The first thing you notice when you see Sara’s face is her nose. In fact, at first glance, you might mistake it for half of Adrian Brody’s nose. Sara’s shnoz got its start as a conveniently placed ramp in the Dukes of Hazzard. It then got its own romantic reality show, “The Smell of Love,” where contestants competed to have sex with Sara’s nose. For a brief stint in the early 90s, her nose got into some pretty heavy drug use, mostly banned nasal spray and powdered rhinoceros horn (called “crash” on the street). Her nose is clean now and currently tours with Sara; however, due to unrest in the Middle East, the US Navy is contemplating using her nose as a replacement for the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.
Sara’s songs mention love, and songs, and an unwillingness to write such songs about love for men.
Please don’t write me a love song. Would a truly hot girl really need to write someone a love song if she wanted to have sex with him? No. She’d just show up in their den, dressed in bacon underwear with a super-soaker containing the cheapest light beer available. She could get any man she wanted including some sort of Poseidon/George Clooney hybrid.
Sara goes past “plain” into “lifeless.”
When she smiles she looks straight malicious, similar to the “Unklehalamham,” a treacherous, grinning daemon, from Norse mythology. If Sara truly is this terrible beast, then we cannot wait for her to return our village and steal our children. She must be destroyed. I say we make the three-day trek, deep into the mountains, so we can kill the beast as it slumbers. Who’s with me?
I really don’t see how anyone could think Frida Kahlo was attractive. I meant, Sara. Wow, that’s embarrassing for her that I would do that. Maybe if her eyebrows didn’t double as the world’s second largest “fuzzy-caterpillar-conservatorium,” then I wouldn’t have mixed their names up.
Sara is really just that semi-attractive teenage girl from your high school that the dudes hung-out with because she was kind of cool (look at me, I can sing!). She got some play but mainly just because she was there not because she was a looker. Now she’s famous, and she’s probably still playing up a league. I can’t fathom waking up next to a make-up-less Sara Bareilles in the morning. That image has the sex appeal of Henry Kissinger sucking a Popsicle (shown in the film “The ‘Cold’ War: or ‘How I Learned to Stop Caring and Embrace My Inner Woman.”)
Even though Sara’s nose is currently aiding airstrikes in the Libyan revolution, her smile is reminiscent of demonic forces, and her eyebrows act as “Sunsetter” retractable awnings- I’d still do it. Why? Because when you look past all that stuff…she’s sorta hot…kinda…right?
Oh, and who the fuck is The National?
Point: P/CP rulez
Alright, so I have a problem with the last two issues of The Slant. We’ve had no Point/Counterpoint articles. Why not, you ask? It’s because the editors are too lazy to think of clever topics and decide to find easier ways to fill up blank space. Those bitches!
This has to change. After all, what would The Slant be without the Point/Counterpoint? Just a bunch of words and no pictures with no big dash cutting through the middle of an article, that’s what! It is a completely necessary component of our periodical, and we would be dishonoring the venerable name of The Slant were we even to consider leaving it out for good. Point/Counterpoint is to The Slant what the Big Mac is to McDonald’s. It is tradition personified. To put it in perspective, let’s say you go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Then you’re told it’s not there, because people thought ugly condos were a better way to fill the area. Well, for the non literarily inclined, in this metaphor Paris is The Slant, Point/Counterpoint is the Eiffel tower, and the French are smelly people who talk with funny accents even in their own language.
Yes, we may lavish the graphics on the page and space it specially so that it takes up a lot (a LOT) of space, but hey, it’s two articles in one! Two-for-one! All your friends love Two-for-one deals, DON’T YOU? Not to mention that the debates that take place in Point/Counterpoint articles are highly stimulating both for the brain and other parts of the body. Two people who clearly have NO IDEA who the other writer is square off around an issue and just go at it. There’s no script. There’s no planning; the two definitely don’t plan it out together. Where else are you going to find this time of exhilaration? Aside from huge theme parks, probably nowhere.
