inside the restaurant was a family with a last name so difficult to pronounce that I'd violate three different UN resolutions by making you sound it out. Anyway, I had graduated high school with the daughter, Lynn, and she had brought her friend, Christine, another former classmate of mine. I hadn't seen either of them for about a year and a half so I was relatively excited to see them. Sure, Lynn had kicked me in the shins pretty hard in third grade, but I held no grudge and figured that the industrial strength shin-guards I just happened to be wearing would help deflect the blow. Yes, I was ready for an impromptu soccer game -- you never know when Tab Ramos might be your busboy and pull a fast one.
Whatever that means.
So, I approached their table to do what any other self-respecting college student would do in a reunion-ish situation -- shoot the proverbial breeze and then make your classmates feel inferior by impressing them with how successful you've become in light of their failures (ah, sweet arrogance). As I was about to launch into my speech entitled, "Why I have prospered and you just suck," I was caught by Christine suddenly thrusting her right hand into my personal space so as to obtain a handshake from me. And being the twit that I am, I panicked.
See, handshakes give me the willies. This obviously raises the question -- who's Willie? Well, he was the father who always told Alf not to eat the cat, but that's not important. Shakes are the issue at hand. Get it? At hand? Hah!
(groan)
To me, a handshake is the most insincere gesture in the world. Well, I guess there are worse. The handshake where you also grasp the person's elbow is bad; the handshake that turns into a semi-hug is even worse; and the handshake where you grasp the person's nose and recite the Pledge of Allegiance is out like trout. These are far worse crimes against humanity than a simple arm-pump, but what this all boils down to is that shaking hands is a meaningless gesture.
Why, let's just take a look in Misadventures In Dentistry's Guide To Simple Physical Motions (available for $9.95 except at the Tufts Bookstore where it'll run you a good $32.95; they call it capitalism, I call it ). Under "hand-SHAKE, which is right next to "Ultra Slim-Fast milk-SHAKE," it reads:
Seize opponent's right hand with your own and shake vigorously until desired effect is reached.
Hmm. On paper it sounds less like a greeting and more like a move you'd see Jake the Snake Roberts perform on Ravishing Rick Rude right before he sets up for a lethal DDT (the pro-wrestling maneuver, not the Greek organization).
I guess that shaking hands is okay when you meet someone for the first time. Like at a job interview, it's not wise to pinch your potential employer's tush, and when you meet a celebrity, you don't start playing patty-cake with them. In these situations, shaking hands is the socially acceptable thing to do; these other movements may earn you a funny look or solid smack upside the head.
It's among friends that a handshake bothers me. Like when I saw Lynn and Christine at that restaurant. Shaking their hands made me feel like I was a candidate for Congress, not a friend. Following that political feeling, I wrote a few bad checks and picked Lynn's pocket, so it all balanced out. But that's what shaking hands can do -- it reduces a relationship to a business-like level.
Basically, handshakes bite harder than Pac-man.
However, there is one sort of handshake that is great. A simple pump has the implications stated above, but when you shake someone's hand and it lasts longer than an episode of Matlock, has as many special moves as Bruce Lee, and involves multiple appendages, you've got a secret handshake and you are officially stylin'.
Additionally, one cannot avoid the contemporary reinvention of the handshake, otherwise known to modern society as the "high-five." (We apologize for the stuffy and pretentious nature of that sentence; I suddenly thought I was Michael J.W. Stickings)
The high-five basically takes the handshake and injects it full of testosterone; this is shaking hands but with a greater possibility of causing pain and breaking stuff. As a male, I think this is a good thing. Adding danger to simple tasks equals fun. Still, you have to watch out about becoming a chronic hand slapper -- a Fiver. A Fiver will slap you high-five for just about anything. A funny joke you make, a commercial he likes on TV, croutons at the Carmichael salad bar -- he's there to give you some skin for anything. How to know if you're a Fiver? If you ever catch yourself saying something like, "Hey, you just sneezed. Slap me five!" SEEK HELP.
So back to my original scenario...
As Christine extended her arm for a simple handshake, I saw my chance and grabbed her, setting her up for a lethal DDT (again, not a frat). Unfortunately, Lynn tagged in and hit me with a drop kick square in the shins -- third grade habits die hard. "This capacity crowd is going nuts," I heard Gorilla Monsoon say to Mean Gene Okerlund. But then my mom smacked Christine with a steel chair and the waiter disqualified us as the opposing team's theme music blared throughout the restaurant.
