1996_09 The Daily Collegian September 1996

              THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Wednesday, September 25,1996
Opinion
Telephone: (209) 278-5732
Hiccups related to
Thomas Building
By Bethany Thompson
Special to The Daily Collegian
Today someone said to me 'Tell
me a funny story." Well, that would
have been just great if I had had a
funny story to tell at the time. As it
turned out, it took another two
hours before something I consider
a little weird happened to me. To¬
day I noticed that every time I walk
by the Thomas Administration
building I get the hiccups. Coinci¬
dence? I'm not so sure. Why Tho¬
mas Administration and not, say
Joyal? Is the thought of administra¬
tive action so upsetting to me that I
automatically get the hiccups?
Maybe I have some kind of psycho¬
logical association with the Thomas
building, because every time I have
to go in there. I have my squeaky
shoes on, so as I walk through the
halls my shoe soles make awful
noises and everyone looks at me. I
don't know, but it is obvious there
is a relationship between the build¬
ing and my hiccups.
I get the hiccups a lot. And by a
lot I mean, well, a lot. I hate get¬
ting the hiccups because, a) they are
annoying, and b) people always of¬
fer me "friendly ways" to get rid of
them that never work. (Really. I ap¬
preciate your guys' concern, but I
think that most of you are just try¬
ing to make me look stupid.) The
only way I can ever get rid of my
hiccups is to drink a lot of water
really fast. But this doesn't stop
people from saying things like
"hold your breath." I've tried this
thousands of times and not once has
it ever cured my hiccups. In fact,
based on lots of scientific evidence
that I made up, I am convinced that
holding one's breath only makes
hiccups worse. The next great piece
of advice is to eat some sugar. I
don't understand this one at all.
Seems pretty dam silly to me, so
I've never tried it. One.guy even
offered to whack me in the back of
my head with his burrito. Really!
It's true. I turned him down because
I thought that my hiccups would get
worse if I had to be concerned about
removing refried beans from my
hair before I went to class. But who
knows, maybe this will become the
"new and improved" method for
curing hiccups.
By and large, my favorite time
to get the hiccups is in the middle
of the night. I have talked to many
people about this phenomenon and
they all assure me that I must be
nuts because they never get the hic¬
cups in the middle of the night.
Usually I get the hiccups right in
the middle of a great dream. Right
as the lottery person is about to hand
me the giant check for
$10,487,934,948.02 and I'm think¬
ing "Wow, now I can fly myself to
France and meet the most wonder¬
ful man while sipping a mocha-
coca-floca-broca in front of a
cafe-..." HICCUP!!!
But this whole thing with Tho¬
mas Administration is just too co¬
incidental for me. I think that the
ASI needs to appoint a special com¬
mittee to look into this phenomenon
to see if that building is causing
other people to get the hiccups. This
could be a campus wide epidemic.
I can see it now on the front page
of next week's newspaper "Thomas
Administration scientifically
proven to cause hiccups!" Then .
there would be an in-depth article
(by me, the person who first\
"broke" this story), which would
surely earn me an award with a very
large cash prize and a trip to France.
Letter to the Editor
Public offices can
house personal items
Dear Editor:
I would like to comment on the
issues raised by current LVP Eileen
Richardson, who raised the ques¬
tion of whether a public office
should contain such personal effects
by its occupant as a picture of an
African-American male wearing a
Nazi emblem.
While I can certainly agree it
sends an affrontive message to
many people, and I personally dis¬
parage the fact it would hang in an
office of a person who if supposed
to represent my viewpoints, I do not
see it being terribly different from
other personal items which may
help to furnish an otherwise dulL
place.
It seems that I have adorned my
offices for%various government
agencies with family photos, good
comic strips, and other items to
keep me motivated.
Whether Ms. Martinez saw her
picture as being humorous or some¬
how motivating I don't know, and
really consider it none of my af¬
fair. I am not well versed enough in
the legal matters of our university
to know whether any laws have
been broken, but I should certainly
hope not.
Personal etiquette and tact
should be our guide in deciding
how to furnish our offices. I think,
and also in dealing with the conse¬
quences of offending those who
may not agree with its decor — not
the law!
Please. Ms\ Richardson and Ms
Martinez, can'^ we all get along?
j — J. Ureno
) Chemistry Major
Claypool's 'Highball with the Devil' has Primus trademark sound
By David Childers
Special to The Daily Collegian
For those Primus fans who have
waited impatiently for three years
for a follow-up to Pdrk Soda, fear
not. The new release 'THighball with
the Devil" is very much Les
Gaypool and tery little of the Holy
Mackerel.
The disk contains, as you might
expect. Claypool's trademark bass
playing (including an eerie sound¬
ing Arco string bass on the track
"Calling Kyle") which has contrib¬
uted so greatly to the trademark
Primus sound, not to mention his
unmistakable vocals. But on half of
the tracks on "Highball" Gaypool
runs the gauntlet himself; doing
everything but — on occasion —
background vocals.
The Holy Mackarel appear to be
a conglomeration of Primus-jelated
musicians (including Marv "Mirv"
Haggard and Jay Lane) who have
all been immersed in countless side-
projects since Primus went on hia¬
tus in 1993. It is the Gaypool in¬
fluence, though, that defines "High¬
ball with the Devil."
The second and best track on the
disk is, oddly enough, "Holy Mack¬
erel." It is also the first single which
has been released and is currently
getting airtime on Rock 104. The
smooth sounding cut could have
easily appeared on "Pork Soda" and
in many ways is very typical of the
majority of the cuts. It is also the
only cut featuring the Holy Mack¬
erel in their entirety.
Another typical and fairly amus¬
ing track is "Hendershot." The song
introduces the slight redneck ten¬
dencies of Gaypool (who grew up
in the Bay area), but is followed up
by the aforementioned "Calling
Please see PRIMUS page 4.
Daily Collegian
X California State University, Fresno	
y     Sports Editor
Tom Sepulveda
Web Production
Jason Maggini
Production Manager
Monica Stanford
Editor in Chief
Jevon C. Swanson
Managing Editor
Robert Bilvado
News Editor
JimWard
Ad Manager
Paul McCauley
Business Manager
Kari L. Scott
Photo Editor
Paul Martinez
Copy Editor
Elena Langdon
Staff Writers:
f Matt Kreamer,
; Ruthie Longley, Matt Hart,
Heather Hartman,
Rosanne Tolosa, Hadi
Yazdanpanah
Sports Writers:
Brooke Holve, Luis Hernandez,
Erik Pfeifle, Casey Angle, Matt
Lievre, Woody Miner. Matt Croce
Circulation:
Elena Langdon
The Daily Collegian is published five
limes a week, for and by the students of
California Stale University. Fresno.
Opinions expressed in the Collegian
are not necessarily those of the entire
Daily Collegian staff The editors reserve
, the right to edit letters for length and
clarity. To be considered for publication,
letters must be typed and should not
exceed 250 words.
Directory:
(209)278-571?
(209)278-248^
(209)278-5733
(209)278-5731
(209)278-2679
Editor:
News:
Sports:
Advertising:
FAX:
WWW:
http://www.csufrcsno.edu/Collegian
■