So I say to you, fellow Slant lovers, embrace the Point/Counterpoint. Want it. Want it some more. Voice your opinions on how much the Point/Counterpoint means to you, because there may never be a more legitimate way to take up space in the Slant again. Besides, assuming this gets published, I’ve already won.
Counterpoint: Point/Counterpoint Sucks
So, for multiple reasons, the whole Point/Counterpoint sucks. First off, the freshmen don’t even know what this is. Point/Counterpoint used to be a feature in every issue where two professional scholars held a fair debate on important issues, but toward the end of last year it just became two drunkards arguing over sparkly lip gloss. We also haven’t had a Point/Counterpoint yet this year, so new readers will be startled when some useless pair of articles starts showing up in their usual tri-weekly Slant—and who is cruel enough to scare freshmen? It’s like when a second Big Mac appeared inside the good old status quo Big Mac to form the Double Big Mac. For that matter, Point/Counterpoint is probably bad for your health, too.
Let’s face it; Point/Counterpoint is NOT why anyone picks up The Slant. Who wants to read two sarcastic satirists have a duel over some issue that will probably not affect them in any ostensible fashion? Clearly, this is just filler anyway. By writing this, I feel like the olive in a martini, like Passion Pit opening for Snoop Dogg, like the states of Washington and Oregon, and even like salad at dinnertime: useless and just thrown in there to take up space.
Actually, how can this article even exist? Have I already lost the debate if this is getting printed? Everything I stand for is in vain. Arguing AGAINST Point/Counterpoint has provided a counterpoint for Point/Counterpoint. My life is a paradox. If this article is a lie, then what else is? If I didn’t debate against my own existence, would I cease to exist? Do I only exist because I am being observed? Will I vanish if you blink? Please don’t blink. Please. Don’t!
*poof*
Counter Point: Breaking Bones
Eighth grade is supposed to be a year of boy bands, sparkly lip gloss, acne, and the dying love of that enigmatic concept called high school. For me, it was the majority of that (well, replace the boy bands with Green Day. What’d you expect?) but with one lovely curveball thrown in: breaking my face.
Yes, you read that correctly.
It was the second week of school. A friend of mine, attempting at generosity, had a gaggle of girls over for a sleepover. I politely accepted, and believe I even brought a hostess gift of a bag of Reese’s Pieces.
Everything was magical and Lisa Frank worthy until that fateful moment.
The moment that changed everything.
Well, maybe just my face.
I did gymnastics when I was younger. Wanting to outdo whichever gymnast was considered “beast” before Shawn Johnson, I decided to do a front flip and land on my feet. 99.999999% of the time, this is what happens. But this time, I had the 0.000001% failure. My friends even warned me that my accident-prone nature might get the best of me (they barely even knew me and my bad luck already preceded me…), but I rolled my eyes and did it anyway, saying with confidence: “I did this all the time, I never hurt myself! And if you’re worrying about broken bones, I haven’t broken a single one!!” With which my right knee shoved into my face, fracturing my cheekbone 18 times, breaking the orbital (the bone that holds your eye in your face), and breaking my nose in 4 places—and now, since they didn’t do surgery then, I have to get my nose rebuilt on June 3rd (Care packages greatly appreciated).
Justin can sit on his high, healthy boned chair and gab all he wants to. He just better watch out before his face gets rammed in. By his knee. On a trampoline.
Breaking your face isn’t a glamorous movie make-up job. You don’t get kudos for being in a fight worthy of mentioning in an S.E. Hinton book. No, it just fucking hurts. Allergies are a bitch enough, it’s worse when you can’t blow your nose without crying like a baby and your face looks like it got transplanted from a Smurf–all in time for
picture day!!! I’ve had double whiplash, severe tendonitis in both shoulders, recurring sinus infections, bloody noses, hangovers, migraines, paper cuts, and bleeding knees. THIS IS SENT FROM HELL…OR SPARTA. As for this surgery, here’s what goes down. Basically, my nose is nothing but broken bones & scar tissue. So first they have to carve
out my nostrils to make them bigger. Then, they take all the skin off my nose and, in Ashlee Simpson style, realign the cartilage in my nose (aka, rebreaking my nose to put it back together). Then I get plastic shoved up my nose to keep my nose from healing shut together (so my nose would look more like Voldemort than Ashlee) and can’t breathe. So, while I get to be a lazy ass for three weeks, I’ll have blood running down my face ala Andrew WK and won’t be able to breathe through my nose.
