As a registered Republican, I hate freedom of speech. Worst. Idea. Ever. Some people use "helicopter ejection seat" or "submarine screen door" as their go to concept of a misguided concept. As for me, it's all about the First Amendment. I mean, what does religious freedom remotely have to do with the foundation of this nation?
However, as a future screenwriter/waiter, I need the ability to write whatever the hell I want.
My first collegiate run in with censorship came last month as my column for the Claremont Independent was deemed "objectively offensive to specific groups on campus" and it was suggested that I heavily edit a good portion of my article, namely "most of it."
I now present to you the article in its entirety. I allow you to be the judges of whether or not it should have been wrongfully removed from print.
CMC Adopts ‘Survivor’ Model for Diversity
By Max Davison
Claremont, CA - After seeing the commercial success of CBS’s hit reality show “Survivor: Cook Islands,” CMC has decided to split its own student body into racially divided tribes. ‘Survivor’ has always been on the cutting edge of crappy-reality programming, but this season, the producers decided to turn the proverbial amplifier up a notch to 11 and play an encore of ‘Stonehenge.’ Contestants have been broken up into four tribes based entirely on race: Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites. Insisting that the show is not racist, producers have created challenges that play to each tribe’s strength, such as: algebra, border hopping, car jacking, and spreading democracy to savage parts of the world.
This display of borderline racism has scored CBS a hit program. Last week, ‘Survivor’ scored a 10.1 rating which equates to over 18 million viewers. At this rate, CMC’s admissions office will receive enough applicants to finally appease President Pam Gann. Upon seeing how high Survivor scored in the Nielsen rankings, CMC officials decided to adopt these tactics and create four ethnic tribes. After further deliberation, the transition was made incredibly easier as the college realized that such tribes already exist in the form of the CLSA, OBSA and APAM. The Claremont Republicans, of course, serve as the de facto embassy for white students, while the Democrats insist that race is purely a social construct but hope that this model will account for more affirmative action.
“Our goal is to build a cohesive student body,” said one college official. “And there’s no better way to do that than immediately group freshmen by their ethnic background.” The tribes will eat meals together, party together, plan events together and will never have to cavort with people of different skin colors. Racial pride will be fostered to the point where lunch tables at Collins will stop being a melting pot and start looking like foreign embassies. To quote one CLSA student: “I fail so see the difference.”
The new, improved and segregated CMC will prevent any dangerous exchanges of ideas between students of different races. “Students are not attending CMC to become culturally diverse,” said Dean of Faculty Jeff Huang. “We want to prevent any future unnecessary instants when students may be forced to step outside of their comfort zones.” Indeed this is true. Plenty of black students feel uncomfortable sitting down at a MEChA meeting. And what Caucasian hasn’t walked into a late night, APAM Mix Bowl party in Marks lounge and felt like the only egg white in a bowl full of yolks? All of these situations will be erased with the new model for student life. Because nothing says diversity like when all of your Facebook friends have the same skin color.
When questioned about a potential merger of all the tribes, similar to recent episodes of ‘Survivor,’ Dean Huang scoffed and said “Son, this is a college, not a reality TV show.”
The motto of the Claremont Independent is "Upholding Truth and Excellence at the Claremont Colleges." In their unfair editing of my piece, they're hardly coming close to their point. Don't hate my words, they're the truth. If you want to argue with me, first go into Collins and see the racial borders at the dining halls.
So, if you're so motivated, e-mail the CI at Claremont.Independent@gmail.com and tell them how wrong they were to deprive the Claremont Colleges of my borderline-racist column.
Go With Christ.
Monday, October 30, 2006
I saw the light, I've been baptized by the fire in your touch and the flame in your eyes
Prologue: The Return of the King
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk into mine. A few months ago, an update to this blog seemed about as likely as a Van Halen reunion, the Democrats winning both houses of Congress, ABC airing an episode of "Lost" that doesn't suck, and those retarded little kids actually putting the idol together in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Well, seeing as David Lee Roth is content on putting out bluegrass cover albums, there's no way that New Jersey is going Blue, the damn writing staff feels content on stringing us along with a question to answer ratio of about 4815162342 to 1, and "Legends of the Hidden Temple" has been off the air for a decade...this blog is the surest thing of the whole lot. The new, motivated Max Davison (who apparently now speaks in the third person as though he's Rickey Henderson) has decided to update this page as frequently as possible. So sit back and enjoy my varied rants on the Dixie Chicks, Global Warming, Rachel Ray, Bob Faggen, and (of course) Nick Swisher and the Oakland A's. It'll be more entertaining than an episode of Grey's Anatomy (and hopefully with more sex *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge*). Besides, I have much better hair than McDreamy.
