BIG BASTARD!/14 Coupons!/99999

BIG BASTARD!/14 Coupons!/99999
FLIP for the regular Wake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Weekly Student Magazine of the University of Minnesota
18 April -05 May 2007
Editorial/
Editor-in-Chief
Penelope and the
Managing Editor
Jupiter Ass-Blaster and the Underage Boys
Literary Editor
Remus Iptochski
Campus Editor
Frownie Frownerson
Voices Editor
Stonetron 3000
Sound & Vision Editor
Spazz baby
Staff Writer
Carl Jesusjob, Becky McGillicutty
Editorial Assistants
Albert Einstone, Boners McPherson
PRODUCTION/
Production Manager
Penis St. Claire
Art Director
Sanford ”GRIZZLY” Pigfarm
Photography Editor
Mark Zuckerberg
Web Editor
Oral Roberts
Copy Editors
Broccoli Toshford, Dickwash Pantsparty
Graphic Designers
Sandro Assface, Jupiter Ass-Blaster, B3cki
Squintz, Penis St. Claire, Sondra Cufflink
Distributors
Oral Roberts, Duder Madsen
BUSINESS/
Advertising Executive
Todd “TTYL” Hamilton
Office Manager
Ponystorm Jhonz
Public Relations Director
Brown Sound “Kelly” Ferghuson
Advertising Interns
Ben Franklin the 3rd, A pair of Robots,
Twinkie Fuckcloud
Advisory Board
James DeShort, Kevin “not” Dunn, Courtney
“Poo”is, Gary Shitzer, oKay Steiger, Mark
Pisser
THIS ISSUE/
Cover Artist
Dykestorm Adjective
Illustrators
Dykestorm Adjective, Jesus 2, Dave Hagen,
Orangehat McFury, Eric Price, Jeremy
Sengly
Photographers
Mark Zuckerberg, Method Man. Red Man,
the GZA and RZA, Inspectah Deck, ODB’s
ghost, U-God, Masta Killa, Ghostface,
Raekwon
©2007 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights
reserved.
Established in 2002, The Wake is a weekly
independent magazine and registered
student organization produced by and for the
students of the University of Minnesota.
Contributing Writers
Curious George, Pant Taverson, Rod Laver,
Kareem Gilly, Steven McCreepy, Short
Brown, Indiana Jones, Clint Eastwood,
Joseph Abernathy, Cynthia Hillsboro,
Bronzie Hawn, Rick Springfield, Geenie
Dabrio
/5:666
The Wake Student Magazine
1313 5th St. SE #331
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 379-5952 • www.wakemag.org
The Wake was founded by Chris Ruen and
James DeLong.
Sound & Vision/
ka?” queried a troll haired junior whose face was singed
up in anger. “Shhhh,” quieted her friend, though it was
done with equally unnecessary volume, “She’s going to
hear us.” This “she” being one of the older members whose
job it was to keep everyone on schedule and to ensure they
weren’t drinking. “What’s she going to do?!? Fuck that!
Just cause she couldn’t find a date she’s gonna tell ME
what I can and can’t…” she rambled on for some time with
a growing number of slurred vulgarities and a steady decline in coherency. As this older girl tried to usher us all
outside and onto the buses, while making sure no one was
drinking, I wondered why anyone would subject themselves to such barbarous cruelty. She held on for dear life
to her name filled clipboard as she began to attempt taking roll.
“Make her drink it!” “Yeah! Make
her drink that shit!” I sat, shirt over
nose, wondering where I was when
things of this nature had become
socially acceptable.
ETHAN STARK
Sorority Formals:
the end is near
by carl carpenter
When we entered the 21st century some 7 years ago, there
was serious speculation. Signs were everywhere. The Y2K
scare had the masses up in arms, raiding Sam’s Club of
non-perishables and locking their families in the cellar.
They stopped playing music on “music television,” and
reality TV rots the minds of millions every night. Ryan
Seacrest became famous, Carson Daly remained famous,
and Mitch Hedberg died. Times have been dark. Nothing;
however, could have prepared me for the events I witnessed two weekends past, the surest bit of evidence to
date. I attended a Sorority Formal… and I’ve been a devout follower of every known religion ever since.
At 6 p.m., I was dropped off on the corner of 10th and 5th.
Sprawled across the lawn before me was sheer mayhem,
best described as High School Prom meets Hiroshima. I
made my way to the front door, stepping over lifeless bodies with painted on faces. Right as I reached the front,
seven more hit the ground, unable to stand long enough
for the flash of their digital cameras to capture this epic
scene. Inside was somehow worse. Shrill screams echoed
off the elegant Sorority walls. “Where’s my fucking Vod-
04/03-31 May 2007
The buses were of the yellow variety, clearly not fit for
anyone over 5’8”. To my utter dismay, I looked down the
isles only to see that all seats were filled, many with three.
I went back to the front, sharing with a less than enthused
couple dressed in matching red outfits and contemptuous
facial expressions. “There’s no way!” complained the guy
in a manner of jested concealment, his eyes glancing back
towards to his comrades in the seats behind. “Sorry,” I
said, as I squeezed in next to his cleavage reliant (definite euphemism) date. The guy pulled her up on to his lap.
“No, I was just kiddin’ bro,” he assured, still feeding off
the laughs of fraternity brethren. “I’m Derick, and this is
Jess.” I extended my hand but before I could interject a
reply I was cut off. “Give me a drink of that,” demanded
Derick of his date. “No, I wanna drink it on the way.” resisted Jess. “Whatever. Rob, pass that Jack Daniels over
here. Hey, dude. Tell him to pass me that Jack Daniels.”
Rob, of course, was the gentlemen to my left who’d decided to compliment his suit with a pre-frayed, Abercrombie
baseball hat.
With the noise level rapidly approaching unbearable, clipboard lady continued to attempt taking roll. Considering
the number of already passed out girls (3) and the incessantly Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn quoting guys (20),
they gave up after 20 minutes. It struck me as strange that
Vaughn’s character from Wedding Crashers would be so
frequently quoted by this crowd. With their disingenuous introductions and overly assured attitude towards any
subject, they came across a lot more like Zac, the film’s
antagonist. Not to hate on Wedding Crashers (a hilarious
movie on all accounts), my only fear is that Vaughn and
Ferrell will soon be forced into Dave Chappelle -like exile. But, back to the apocalypse.
Within 5 minutes of leaving the house, one of the passed
out girls had woken up. “Sweety, you need to eat some of
these crackers.” persuaded clipboard lady, “If you don’t
you’re gonna throw up.” A muffled, “Nooo, get AWAY
from me!” found it’s way through the mess of curled hair
laying in Rob’s lap. During this time, we had somehow
missed our exit. “Where are you going?!?” shrieked one of
\Sound & Vision
the belligerently drunk girls at our clearly confused bus
driver. “That was the exit to Stillwater right there.” The
bus driver proceeded to explain that she had been given
directions to Minnetonka, and was simply following
them. She then calmly asked for the phone number of
the trip coordinator on the leading bus up ahead to figure things out. This was met by more frantic screaming
and cursing over the missed exits. Loud proclamations
of, “Worst bus driver ever,” and accusations of, “You’re
ruining our trip,” rang out for minutes on end.
Next up were the constant, condescendingly phrased
demands that the bus be pulled over on the grounds
that, “I’m about to piss my fucking pants lady!” and
“No I can’t fucking hold it!” “Maybe ya’ll should
have thought of that before you did all that god damn
drinkin!” came the driver’s reply prompting my first
and final smile of the evening. It vanished nearly instantly as Jess, the girl 6 inches to my right, puked into
her red plastic cup. The couple sat calmly as it oozed
down across her fingers and slowly on to Derick’s pants.
