Go Downtown

Here is an self-indulgent op-ed piece I submitted to Student Life, Washington University's student newspaper :

As another academic year draws to a close, I find myself forced to look back on my own contributions to Washington University at large. With Springtime activities coming and going as quickly as the Graham Chapel flowerbed, my failure to participate in the Marrow Registry, Locks Of Love, Thurteen Carnival or any sports team or greek organization gives me pause. I find myself asking “How will I go down in Wash U. history?” As a sophomore, I realize that my time here (barring academic turmoil) is now almost half over. A large part of Wash U’s appeal is the strong sense of community and cooperation, and my failure to take part in this community is, at the very least, a failure to get my money’s worth.
Through the cooperation of Mr. David Ryan Brody, the Student Life Photo Editor, I have found my way into a number of photos this semester. My presence in the paper is part of a larger plan to become a widespread campus icon; if StudLife readers see my face (or even the back of my head) every few issues, surely I will come to have some subliminal power over them. And so, when Mr. Brody was in need of a staged photograph, I was his man. Our first collaboration was for the article “College students lacking real-world literacy, says study” (Student Life, News, 2/3/06), in which I was instructed to “hold a road map upside-down and look painfully confused.” The pained expression in the picture is completely authentic; Mr. Brody would not allow me to use the bathroom before the photo-shoot.
But what difference does a schmaltzy photograph make? Next to none, I admit, but two photographs? A short week-and-a-half later, I was lounging on Mr. Brody’s couch when he announced, to all within earshot, that he needed a photograph “Of someone going down on a grapefruit for the Studlife Sex issue.” Hardly had my hand been raised in the air before a sliced citrus was shoved into my face. I must admit, the grapefruit was an unexpectedly accurate representation of female anatomy, despite the temperature and decidedly sweeter flavor. Mr. Brody shouted out instructions as he photographed, telling me to pay more attention to the maraschino cherry he had attached to the top fold, at which point I felt compelled to remind him that there’s more to cunnilingus than the maraschino. But imagine my pride in seeing my five-photo spread alongside Ms. [name deleted] in the Sex Issue (Student Life, 2/13/06).
The grapefruit spread didn’t attract as much attention as I had hoped, which I attribute to Mr. Brody’s failure to attach my name and phone number to the article, but a third and final chance to make a mark on Wash U would present itself at the end of March. Once again, Mr. Brody announced his need for photo-models by saying “I need someone to dress up as a professor, and I need someone else to pretend to go down on him.” It was quickly decided that one Mr. Gerstenhaber would don a wool jacket and pipe for the role of the professor. Unsurprisingly, none of the women present were willing to apply themselves to this task.
There is some amount of controversy surrounding the article, “Student sleeps with her prof, fails class anyway” (Student Libel, News Schnews, 3/31/06), and specifically the picture that accompanied it. I, myself, heard many people saying things like “Who is that hot chick? I’ve never seen her before” and even people who claim to have met the mystery woman; “Oh yeah, I hooked up with her down at Frat Row first semester.” Mr. Gerstenhaber, himself, faced the repeated question, “Dude, how’d you talk her into it?” to which he invariably responded, “By the way, that chick is a guy.”
The question of how one contributes to the Washington University community is an uncertain one. Surely there are too many students to affect and causes to participate in for the average student to leave an enormous mark, but I’ve learned that it’s the most minute contributions that make WU a special place to live and learn. And so, as this academic year comes to a close, at least I can answer one question : How will I go down in Wash U. history?
I already have.
Twice.

-Alan

April Bud

So almost two weeks have passed since my last legitimate post. I apologize for this; I suppose I'm caught, once again, between living and documenting life. To be fair, the first week of inactivity was precisely that; a week of inactivity, or a week in which I did absolutely nothing of interest. The interest begins a week ago, April 19th, 2006.

As Carl has said on many occasions, or at least once, or maybe never on the blog and just to me, one never needs an excuse to get stoned. Excuses, reasons, justifications and the like can certainly grease the wheels of the stoning process, but don't be fooled into thinking that the content of your excuse has any bearing on anything. Yeah, I get it, you had an exam today, or you're stressed out, or your girlfriend dumped you, or you want to watch some flash animations while under the influence. Great, awesome, fine. What's important is this : if you're making excuses and complicated justifications, you're thinking too much. If you're thinking too much, you should probably smoke some pot.

It's a hard bargain to strike : your stoner friends don't want to know why you need, at this exact moment in time, to get high. It's your other friends who so often demand an explanation, and it is for them that you're constantly cultivating reasons to explain the need.

