You, Ma’am, are a Racist

Apparently, drawing swastikas on people’s doors is the new cool thing to do on campus. If you don’t pay attention to NU news or read your e-mail (perhaps a direct result of that lovely frame of mind we like to call Northwestern Apathy), you might not be aware that racist vandalism has been swarming around Evanston the past few weeks. Obviously the work of being fed paint chips as children, these Sharpie Bandits are utterly insecure and are crying out for attention. Should we help them or hang them? That’s the debate around town.

NU community members have gathered on several occasions for discussions on how to handle these reindeer games. President Bienen plans to deal with these offenders on a case-by-case basis; some students want to find the racist bastards with hidden cameras (shower cams—totally hot) and demand immediate expulsion. If attention is what they’re after, I say we hunt them down, gather the entire campus together along Sheridan Road, and make them parade down the street with their pants around their ankles as they wave at the crowd. Maybe then they’ll think twice about picking on tall people in small cars.

Another Phish to Fry

Mush-head was a girl … with a horrible disease. That, ladies and germs, is what three nights of Phish will do to a girl. Pure Mush. Yup yup, the popular rock band Phish set up their usual three-ring circus at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont a few weeks ago. An absolutely gorgeous day greeted the lot’s Shakedown Street, with the sun deciding to make its first appearance since October. This sudden burst of balmy weather definitely aided the venue’s scene, considering normal subzero temps would have sent those loveable barefoot hippies running directly from car-to-door instead of seeking out those ever so tasty psychedelic chocolates and gooballs. Like Campbells says, “Mmm, mmm good.”

Everyone was stoked and revved up to hear the boys do it up, and do it up well. But it’s hard to enjoy the concert when it’s damn near impossible to get into said concert. A pedestrian traffic jam formed at one of the only two entrances, as security douchebags filtered thousands of people through a few open doors. And due to this complete and utter incompetence, a whole slew of Heads almost missed the Rift opener. Not a huge deal on its own, but the Rift/Rock and Roll/Guyute triumvirate was a pretty strong start to the show.. Gotta Jibboo and Punch You in the Eye scratched us right where we collectively itch as well, but all-in-all the performance was average at best. All things being equal, it paled in comparison to the next two nights in Cincinnati, where the band pretty much – and this is a Phishy technical term – “ripped shit up.” The Allstate crowd certainly didn’t help much either. It was, in not so many words, an arena full of suck—a bunch of unenthusiastic poser fans, selfish, annoying, and mean. I say we take ‘em out back and beat the shit out of ‘em (R. Vaughn, 1989).

While You Were Sleeping

On a cold February morning, with most of NU tucked snugly in bed, a collection of bulldozers and other large-wheeled machines lined up on Foster Street (between Sherman and Maple), ready to knock down the row of abandoned houses on the north side of the street. Tired neighbor and NUcomment staffer Srikanth Reddy was awakened from his slumber by the loud noise of destruction, and the fact that his house was shaking. Wandering outside to fulfill his odd manly obsession with big trucks, Reddy stood agape as he watched the carnage of de-construction.

The abandoned houses met their fate one at a time, but workers reportedly paused when they smelled something odd coming from inside one of the houses. As it turns out, one of the houses wasn’t as empty as initially thought. It was actually a crack house. About seven to 10 homeless crackheads had taken up residence there for the past couple months, and our own NUcomment sources tell us the landlord didn’t seem to mind one bit. Yes sir, our very own Evanston crack house just seconds from campus.

The workers walked into the house to try and find the heads, who were all conveniently dispersed throughout the quaint abode, hiding under beds and in closets so as not to be detected by the Evanston Po-Po. (One source, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, says the trespassers were simply engaged in a mean little game of hide-and-seek.) The abusers in question were eventually arrested and all was calm in the construction zone, but that’s not the point, dammit. A bulldozer almost killed an entire troop of innocent crackheads on Foster Street. Can you imagine? What would my cracked out days be like without my rock-smoking comrades? Forget that, who the hell would I buy my crack from?

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Ah, the odd, gelatinous NU Bubble that keeps campus life in and real life out is at it again, folks. News flash: It’s important to know what’s going on outside the Bubble, too. Yeah, things around here right now aren’t exactly hunky-dory, with news of racist slurs, ASG tinkering with election poster rules, Evanston cops taking all the parking spots (and food) at White Hen, and that fact that our basketball team loses games like 68-11.

But c’mon now, do you guys really know what it’s like out there? And no, getting in touch with reality does NOT mean Joe Millionaire, The Bachelorette (although Ryan was a great choice), American Idol or this new Are You Hot fiasco? Are you kidding? It’s hell in a bucket out there ... and don’t be giving me this “at least I’m enjoying the ride” bullshit neither.

The past month or so has brought us one piece of horrifying news after the next. February, the month that came in like a Yellow and went out like an Orange, was ushered in by the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Then on President’s Day (the nerve of those party animals to defame my boy James K. Polk, by the way), 21 people were trampled and suffocated and more than 100 were seriously injured in a stampede at the Chicago nightclub Epitome. Not a week later, 96 people died and 180 were injured in a fire at a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island. The pyrotechnic-mishap ignited a fast-moving fire that engulfed a local nightclub in less than five minutes. And then, the proverbial icing on the cake, the hero of my youth, Mr. Fred Rogers, died on February 26. Everyone’s Land of Makebelieve surely had flags flying at half-staff on that sullen afternoon. Oh, and did I mention we’re about to go to war? Someone please make the bad men stop. I guess being in this Bubble ain’t so bad after all.

NUcomment's news briefs are grounded in reality and were all Sandra Keats'. She kinda smells funny 'tho.

Back to the top of the article