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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 2000)
The Tony Awards Acknowledging the schockear s best and worst ■--——mi in ■ « Tfl g as . » rere.zgja; 1 With the semester drawing to a close, I thought we’d all enjoy taking a look back at the events of a memo rable school year. For me, the year had its highs - Britney Spears finally turned 18 - and it’s lows -“Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.” With that said, I am now going to award the winners and losers of ’99 ’00 in the first annual Tony awards. The envelopes please. The Tony award for Song of the Year goes to Juvenile for “Back That Thing Up.” Juvenile sums up the thoughts of most guys out there when he says, “you’s a big fine woman, won’t you back that thing up.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been tearing up the dance floor when I spot a, shall we say, “big-boned” girl I want to dance with. Before this song I didn’t know what to do, but thanks to Juvenile, now I say, “girl you looks good, won’t you back that thing up,” and before I know it, I’ve got quarter-ton girls dancing all around me. The Tony award for Music Video of the Year goes to Sisqo for “Thong Song.” Finally, a man that loves thongs as much as I do. The song captures the sincerity in his voice, and the video captures the multi-talented Dru Hill front man giving it his all in the name of the thong. If you haven’t seen the video, imagine Sisqo as a modern-day Sammy Davis Jr., with platinum blonde hair, and a love of booty. The video starts out on Miami Beach, with Sisqo paying tribute to the thong. The ending takes this video to another level. There’s Sisqo on a stage complete with fireworks, dancers, an orchestra dnd, surprise] surprise, more girls in thongs! I would advise all local bands making a music video to follow this advice: If it’s got a thong, you can’t go wrong. The Tony award for Excellence in Song Lyrics goes to Mandy Moore for “Candy” and Eiffel 65 for “Blue.” As you can see, it would be impossi ble to deny either of these songs the award. I’ll start with Mandy Moore. Mandy: so young, so hot, so full of talent. “I’m craving for you, I’m missing you like candy.” The lyrics will no doubt inspire a generation of female songwriters. She’s still young, but I will be the first to say I spot a young female version of Bob Dylan. As for Eiffel 65, whoever penned the verse “I’m blue a-ba dee a-ba da, abada dee-ba daba da,” my hats off to you. Each time I hear it I laugh, then I cry, then I dance. The Tony award for Most Over Hyped Movie of the Year goes to “The Sixth Sense.” Sorry, I just didn’t buy Bruce Willis or that stupid kid. I wanted to laugh during the whole “I see dead people” segment, and frankly, I found the Pamela/Tommy Lee video more entertaining. The Tony for Best Special Effects in a Motion Picture goes to Julia Roberts’ cleavage in “Erin Brockovich.” My only question is: Where have those things been all these years? Fellas, if you haven’t seen it, they’re worth the price of admission. The local Tony awards are given for noteworthy things that happened on campus. Our first award is the Tim Neumann Coaching Integrity Tony. It goes to Danny Nee. Usually Daniel and Nebrasketball wait until the end of the season to self-destruct. This year we got to watch the team self-destruct all sea son long! Danny punished us for making fun of the N.I.T. by not even making it that far this year. He called the boosters, the only people who give a damn about Nebraska basket ball anyway, “sons of bitches.” Top that, Barry Collier! This year’s Lawrence Phillips Sportsman of the Year Tony goes to DeAngelo Evans. DeAngelo showed us that although there’s no “I” in team, there is an “I” in quit. Good luck at whatever insignificant Division II school you’ll be at next season. I’ve got some words of advice for you D, memorize the phrase, “would you like fries with that?” The Tony for Most Useless Thing On Campus, barely edging out the ionized water fountain, is NU Tony Bock is a junior broadcasting major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist Directions. I’d write more, but it hasn’t done any thing for me to write about. Anyone been to nutodo.com lately? