So long, farewell
Columnist’s perpetual goal always giving people laughs
STEVE WILLEY is a senior news
editorial major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
This is indeed a sad day in my life.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the saddest day
in my life. It is not as sad as the day that arrived
when I was arrested for “sexually assaulting” the
tom-notebook sculpture last year.
But still, writing this farewell column is far
from a joyous experience for me.
And it’s not even my last one; I’ll still write
one next week.
But it has been kind of a tradition for me to
make my last column of the semester a question
and answer one.
To make this one extra special, I asked Gov.
Ben Nelson to write an introduction to the col
umn -1 wanted to give him a chance to give it as
good as he gets. He even agreed to do it. He
must have been drunk or something.
Well, it never came. 1 guess he had some
thing else to do. Something about being gover
nor, or some lame excuse like that.
Left without it, I figured I'd say goodbye
early.
vjv/c/uu y w lvnvj.
For more than three years, I have done my
best at making the university laugh without
removing any of my clothes. I wish I could put
into words what my columns have meant to me.
But I fear the English language is too weak
and feeble to relay such an emotion. It is an emo
tion that...
Aw, who am I kidding? I was overworked
and people constantly sent painful letters and e
h&ite'torite. 1 ‘ "
And let’s face it, Rhesus monkeys make
more money from picking lice out of each
other’s hair.
So for once, I’d like to do something different
and write this - my farewell column - for me. So
if you folks would indulge me, I’d like to take
this opportunity to thank a few people.
First, I’d like to thank the man who had the
courage to even agree to write a forward for me.
I had some apprehensions about asking such a
s'
high-ranking public official to say something
nice about me and my columns. Usually, they
have no problems denouncing my writing or per
sonal hygiene, but it’s seldom that I get them to
be pleasant.
But Nelson is not your average politician:
He’s got a pulse. He’s got a heart and a funny
haircut. But most importantly, he’s got a sense of
humor.
I’ve made fun of him several times in past
columns. Once I suggested he dress in drag to
frighten students on Halloween. And I even
claimed he lost his ears after he tried to squeeze
in between two fat women at a Bee Gees concert.
But he never took it personally, even though
that seems to be the distressingly common trend
Matt Haney/DN
nowadays. Everyone wants to get offended. But
not him. Thanks.
I’d also like to thank the DN. Through the
years, I have gained invaluable experience as a
writer of bathroom-filth hynpr and Jam, forever
indebted.4'don’t think a tot of student realize
how great the DN is. Every year it is consistent
ly rated as one of the best college newspapers in
the country, although they don’t pay like it.
I am truly convinced that one day when I’m
sitting on death row for inciting a group of
midgets to blow up the Eiffel Tower, I’ll be
thanking the DN for unlocking my potential.
And I’d like to thank my pappy. For years I
have painted him as some backward Mississippi
redneck who - in his darker days - once slept
with seven raccoons. Unfortunately, everything I
ever said about dad is true; if anything, it has
been substantially toned down.
But the good thing about Dad is that he’s usu
ally too liquored up to notice that I’m making
fun of him. And since he can’t read, I can change
the words whenever I read my columns to him in
person.
To this day, whenever he sees the phrase,
“My dad is a drunk,” he gets all excited. He
grabs strangers by the shirt collar and says, “I
knowed what that means! It say, ‘Mr. Willey is
the sole reason America won both World Wars! ’
(looking at stranger) ‘That’s me, boy!’”
Finally, I want to thank the readers. Without
you, I would be ... a lot happier. Of course, I’m
kidding. The single greatest pleasure of my life,
aside from watching my father finally pass the
second grade last May, is seeing someone laugh
at my columns. It’s something that lasts eight
seconds, tops, for the reader, but it stays with me
for the rest of the day.
On Fridays, I was addicted to watching my
classmates. And even seeing someone smirk,
was enough to make my day.
ruiu i nupc wiicii i leave, people realize one
thing about Steve Willey: Regardless of any
thing I’ve ever written, my words were always
meant to make people laugh.
That was my sole intention.
I wanted nothing more. . \
If I ever wrote something that made a st|te|
ment or made you think, lam now begging for
your forgiveness.
Clearly, that was not my intention.
There’s enough of those kinds of columns in
the world. Laughter, however, is a scarce and
precious resource. It should be nurtured and
caressed like the back end of an Iowa sheep
(ahem).
Because if you don’t laugh and you don’t
respect humor, you end up a vegetable that has
no reason for existence. You become Bill Byrne.
So goodbye everybody. Thanks for the mi
ories. I wish I could sta>$ buMb££<&tt
writing dining my last synregtgr iatog ,
^ But'irilph during me spring semester^l^
last semester at UNL, I’ll write a guest column.
Maybe if something strikes me as humorous,
such as seeing myself nude in the mirror, I’ll
write about it.
And when I graduate next semester - Magna
Cum Lousy of course - I assure you that I will
never forget this day. And I will never forget
what is important in my life.
Mayonnaise.