Damn. This column was running so smoothly and following one train of thought and I had to go wreck it at the end with a Royal Rumble. Oh well. Let's just shake hands and make up.
Whoops.
TOP
Pyromania and you
April 5, 1995
Everybody likes to have some overall goal in life -- to raise a family, to be rich, to fit thirty grapes in your mouth at once. My goal, of course, is to achieve world domination (and the grapes thing). But along with that, everyone has their day-to-day goals, or things they want to accomplish in the next month or year or so. Well, I stumbled upon a new short-term objective whilst munching on an exceptionally greasy pizza at Nick's with my friends Scott and Carolyn.
I want to burn down Haskell.
Strange thought? Not as psychotic as you might think. See, we were talking about those two goobers who set their room ablaze last semester. Surely you remember those two people who lived in Haskell and decided to roast chestnuts some on an open fire in the middle of their room. Or maybe they had just eaten some really spicy food and when they burped, the drapes went up in flames.
Details are fuzzy and this column has never been a hotbed of factual information, but thinking about the blaze started the wheels in my head a-turnin'. Granted, it's been months since anyone's thought of the Great Fire of '94, so this column's a smidgeon out of date. But I wanted an excuse to use the word "smidgeon" and moreover, the wheels in my head turn very slowly so it took me a while to realize how we could all benefit from mass destruction.
See, Haskell is junk through and through. Besides being ugly and stinky, Haskell is laid out so poorly that you practically need a compass and pick-axe to get out. I've heard this dorm described as a "chimney" and "the armpit of Tufts," but the worst part is that this is the only building I know of named after the annoying next-door neighbor on Leave it to Beaver. And that's why Wren can stay in tact.
But Haskell is a bigger pain in the heinie than XXX. And so I proposed to my friends that the Medford Fire Department should have let Haskell burn. But then I thought about all the innocent people and how the administration would try to explain to the parents how it had been a good choice since it beautified the Tufts campus, and then they's find some way that it helped promote diversity -- well, I just didn't want to be responsible for that.
Yes, I needed a way to make Haskell as extinct as Four Non-Blondes. I realized I couldn't just blow it up (I mean Haskell, although blowing up Four Non-Blondes isn't a half-bad bad idea.) So I had to find a way to legimitize my destructive plans. And that's when I formulated my grand scheme.
Both Phil Gramm and Pat Buchannan have already announced their candidacies for President, over a year and a half before the election. And so I realized that I am already more than a year behind schedule in my bid next year for a seat on the TCU Senate. That's right folks, you heard it here first -- I'm gonna go for the gold ring and try to become one of the proud, the few, the endlessly goofy. My platform? Burn, baby, burn. Really, I have no other reason to be a Senator except to create a special referendum to set fire to a certain downhill residence hall.
Of course, we'll give away free pizza at the voting, and I'll tamper with the results so that even though only 16 people on campus will vote, the overwhelming majority of the campus will have voted to destroy the dorm. And my master plan will be put into effect.
But then I'll be left with a seat on the senate that I don't really want. Sure, I'll get a kick out of people calling me Senator dan, but I'll have to have my picture in the paper and sit through boring meetings and actually think about stuff (thinking sucks.)
DISCLAIMER: Believing today's Misadventure is a sign of excess gullibity and chronic stupidity. I don't really want to burn down Haskell, so if it goes up in smoke, don't blame it on me. Blame it on the rain, yeah baby.
TOP
Life in the balance
April 12, 1995
Some goober pointed out to me that there's only about a month of school left. "Egad!" I screamed, as the brutal realization sunk into the spongy mass that is my brain. Yes, the cold hard fact hit me as hard as a Miss Piggy karate chop -- in about four weeks, I'm going to be half done with college. Half done, as in 50% over, meaning it's time to start looking at the glass as either half empty or half full. Suddenly everything got fuzzy...
CLEAR! (zap) CLEAR! (zap)
So after TEMS brought me back to the land of the living, I took some time to reflect on what's gone down since I left that hell called high school. Two years, fifty g's, nineteen classes, four calling birds, three French pens, two purple gloves and what do I have to show for it?