I, personally, have gotten to a point where I exclusively use negative excuses. A positive excuse would be those mentioned above : some thing that happened that precipitates a need and/or desire to get baked. A negative excuse is an explanation of why there's no reason not to get baked (ie. I have completed every major responsibility I have for the next three days, or, It takes 5 minutes to walk around the South 40, and it takes 4 minutes to smoke a joint). In essence, the negative excuse always boils down to "I don't see why not"

But despite the sturm und drang of your stoner and non-stoner friends, there is one day of the year when no excuse is ever necessary.

April 20th, coded as 4/20 in our American dating system, has somehow become the stoner holiday. On this day, the only excuses you'll need are for why you aren't stoned already, and why you shouldn't smoke more than you have already.

I'm not a pot historian, but I have a fascination with urban myths and the internet, so here's a quick review of some of my favorite speculations as to why the number 420 is considered special:

1. I heard, a couple of times, that Marijuana violations used to be coded as 420 in police lingo. ie. "We've got a 420 on Baker St. and Toke Blvd. Need backup."

2. "Come Together", the first song on the Beatles album Abbey Road, has a duration of exactly 4 minutes and 20 seconds. This is true for the original vinyl and its compact disc reproduction.

3. "Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 35" by Bob Dylan, better known as the "Everybody Must Get Stoned" song, has a tiny little secret for math geeks. 12 x 35 = 420! What do you know?

4. My personal theory on 420 is this : You may have heard, at some point in your life, somebody say the words "It's Five o'clock somewhere". This, of course, is a humorous fallacy referring to 5 PM, the time when drunks everywhere are supposed to gather in bars and drink until they beat someone up. In stoner circles, it's not uncommon to hear the words, "It's 4:20 somewhere," which is just an adaptation of the previous phrase. However, the adaptation reveals what I believe to be a very basic connection between the two times of day, 4:20 and 5:00.

My belief is that a couple of stoners were like :

Carl : "Okay, so people have a time of day that they like to get drunk. Some people even use this time of day as a justification to drink. Why aren't we doing the same thing?!"
Alan : "Okay, five o'clock work for you?"
Carl : "Yeah, sure. We'll subvert drunk culture for our own deviant purposes. Fuck the man."
Alan : "Yeah, fuck the man."
(pause)
Carl : "Dude, what time is it?"
Alan : "About 4:20."
Carl : "Dude, can we smoke now?"
Alan : "I don't see why not."


So anyway, 4/20 happened. The night before, I took everything I had (about 1/4 ounce) and rolled it up into 11 little tubes of filter and paper, such that I had myself 5 spliffs and 6 joints. I, because I'm an idiot, then showed my rolled stash to everyone I knew was on the inside.

NOTE : Never reveal the exact amount of marijuana you have, or else that exact amount will be smoked. There is no avoiding this. The idea is not that you keep some for yourself, or that you're miserly or anything like that. There are actually lots of reasons not to reveal this information. I'll let you suss those reasons out for yourselves. The main reason is, no pot is better than unexpected pot. Nothing beats this moment :

Maggie : Oh shit, it's 4:15.
Alan : Dear Lord, you're right.
Maggie : We've got to get ready. Should I pack a bowl?
Alan : How about we smoke some joints and spliffs? (pulls them out of his pocket)
Maggie : I am humbled by your very presence.


So I was always the kind of kid who wasn't so spoiled as to get everything I wanted as soon as I wanted it, but spoiled enough to have my impatience partially rewarded. My parents always gave me one gift on Christmas Eve, disguised as a present from them, though I knew it was really just another of Santa's devious tricks (I'll catch you next year, you portly elf). So, at about 10:45 on 4/19, I smoked a spliff on my way to rendezvous with my other stoner compadres. Though I always pitch whatever's left when I reenter Wash U campus, I held onto the trifling remains of my spliff all the way to the door of the building I was entering, at which point I casually dropped it on the ground next to the door. The moment I encountered people, they all did the classic wave hand in front of face and scrunch up nose move and asked me if I had started early, whereupon I explained the whole Christmas Eve thing.

I realize that after writing for 45 minutes, I haven't even gotten to Hour 0. I can live with that. Part 2 of this post is forthcoming.

-Alan

Flooding The Groundwaves

I was standing outside of my building when these two girls walk by, holding hands. It wasn't one of those "we're giddy children playing with our outward social representation" hand-holding jobs, either.

Yep. Lesbians.