Hot diggity damn.
Point: Not Breaking Bones
Call me “average” if you wish, but if that means that I manage not to do extraordinarily stupid things to break myself, then I suppose I accept the derogatory nomenclature as fact.
As an “average” person, here is a sampling of the crazy things that I’ve done in my life, all of which I’ve executed without breaking a single bone or even spraining something (knock on wood, or heaven’s door):
I’ve traveled around Europe. Cooped up in a plane on a trans-Atlantic flight; on a non-English-speaking bus; within a car driving on skinny, curvy mountain roads; drunken on a ferry boat; drunken on bike; drunken on foot; and on a train being conduct by travel workers who just recently ended their “You, imperialist swine, don’t pay us enough” strike. Moreover, some angry, uppity, French po-po’s almost arrested my friend Jeff because his last name is French and they just so happened to be looking for some runaway serial killer or something on our redline train ride. We were seconds away from being thrown in the slammer with him, had he been chosen as the scapegoat, which was frightening because foreign prisons are not places you want to go into, as you usually come out of them with at least a broken rib or two… if you’re lucky. “Innocent until proven guilty” only counts in America, my friends.
I’ve worked as a deckhand on a 50-foot fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico for 8 summers. In all that time, the worst that I’ve ever done was the bruise my thumb in a sliding door, but I chalk that one up to a combination of exhaustion and rocky seas. Image growing up around Steve Irwin-slaying stingrays, a couple of flailing baby Jaws, and a whole bunch of other nasty, water-dwelling shit that wants to get up close and personal with you. I have shaken hands with many a sneaky crab, but I have never injured or killed myself while working at literally the most dangerous job on the planet. Out there, you find yourself quite happy that “gloves hinder love,” as you probably don’t want what those sea creatures have to offer.
I’ve skied the slopes of Denver, Colorado (those being Vail, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, etc.). Though I damn near busted my head open on an ash tree while glade skiing, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as the old adage goes, and since my brother and I weren’t occupying innocent countries or tossing u-shaped pieces of metal at a stick (by the way, this is quite a stupid sport), I like to think that I made it safe to the home base (also a stupid sport).
I’ve won multiple shopping cart races in the Wal-Mart parking lots of many cities, all without a helmet, because they ruin the natural aerodynamics of my sexy, full-bodied hair.
I’ve scaled quite a few public statues and have defiled them for long enough to have also the photographic evidence of doing so. Now, instead of the founders of countries or religions, they serve as the founders of my humor.
I’ve gotten schwasted in public in multiple cities, the most recent and epic of which almost resulted in a in a fight at Mardi Gras with an overly angry-drunk and territorial tourist frat boy. Remember, spilled drinks can be your friend, as long as they end up on the other, disliked person.
I’ve grown up having sword fights with my older brother. We gradually advanced from empty paper towel rolls to huge, empty wrapping paper rolls to fallen tree sticks to wooden, Japanese bokken swords, and finally, to wielding cheap metal swords and tinking them together until they were dented to oblivion. Never was an ocular nerve damaged or a hand severed in the intense battles of our imaginations.
So, appropriately, after listing what I’ve been able to do without needing some sort of medical attention, I have a few questions for you more mended folk out there:
Were you just looking for attention?
Was it all just a cry for help?
You’re not really that dumb or that fragile, are you?
Are you really unlucky, or just really stupid?
Do you still need kiddie gates in your room at the age of 20-something?