Not much, I'm afraid.
Academically, I think I'm missing something. Namely, I don't feel like I've really gotten anything out of my classes. Sure, I've stolen a fair amount of pencils and seduced a fair amount of TA's (teachers do it nine months a year), but I sometimes get the feeling that I just haven't gained any lasting knowledge here.
Like, think about that Poli Sci class I took first semester of freshman year. First of all, the term "Poli Sci" (pronounced polly-SIGH) is annoying like Bobcat Goldthwait. The abbreviation came into popular usage because "Political Science" evidently has too many syllables and besides, every department thinks they need to shorten some part of their name to be cool. Psychology becomes Psych, Economics becomes Ec, Biology becomes Bio -- fine and dandy, but the pinnacle of silliness would have to be Organic Chemistry getting scaled down to Orgo. Yup, or-GAN-ic chemistry becomes or-GO. Where does that second "o" come from? NOWHERE. And why isn't German called Germ or Philosophy called Phil?
"Why ask why?" answers the smarmy beer drinker who watches too many commercials.
"Because I want to know the goddam answer, that's why" retorts the fuming lower-cased columnist as he hog-ties the drunkard and begins to work him over with a pair of pliers and a blow-torch a la Marcellus Wallace.
But back to that class of mine taught by Professor Paul E. Sie -- it was fun while I was in it and I learned the ins and outs of the American political system and blah blah blah. I read books and wrote papers and took exams and all that jazz (yes, Miles Davis was a TA) but I've forgotten just about EVERY piece of relevant information. I got a grade and I got a credit, but did I broaden my proverbial horizins?
Survey says... Nope. Uh-uh. Sorry. No way. Maybe next time, thanks for playing, and here's the Misadventures in Dentistry home game with do-it-yourself root canal kit!
Now, I know it's the same question asked by just about everyone who's ever done the whole university thing, but what are we getting out of college? Premeds and engineers are practically getting job training, so they're feeling alright like Joe Cocker. But for those of us who don't spend 28 hours a day doing work like those afore-mentioned psychos? Personally, I don't feel like any classes I've taken have here have prepared me for a job in the real world, although I'm all set to star in MTV's the Real World.
But until they hold a casting call in the Campus Center ("Will you accept the charges from a Mr. Satan in regards to his domain freezing over?") I'll deal with a little piece of reality: out of the roughly 40 classes I will have taken by the time I graduate, four will be from the math/science area. That's a full ten percent. Hmm. Loyal readers of this column undoubtedly know my opinion of math at Tufts (sucks like a Hoover) and I readily admit that I am clueless when it comes to anything even remotely scientific. I'm the kind of person who is completely baffled by complex machinery like a book of matches, so advanced Physics is probably not my thing.
Yet the distribution requirements dictate that we take two maths and two sciences. Why? To be well-rounded, of course. Aah, but we had to be well-rounded to get accepted at this dear ole institution, so why continue the useless quest for well-roundedness? I'll end up a jack of all trades, master of none. And I'm sorry, but no matter how much you taunt me about how you need advanced calculus to get by in the world and how I'll become a Renaissance man for knowing the periodic table... keep right on talking but my answer will remain the same:
Bite me.
And most people find get rid of these requirements by taking easy classes that they still don't learn anything in. So one tenth of my classes here are a waste, which translates into about a $10,000 loss. Of course, that figure is probably inaccurate since it includes room and board 'n stuff, but since I hate math and never took Ec...
Of course, all this frantic worrying stems from course selection and the sophmore deadline to choose a major. Every semester, I have a crisis trying to sift through classes and figure out my life; let me just say that 20 rabies shots in the stomach sounds like a day in the park compared with the fun and excitement of trying to decide where I'm headed in this world. And then when I start worrying about whether Tufts is going to be worth more than just a diploma to toss in the faces of prospective employers... oy.
So as my life hangs in the balance, I think of what my close, personal friend, David Byrne once said:
"And you may ask yourself, am I right or am I wrong?
And you may say to yourself, MY GOD!... WHAT HAVE I DONE?"
What have we done?
TOP
How to be cool
April 19, 1995
Everybody wants to be one of the cool kids. In high school, college, adult life, around the nursing home -- people just want to be cool. And people want to know how to be to cool. But the concept of "coolness" is a hazy notion, and the road to achieving it is long and arduous. And although I'm not wholly regarded as one of the tall cool ones (but boy am I tall), I now present to you a comprehensive guide for being cool, at least for males.