/End Prologue
I find it difficult to be 19 years old. I'm about 2 years too old to enjoy a bowl of Trix without annoying animated children sneaking up behind me and stealing my cereal, and apparently I'm still 11 years away from drinking Miller Genuine Draft. It's also hard to go shopping for a Halloween costume. You go to Target and you're stuck between the children's selection of Superman and Harry Potter and the adult aisle which is entirely made up of Knight Rider, Miami Vice and Magnum, PI. I guess that Target is now trying to get a stranglehold on the "stoned teenagers who just watched "I love the 80s" on VH1 and are looking for a costume" market.
So flash back to October 26th. Here's a little something that I never got around to finishing about the search for a costume as well as preparations for David Sedaris at Bridges Auditorium. Enjoy.
10/26/06
David Sedaris
It’s around 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m driving from costume store to costume store in hopes of finding more than one Ghostbusters suit, which would then be paired with super soakers filled with margaritas and ensure one hell of a Halloween party. Preferably, they’d be less than $30, look more professional than a flight suit with an ironed on logo…and with as few awkward stains as possible on the jumpsuit.
My eyes and those of my buddy Daniel Kan gleam as we drive by “Halloween Outlet” and that gleam is soon extinguished as we leave this store in the same manner that we left the other two: disappointed and putting our heads on a swivel because we’re afraid of the army of minorities that is amassing around the adjacent “Mary’s Tacos” which according to the plywood sign has moved locations over 2 weeks ago and has since become the convention center for the traveling “Wife Beaters and 40s” exhibit that’s been touring Southern California for the past 50 years or so (ever since the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943). You’ve got old pick up trucks making laps through the abandoned drive through like children in their Go Go Power Wheels Jeeps pretending that they’re in the Indy 500.
Our failure to find our Peter Venkman costumes has made me anxious about yet another thing. Later on tonight I’m scheduled to meet a particular girl and then whisk her away for a night of oratorical brilliance in the form of David Sedaris speaking at Pomona. Had I not given up drinking after last weekend’s Dodgeball Tourney (a subject that will be expounded upon later, I promise), I’d raise a glass to the hopes that NPR’s resident homosexual essayist will act as the perfect erudite aphrodisiac and inspire me to write a short piece that would be more appropriate for Playboy than the New Yorker. But seeing as it’s now 10:24pm later that night and I’m writing this piece that sounds like a stylistic hybrid between “This American Life” and my blog from high school, you have a good idea how my night ended up.
Back in the land of encountering the perfect costume which, in a perfect world, will be taken off around the same time that a condom is being slapped on my ever-hardening dick, I'm finding less and less success. Upon walking into “Party America,” we’re accosted by two grizzled old Democrats at a card table asking us, with petitions in hand, “How do you feel about having a president that’s crazy?” and “How would you like to be drafted?” Looking down, I see the sign in front of their table, which reads, in impeccable handwriting: “A vote for a Republican is a vote for DEATH” (the last word being entirely in caps, written in red and thrice underlined). I guess that these men assume that "Party America" is the party store where all the big political figures shop for confetti and streamers. My inner right-winger wants to respond, however the invariable end with these two geriatric gerrymanders (sorry, I just love alliteration) will be blabbering on about “unconditional support of Israel” and why the Chomsky/Chavez ticket would win in ’08. And all the while I’m going through this Prufrockian situation, Daniel (who had gone ahead) approaches me with a glance that screams “they’re all out of costumes. Period.”
On the drive back to campus, Kan suggests that we hit up the Toys R Us in Covina, a city 15 minutes down the 210 freeway. It’s now around 5:15pm, known in some parts of the world as “rush hour.” I insist that by the time we get back to our dorms, it will be well past 6 and I “have to meet someone for the David Sedaris reading.” Yes, I cunningly dropped in the fact that I have a date tonight like a fundraiser adding in “and I’d also like to mention the Alumni fund” at the beginning of his phone call.