Most importantly, if “I break your face” rises above the level of threat and results in actualized, full trampoline pwnage, I think it’s time for you to fold your cards. We can’t all be as glass-faced as 50 Cent, who received his from a friendly drive-by. Otherwise, he might lose just his cool.
Counterpoint: ASB- Why do nothing when you can do everything?
ASB is a beautiful mix of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, forced group bonding and service. What people don’t always realize from outside the ASBubble is that sleeping on the ground can be really good for your back, raspberry jelly can spice up an otherwise tired sandwich, mandatory bonding can be marvelous, and the memories from the lives you touch over the week of ASB are irreplaceable. This year I spent my Spring break in beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina, surrounded by adorable children and the ocean. I got to swing from monkey bars, read children’s books and enjoy the gorgeous palmetto-covered scenery of a state I had never been to before. Besides the fact that one of the students I was working with called me “Meredith” the entire week, it was a great experience. So why do anything else??
Staying at home is for Frosh who miss their Moms or upperclassmen who miss their Mom’s cooking. We get it, the world is scary and returning home makes everything seem smaller and less threatening, but while your friends gain wait over break from their gross overconsumption of beer, you add the extra 5 pounds from cornbread, homemade macaroni and cheese and hours and hours of watching House re-runs. If your response when people ask you what you did over your entire week off of school is “nothing” or “just, you know… hung around,” then you don’t need me to tell you that next year you need to look into better options.
The opposite of staying home, some Spring breakers take the school-free week as an excuse to party on a beach. While fun at the time, it is difficult to deny that the “traditional” Spring break is a really expensive way to only patchily remember a week. Some people think the alcohol and drug-free mantra of ASB is a big ASBummer, but in fact, it’s only the true partiers that take up the ASB challenge. After an entire year’s worth of intense drinking, one’s tolerance reaches a point where it is just too goddamn expense to get drunk anymore. ASB not only lessons the expense of your habit as your body gets to reset, but it proves to your friends every year that you’re not an alcoholic. The rule is not ridiculous it’s refreshing.
Then there are those that stay in Nashville. Visitors to Nashville refer lovingly to the city as Music City, USA, NashVegas, the Athens of the South, Ca$hville, or even the belt buckle of the Bible belt. You know what native Nashvillians call it? Boring. Be more creative with your Spring break next year.
Lastly, there are those that do their own thing. Okay, that’s kind of legit.
Counterpoint: Go Home- Why do something when you can do nothing?
The stress of midterms. The agony of papers. The torture of having to eat at the Commons for the umpteenth week in a row. When it was all over, I only wanted to do one thing. Go party it up with my bros on the beach? No. Tear it up on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains? Nope. I wanted to go home.
Now I understand that at this point in the article some of you may be thinking something along the lines of “What a loser?” or “Who is this little bitch?” or maybe even “What is this newspaper?” All valid questions, but if you find yourself asking those questions, I could care less if you read this anyway.
But the question remains, why would I want to return home? Well, as a lowly freshman….ahem, “first-year”…..such as myself, I still sort of enjoy going back. I know that some people may argue that the beach or the mountains are “FREAKIN SWEET” or that their parents would take away their freedom that they have so enjoyed over the past months, but there is way too much upside to going home.
First, home is cheap. Spring Break trips can get really expensive, really fast. Beach house/cabin + equipment rental + food + select beverages = $$$ that I don’t have. Food is the real killer for me. They don’t take meal plan outside of Vanderbilt. Believe me. I have tried. However, parents are the ultimate meal plan. You don’t have to swipe your card, but dinner will still be on the table. As much as I think I love Chef James and the Wok, nothing beats a home-cooked meal. Well, maybe one of Beatrice’s Randwiches. Those sandwiches are definitely made with love.