Caring
Act like you don't care about anything. A good way to let people know this is to say things like, "I don't care about anything." Other key phrases include, "no sweat," "okay," "no problem," "whatever," "no skin off my back," or even, "hey, I'm cool." But merely saying these words does not a cool person make. You must croak them out while cocking your head back at a 45 degree angle. This will make people believe that you're being sincere.
Physical Mannerisms
It's a good idea to develop a trademark swagger. When you walk, the air should reek with self-confidence, shooting out of your pores in every direction. Hold your head up high so that you have to look down to talk to people. This will make everyone realize that you're above them. A good exercise for practicing your swagger is to set up a full-length mirror and walk back and forth for several hours until you have reached a level coolness that offends even you.
Another good move is to pull your hair back with your hands a lot. This will make people think that there's a reason they should see your face clearly and will make them want to see you all the time. If you've shaved your head and have no hair to pull back (baldness does equal coolness sometimes) then pretend that you have hair and mime pulling it back.
Squint when you talk with people. This will make them think you're concentrating on the conversation.
A brief word of warning: never dance unless threatened with bodily harm. Dancing should be left only to professional cool people. Slow dancing is allowed, but keep in mind that it is only an extension of the swagger.
Clothing
Much of coolness is based on physical appearance, so the correct attire is an essential part of mastering the art. Traditional cool people believe that sporting a well-balanced, well-matched wardrobe is the only true path to coolness. You must always look like you walked out of an issue of GQ and have better clothes than everyone else. The unmatching theory requires a bit more skill. The basic premise is that you wear anything you feel like and then tell people that what you're wearing is cool They will immediately feel silly that they didn't recognize this in the first place and will wish they were you.
Conversation
Coolness is completely based on other people's perceptions of you; you're just living your life for everyone else's benefit. Consequently, it doesn't matter what you really think; everything you say should be solely calculated to impress people. Only say things that others want to hear and would think are cool. Good phrases to remember are, "I know what you mean," "you're right," "that's an interesting point," and "hey, you're cool." Always remember that you're much cooler than the person you're talking to, and by complimenting them, you are actually boosting your own coolness rating, not theirs.
Friendships
You must appear to have friends. It's not necessary to actually like them or know them very well -- all you really need to know about them are their names. It's the quantity, not the quality. The more people whose names you know, the cooler you are. A true test of your coolness is to go for a walk in a public place and see how many people say hi to you. You don't need to share anything with these people, and you only should do favors for them if you have something to gain by it. You can get out of doing a favor by saying something like, "I wish I could," "I would if it were any other week but this one," or "hey, it's cool." Friends are just trophies to impress people with.
Relationships
By far, girlfriends are the biggest trophy of all. Females only serve two purposes to the cool male -- fulfilling his libido and looking good on his arm when he's in public. Feel free to exploit women whenever it moves you; it will only make you more sought after. It's a good idea to remind girls that you are cool by saying things like, "hey, I'm cool."
Conclusion
Be forewarned that these are only guidelines to steer you toward the path to coolness. It's still possible that after following everything listed above you will still be very uncool. This is not the fault of the list but due to the fact that you are naturally a dork. Accept this fate; it is probably hereditary. On the flip side, you may be inherently cool, which means that you can do no wrong. Like Midas, whatever you touch will become cool. (Damn, aren't you sick of hearing the word "cool?" It's grating my eardrums worse than a album) So if you're not genetically cursed, then throw all caution to the wind, do what's been suggested above, improvise a little, and just be cool.
No problem.
TOP
And in conclusion...
April 26, 1995
Oh the horrors of self-evaluation. I guess you could say my life is perpetually at a crossroads. Yeah, you could say that if you were a pretentious dingleberry who tries to make every little thing that happens in your life into a column for the world to read and pick apart. Wait a minute. That describes me pretty well -- just substitute "unforgivably goofy" for "pretentious" and we're in business like H&R Block.