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Keep up the good work guys, your time and grant money are run ning out. ' Our final award is a big one. Drum roll, please. And the Tony award for Biggest Embarrassment of the 1999-2000 School Year at the University of Nebraska goes to the uni versity’s handling of the Tom Green controversy. I’d like to thank the administration for teach ing us that when something goes wrong, you should pretend you didn’t know what was going to hap pen, hide the facts (who did pay for Green to come here anyway?) and spread the blame. There is no place like Nebraska! Congratulations to all the winners, and we’ll see you next fall! Space junk Humans are dropping their garbage in other galaxies r J— -- --1 . . . ..... .... ..... Hello, I’m astronaut Susan, and I’m weightless. I was sent by the Discovery Channel to research the atmosphere up here for last week’s special titled “Crap in Space.” Now I’m just hang ing out. There’s garbage floating around me right now, though if I were to try and touch it, it would knock my hand clean off my body. ! You probably don’t want to see that, do you? 1 Oh, yes? Well, I guess in today’s society it is better to see gore and keep the kids happy than see some thing intelligent and bore the piss out of‘em. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. My hand! It’s still attached to my ooayi i guess we can oe tnankiui for the little things in life. I (Astronaut Susan) was talking about garbage. Space. Garbage in space. It doesn’t compute. Garbage in space equals dirty careless astronauts. I shower regularly, I brush my teeth when duty calls and I always change my underwear on the summer sol stice, no matter where I am. I’ll fill you in on a little secret: Astronauts are only human, therefore it’s no surprise that there is garbage in space - and that we take really long showers. Humans in general take long showers, not just astronauts. Here’s a clip from my Earth buddy from Norway, Sven. “Hello, this is Earth-buddy Sven. Earth’s ‘back yard’ is so cluttered with space junk that the United States and Norway have planned a giant radar station to help track the orbiting debris. There are an estimated 9,500 manmade objects in orbit around Earth. About 93 percent of them are garbage, including dead satellites, booster rockets, bolts and metal bits. 1 nese bits are Hying at you, busan, right now at 17,000 miles an hour. If such an object hit a new satel lite or spaceship (or Susan’s hand), it would cause serious damage. That’s all I have. Be careful up there.” (det news.com/1998/nation/) Yeah, they have machines up here now that “monitor” the garbage float ing ‘round up here. Right now I can see two gloves ... a couple of screw drivers ... an angry astronaut’s dead husband.... You get the drift (from the dead rotten corpse I assume). I ask, “Are we this mighty? Do we really need, or feel so compelled by passion, to not only destroy our planet but also our solar system?” The answer is so simple; that’s why I have to watch my hand now. I am no longer afraid of that one in a million chance that a meteor will hit me on earth, but that one in 10 chance that earthly repugnant garbage will hit me up here. We humans (a phrase encompass ing astronauts) not only “own” Earth and all developing stars, but we just bought the rights from God, Allah, buddah, 1 he black Hole and lshtar to “own” the Solar System. Outer space. It’s ours now through blood money, and we can do whatever we want with the goodies it mani fests. We are sort of treating outer space as a large camping trip in which our motto is the antithesis of “Pack out what you pack in.” How hard is it to not leave a trail describing your life in three discarded items? For my sake, think of all the cry ing aliens up there shedding a single tear in remembrance of the void we have decided to fill. I tried to console them with words, but they didn’t understand English, so now I’m leaving space with an alien “bun in the oven.” These aliens are just too sexy, and I have no will to control myself, and it’s so lonely up here ... A-hem! Personally, I think space isn’t such a fountain of wonder anymore because of its new and exciting allure' but because it’s another toilet to dump our crap in. The humans, not the astronauts, want to dump their crap. Us astronauts are tar more civilized than “normal” humans. No longer is it amazing to simply ponder, “What’s out there, from Andromeda and beyond?” but “What’s out there malleable enough that we can use to expand, contract and seek out what we want for trans portation and development of life? Our life and no one else’s?” Space is the only thing left to con quer in a world where we can decode DNA and clone things at will. And don’t try and tell me cloning won’t go there - we will soon start seeing so many Carrot Tops or, god forbid, the entire cast of “Hollywood Squares,” that we’ll have to gnaw off our own feet just to be different than them. Well kids, I’m leaving Las Vegas. (It’s a small town near the North Star). I have two mottos for ya’ll. The first is a reminder of what will hap pen if you waste this summer work ing for The Man, so take heed and remember, “All work and no play makes Moses a dull prophet.” Here’s the next motto to leave you with: “Litter - do it. It’s OK. There’s eight more planets left.” Karen Brown is a senior English and film studies major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