“Oh, baby.” Before my gag reflex had time to kick in, I
was distracted by the urine crisis to my right which had
been resolved. Rob held up a white garbage bag filled
with urine. “Here hold this for a second,” he asked of
the girl in the seat behind. She had been tricked. “It’s
yours now!” laughed Rob triumphantly. His glory was
short lived. The semi-conscious girl in his lap unloaded
what may have potentially been a Spaghetti dinner into
his lap. “Oh, gross babe.” He looked around for a second. “Hey, give me that bag back,” he prompted with an
inexplicable half smile. “Here babe.” He said looking
around for the support of his pals.
“Holy shit! She puked in the piss bag!” The phrase
hung there for a second, its absurdity fighting with the
bus’ death like stench for the crown of most disturbing.
They were both put to shame in moments by a recently
intrigued section of on-lookers from a few seats back.
“Make her drink it!” “Yeah! Make her drink that shit!”
I sat, shirt over nose, wondering where I was when
things of this nature had become socially acceptable. I
turned to the bus driver, the only one who appeared to
be sharing in my disgust. Rob, the puke-panted, smooth
operator who’d started the whole thing caught my look
of despair. “Bro… It’s fine. We just gotta keep drinking.”
Later on in the evening, I would have the pleasure of
seeing these very same couples continue on in their
drunken debauchery. We loaded the boat and I searched
desperately for a moment of solitude. I was without
luck. These party people spread through the boat like
the black plague through 14th century Europe. Dinner consisted of delicious chicken breasts being thrown
across the room and perfectly prepared steaks being
stuffed into shot glasses, and then dumped on the floor.
I continuously caught unfortunate glimpses of various vomit mouthed couples “dancing” and kissing one
another to classics from Akon and Fat Joe. By the time
Buckcherry’s, “Crazy Bitch,” hit the speakers, I was
in a full state of shock. As the terribly ironic scene of
these girls singing this song played itself out for what
seemed like eternity, I couldn’t help but understand why
the world at large hates this country. After this display,
I really couldn’t blame them. The apocalypse will be
United States imposed, whether we care to recognize it
or not.
Celebrity
Apocalypse
ETHAN STARK
By Becky Lang
When you go down screaming, melting, or watching your
body roll the opposite direction of your head, it’s a comforting feeling to know that the same thing is going to
happen to the likes of Paula Abdul and Chuck Norris. Yes,
the apocalypse is coming, and riches and glamour do not
exempt our Hollywood heroes from its reign of terror.
But that doesn’t mean we need to stop the presses. We
may all be equal in death, but the rich and famous will
always be turning the tides for how the trendsetters meet
the grim reaper with the most style and ingenuity.
Oprah has arranged what she calls a “Hug Rally.” With
money being even less of an object to the starlet and aspiring saint, she’s also even less stingy with her millions.
Her “Hug Rally” is to be a show of decadence, to be set
upon a mile straight of down pillows, catered with jelly
donuts and chocolate mousse, and features a long-haired,
de-clawed kitten for every member in the audience.
Oprah and her fans are to go down hugging, petting, and
indulging, enjoying the pleasures of life. For tickets, go to
www.oprahsgentleapocalypse.com.
The rich and famous will always be
turning the tides for how the trendsetters meet the grim reaper with
the most style and ingenuity.
Tom Cruise has built a Palace of Scientology in the Pyrenees mountains, where he and his fellow practitioners
plan to find the leader of their alien inhabitors immediately, so all matters can be settled before the Earth
becomes a blotch of dust. The current suspect is Hilary
Duff, whose facial features seem to be re-arranging at
an alarming rate. A month ago, her mouth was located
below her nose, but expert cosmetologists have sworn that
it is floating upward toward her right eye at a rate of .45
inches per issue of Star magazine. In response to questions about her shifting anatomy and possible links to
aliens, her publicist had no comment.
Young Hollywood, including the likes of Lindsay Lohan,
Ashlee Simpson and Nicole Richie have turned to what
they call “Rave Paganism,” a combination of partying and
mysticism. They’ve declared Wilmer Valderamma their
prophet, and in response to press questions about why the
’70s Show star is “the chosen one,” no one seemed to have
a conclusive answer. The cult has gotten more secretive
with time, building a club/bomb shelter stocked with sushi, Red Bull, the Olsen Twins, and spirits (the alcoholic
variety). According to private sources, once all AngloSaxon heiresses and European shipping heirs are recruited, the club will cut itself off from the public, entirely, unless a major network wants to do a reality show.
Philanthropists have been on a rampage of charity, led by
Bono and the Jolie-Pitts. As the 86th most valuable Briton, Bono was close to ascending right into heaven as soon
as the first trumpets sounded, and once again as the first
zombies came out of a sewer. However, the singer hung
onto a bike rack or a door handle each time, assuring the
beam of holy light that his work here was not yet done.
The doors of all upper-class rehab centers were busted
open, as famous addicts and disorder-ridden celebrities
decided to pitch moderation out the window. Brit rockers
have been seen shooting up all over London, often accompanied by svelte models downing truffles and french fries.
So, if you’re worried about your upcoming untimely demise, just follow the celebrity path, and be your
greedy, loving, hugging, munching and using self to
the extreme. And remember, your death is anything
except individual.
\05
www.wakemag.org
Campus/
ben alpert
06/03-31 May 2007
\Campus
BY walter sobckeck
What appeared to be a remotely-harmless fund-raiser for the Campus Republicans this past Thursday erupted into a full
scale, winner-take-all fight to the death
between a zombie race, created and led by
the devil’s own Bill O’Reilly, and the sensible thinking students on campus. O’Reilly,
who was brought in to give a speech, funded of course by the student activities fee,
succeeded, without much effort, to turn
his audience into a slothful, heavy-breathing mass of the undead.
O’Reilly, whose charges of making sexually explicit phone calls during one of the
past Republican conventions has for some
reason been allowed to return to his spot
in the limelight of the conservative politics spectrum. After having met with his
fellow Republicans in their underground
layer outside of Transylvania this past
March, O’Reilly, along with right wing
heavy-hitters like Rush Limbaugh, Sean
Hannity and Tucker Carlson, followed orders to execute creating a full-scale, zombie race of young, impressionably ignorant
college students. Making the decision in
the underground lair proved difficult for
the group, which needs to sustain itself
by drinking the blood of endangered species, as choosing a location for the zombie
development proved difficult. New York,
although favored by its population and
location, would prove to be impossible, in
step with the state’s politics. The same
was true with Chicago and Los Angeles,
but, Carlson noted, “Minnesota has a Republican governor … with that powerful
shit-eating grin, how could we go wrong
there?”
The team had decided. O’Reilly, having
accepted an offer to speak at the University of Minnesota, began to develop the
serum which would turn his audience into
the soulless mass it would become. “They
need to already have rightist leanings,”
O’Reilly explains behind his lab goggles
in the underground lair, standing beneath
the shadows of stalactites and hovering
bats, shining his syringe. A little liquid
rushed out of the needle, and he whispers,
“Once we’re done here, this Obama, this
Muslim won’t stand a chance.”
Griffin, screaming, his
face now adorned with
war paint, drove into the
churning abyss of Republican zombies, swinging
his bowling ball from the
golf cart’s driver’s seat.
