I’m a rock V roll star
_Party turns ordinary people into larger-than-life icons, at least for one night
.
■J
All I can say about this party is
all 25,000 of y’all or so should have
been there.
You would have fit in the house
because: How I Spent My Summer
Vacation = building a shrink
machine.
Kind of like in “Honey, I Shrunk
the Kids” except we’re'smarter than
to go out in the backyard where dan
ger no more deadly than an ant and a
drop of water can harm us.
I got notice exactly 10 days ago
of the aforementioned get-together.
Extravagant fliers were made up by
Rupert and his mega-super-cool
radical-I-can-do-anything-but-wipe
your-ass computer and passed them
out at random.
Well, at random within our iso
lated circle of friends, that is. The
fliers told tales of great things to
come, for on the sacred piece of
y\
paper was a headline stating, “Get
your ass in gear for the Ultimate
Lip-sync Contest.”
Actually I have no idear what the
flier said, but that’s what registered
in the pea that is my brain.
Unfortunately for me, I was
leaving for vacation for the next nine
days and would not have time to
plan anything with my most radical
roommates when I got back.
All I was really thinking about
(besides the fact that I wouldn’t see
my girlfriend for three and a half
months) was:
“I hope Krysti remembers to get
me an L7 ticket for their upcoming
show.”
Anyway, it’s not that L7 is better
than my girlfriend, but I really don’t
know what I would do if one of them
wanted to “go out for a movie and
dinner” with me. They just seem like
really nice girls.
Once I returned from my trek
through Nebraska (gasp!), Colorado,
Utah and finally Arizona (and back),
there was zero time to invest in the
lip-sync contest.
Oh! Did I mention it was a con
test where not only lives, personali
ties, feelings and flesh were on the
line but also money?
Yes indeed. The
y
cold hard cash is where my heart lay,
and I was powerless to get my ideas
(or lack of) relayed to the roomies.
Picking up a phone would have
been too easy. I was on vacation, I
was free and I was stripped of all
(clothes?) thought about what song
to choose and how to transform my
modest, unkempt physique into
another person.
I could be whoever I wanted, and
the only group that came to mind
was Hanson. Jesus, this vacation
was a blessing.
After a week of mountain biking
in Moab, swimming in Lake Powell
and camping in the middle of a shot
gun range, I came home to a house
of pure tornado-like destruction.
Krysti and Melissa (aka Boones)
were nowhere to be found. Of course
the fact that they were expecting me
at 3:30 and I got home at 10:00 p.m.
didn’t help. As I graced the bath
room with my presence, I noticed a
piece of paper taped to our mirror.
CHECK THE ANSWERING
MACHINE ASAP. AND DRESS
LIKE A SLUT!!!!
God, these girls know how to
party.
To make a long story longer, I
dressed in a see-through slip with
nothing underneath ... except thong
underwear and a bra.
The rest of my accouterments
included black combat boots with
bad-ass rainbow socks (thanks,
Martha), spiky hair, bitchin’ cat-eye
makeup and a little treat I had just
bought that morning in Phoenix.
It is the coolest accessory ever
invented - a butane cigarette lighter
in the form of a silver coated
revolver. I don’t even smoke, but it
was too sweet a bargain to pass up.
Ten dollars, and it’s even refill
able!
I was sort of disappointed when
the alarms at the airport didn’t go
off, but I reminded myself that this
is America where everything looks
fancy enough but works like a piece
of crap. Humbled by this I moved
on.
Rollin’ into the party on my
Schwinn Collegiate Cruiser I was
pleased to see Krysti and Boones
(aka Melissa) lookin’just as slutty
as those 5-cent hand-job hookers in
“The Kids in the Hall.” I couldn’t
have been more pleased.
They pulled me into the bath
room and gave me the 411 on our
songs. Plural. Two numbers that
would rock the heavens forever, or a
least the boys’ Ultimate house. Our
first number was generated from a
pom video I did not have the priv
ilege to see. Boones and Krysti
did, unfortunately, and all I can
say is it involved a gallon of milk.
We are nothing if not Hole
fans, so we covered “Plump” - a tor
tured song all about looking plump,
being dirty and drinking milk.
Needless to say we rocked. Not
* only because of Krysti s dead-on
lyrics and Boone’s uncanny ability
to play air bass, but because we gur
gled milk, let it run down our whor
ish bodies and, as the audience
screamed for more, more, more, we
spit the milk in their faces, true Hole
style.
Our next number called for mas
sive alterations and even fewer
clothes. It’s hard to imagine, but we
stripped out of our slips, panties and
boots and donned silver bras and
teeny-weeny skirts. If you’ve ever
seen the Chili Peppers video for
“Give It Away,” you know they’re
completely silver. I kept thinking
how radical this night was as Krysti
and Boones rubbed me down with
the silver makeup. No body part was
left unexplored.
That was a joke.
The crowd went wild once again,
and we felt like rock stars, no thanks
to my brain power.
I let them do everything for me
anyway. In fact I’ve hired someone
with a vocabulary above the sixth
grade level to write this column for
me.
But please keep reading next
: week. I ’ m sure that whoever I ’ve
hired won’t let you down.
I’d make a few changes around
the ol’ Universe-ity.
I’d start with the Foreign
Language requirement:
As if the value of the grasp of a
foreign tongue is that you can order
in restaurants, send packages home
by parcel post and get on the right
train to Hamburg.
So what? And when within the
next dozen years are you gonna do
those things?
That’s what phrase books are for!
No, if I was in control, you’d
spend the same number of semesters
studying a language, just learning to
read it.
Teach a man to ask for a newspa
per, and you line his birdcage for a
week.
Teach him to read the same
paper, and you offer him a lifetime of
entertainment, information and a
perspective different from that of the
American media juggernaut.
Not to mention, it is a lot easier to
keep up with what you’ve learned
and even add to it if you happen to be
stuck in, say, the middle of America,
a long way from Deutschland.
But a subscription to STERN and
away you fly on the wings of under
standing.
The only objection I’ve ever been
able to illicit from teachers of foreign
language when I’ve suggested my
divine emendation to their method is
that it’s harder to learn to speak a lan
guage you’ve been reading and
(silently) pronouncing wrong for
years.
m_i_4_>_•_i__
wivcijr, uui wv iv uiuuiig auvui
YEARS of experience with a foreign
language, which is more than any
amount of “habla ingles?” is gonna
get you.
And besides, I have a ready
answer:
Reading aloud. *
Class time reading drills can and
should be carried out orally as well
as silently, giving the teachers ample
opportunity to correct and mold their
students’ faltering gloss.
No, my way is infinitely better
and more rational.
I leave my model as an open chal
lenge to a requirement that has
become more about filling the blanks
on a form than the actual enrichment
of students’ lives and understandings.
- Mark Baldridge
Karen Brown is a junior English andfilm studies major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.