But there's another reason I've decided to make my sixth post this week. I've come to tell you about the newest craze you've never heard of : Skirt Night.

So basically the idea is, whenever I feel like making it Skirt Night, I just pull out this patchworky-looking skirt and put it on. Then I do whatever. Usually I drink a beer and watch TV, but if some other activity comes along I'm open to it.

Unless it involves me moving more than absolutely necessary. Or taking off the skirt. So basically, Skirt Night operates as a completely arbitrary obstacle to any other social obligation; Brody calls me up, "Hey man, I just walked up a flight of stairs without any help. I feel like I deserve some of your pot" and I say, "No, sorry man, it's skirt night."

He's all like "What's skirt night?" and then I'm like "Don't worry about it, dude. I'll talk to you this weekend."

Brody doesn't get to enjoy skirt night. Even though Alfonzo hasn't been around the suite lately--at least since his valuable appliances started getting chewed apart--I don't think Brody is allowed to come here. If my memory serves me, he never has.

So who does get to share in the magic of Skirt Night?

Chaz does, but it's not what you think. Really the only person who needs to wear a skirt is me. If you've tried wearing skirts and you didn't like it, then hey, bless you for trying dude. If you've never tried wearing a skirt, well, next time you ask me to hang out and I bail on you for skirt night, maybe you should think about coming along.

So Chaz and I just watch TV and drink beer, while I wear a skirt. I can think of no more normal thing in the world than this. Certainly more normal than ritually smoking marijuana, using that as an excuse to ditch on plans.


Gender is such a strange thing, isn't it? Until the invention of Skirt Night, it had been so long since I last cross-dressed, (Actually, scratch that. I wore a skirt and women's sweatshirt to mock fellate John Gerstenhaber for a newspaper photograph just the other week). But the fake head wasn't leisure time, it wasn't time for me to commune with my liberated thighs, my perineum free from the inseam.

This, my friends... tonight, is Skirt Night.

It's not about looking good. It's not even about looking or feeling like a woman. Skirt Night is not a means to any end, but rather, itself, the end.

The Man Who Heard Nothing

As Joseph crossed Grand St., walking on Thompson, he spotted a couple walking, hand-in-hand, in his direction. Half a block away, Irene and Christopher noticed a shady twenty-something coming their way.

As they passed each other in front of a restuarant called "Naked Lunch," Lorrie pushed the door open to serve Adam, the bespectacled man seated outside, his reuben.

Joseph stopped walking. Irene and Christopher stopped as well, their hands falling to their sides. Lorrie let the reuben fall and Adam took his glasses off.

"Did you hear that?" Lorrie was the first the speak. None of the others said anything. She pulled open the door of the restaurant and asked again, "Did any of you hear that?" The patrons of Naked Lunch shook their heads and went back to their meals.

Turning back to Thompson St., Lorrie examined the dumbstruck foursome. Irene was whispering excitedly to Christopher.

"You heard it, didn't you?" Lorrie ventured a third time.

"I heard it," Joseph said. Adam nodded. Christopher shrugged and Irene turned to Lorrie.

"What did he say to you," Irene asked.

Joseph's head was still ringing. He'd never heard such an infernal sound; like an infectious white noise that had dampened his mind. To his surprised, it was only his head that hurt, and not his ears.

"Well, what did he say to you?" Irene asked again.

"It's... it's hard to put into words. He, he said everything, I think."

"He told the story of the cosmos from its very inception," Adam stated plainly, placing his glasses back on his face, "Everything up to this moment, and everything after."

Irene's breath puffed out of her and she gave a smile of relief. Lorrie smiled, as well, and Christopher shrugged again.

"And he said that he is the one true God. But... he didn't speak with words..." Lorrie stammered.

"His words were breathed into us. We has been blessed," Adam added, eliciting a "pssh" from Christopher.

"Bullshit. Total fucking bullshit," he said. Walking over to Joseph, he said, "Hey man, back me up on this. We didn't just, like, hear the voice of God."

Joseph agreed readily. The terrible noise had jarred him enough; he didn't need a religious freak-fest to go down right in front of him.

Irene cocked her head intimidatingly, in that way only New York women can do. "So what, then? You didn't hear anything?"

"No, I heard it, like this huge voice, but all that one true God shit is bullshit. There's no fucking God."

Adam stood up, nearly stepping in his sacrificed reuben. "You just hear the entire story of the cosmos in the span of a second and you're going to tell me that it wasn't the voice of God?"

The patrons of Naked Lunch had begun to file outside to see what the shouting and cursing was about. A man asked Lorrie what had happened.