Several minutes after providing his crowd
with the chosen republican beverage,
sea water mixed with vinegar, of course
spiked with a horse dose of zombie serum,
O’Reilly’s audience of young, ignorant,
pro-war republicans had turned into a
violent, throbbing mass of pale, flesh-eating monsters. Immediately they began
groping the furniture in the auditorium,
O’Reilly preached at his pulpit, ringing his
hands together, and began to mutter, “Yes,
yes my pretties.” The group stood up and
began to exit the auditorium, and under
the spell of O’Reilly’s blind control, began
to shout demands for blood, brains, and
urine.
Demands and Satanic sounding chants
began to grow from the crowd, which filed
out of the doors of Northrop and onto the
mall area, chants regarding requests for
oil drilling in Alaska, legalizing the death
penalty in all states and for all crimes, and
of course, that Iraqi veterans not complaining about returning for reassignments. A smaller section of the group even
split off to bother passers-by about their
religion of choice, and to ascertain who
was going to hell for eternity, and who
wasn’t (which turned out to be no one) according to the zombies’ pious standards.
Although things looked grim for the students who were caught between the zombies and their respective buildings, campus was in luck, across the mall, outside of
Coffman Memorial Union, Mike Griffin,
celebrated winner of the MSA elections,
was reveling in his success. Among him
were friends and advisors from the campaign trail, and, upon seeing O’Reilly commanding zombie troops from afar, in his
own secluded pope mobile-esque HUMMER H2, Griffin decided to take action,
rallying his friends to fight off the Republican-zombie war. Within seven minutes,
Griffin had procured a campus golf cart,
and several improvised weapons, including bike locks, rusted pieces tin cans, and
a few stolen pool cues and bowling balls.
Griffin, screaming, and his face now
adorned with war paint, drove into the
churning abyss of Republican zombies,
swinging his bowling ball from the golf
cart’s driver’s seat. Together, with his loyal clan of followers, the students were able
to kill a vast majority of the zombies. Griffin fought his way through the crowd to
O’Reilly’s vehicle, where O’Reilly was panicking, crying out high pitched screams,
and shouting for his assisstant. Griffin,
along with a few buddies, knocked over
the vehicle, and pulled the bald O’Reilly
from inside. O’Reilly, who was crying, and
terrified, began to turn into a zombie himself, after falling in a puddle of blood from
one of the dead.
But the moment before Griffin was set to
kick him in the nads, O’Reilly vaporized
into thin air, laughing like a wicked witch,
proclaiming he’d return someday.
Griffin, who stood heavily breathing
among a pile of departed zombies, reported, “When he comes, we’ll be waiting for
him. We’ll be waiting.”
\07
www.wakemag.org
Campus/
Gophers Land
Cyborg Quarterback
bY Emilio Sheen
In September of 2005 Steve Sommers was
living his dream. The Baudette, MN native was enjoying his role as the Lake of
the Woods High School Bears’ starting
quarterback, and leading his team to a 30 start. He had visions of moving south
to Minneapolis, where he would lead the
Golden Gophers to a national championship on the strength of his right arm.
But suddenly his world came crashing
down. After defeating conference rival
Roseau 31-16, Sommers and three of his
teammates were playing their favorite
homemade game. The object of the game
was to throw ice skates at a target on the
wall of Sommers’ father’s basement. When
Sommers took his turn, the laces of the
skate caught his finger, flinging it down
into his legs.
The major arteries were cut in both legs,
and the skate was solidly lodged in his left
femur. His friends sat dumbfounded, in
shock at the gruesome sight before them.
As paramedics arrived and rushed him
away, it was clear that he would lose both
legs.
“It was hard at first, not be able to plant
my foot or get any follow through on my
passes,” Sommers says.
But Lance never lost his drive to make his
son the best. He took three weeks worth
of vacation from his job at Ken Jarvey’s
Automart in order to spend as much time
helping his 17-year-old son get back into
playing shape.
As Sommers’ junior year of high school
came to a close, it was time to decide if he
was ready to begin summer training for
his last year of high school football. During an informal team scrimmage in May of
2006 he got his answer.
“We were all a little skeptical when he
came out,” teammate Doug Ferber remembers. “I mean, he had a damn Segway instead of legs.”
During the scrimmage Sommers showed
off some of his new skills to his teammates
and coaches. After seeing the 85-yard
touchdown passes and long, scrambling
runs through the defense, it was clear to
head coach Jerry Backman who would be
the new starting quarterback.
After 17 hours in surgery, Sommers
emerged an entirely new person.
“We were all a little skeptical when he came out,”
teammate Doug Ferber
remembers. “I mean, he
had a damn Segway instead of legs.”
He appeared completely the same from the
waist up, but a modified Segway scooter
had replaced his lower body. His choppy
movement showed how awkward it was for
him to move around, but the medical staff
said he would survive.
When the new season rolled around Sommers made his presence felt. The Lake of
the Woods Bears finished the season 7-3,
due in large part to Sommers 47 touchdown passes and 17 rushing touchdowns.
Sommers spent the months after his accident recovering at home with his dad,
Lance. The two spent almost every hour of
the day rehabbing Sommers’ injuries.
Scouts from around the country took notice. At every game the Lake of the Woods
bleachers were filled with men behind
cameras and notebooks, watching each
throw and run with awe.
Doctors were able to save Sommers’ life
after amputating both of his legs just
below his waist. Specialist Dr. Emmitt
Brown arrived a few days later with only
possible solution, a highly experimental
surgery, to save Sommers’ football career.
“My dad always told me to learn from everything I experienced from life,” Sommers says. “The accident was just another
opportunity to get better.”
At the end of a long winter of physical
therapy and slowly learning to live with
his new body, Sommers decided it was
time to try picking up a football again.
Sommers spent every afternoon in Lance’s
backyard, learning a new throwing motion
to compensate for his new wheels.
08/03-31 May 2007
Gus Porter, a 26-year NFL scout, says
Sommers is the most exciting talent he has
ever seen.
“The speed alone is enough to make him
an NFL prospect right out of college,”
Porter says. “He dominated every game
he played in. When somebody did manage
to catch up to him, he just ran him or her
right over. He literally would leave skid
marks on people.”
jack bauer
ethan stark
But after eight games the North Border
League met to discuss the eligibility of
Sommers. After a series of discussions,
the conference decided that the use of motors was both illegal and unsafe, and informed the cyborg that he was no longer
eligible to play.
“It was a major blow, I couldn’t believe
that they would stop me from playing,”
Sommers says.
But the NCAA decided in December that
Sommers should not be barred from playing college football. As soon as their decision came down a flurry of letters came
into the Sommers’ mailbox.
“We got letters from every single Division
I head coach in the country,” Lance says.
“They were offering money, girls, cars,
whatever. But Sommers always dreamed
of being a Gopher, and nothing could persuade him to play for another team.”
On February 7, the first day that high
school seniors could sign National Letters
of Intent, Sommers agreed to play quarterback for the University of Minnesota on a
full-ride scholarship, and in the process
put the Gophers in contention for a Big
Ten title for the next four seasons.
“I just want to get in there and make a difference,” Sommers says. “I’ve been working my whole life for this chance. Losing
my legs didn’t stop me, so what can get in
the way now?”
Voices/
Senor ben alpert
10 /03–31 May 2007
\ Voices
Photo Poll
by DAEVE AND GERMY
HEY!
Gettin old is like growing
tomatoes. You plant them
and nurture them and then
one day you realize you hate
your wife.
OLD People
Mariners
Gonna make it rain on these
bitches.
SOCKs WITH SANDelS
Bro
If jimmy cracks corn and
nobody cares, then why
does he still crack corn?
some guy
Vagabond
Where are my pants?
GENERIC CHICKS
Business majors
\11
www.wakemag.org
Literary/
What a
Woman
can Muster
By Morning Victim #21734579349074
I’ve got a problem
the size of my right goiter
and it’s not my goiter—
rather some sort of issue
involving tissue boxes emptied
due to, of all people, you.