Second, it’s much safer to go home. You know how they say that most accidents occur within a few miles of one’s home? Over spring break, it’s entirely the opposite. Most accidents over spring break tend to happen in some far away location with the help of some liquid courage after someone says something along the lines of “Oh, yeah, back-flipping off that huge wall would be an awesome idea!” or “Dude, we should totally climb up the side of the pier…” And don’t even get me started about skiing. You are strapping thin planks to your feet and skiing down a mountain of frozen water, barely squirting past large trees and other fellow skiers. Whoever thought that sport was a smart idea in the first place obviously had some sort of brain injury, or at least received one shortly thereafter (Oddly enough, pine trees aren’t as soft as some people make them out to be).
Back at the beach there are a myriad of hidden dangers, especially the three S’s: Sunburns, Sharks, and Sand. Sunburns and sharks alone are bad enough, but sand is the sneaky killer. It gets everywhere. I’m not exaggerating. You know exactly what I am talking about. I still find sand in shoes, sandals, luggage, and regions of my body from my excursion to Florida last summer. I will never again underestimate the annoyance of a single grain of sand. You know that feeling where you know something is wrong, but you can’t figure out what it is? It’s probably a piece of sand lodged inside your ear or some other orifice that you will never, I repeat, NEVER be able to get out.
But seriously, what is better than sitting around doing nothing for an entire week except napping and watching movies with your friends from back home? Nothing comes to mind. Well, maybe jet-skis. Or sand volleyball. Or sunsets over the ocean. Or warm weather. Oh. Maybe I need to rethink things a bit…..
Counterpoint: No Party like a Vandy Party!
Ok, I know that “New Orleans” sounds great and all but people really have to slow down and think about what is there and what we got there. I’m pretty sure that if you really think about it you’ll realize that there’s no party like a Vandy Party starting with the….
Vandy Cards! Oh yeah sure you can throw some beads and get a look at some boobs, but you can also flash your Vandy Card here and say “Bitch, I’m here for the party”. Boobs are great, but acting like a big cocky douche bag is definitely better. Besides beads are cheap, and everyone knows Vandy students are way classier than beads. That’s why we drink Natty light, and get sloppy with each other on the dance floor and…. Ok…. So maybe “classy” isn’t really the best word, but who the hell cares about plastic toys made in China? The only thing at Vandy that comes from China is…
Our Food! Mmm Branscomb breakfast (and the secret ingredient is mercury!) is so delicious. What’s that you say? Feeling ritzy? Well come on down to the Qdoba on West End where you get to eat with every single stoner in Nashville. Stoner’s have a lot of advantageous over New Orleans. First of all they are quiet, second of all they are really fucking quiet and third of all they’re like the nicest people in the world…. I think…. I’ve never really gotten that close to one. But really there is one thing at Vandy that stands far and beyond better than New Orleans and that’s….
Our Crime Rate! Question time, which one would you rather like inserted into your body, a stomach pump, or a rusty shank? Yeah, I thought so, I don’t know about you but I like NOT worrying about if my tetanus shots are up to date. But violent crime isn’t your only concern at New Orleans; you’ve got to watch out for pick-pocketers too. Let’s be honest, no Vandy kid is stealing from you period. Anything that Vandy Boy or Vandy Girl wants, they get from Mommy or Daddy, and why steal when you can buy? New Orleans is a little different, aka poor aka they steal, aka you will lose all your credit cards and cell phone when you are drunk, aka enjoy the twenty hours of phone calls to Burkina Fasa and Azerbaijan, aka your parents are NOT buying you your 4th iPhone replacement. So yeah, crime, enough said.
Now that I established that Vandy is clearly the better party place for Mardi Gras, I bet you all want to just sell your plane tickets and hotel rooms for like a fifth of the price now. Well that’s the smartest decision you’ve made since… well ever…. Oh and if you happen to be selling those tickets, please shoot me an email…. I think I know some random guy that may be willing to take them off your hands.
Point: It’s Naturally N’awlins, Brah.