So I guess my life is at a crossroads most of the time. On the one hand, I'm satisfied with what I have and am therefore all sorts of happy, jolly, and hypo-allergenic. Of course, this path is far too simple for someone of my brooding and cynical nature to accept. And instead, I blunder down the trail toward trying to achieve more in life and then get so angry and depressed about what I don't have that I start roaming around committing acts of random violence against defenseless members of the animal kingdom.
I suspect I'm not the only one who's plagued by worries about what I've actually accomplished this semester. Okay, I guess it's a lie since the rest of the population is probably not wigging out over what I've accomplished. But it is the end of the year, and according to the Tufts Pocket Guide to Being a Dork, it's time to reflect on what went down for the last two marking periods and then panic. All together now, just like McCauley Culkin patting on the after-shave:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHH!!
Much better. The guy in front of you is unconscious and his ears are bleeding, but don't you feel purged? My close personal John Lennon paid great gobs of money to some dude in the early seventies as part of "primal scream" therapy to cleanse his soul like that. I have reached a similar end in a neater and less expensive manner and so the bottom line: you owe me a dollar as recompense.
WHOOP! WHOOP! (That’s the alarm that goes off any time I use a phony-sounding, multisyllabic, just plain big word. "Recompense" is a smidgeon to vocabularious for this page. "Multisyllabic" is teetering on the border, and "vocabularious" is fine since it's a word invented by some pals of mine.)
Anyway, you may remember a couple of weeks ago that I wrote a piece about getting depressed about the end of the semester and all. Hey, who am I kidding -- I’d be pleased if you remembered that the Daily even existed a few weeks ago. Regardless, I screwed up and published my end-of-semester extravanganza back then, and as much as I’d like to, it would be most heinous to use the same topic this week. I mean, sure there'll be reruns over the summer while we film new columns, but I can’t repeat myself quite yet. Likewise, I can’t repeat myself quite yet. Not quite yet. Yet.
So instead, I've been taking a look back at what's gone down since September, and I urge you to do the same. I feel that I'm a completely different person than I was when I got back from the summer. My self-confidence has sky-rocketed and so has my hair. Additionally, I am now Swedish and have developed a third arm. As for this column, I feel I've maintained a certain level of quality consistently. Well, except for that spaceman one -- jeez, what was I thinking?
Now I look ahead to the future (as if I have a choice) and see the summer on the proverbial horizin. Ugh -- another crossroads. (I sense a theme here.) I could take an internship where I'd get some allegedly great job experience but unfortunately would get paid as much money as Vanilla Ice presently makes from his musical career. My wallet seems to frown on this option, and since my wallet's on the hockey team and has kicked my ass before, I usually listen to what it has to say. What it's told me is to go with my other option and take a paying job that requires the mental skills of a jellyfish. Of course, not only will I hate the job, but by not getting any experience I'll be screwing up my future to the point that I will once again find it necesarry to commit acts of random violence against defenseless members of the animal kingdom.
Well, that's no good -- after reading this, the ASPCA will be on my back like a parachute, so I need either a solution or a really good lawyer.
I guess I'm playing the Robert Johnson role now and standin' at the crossroads (mildly obscure blues reference.) Hmmm. This would be the point in the column where I'm supposed to tie everything together and show you the solution to all my life's problems in a sentence or two, but the problem is, I don't see any easy way out of this. If I had, I would have solved everything and today's column would have been about why I hate nickels.
All I have to say is that I'm not as messed up as you might think. I occasionally like to play Holden Caulfield and get depressed about everything, but I'm mostly content. If I wrote about all the warm fuzzies and wondeful, special, happy little things in my life... well, either you'd shoot me or I'd do it myself. The last thing this world needs is another Ziggy. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not completely happy if I don't have something to complain about. Luckily, I'm an English major with no future so I have plenty to complain about. Then it follows that I'm happy?
This circular logic thing sucks.
Well, we're pretty much at the end and I need a way to finish this off. I could end by asking you to have a good break and to remember me while you're away, but it seems a little too impersonal and insincere. I'd impart some brilliant piece of wisdom to you, but I'm sort of lacking in the knowledge department. I would tap dance for you, but it seems to lose something in the printed format. All I really can do is ask you to look both ways before crossing the street, wear your rubbers in the rain, and keep an eye out for any dentists in search of a good misadventure. I'll be waiting for you in the fall.
My name's dan tobin, thanks for indulging me.
TOP
V O L U M E S
1 2 3 4 5 6