It has to do with this musk
of a walk you send to me like the vapor
of dutch-oven mornings
when you plow my nostrils with
your garlicy slice of frozen texas toast
from last night.
Monsters
By Lindsey Wallace
Your clumsiness leads to our demise when you trip on the sidewalk and crack your head
open. The rift is insignificant but now you have a head of the undead, you are half zombie.
You have a green crevasse in your skull. I pick you up to hold you but more cracks appear
and pink ribbons tumble out of your ears. They are soft and satiny. They bounce off your
shoulders and curl onto the ground. They keep bouncing. You are frozen in place and are
turning blue, your skin getting more papery and scaled with every passing moment. Your
eyes glaze over and the tears out of my eyes are not medicinal as they once were. You become rigid so I grab those ribbons. I tie them to a telephone pole and spin you around on
a saucer until you are a girlish mummy. You cannot see. You have a concussion. You have
loosened and can move but you are a robot. You stumble like you’re drunk into the street
while I watch helplessly. A car comes to a screeching halt. It is manned by two monsters,
a scary real one and a synthetic puppet one. The car barely nicks your knee but you go
down. The puppet has just come from a ribbon cutting ceremony so he uses his obnoxiously large scissors to cut you free. One slice frees your whole body. Your skin is supple
and peach colored, your back is turned to me. When you turn around I see that you are a
monster, you see that I am a monster, and there are monsters all around us walking up and
down the street.
What’s with that?
I want to understand your fiery-fueled
illusion as I stray from this abstraction of scent
as a sight unseen from my eyes—except for the ting
that rings their edges from each wiff.
Can I get a little more broccoli with that
nautical oddity wandering through my blankets
atmosphere
or was that the steak following it through?
I can’t get over you, spreading around my bedpost
through my nose. A women
should not make
such unscently things
as that which spreads to me
each morning.
At least clear it out
by sitting on the toilet
I don’t mind the deep echo
as it releases into the chamber.
Bizarro? Here’s
something bizarre:
A Supreme Court
Appointed President,
Dick Cheney,
“War” on “Terror”,
12/03-31 May 2007
No-Bid Contracts,
NSA Data Mining ,
Patriot Acts I & 2,
Military Commissions
Act of 2006,
The Suspension of
Habeas Corpus,
Hurricane Katrina,
Hatch Act Violations,
Rising Health Care,
Collective Inaction,
and on and on ...
\ Literary
The Sea
Farer’s
Bounty
Dancing
the Night
Away
By Beard Grun
By Genevieve Flowerbloom
My pantaloons
Croon for stretching
As I race the deck
Mustering my manliness
For the seagulls to crap on
And the stars to tinkle their
Rain on me.
Everything is wonderful
like the times when you smile
or smell pretty flowers.
We set to sea on a ship
Set out for gold magesty
So the Lords can spread their seed
With their ius primae noctis
With the little skirts.
A shame, really
As now I’m royalty
Without the gold
Or her tight hold.
Dancing the night away,
your tango was my rose
and you swept me away
into the dark of night
and the twinkle of the stars
as they smile down
on the pretty souls
who are beautiful for being.
Bitchitude
By Hot Sorority Girl
I am the sun,
I shine on you like
light on something.
And then, I burn you
because I am too hot.
My sorority doesn’t allow
losers to come inside so you
must
stay
out…
blah blah blah…
Tears and more tears
of existentialism and
you only look at my boobs.
Everything is wonderful,
like first kisses and summer rain.
Everything is wonderful
when smiles are about.
Sunshine
By Manerd A. Cogsworth
Your buttocks
is the sun’s finest shine.
Like flapjacks in a blender,
or carrot juice, spilled and dry,
ready for a lick or two,
maybe just a touch.
You eyes are like wine,
they fuck me up and then
I can’t get it up
because you’ve got a patch
over one eye from the time
a drunk sailor, paying for a blowjob,
stabbed you in the face and made off
with your cash. At least you still have
the coke.
\13
www.wakemag.org
BIG BASTARD/14
The Weekly Student Magazine of the University of Minnesota
VOLLEYBALL/12
FLIP
for the BIZARRO EDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
03 -31 May 2007
Editorial/
Editor-in-Chief
Jenny Odegard
Managing Editor
Eric Price
Literary Editor
Jacob Duellman
Campus Editor
Brad Tucker
Voices Editor
Nathaniel Olson
Sound & Vision Editor
Alice Vislova
Staff Writer
Carl Carpenter, Becky Lang
Editorial Assistants
Dan Olmschenk, Tammy Quan
PRODUCTION/
Production Manager
Jeremy Sengly
Art Director
Sam Soule
Photography Editor
Ethan Stark
Web Editor
Luke Preiner
Copy Editors
Brent Campbell, Erin Lavigne
Graphic Designers
Dave Hagen, Eric Price, Becki Schwartz,
Jeremy Sengly, Krista Spinti
Distributors
Preston Jones, Luke Preiner
BUSINESS/
Advertising Executive
Tyler Jones
Office Manager
Elizabeth Keely Shaller
Public Relations Director
Allie Dinnocenzo
Advertising Interns
Ben Anderson, Autumn Brothers, Eric
McPherson
Advisory Board
James DeLong, Kevin Dunn, Courtney Lewis,
Gary Schwitzer, Kay Steiger, Mark Wisser
THIS ISSUE/
Cover Artist
Aaron Ridgeway
Illustrators
Ben Alpert, Alex Judkins, Dave Hagen, Eric
Price, Aaron Ridgeway, Jeremy Sengly
Contributing Writers
Sage Dahlen, Amy Fink, Nick Gerhardt,
Evelyn Hampton, Sarah Henely, Becky Lang,
Jacob Miller, Sacha Orozco
Photographers
Ben Lansky, Ethan Stark
/5:28
©2007 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights
reserved.
Established in 2002, The Wake is a weekly
independent magazine and registered
student organization produced by and for the
students of the University of Minnesota.
The Wake Student Magazine
1313 5th St. SE #331
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 379-5952 • www.wakemag.org
The Wake was founded by Chris Ruen and
James DeLong.
Things I am excited about:
The impending release of this year’s Liminal literary
magazine.
My (and other members of staff’s) upcoming juice detox.
To join, look up the Master Cleanse. I’ll be starting
sometime around the 10th. Email for support.
Venezuela quitting the World Bank and IMF. Fucking
right.
BASTARD/14
Sound & Vision/04
CAMPUS/06
VOICES/08
LITERARY/11
ATHLETICS/12
PHOTOGRAPHY/13
My good friend and former Wake staffer, Michael
Mitchell’s thesis release party at Lee’s Liquor Lounge
on Thursday (5/3) at 9 pm.
Moving to an even warmer climate, because I can’t get
enough of global warming.
Never having to look at your ugly face again.
Being a reality TV star on Beauty and the Geek season
4. I’m actually not kidding, and am applying to be one of
the “gorgeous but academically impaired women” on
the show. I think I’ll use my editors note picture as my
headshot for the application. That will totally seal the
deal.
Hugs and Punches, I won’t miss any of you!
Jenny Odegard
Editor-in-Chief
Sound & Vision/
Shaker Revival
courtesy shaker revival
by Sage Dahlen
Indie-Rock. Post-Rock. Rap-Rock. Math-Rock. Grime.
Dub. Reggaeton. Drum N’ Bass. It can seem that new
genres are sprouting up faster than they can even be
categorized.