"Well, I was walking out the door..."

The story spread quickly through the crowd and the murmuring grew to a rabble. Irene shoved Christopher and said, "How can you be such an atheist?" while Adam began an account of the event worthy of a National Geographic narrator.

The crowd's noise swelled and Joseph reeled. The mingling and mixing of voices sounded all too much like the mind-dampening fuzz he had heard just a few minutes before.

A hand holding a pen shot up in the air. "I'm a reporter for the Post. Who was present when this voice was heard?" Lorrie pointed at herself and Adam, and Irene said, "My boyfriend and I were."

Joseph wondered if he could slip away unnoticed, but Irene pointed at him and shouted "You! You were here!"

The reporter rushed up to Joseph. "Sir, would you please describe to me what just happened?"

"I... uhh..."

"What did you hear?

Joseph didn't know what to tell him. He wasn't sure himseld what he had heard, though it was most certainly not the voice of God. It had felt like a shock to his central nervous system, like a violent kick to the left temple. He tried to think of something to say, and he said what came to mind.

"Nothing."

A Very Large Hole OR Monsieur Broca's Dilemma

In the alleys of Paris in the 19th Century, a physician lurked below the window of a small apartment. He carried with him a large knife, a pithing lathe and a heavy glass cylinder with two bobbing objects inside. A daring tomcat rubbed against Monsieur Broca's leg, and he kicked it to scare it away, knocking over a pile of debris in the process.

A candle-flame appeared in the window, and the window opened outward.
"Allo? Who is... there?"

"Ah, oui, Tobias. It is I."

Tobias squinted out his window into the dark alley.
"Monsieur Broca? Is...."

"Oui, Tobias. Ehh..."

His eyes adjusting to the darkness, Tobias's glance turned to the items in Monsieur Broca's arms.
"What... are..."

"What am I doing here? I am, you see, making a housecall, yes?"

Tobias scratched his head. "But, Monsieur Broca, I.... I did not..."

"Send for me? Well, yes. It's, how you say, a complimentary service of mine."

"Monse...Monsieur Broca, it is the middle of... middle of..."

"The night? Well, yes. There are very specific reasons for making housecalls at night. Very special reasons, you see. May I come in?"

"Monsieur Broca, my... my wife"

"Oh, is she asleep? This is of no concern. Have you got another room?"

"Yes"

"Good, may I come in?"

"Monsieur, I don't..."

"Please, the fate of your mind is at stake. If you do not allow me inside, I may never learn the nature of your ailment."

"I..... please, come... in." Tobias opened the door and Monsieur Broca lugged his equipment inside. "Now... what is this a...about?"

"Ah yes, allow me to tell you what I have only recently learned. You see, I have followed many men who suffer as you do, who have lost the use of words." Monsieur Broca placed his lathe and knife on the table. "And, as it should happen, one of these men was struck by a carriage last week, and I had the great pleasure of performing his autopsy."

"Great... p..pleasure?"

"Yes, certainly. And I found a very curious thing in this man's brain. You see, there was... umm, well, a very large hole."

"A hole?"

Monsieur Broca opened the lid of the glass container and removed a gray mass with a very large hole in it. "You see? A very large hole. And just yesterday, another of my patients, he drowned himself in the river. And I found the same hole in his brain." Monsieur Broca displayed the second gray mass, then began to twirl his knife absent-mindedly.

"So... so you think..."

"Precisely! There is something to this, I am thinking. These holes must be the problem, no?"

"Yes"

"But, it is unfortunate that two men is not enough to draw any sort of conclusion, and so many of my patients are so young and fit, you see. And so I fear that I may not produce results until many years from now."

Tobias eyed the knife and inched toward the rear wall of the room. "I fear..."

"Yes, yes, Tobias. This thought is terrible. Who could be patient when there are people suffering?"

"I... wife.... Charle..." Tobias cried as Monsieur Broca plunged the knife into his throat. His hands flailed, slowing gradually until they fell to the floor. A final gurgle bubbled from Tobias' slit throat.

"I know, Tobias, but there are lives to save and reputations to be made."

Drugs On Drugs

So I caught cold Wednesday night. I was hanging around the Dauten area, and I had every intention of leaving by 11. By the time I left (12:30), I became aware of a slight "myeh" in my upper respiratory tract. I said to myself as I walked back to my room, "I'm going to wake up sick, aren't I?"

My body's answer : You don't know the half of it.