Standing my ground
Arguments over beliefs create fights that can never be won
l ' m: m i
DANIEL MUNKSGAARD
is a sophomore English
and philosophy major and
a Daily Nebraskan colum
nist
Fight the good Fight
It’s what you hear from people who
try to battle society’s countless (and
rarely obvious) prejudices, injustices
and die like.
It’s because the people who do aim
to aid it know it really can’t be aided.
Not for all people; not completely.
That’s not as defeatist as it sounds,
but irt hardly inspiring. “Fight the good
fight” doesn’t make it any more opti
mistic, but it does make people feel bet
ter.
I’ve been fighting the good Fight for
as long as I can remember (and at 19,
that’s not very long). I’m not quitting;
I’m not even slowing down. I’m fight
ing with carefully honed weapons, try
ing to make myself understand as much
as i try to convince omers.
But it’s my growing awareness of
the sheer scope of things that has killed
any Utopian sense of victory. It’s
instead been replaced by occasionally
grim, usually conciliatory and always
tired Certainty that I’m doing some
thing, yet will never be able to do every
thing.
It’s brought about a lot of humbling
realizations, which has made me less
prone to demonize those who disagree
with me. I want to understand them, go
down to their core, coax them to my
view and see where I’ve gone wrong as
well. It’s slow, it’s frustrating and it
rarely shows immediate results.
My more radical friends find this
approach to be ineffective, even treach
erous, to “the cause.” They want to yell
at the infidels, sanction them, make
them somehow see they are complete
idiots. It’s an emotionally satisfying
thing to do. I know, because I’ve done it
before, and I will again.
Because in yelling at them, I’m
degrading than to nothing more than a
force of evil in my world, an inhuman
being that brings nothing but pain and
ignorance. I want to feel that utter and
untainted sense that I’m right, that
everything I do is for that ultimate right
eousness, that at least I know what’s up.
I want to feel toe way they do.
But where does it lead us?
Sure, it feels good. It brought
• -r* : / *
myseir ana tnose or like mmas closer
together as comrades in arms, a shining
beacon in a sea of ignorance.
But it did nothing for the cause I
claimed to be fighting for. It didn’t
change minds, it didn’t even weaken the
hardness of the “enemy.” It just brought
more shouting, more of their own iden
tical feelings of superiority and right
eousness.
We failed to change tilings.
Oh, sure, maybe if we shout loudly
enough they’ll be a little more quiet
around us. Maybe we could even make
the government shut them up for us.
But they would still whisper among
themselves, and the hate would still
bum. And when some time had passed,
they’d beat us down the way we did
them.
And all we’d have to show for it
would be a few fleeting moments of
glory surrounded by empty and bitter
pools of pain and rage.
Nothing.
I feel very tired at times, and I don’t
even feel I have the right. I see people
with much more vested interests in the
fight People who suffer greatly, whose
only solace would be to lash out. A
solace which couldn’t be achieved by
attacking those who caused the pain. So
they would take it out on others who
have suffered.
Bitterness. Anger. Stretching back
for centuries, rippling forward to our
own time where we can actually be
aware of it, fight it
The weight of a billion dead on the
backs of the ones who know the most,
who have seen die scope of what they
hadn’t even begun to fight.
The eyes of people whose souls
have shriveled and sunken deep to sup
port their broken backs.
Dead eyes, eyes that crave to see
one moment of dignity, one sign that
they are human and that what they have
suffered has a purpose.
What can I say to them?
Fight the good fight
I can’t even know anymore what
I’m doing. Whether this new approach,
this careful, open approach, is right. I
can’t know if I should be fighting tooth
and nail to feel the rage of die people
with the burden.
What if it’s not my rage to feel?
What if the rage is what keeps the bur
den in place? What if I’ve spent my
entire life in the wrong, just from differ
ent angles? What if I am right? What
does that say about the others? What
does any of this say?
What if one of the sides was com
pletely wiped out?
What if all the back or white people
simply vanished?
What if the whole Middle East was
suddenly hit by a comet?
What if we executed everyone in
die prisons? -
____
What it we turned on each other in
one final, triumphant battle of anger
and hate?
What do we deserve under the rules
of justice we have created? Either we’re
all guilty and deserve whatever comes,
or we’re all innocent and victims of
some variety of another.
I can’t help but think that we’re
both.
And I also think we’re something
more, and something less. That we’re a
people who are, for the first time, truly
starting to realize ourselves.
And what we see both delights and
frightens us. Break the mirror, give us
back our tiny worlds, our individual jus
tice. Give us something to make it all
right, something to make it all numb
and quiet for just a minute.
Better to be angry than numb, many
would tell me. Better to fight than to sit
in the comer, clutching my knees and
rocking back and forth. Either you’re
with us or against us. Fight die good
fight Stand up, damn it
I am standing. And as much as I
would like to huddle in the comer, and
as much as 1 would like to lash out with
the fury of birth and death, I’m just
going to stand.
Not backing down, not advancing
forward. With people shouting on all
sides.
Because itfc all I can do.
__,_=_ V?-v;r, . >