Is good, old-fashioned rock and roll any less effective than
it was 50 years ago? Local band Shaker Revival proves
that it doesn’t have to be by creating smart, catchy rock
music and causing audiences across the Twin Cities to get
up out of their chairs and dance.
Shaker Revival formed when all five original members
were students at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Greg Sullo (vocals, guitar) had previously attempted
other bands and solo projects, but none that had turned
out just right.
Sullo soon found that his desire to start “just a rock
band” was shared by enough of his friends that they were
able to get a small group together. Though the faces in the
band have changed slightly, the current lineup, including
Adam Fetcher (bass, vocals), Kit Donnelly (drums) and
Scott Vignos (keyboard, vocals), sounds tight and well rehearsed
Vignos was the latest addition to the band, when he
started playing with Shaker Revival this year. The band
decided to add a keyboard to fill out some of their existing
material.
“There were a couple songs we weren’t even playing live
anymore because they were missing parts,” said Fetcher.
Though adding keyboard changes some elements of their
04/03-31 May 2007
music, the overall effect is essentially the same.
Sullo is responsible for writing most of the songs and
their lyrics, but after initially introducing songs to the
band, the finished product is a group effort.
“After the band learns how a song works, then it becomes
a communal process,” said Sullo
Though their songs are constantly being categorized as
50’s music, the band does not find this label to be particularly apt.
To Shaker Revival, the name
seemed appropriate for a band for
which the main goal was simply to
get the audience to dance.
“I think that’s not really accurate,” said Sullo. Both he
and Fetcher feel that the closest thing to the music they
make would be with that of the 60’s.
Their track “Leap Of Faith” especially articulates this
comparison. The handclaps, up-beat guitar riffs, smooth
bass, and emotive vocals conjure sounds similar to that of
The Kinks and the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for
the Man.” Though their decade of influence is debatable,
the band’s name comes from a different century.
The name refers to religious group, the Shakers, that was
at its peak during the 1700’s. Shakers were known for
abandoning traditional services for rituals of dancing and
well, shaking. To Shaker Revival, the name seemed appropriate for a band for which the main goal was simply to
get the audience to dance.
Causing students to twist and shout, Shaker Revival has
graced many stages in the Twin Cities including The Varsity, The 400 Bar, The Triple Rock and 7th Street Entry.
They have supported the likes of The Hopefuls, The Ponys, and Small Sins.
At this point it would seem like things for the band should
be escalating, while they instead seem to be slowing
down. Studio time falling through, and gig schedules irregular, members are questioning how far things will go.
About one year ago, a video was uploaded to MNstories.
com that focused on what the band saw in store for them
in the future. Though there have been many changes since
then, the band seems to be facing many of the same issues.
Recording is a main priority, but beyond that, details are
fuzzy.
“I feel like we owe it to ourselves to make a record,” said
Fetcher. “I don’t believe that a band can make it without a
recording, or a really lucky break.”
Though the band’s future is uncertain, it seems anything
but bleak. The group has just finished the recording of a
five song EP, which will be released later this month.
Shaker Revival will be celebrating the release of their EP with a performance at the 400 Bar on Friday, May 25. For additional information
about the band and their upcoming shows visit, http://www.myspace.
com/shakerrevival
\Sound & Vision
Minnesota Artists Study
People In Bed, On the
Phone, In Space, and In the
Mouths of Sharks
By Becky Lang
If you’re sick of experiencing art while schoolbusloads
of eight year olds give eachother cootie shots in front of
one of Monet’s haystacks, it may be time that you ventured out of museums. There’s always the option of driving down the highway and looking at billboards, but
seeing graphic design applied to Coke bottles doesn’t
have quite the ambience of a traditional gallery. Gallery Co, set in a loft in 1st Avenue’s Wyman Building,
has the minimalistic, quiet environment that allows you
to experience new art without distraction. This month,
starting on April 12th and going until May 25th, they are
exhibiting five of Minnesota’s most well-reputed artists.
On one wall are three paintings of an astronaut, by
Sean Connaughty. The paintings are of the same subject; all that changes are the values of light in subtle
places, most notably his face. It is as if the astronaut has
stood in the same place all day, letting the sun fall over
him at different angles. Connaughty seems to be absorbed by the idea of space and planetary isolation, and
the ways in which cognizant beings glean information
about the unknown. One of his most notable projects is
called “History of the Earth,” which points out that if
we knew nothing about the Earth, even the most seemingly worthless item would be a wellspring of cultural
and geographical information. In his project, he collects artifacts of Earth, from polaroids of gas stations to
pieces of bark to a series of igloos. Some of his videos,
including one that pans from organic cheese to Dinty
Moore Stew, can be seen online.
Hanging on torn, incomplete sheets are the portraits
and paintings of Clea Felien. The images are often
kitschy: people smiling by teddy bears, kangaroos, or
family members, but are presented in such a vibrant,
fragmented manner that cutesiness is overridden. The
subjects are often stuck in cars or sitting on beach
chairs that are never finished, but instead fade off into
empty space; their stance isolates them against their
own will and knowledge, fated to forever express the
happiness, confusion, or boredom on their face at that
moment. According to her artistic statement, Felien
wants to pry under surface emotion, freezing it in order
to question the simplicity that is supposedly there. She
paints with her left, non-dominant hand in order to allow a more abstract sense of composition to emerge and
create new life. “The lines becomes the skeleton, and the
paint the flesh,” she says of the process.
Phone conversations are the focus of artist Melissa Stang.
Using a variety of media, from tracing paper to pastels,
Stang has drawn endless variations of the universally-relatable experience of talking on the phone. Telemarketers chat on a piece of green paper, clustered together at a
clump of desks. Managers narrow their eyebrows at some
unseen, displeasing subject, while a phone at their ear
suggests the presence of a person at the other line, hearing
whatever that character may have to say. Some have blue
faces, illuminated by the glow of their computers, and
some are seen foggily through a car window, a hula girl
on the dashboard and french fries in the passsenger seat.
Some of her other projects include a series called “Homo
Domesticus,” focusing on the objects around our house,
like plates and jackets on hangers. Through her art, Stang
exposes the countless variations of the quotidienne and
our relation to all of its trinkets.
“With acrylics I can put many semitransparent layers over one another, just like a person might put
on an act to hide what is really happening in his or her life.”
Sometimes guilded in gold, and often exposing a lot of
skin, Ben Olson depicts people at their most vulnerable.
The texture is like a dream or a nightmare, depending
on the content. The skin is unnaturally vibrant, more of
a violent blend of reds, peaches and whites than any consistent shade, as if the muscle fibers and bone marrow
beneath them are ready to leak out. Some paintings have
just one subject against a dreary wall, as inexplicably significant as a dream symbol, staring into space with their
legs jutting out, skinny and pale. But it’s the paintings of
couples that have the most haunting dynamic. Some are
lying on aqua colored matresses with faded wallpaper in
the background, and some are simply amidst an ambiguous flurry of white paint strokes, but in any scenario, the
tension is tangible. Olson thinks it is his painting style
that reflects the painting’s inner sincerity, saying in his
artistic statement, “With acrylics I can put many semitransparent layers over one another, just like a person
might put on an act to hide what is really happening in his
or her life.”
kiefer sutherland
Photographer Celese Nelms has a more light-hearted approach to her art, although the ultimate product isn’t
without an ominous quality. Fond of cast-off belongings,
she cruises through garage sales in order to find subjects
that would intermingle with nature in an original way.