New Orleans during Mardi Gras, probably better known as the “Mecca of Partying” for people of all ages, is the place to be this upcoming weekend. I mean, screw you Vanderbubble-bound guys, I’m going home and experiencing the best of what my city has to offer, which will possibly be better than ever now that the Saints have just won the Superbowl for the first time. (A cool Brees rolled in and I…jazzed in my pants.) Week-long, full-fledged Mardi Gras. The greatness can only be calculated by the city’s vast volume of vomit that will accumulate after night after night after night of partying.
I really do pity you people who will be stuck on campus “celebrating” the blandness of regular everyday life as someone tries to fool you into thinking that “Vandy Gras,” a shitty substitute for the real thing, is actually worth staying around for. I applaud the attempt to capture the essence of my city, but Vandy’s “Masquerade Ball” is probably being thrown by a bunch of people who have never even attended a real one and who have probably never even been to NOLA.
As if this notion is not implicit enough already, let me make the comparisons more clear.
When I’m back in the homelands hearing people yell out “Show me your tits!,” you’ll be stuck hearing the rent-a-cops mumbling “Show me your Vandy card” every time you re-enter your dorms. Moreover, the likelihood of me seeing a nice set of ta-ta’s is a lot higher than you getting a peek down some chick’s shirt at a frat party, and my view will probably be better too. Besides, live jazz music and legit show-stopping marching bands just easily crush the same, sorry, sad, sucker songs of Lady GaGa and Miley Cyrus. This is a New Orleans party now, biotch!
As if this weekend can’t get any better already, I’m also turning legal, so when I’m getting smashed in public with the rest of my Crescent City brethren holding a New Orleans original “Hand Grenade” drink in one hand and a cheap, fake tomahawk in the other, you’ll be trying to sneak your booze in past the guards. More than likely, they will catch you this weekend, as knowing that it’s soon to be Mardi Gras, they’ll be on high alert for any gym bags that have an oddly boxy shape to them.
While you’re restricted to Nashville’s Broadway Avenue, I’ll be laughing at all of the fools crowded on Bourbon Street. All the locals know that some of the best spots in the city are actually off of the tourist trap that is Bourbon, so we’ll be partying there. Moreover, don’t listen to those stupid Versus writers, I can assert myself and mark my territory by pissing in public. Screw waiting in line. Also, I have no qualms with elbowing old ladies or knocking over small children for a few beads or trinkets. The old ladies should know their place and the little kids will soon learn that it’s just a New Orleans rite of passage. However, back to the pissing, for those of you trying to party on campus, the best you can hope to do is “break the seal” when the Vandy cops are looking away, or you better prepare to get a night sticked through the backdoor.
Lastly, I get real food this weekend. My dad is a fisherman and will be going to be cooking legit New Orleans dishes: fresh seafood gumbo, crab soup, and fried shrimp. I also get fresh slices of King Cake, mugs of Café au Lait, and hot, sticky, sweet beignets that just left the fryer. What do you get? Oh yeah, the same old bland-ass Randwiches and Commoners’ Dinner. Lucky you. And the shrimp that they will try to serve you will most likely be the pre-packaged SYSCO shit imported from another country that doesn’t naturally grow any product of shrimp. (P.S. – Those countries have to make man-made shrimp farms that are filled with antibiotics and, because of that, taste like exactly what they eat: shit.) But for all you Yankees who have never eaten real Gulf shrimp, you have no idea what you’re missing, so continue to eat that pitiful excuse of what Louisiana is famous for.
Hence, if you haven’t made plans to do so already, I highly recommend that you find a way to get down to New Orleans this weekend. Plane, car, raft, hitch-hiking, riding a hobo, whatever, just make it happen. This will probably be one of the best Mardi Gras seasons in decades, and about 15 years from now, when all of your friends are getting drunk and remembering the stories about how Tim was found blacked out on a street corner by a transvestite stripper named “Candy,” you will feel like a total dumbass for missing it. Your papers can be written the night before and you can cram for your tests on the day of, but you I can promise that you will regret missing this for the rest of your life.