An hour and a half later and I’m now cleaning up my mess of a dorm room. Mom would always give me crap at home since you could hardly see the floor under all of the strewn magazines and Gap t-shirts. Well, I’m just glad that she can’t see my dorm, since it’s the exact same situation, only instead of t-shirts it’s my entire dirty laundry collection (I’m waiting until I go home for Thanksgiving to do a load. It’s all a part of my grand scheme to never do laundry at school with the idiotic drying machines that take three cycles and $2.25 to finally get past anything considered “damp.”) And instead of magazines it's overpriced text books that currently take up the majority of my MasterCard statement...and beer bottles, of course.
In the off chance that my night will end up back at my dorm room, I don’t want it to look like a suicide Fraternity-bomber went off in my room. The bed is made, the clothes are in the hamper, the bottles are recycled (I really do care about the environment), and I even hide my action figure collection. I actually go out of my way to put my Captain Marvel, Hawkman and Plastic Man figures in my closet like they’re going to reenact some kind of R. Kelly video. My buddies tell me that superhero figures are a greater female-repellent than a poster of Ronald Reagan over your bed. Needless to say, Ronny found his way into my closet as well.
And that's where my diary entry ended. I'll spare you the details of the evening (if you really want them, you know where to find me), except that Sedaris is insanely brilliant and, along with George Will, Tucker Max and Professor Nick Warner, has inspired me to keep writing.
As for Halloween, I'd like to say that I'm glad that we didn't find the Ghostbusters suits, since I saw at least 20 other guys wearing them on last Saturday night. Plus, my Indiana Jones get up was just awesome (check facebook for visual confirmation).
Thanks for reading, and Go With Christ.
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk into mine. A few months ago, an update to this blog seemed about as likely as a Van Halen reunion, the Democrats winning both houses of Congress, ABC airing an episode of "Lost" that doesn't suck, and those retarded little kids actually putting the idol together in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Well, seeing as David Lee Roth is content on putting out bluegrass cover albums, there's no way that New Jersey is going Blue, the damn writing staff feels content on stringing us along with a question to answer ratio of about 4815162342 to 1, and "Legends of the Hidden Temple" has been off the air for a decade...this blog is the surest thing of the whole lot. The new, motivated Max Davison (who apparently now speaks in the third person as though he's Rickey Henderson) has decided to update this page as frequently as possible. So sit back and enjoy my varied rants on the Dixie Chicks, Global Warming, Rachel Ray, Bob Faggen, and (of course) Nick Swisher and the Oakland A's. It'll be more entertaining than an episode of Grey's Anatomy (and hopefully with more sex *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge*). Besides, I have much better hair than McDreamy.
/End Prologue
I find it difficult to be 19 years old. I'm about 2 years too old to enjoy a bowl of Trix without annoying animated children sneaking up behind me and stealing my cereal, and apparently I'm still 11 years away from drinking Miller Genuine Draft. It's also hard to go shopping for a Halloween costume. You go to Target and you're stuck between the children's selection of Superman and Harry Potter and the adult aisle which is entirely made up of Knight Rider, Miami Vice and Magnum, PI. I guess that Target is now trying to get a stranglehold on the "stoned teenagers who just watched "I love the 80s" on VH1 and are looking for a costume" market.
So flash back to October 26th. Here's a little something that I never got around to finishing about the search for a costume as well as preparations for David Sedaris at Bridges Auditorium. Enjoy.
10/26/06
David Sedaris
It’s around 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m driving from costume store to costume store in hopes of finding more than one Ghostbusters suit, which would then be paired with super soakers filled with margaritas and ensure one hell of a Halloween party. Preferably, they’d be less than $30, look more professional than a flight suit with an ironed on logo…and with as few awkward stains as possible on the jumpsuit.