In her series of photos, she shows a woman in a cornfield with a silk kimono on, looking sad about the broken
stalks, alongside another photo of a woman peeking her
head into a shark’s mouth amidst a field of cast-off parade
floats and carnie decorations. Each photo is in sepia, giving an old-fashioned, almost classic look to scenarios that
are anything but. One appears to be almost archetypal:
a giant fallen under a branch, his head in the grass, but
turns out to be a person in a mask with huge Incredible
Hulk gloves on, while a tiny figurine dangles on a twig.
What Nelms aims to depict is her “presence within the
‘natural world’…an honest sense of place as to how I am
connected to it.”
For those who are sick of the Kleenex box on a chair
type of psuedo-art that’s invading museums, this exhibit
quenches the part of you that secretly desires art to be
aesthetically interesting, if not even pleasing. If you can’t
make it to the building, at least seek them out through
Google, only if it’s just to reinforce the belief that art can
actually resonate with us, rambling existential explanations aside.
\05
www.wakemag.org
Campus/
Prairie grasses could
provide a clean energy
source
BY evelyn hampton
To power the explosion into machinedriven life, we dragged coal out of the
earth and fed the dense source of stored
plant energy into machines that spewed
and spewed and are still spewing carbon
dioxide (CO2). That little byproduct is
as common as breath but rather harmful
when exhaled at the prodigious rate that
we with our machines exhale it. Since the
start of the Industrial Revolution, humans
have pumped an additional 100 parts per
million of CO2 into the atmosphere.
But go back before the Industrial Revolution. Back when our decidedly more simple
machines were powered by stored plant
energy in the form of wood and other plant
stuffs. This was cleaner energy than that
from fossil fuels. And it may be just the
sort of energy we need to help solve the
current climate crisis.
Planting prairies on nutrient-depleted
farmlands--fallow land that’s unusable for
farming--and using the plants and grasses
for fuel could reduce our current CO2
emissions by 15%, according to an influential paper recently published in Science.
“In this paper we’re talking about coming
full circle, back to the 19th century idea
of using biofuels from grasslands,” says
Clarence Lehman, theoretical ecologist in
the University of Minnesota’s Department
of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, and
co-author of the paper with David Tilman
and Jason Hill.
“It’s not so much that we’re running out of
fossil fuels, but that we cannot continue
adding CO2 to the atmosphere at the rate
we’ve been doing it and have the earth
remain an earth as we know it,” Lehman
says.
Lehman and his co-authors propose that
we plant and harvest grasslands, and then
use the harvested plant material for a fuel
that’s a carbon-negative form of energy.
Gasoline and other fossil-fuels are carbon-positive--the net effect of producing and burning them is to add CO2 and
other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
06/03-31 May 2007
Other kinds of fuels are carbon neutral-producing and burning them, we add no
pollution.
Another way to offset our CO2 is to plant
trees. Over the course of its century-long
lifetime, one acre of pine trees absorbs the
CO2 from one car driven 25,000 miles per
year over the course of the century (just
forget, for a moment, that most cars would
never make it a century). The problem is,
we don’t have nearly enough space for all
the acres of pine trees we would need to
absorb all the CO2 we’re emitting.
Grassland biofuel, though, is carbon-negative: it actually helps remove pollutants
from the environment. “Burning one ton
of grassland biofuel, grown on a restored
prairie, as a net effect, removes one ton of
CO2 from the atmosphere,” Lehman says.
Over the course of their lives, all plants
take in CO2--it helps them grow and keeps
the soil fertile. A prairie full of a diversity of plants--Lehman is recommending
at least 16 species--would pull in plenty
of CO2 to sustain itself, more than would
be released when we eventually burn the
plants for fuel. What’s more, grasslands
planted where they once grew naturally
wouldn’t need nearly as much fertilizer
and pesticides as corn, a ubiquitous crop
that is lately popular as a source of ethanol, fuel that’s less harmful than gasoline
but still carbon-positive.
alex judkins
Lehman envisions grassland biofuel as
part of a self-sustaining cycle: continuously planting prairies on land too nutrient poor for farming, returning the land
to health, and meanwhile using the prairie
grasses for fuel.
The Minnesota State Legislature is considering a bill that would fund a pilot project of 10,000 acres. While passing the bill
would bring us closer to Lehman’s vision
for a sustainable energy source, he emphasizes that grassland biofuel is not a cureall for our current energy conundrum. We
need multiple solutions--like more efficient
light bulbs and ways of capturing CO2
before it reaches the atmosphere--in addition to a carbon-negative fuel. But most of
these solutions are within our grasp; now,
it’s just a matter of taking action. “There
is no silver bullet in solving the energy
crisis,” Lehman says. “There is, however, a
buckshot load of silver pellets.”
\ Campus
Terrorists in Drag?
BY becky lang
“New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice,” read an ambitious headline, doomed to be thrown-out by the
shaky hands of post-9/11 America. Between worrying about terrorists looking
up bomb recipes in the local libraries, and
triple checking their mail for anthrax,
Americans were too tired to deal with the
technicalities of transexuals checking a
gender box different from that of their
birth certificates. Like many others, Paisley Currah, professor of political science
at Brooklyn College, felt that people with
recently changed sex should not receive
the blunt end of the nation’s paranoia. On
Thursday, April 19, he spoke at the Nolte
Center’s library on the rights, conceptions
and fears that create state policy of gender
recognition.
Even before 9/11, most states were reluctant or unwilling to allow individuals with
recent sex-change operations to change
their identity, for fear of “fraud.” The new
millenium, progressive enough to have a
transgender man kissing a lesbian on All
My Children, still has not made the plight
of legal sex change well-defined. The policy varies from state to state, which Currah called “paradoxical” because the main
defining factors in an individual’s gender
were not physiological, but geographical;
state lines determined if one was a boy or
a girl.
True opponents fear that
homosexuals will go as far
as having a sex operation,
getting married, and then
having another sex operation back to their original
sex.
New York has recently proposed the idea
of a two-level prerequisite proving that an
individual’s new gender is permanent. One
must first have a psychological evaluation,
so that the psychologist can determine
whether or not one either intends to stay
their current gender, or mentally exhibits qualities of their claimed gender. After
that, one must also get a “doctor’s note”
proving that they have the equipment necessary to fulfill a physical description of
that gender.
jack bauer
Paisley has many problems with this approach. For one, gender is determined not
just by “the goods”, but by seven different
factors, including chromosomes, rearing,
and secondary sex characteristics. This
construct of gender gets complicated when
we consider the studies of Kinsey, which
suggested that few of us identify with our
own gender in every aspect. If the state
used all seven of these as prerequisites,
barely any of us would know which box to
check with complete confidence.
Another problem is the idea of requiring “permanence” in gender. According to
Paisley, the main reason for this is to ward
off any possibility of same sex marriages.
True opponents fear that homosexuals will
go as far as having a sex operation, getting
married, and then having another sex operation back to their original sex.
The issue is ridden with loopholes. The
transsexual/transgender community is
tired of loopholes in the law system that
allow their rights to be denied, and the
law-makers are afraid of the loopholes in
sexuality that could allow one to avoid being defined strictly by one gender. Negotiating between civil liberties and a public
demand for tradition and static identity is
a process tricky enough to create different policies throughout the country and
the world. Only a couple U.S. states completely forbid one to change the gender on
their birth certificates, and most European
countries follow a process similar to that
being proposed in New York. However, in
Spain one can change their legal gender
with no questions asked.
Paisley thinks that there is a natural suspicion that appearance is a type of promise. “How you look is a promise of who you
are,” he says. The idea of a person being
indefinable is counter-intuitive, especially
in our culture, whose media depicts teenagers as being separated into lunch tables
by whether or not they are jocks, preps,
or dorks. Once this tendency is stuck in
a panicked environment, people tend to
have less time to weed out the finer points
of identity. Paisley laughs about aspects
of the post-9/11 mindset affecting the legal rights of transgender individuals. “A
terrorist could be anywhere, even masking themselves as a transsexual,” he jokes,
pointing out, “that assumes that you can’t
be a terrorist and a transexual.”
