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December 1, 2005
Above: Photo collage
by Rick St. Charles.
by
RICK ST. CHARLES
When HSU students returned
home from their summer break this year, they found to their horror
that in their absence and without their approval, Saruman's orcs
had built an outrageously hideous, culturally offensive and ludicrously
expensive structure at the entrance of their beloved alma
mater. Naturally, their first instinct was to tear it down,
but since the North Country Fair was approaching and they had
to make animal costumes for the All Species Parade, this gesture
had to be postponed.
Now that the fair is over,
the students are out in force picketing in front of the Gates
of Mordor, encouraging passers-by in cars to honk if they are
similarly aggrieved, and those on bicycles to ride en masse
in the slow lane of Highway 101, occasionally darting into the
fast lane to avoid the CHP.
The idea for the gateway
was inspired by in independent study that cost $46.3 million
and suggested that stagnant campus enrollment at HSU could be
stimulated by gussying up the campus' appearance. I can just
imagine some high school senior and his parents poring through
brochures from dozens of colleges:
DAD: Look, son! Here's a
school that's number 1 on the Top 10 list of providing a stellar
education in the major of your choice!
MOM: They guarantee you'll
get a high-salaried position with a Fortune 500 company within
24 hours of graduation and they're offering you a full four-year
scholarship!
SON (excitedly): Forget that!
Look at this gateway!!! I'm going here!
There are three reasons students
are furious about Rollin's Folly. First, the structure was built
without their permission. This is like when your mom comes into
your room and cleans it up while you're away at summer camp.
There are documented cases of children having apoplectic strokes
upon entering their altered-state rooms. Their main fear, of
course, is that mom found their stashes of drugs, sex aids or,
worst of all, diaries, now known as "journals," with
entries such as: "Tried three hits of ecstasy today on top
of five shots of tequila and a fat nug, then went midnight skinny-dipping
with Bambi and Thumper at Houda Point, where that Great White
took a surfer's leg off yesterday. Woke up on the buoy in Shelter
Cove."
Second, its Mediterranean-style
design resembles California Mission Architecture, which
is Culturally Insensitive for Wiyot Indian lands! This
is such a politically incorrect faux pas that they may
as well have designed it to look like the entrance to Auschwitz
or Buchenwald. Ironically, the Encinitas hermitage built as a
surprise for Paramahansa Yogananda, where he wrote most of his
Autobiography of a Yogi, is the same style! In
his ignorance, Paramahansa stated that man's vocabulary was insufficient
to express his joy and gratitude upon seeing it for the first
time. "Astonishment, delight!" was as close as he could
get. Had his disciples (who, in his words, "lovingly plotted"
to build the estate) known that it would have mortally offended
the Luiseno Indians who used to live there, they might have changed
their plans. Instead of building it to look like a Taco Bell,
symbol of centuries of oppression, they might have thought "outside
the bun," so to speak, and chosen a different style, possibly
a "golden arches" motif.
Third, it cost a buttload
of money. This at a time when funds are so tight that two custodians
are now doing the work of 50, professors are being laid off and
classes being taught by people bearing WILL TEACH FOR FOOD signs
and students studying by the glow of candlelight reflecting off
their bongs. Needless to say, $350,000 would have bought a lot
of light bulbs.
But what strikes me as curious
is that the gateway looks unfinished because of the two blank
mural-like coves on either side. It's as if some deranged decorator
came into your house, hung frames with nothing in them, said
"Works for me!" and left, handing you a bill for as
much as it would cost to build an oil refinery in the Arctic
Circle. My guess is that the students, returning like Frodo and
his band of hobbits to reclaim the Shire, frightened off the
Uruk-hai that were hired to put something in the mural spaces,
possibly the severed heads of Student Council members.
So here's my solution: Each
year, the student body will nominate and then, through a democratic
election overseen by newly trained Iraqi security forces who
will ensure that HSU administrators don't get within 200 feet
of the polls, vote for two of the world's citizens that they
most admire. These nominees could be dead or alive, of any race,
creed, nationality or sexual persuasion. Art students under the
direction of Duane Flatmo and the Rural Neural Puerile Sterile
Feral Squirrel Mural Bureau will then paint these likenesses
in the coves. I propose the only stipulations be that in each
election, one honored personage will be a woman, one a man; and
under no circumstances can it be anyone Bush would nominate for
the Supreme Court.
Personally, I'd like to suggest
John Cleese (and if we hurry we can get it done before his Feb.
2 gig at CenterArts); and Lucille Ball, not so much for I
Love Lucy but because in the midst of our nation's deepest
depression, she inspired us to lift ourselves up and carry on
with the stirring words, "We have nothing to fear but fear
itself," which historians credit as the dominant reason
she was elected to a precedent-breaking third term as president.
So why two people primarily
famous for clowning around and playing the fool? Because I think
the most important thing a student can remember when passing
though that prestigious gateway into the hallowed hallways of
academia is: Don't take yourself too seriously. No, wait, that's
not it. It's: He who laughs last, laughs best. Hmm. That doesn't
sound right, either. How about: It is sometimes easier to get
forgiveness than permission. Yeah, that's it. That's what they're
teaching there.
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