My eyes and those of my buddy Daniel Kan gleam as we drive by “Halloween Outlet” and that gleam is soon extinguished as we leave this store in the same manner that we left the other two: disappointed and putting our heads on a swivel because we’re afraid of the army of minorities that is amassing around the adjacent “Mary’s Tacos” which according to the plywood sign has moved locations over 2 weeks ago and has since become the convention center for the traveling “Wife Beaters and 40s” exhibit that’s been touring Southern California for the past 50 years or so (ever since the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943). You’ve got old pick up trucks making laps through the abandoned drive through like children in their Go Go Power Wheels Jeeps pretending that they’re in the Indy 500.
Our failure to find our Peter Venkman costumes has made me anxious about yet another thing. Later on tonight I’m scheduled to meet a particular girl and then whisk her away for a night of oratorical brilliance in the form of David Sedaris speaking at Pomona. Had I not given up drinking after last weekend’s Dodgeball Tourney (a subject that will be expounded upon later, I promise), I’d raise a glass to the hopes that NPR’s resident homosexual essayist will act as the perfect erudite aphrodisiac and inspire me to write a short piece that would be more appropriate for Playboy than the New Yorker. But seeing as it’s now 10:24pm later that night and I’m writing this piece that sounds like a stylistic hybrid between “This American Life” and my blog from high school, you have a good idea how my night ended up.
Back in the land of encountering the perfect costume which, in a perfect world, will be taken off around the same time that a condom is being slapped on my ever-hardening dick, I'm finding less and less success. Upon walking into “Party America,” we’re accosted by two grizzled old Democrats at a card table asking us, with petitions in hand, “How do you feel about having a president that’s crazy?” and “How would you like to be drafted?” Looking down, I see the sign in front of their table, which reads, in impeccable handwriting: “A vote for a Republican is a vote for DEATH” (the last word being entirely in caps, written in red and thrice underlined). I guess that these men assume that "Party America" is the party store where all the big political figures shop for confetti and streamers. My inner right-winger wants to respond, however the invariable end with these two geriatric gerrymanders (sorry, I just love alliteration) will be blabbering on about “unconditional support of Israel” and why the Chomsky/Chavez ticket would win in ’08. And all the while I’m going through this Prufrockian situation, Daniel (who had gone ahead) approaches me with a glance that screams “they’re all out of costumes. Period.”
On the drive back to campus, Kan suggests that we hit up the Toys R Us in Covina, a city 15 minutes down the 210 freeway. It’s now around 5:15pm, known in some parts of the world as “rush hour.” I insist that by the time we get back to our dorms, it will be well past 6 and I “have to meet someone for the David Sedaris reading.” Yes, I cunningly dropped in the fact that I have a date tonight like a fundraiser adding in “and I’d also like to mention the Alumni fund” at the beginning of his phone call.
An hour and a half later and I’m now cleaning up my mess of a dorm room. Mom would always give me crap at home since you could hardly see the floor under all of the strewn magazines and Gap t-shirts. Well, I’m just glad that she can’t see my dorm, since it’s the exact same situation, only instead of t-shirts it’s my entire dirty laundry collection (I’m waiting until I go home for Thanksgiving to do a load. It’s all a part of my grand scheme to never do laundry at school with the idiotic drying machines that take three cycles and $2.25 to finally get past anything considered “damp.”) And instead of magazines it's overpriced text books that currently take up the majority of my MasterCard statement...and beer bottles, of course.
In the off chance that my night will end up back at my dorm room, I don’t want it to look like a suicide Fraternity-bomber went off in my room. The bed is made, the clothes are in the hamper, the bottles are recycled (I really do care about the environment), and I even hide my action figure collection. I actually go out of my way to put my Captain Marvel, Hawkman and Plastic Man figures in my closet like they’re going to reenact some kind of R. Kelly video. My buddies tell me that superhero figures are a greater female-repellent than a poster of Ronald Reagan over your bed. Needless to say, Ronny found his way into my closet as well.
And that's where my diary entry ended. I'll spare you the details of the evening (if you really want them, you know where to find me), except that Sedaris is insanely brilliant and, along with George Will, Tucker Max and Professor Nick Warner, has inspired me to keep writing.
As for Halloween, I'd like to say that I'm glad that we didn't find the Ghostbusters suits, since I saw at least 20 other guys wearing them on last Saturday night. Plus, my Indiana Jones get up was just awesome (check facebook for visual confirmation).
Thanks for reading, and Go With Christ.
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