This tendency can also be seen in our reliance on birth certificates as the ultimate
authority on identity. The notion of going back to birth, where we had experienced nothing and had made none of our
own choices, is in itself an implication
that the fundamentals of identity change
little through time. As companies like
iTunes track our music preferences and
the government gains access to our medical records, it may be that our concepts of
identification acknowledge that we are in
flux.
\07
www.wakemag.org
Voices/
Fuck GEICO
BY Nattie olson
Magic Does Not
Happen There
BY Nattie olson
GEICO, for Christ’s sake, cut out the fucking caveman!
Jesus, this wasn’t funny the first time, and it isn’t funny
three years later, either. I read recently some idiot producer actually greenlighted a pilot featuring said caveman.
Thank God that wasn’t picked up.
GEICO’s advertising campaign: It’s so easy, even a caveman could do it!
I swear to God, if I see one more person giving a house
tour, which is for some mistake on TV, do the Vanna White
swoop with their arm to indicate their bed, and say, “This
is where the magic happens,” I am going to hurl. Who says
that? And why are they on TV? Isn’t that a little self-indulgently pretentious and disgusting, to suggest where
you fuck and fart in your sleep is somehow a realm of
“magic.”
Denny Hecker’s
Shit-Eating Grin
BY Nattie olson
Few things can ruin my day so early in the morning with
such precision as having to board a bus with Denny Hecker’s ugly face on it. Even forgetting my coffee thermos
isn’t as bad as seeing that big yellow ad cruise up to 34th
St. & 40th Ave. Who the hell is this guy? Didn’t he glance
at the picture before he okayed it to be plastered fucking
everywhere? My only assumption is that this one–and you
know the one I’m talking about, where it looks like he’s in
mid-sentence while taking a dump–is actually a good picture of him. Yikes.
Ben alpert
You Don’t
Deserve El Che
BY Nattie olson
Che Guevara was awesome. Awhile back, I heard someone
call him a “terrorist,” and I laughed until I realized the
person speaking had kids, which he would likely influence. Guevara remains a symbol of Latin American struggle over the powers that control, the powers that maintain
the fact that 90% of the land in South America is owned
by 10% of the population. So yeah, I was plenty pissed off
when I saw that on the final season of The O.C. the writers
introduced some new character named “Che,” who was a
hippie-loser-stoner-rich-kid-asshole. Had he been Argentine, or at least Latino, I might not have been so mad, but
he was a total fucking whiteboy! And the worst part about
was that the actor who played him is from Minnesota.
Goddamnit.
08/03-31 May 2007
You’re Not “Right,”
Asshole
BY Nattie olson
You call yourself a liberal. You dig the environment. (Get
it?) You think rich people ought to pay more in taxes, a lot
more, as they can probably afford it. If so, then we will
get along very well. If you’re still reading this, which to
me suggests that you’re lefty, too, then I pose a question
to you:
Why is it that the word “right” means both “correct” and
“conservative”? Isn’t that giving them something of an
unfair, undeserved advantage? One time a year or two ago,
I overheard some drunk asshole Montanan explain something to his friend. “You see,” he mumbled, “we’re right,
and we’re right, get it?”
Yes, you’re totally right. As in both correct and full of
hate/condescension towards gay people, the lower class,
and “terrorists”.
\ Voices
Ooh,
That Smell
ben alpert
BY amy fink
You’re sitting by the window on a cross-town bus, when
you reluctantly notice a lone teenager catching a nosetickling, pungent odor. The boy is surrounded by an
invisible cloud of body spray that lingers in his tracks.
And out of all the places to sit, he picks the seat right
next to you. You reach for the window in desperation,
coughing and choking between breaths, but it won’t
budge. The misery continues for at least 20 minutes, until you reach your much-awaited stop.
Surely you’ve smelled it. Here or somewhere similar.
The nightmare started in 1983 with the release of Axe
in France. Unilever advertised its product globally with
commercials warning of “the Axe effect.” It was as if
they had created some powerful pheromone provoking
beautiful girls to leave behind all criterion for sexual
partners/self respect to attack each unsuspecting, supposedly good-smelling boy who used it.
Gillette never wanted anybody to
know it was them.
They advertised in just about every medium, using
product placement in various video games, including
Mojo Master (one of their very own) and an animated
TV series with a plot surrounding Axe (and the pursuit
of ladies). They’ve even recruited college males who are
paid to throw Axe parties, and models—Axe Angels—
hired to spray guys’ chests at events across the nation.
But Unilever wasn’t alone in seeing the value of teen
fragrances. Competitor Gillette hopped on board, attempting to market its Right Guard Body Spray in 2002.
But the name just screamed deodorant. In 2005 Gillette
tried again. This time it was called TAG, and the advertising strategies seemed just an echo of those for Axe.
But Gillette never wanted anybody to know it was them.
And I don’t blame them.
Nowhere is the leading brand name to be seen on the
cans and in the advertisements. According to an article
in the Boston Globe in August 2005, however, this was
not because they were ashamed to have subjected the
world to this odorous evil. It was because body sprays
are for kids—teenagers and college students. And teenagers would like never buy the same brand as their geezer parents.
In 2006 Gillette released TAG Body Shots, the portable
body spray for those odor emergencies. Marketers knew
that teenagers were stashing a supply of spray in their
lockers and desks for all day usage, and they wanted to
make it that much easier to bring everywhere.
But if you practically bathe in your body spray, like too
many boys do, of course the girls will run. Away.
And if it’s because you smell bad and it’s not to attract
the ladies, I assure you, nothing short of a shower will
fix it.
Getting
Lost
The easily attained joys of
vicarious living
BY nattie olson
It is somewhat amazing the Lost fanbase remains, even
after suffering through bullshit episodes like the one
where Hurley just so happens to find an old Volkswagen in the jungle. But I think we’re still here because
secretly, we wish that was us. It could be the real version of a clean slate, of starting over. Sure, your friends
and family are gone, but then again, you are a newborn. Only with all the knowledge from the mistakes
you made before. Forget it all, every lie you told, every
sin, every person you ever let down. Your plane goes
down during a storm and since the radios went out
hours beforehand, nobody knows where you are, so
you’re fucked. But are you? Perhaps that’s a twinge too
bold, but for those of us who were born here, grew up
here, and couldn’t exactly afford to go out of the state
for school, well. We tend to have this desire to get out of
Minnesota.
What you see these days, some of it reminds me of the
old days, but the bulk reminds me of that old saying
from a Robert Frost poem, about how nothing gold can
stay. But there was a time when it was gold, before the
departure of super-hero writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach,
when the storytelling was so pure, new, and superb,
that even a bitter cynic such as myself was captivated.
That period was about the first thirty episodes, shows
that demonstrated an incredible talent for writing and
directing. That was then. Now it’s not exactly the case.
But I don’t give up on things I love so easily, so I’m going
to keep watching. Even if it means rearranging plans,
possibly wasting hours of my life, the one that I’ll only
live once, I don’t care. I’ll go down with the ship.
As far as art is concerned, we can all admit things have
declined. But man that first season! It was always just
so close to bordering science-fiction, yet remaining in
the realm of the real world. And for the mid-Westerner,
unfortunately not very well traveled, seeing the on-sight
location in Oahu for probably the first time–seeing the
thick jungle open up to a golden beach where the waves
were just right makes me think, “Corona, anyone?” The
hard, sharp cliffs where the vines hung, moistened by
delicate spray of mist from nearby waterfalls, oh man.