I woke up at 9 for my 10-to-1 internship in the jungle wing of the Psych building. Observations : monstrously dehydrated, slightly dizzy, headache, left nostril completely stuffed. Conclusion : call in sick for the first time since I started working there, in September.

I looked up the number, dialed the one below it by mistake, then corrected my mistake but nobody picked up. As it should happen, the grad students who work above me in the Learning and Behavior Lab have no need to arrive much earlier than 10 if they've got an intern (such as myself) coming in that day. And they, having many better things to do (Crawford and her ape-man of a fiancee, Jonah Hirt, are busy planning their escape from Wash U and their move to Wisconsin. Claire is still busy taking classes, and otherwise drooling over the window office she'll procure when Crawford leaves. So why come in before 10?), seemed to be conducting their busy lives elsewhere, somewhere not within earshot of the laboratory phone. Where's Igor when you need him?

So I took a shower to kill the time, and damn it if I didn't feel good enough to go to work. If I had known a shower would give me enough strength to face my day, I might have just laid in bed dialing and re-dialing the lab number until somebody picked up. My honest worker's spirit unfettered by my illness, I packed my bookbag and started getting dressed.

And Carl called? I include the question mark because there are certain hours of the day in which my communication with Carl occurs, and 10am EST/9am CST is not within that range. Apparently, he wants to start a CAKE cover-band called FAKE; I've been wanting to pick up trumpet again, and here's my excuse. I told him everything that I just told you, about falling asleep and waking up sick and the shower miraculously curing me. So up until this point in the post, Carl's probably been bored. Sorry, Carl.

So the way Thursday went, I had to stay on Hilltop/Danforth Campus until about 5:30. It reassures me to know that I'm capable of doing a 9-to-5 day, even though it makes me incorrigably grumpy. I had a philosophy paper due on Friday, but in my infinite wisdom, I managed to get it done before I got sick. So, being without formal responsibilities that I could recall, I rolled a joint, stepped outside, and prepared myself for a new episode of The OC. You may say, at this point, isn't smoking while you've got an upper-respiratory illness a bad idea? And I wouldn't say anything. And here's why:

Most of the time, I have great faith in my immune system. I rarely get sick, and this is actually the first time I've had a bacterial/viral infection since last May (I specify bacterial/viral because I got food poisoning over Winter Break, but that's not my immune system's fault). But by the time The OC was over, I felt pretty sure that I was going to need pharmacological intervention to quickly and easily stomp out this cold.

To the CVS, and into the back where they keep the stuff you can cook Meth out of. I perused the shelf; Sudafed, NyQuil, DayQuil, Benadryl.... I picked up a box of NyQuil gel-capsules and nearly reached for a pack of DayQuil, but my Father's Father appeared on my shoulder and talked me out of it ("Whatta ya gotta buy this for? It's exactly the same, only this one makes you sleepy and this one makes you not sleepy. Just take the NyQuil with some coffee, and you've got DayQuil").

Apparently NyQuil has changed their formula, such that it no longer includes Pseudoephedrine (or, for you etymologists out there, FAKE SPEED). Old NyQuil, for the reason that it contained both fake speed and something to knock you on your ass, understandably worked for some people and didn't work for other people. I used to be one of those people who got jacked up on NyQuil (it brings to mind my first drug experience, sometime in High School, when I took a benadryl with pseudoephedrine and drank a Co-Cola and started tripping out in Jazz Ensemble. I think that was sophomore year. Me : "Hey, Gray. I took some sudafed and had a coke, and I'm just looking at my hands, and shit." Gray : "That's great, man."), but this new formula turns me into a puppet with half his strings cut; my arms fall, my head sags, I drag my feet yet stay upright. It was entertaining, all in all, but maybe I shouldn't have been stoned at the time.

So yeah, Drugs on Drugs. That's the story, there.

Last night was a party in Dauten 23. There was a makeshift stripper pole on the side of the room, and the music-responsive lights as usual. And lots of alcohol, and more people than showed up to the first two iterations of this party. At one point, there was a line to get in stretching out the door, across the hall and into the stairwell. The RA shut the party down shortly before 1am, but I was gone to Maggie's by then.

Today, I finally got around to setting up a podcast of my radio show. Here's the link for it, if you use iTunes. If you don't use iTunes and you really want to hear my show, then maybe you should think about your choice of media players.

Only Show #5 is up there now, but I'll get Show #6 and #7 up soon enough. Shows before #5 weren't recorded, so only my diligent, early-rising listeners will ever know what I played.

Long post. You deserve a spliff today, at McDoobies.

-Alan