Then when Locke and Boone found the hatch, the unexplainable steel structure underground, with that little
blue window making it just a twinge like outer-space,
containing God-knows-what inside, how could you not
be curious to high hell what was in it? Anything could’ve
been down there, an answer to how the world began,
something about the meaning of life.
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
But what was it? Oh yeah, that second season premier,
the beginning of the end. When you found out what was
down there. Some dude punching a code every hour and a
half. To prevent the world from blowing up.
Wait, what?
This is why Boone was the best character on the show.
The quality of his character wasn’t diluted by any forced,
bullshit plot lines like entering a code every hour and a
half, someone having premonitions, or finding a Volkswagen in the middle of the jungle. Not only that, but he was
also at peace with himself when he died, which is pretty
much all we can ask for.
Also, Boone was among the elite, macho dudes on the
show who got to use the show’s recurring line, and theme,
which I hope you recognize.
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
Jack says it, Boone says it, Locke says it first–I think.
About every seven or eight shows, only a few times per
season, you’ll hear someone say something along the lines
of “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
And what a great message for our overly obedient generation. Thinking about why you do anything, why you’re
in school or anything really, how present is the force of
things older–and therefore supposedly wiser, or so they
told us–in your life? With what weight do the powers
that be guide the person you are? Don’t ever let anyone
tell you what you can’t do, because if it’s your life, then
it’s your call, moreover, if you’re reading this, then you’re
breathing, so carpe diem.
\09
www.wakemag.org
Voices/
Photo Poll
by Ethan Stark
How has the Apocalypse
improved your life?
Sailing’s been good.
kevin costner
Mariner
The Amazing Race:
An Homage
to Xenophobia?
Those damn suitors have
finally stopped pestering
me!
Madeline cornwallis
Lady-in-waiting
jeremy sengly
by jacob miller
I recently had an interaction with primetime television.
The program was CBS’s The Amazing Race in which a
select few international travelers get to race around the
globe in some kind of competition, entertaining themselves along the way with little objectives and games
to play. Sprawled on the couch by the fireplace after an
enormous Easter dinner a couple of weeks ago, I watched
with excitement and curiosity. But it was less of a truly
entertained excitement, perhaps because I was enthralled
to see who would win the prize of brand new motor scooters, than it was an experience of concerned and troubling
observation. What was wrong with this picture? Who were
these people? What difference does it make?
It would be difficult to argue against
the idea that Westerners are selfcentered and arrogant.
These travelers were foreigners in seemingly exotic locations. But they were a particular type of foreigner in the
streets of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for example, where
the episode I viewed was based; they were “Westerners”,
probably from the U.S. Most contestants were young, attractive and stylish and had to interact at times with the
“local” population. The space in which the travelers had
to interact with the “other” was quite limited. The focus
10/03-31 May 2007
was on the contestants and their dramatic interactions
with each other, as little soap operas seemed to conveniently erupt for our viewing pleasure. Very little of
the locations was talked about. We are told as viewers
almost nothing about Malaysia as it became a static, almost indifferent location served as a literal playground
for the privileged travelers parading around, behaving like spoiled children. One of the little games they
played involved them going to a street market and stuffing their faces with hundreds of cookies, as the seemingly confused passerby’s gawked at them, perhaps as
disgusted as I was.
What do we make of all this? For one, it would be difficult to argue against the idea that Westerners are
self-centered and arrogant. Most importantly, this relationship reflects the cultural dimensions of a history
of domination and empire, in which the politics of identity and representation play a key role. What difference
did it make if they were in Malaysia or in Morocco or
Mexico City? I think little. Their ignorance compounded
their arrogance, highlighting the historical relationship of a superior “us” versus an objectified and inferior
“them”. There are many other ways to analyze content
so rich in expression of our contemporary dilemma,
such as class and gender issues, all of which serve to
sustain the dominant model: capitalistic, West-centric,
patriarchal, hetero and bourgeois.
Apocalypse?
Gregor samsa
Cockroach
Well, it’s nice to be back.
jesus h. christ
Messiah
\ Literary
\11
www.wakemag.org
Athletics/
On a cool spring Sunday night two teams entered the
North Gym of the Rec Center at the University of Minnesota to battle for the coveted intramural volleyball championship t-shirts. One team would prevail while the other
would have to swallow the bitter pill of defeat knowing full well the ramifications of having lost the Co-ed B
league championship.
Like battle-tested warriors from the Roman Empire, team
Sugar and Spice and the Pharmacy team entered to duke
it out in a no-holds barred arena with a net in the middle.
The Pharmacy team entered on a high note, having gone
undefeated throughout the entire eight-week season. The
regular season field proved too weak to rattle the veteran
team and they did not see a third game the whole year.
The team of Sugar and Spice looked nasty with t-shirt
messages of “balls to the wall”, worn by the males and
“get it up” adorned by the females. However clever their
shirts were, their team entered with scowls as cold as a
metal pole at subzero temperatures.
They had youth on their side and tenacity in their blood.
Tension filled the gymnasium the entire evening as previous teams grunted, screamed and moaned in agony on
every point.
“There were a lot of angry teams,” one staff member of
the intramural league said.
The hot air from earlier matches left a sense of urgency
in the atmosphere and desperation fueled the Pharmacy
team and Sugar and Spice as they prepared to engage in
the defining moment of their intramural volleyball lives in
front of a crowd of two spectators.
Great digs, sets, bumps and spikes defined the first game
between the two units. Heavy perspiration and ankle
tweaks impeded progress towards the goal, along with the
occasional water break between points. Sugar and Spice
came out with aggressive play that sent the Pharmacy
team into the defensive mode. Despite it all, the Pharmacy
team crawled from the hole they dug for themselves and
came back in a fury. The pivotal moment came when Bill
Konze rejected a spike attempt by Sugar and Spice and
tied the game at 22 all. While the Pharm team relaxed
for a moment they suffered a tragic setback as a teammate inadvertently sent the ball spiraling out of bounds
to return the serve to Sugar and Spice and make the score
23-22, S&S. Sugar and Spice failed to take advantage of
the blunder and served the ball into the net on the following play for a point to the Pharm and a serve. The Pharm
team, being the crafty veterans they are, took it home
from there with a massive spike by Konze to end the game
at 25-23 in favor of the Pharm team.
The second game showcased the “never say die” attitude
of Sugar and Spice as they reeled off five consecutive
points to climb to within four points at 15-11. Their effort
would be for naught as the Pharm team pulled themselves
up once again and rallied to reclaim the lead following a
devastating spike to make the score 21-20. From there the
Pharm team allowed only two more points while cruising
to the victory.
ethan stark
“It was many hours of blood, sweat and tears,” Ryan Vansickle said.
The thrill of victory never tasted so sweet for most of the
members. The victory ranked number two in Konz’s book,
coming after an intramural basketball championship
played on the nearly 80-year-old hardwood court of Williams Arena.
“The real reason we won was because we didn’t have tests
for two weeks,” Tonya Foldy said.
By Nick Gerhardt
12/03–31 May 2007
\ Photography
Sometimes we send photographers to concerts
for stories that don’t get written. This happened
to ben lansky recently. Rather than destroy them
in a ritualistic fire like we usually do we thought
we’d publish them instead. so here they are for your
retinal pleasure.
afternoon records showcase at the varsity
Klaxons at the 7th Street entry
afternoon records showcase at the Varsity
Klaxons at the 7th street entry
\13
www.wakemag.org
\ Sound & Vision
alex judkins
\05
www.wakemag.org