Hail To the Egg Shells

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

404 Error
Plug Magazine, December 1 1995

Plug Magazine (www.pluginc.com) was an early entrant into the Internet content space back when you had to call a website a magazine so that people knew what it was. It was… I’m not even sure I remember what it was. It wasn’t around very long, the domain is currently unused, and I can’t even find any cached copies on archive.org to remember what it looked like. So let’s just say that it was another predictably disappointing highway service plaza on the road to writing stardom for Paul Caputo and me.

It feels just like this: You’re driving down I-95 at a reasonable and prudent 116 miles per hour. Your cares melt away in the scenery as you reach to shift into fifth gear. You notice the scenery, you notice the girl in the car next to you, but you don’t notice that you accidentally miss fifth gear and slip it into reverse. Your car’s transmission leaps out of the hood and smashes through your windshield. In that final, crystal clear moment as you look at your engine sputtering happily in the passenger seat next to you, you wonder what could have possibly gone wrong. As your car spins in 70-mile-per hour circles and crashes into an 18-wheeler full of radioactive explosive poisonous snakes in the next lane, you can’t help but feel a little surprised and disappointed.

It is not hard to imagine that Cleveland’s long-time football fans felt more or less the same upon hearing that their beloved Browns are moving to Baltimore next season. It must have been a surreal, punch-in-the-gut, kick-in-the-pants, rub-your-eyes, shake-your-head, say-it-ain’t-so, pour-me-six-martinis feeling never before experienced by any sports fan.

Sure, Cleveland isn’t the first team to move. Baltimore Colts fans felt the sting of relocation in 1984, but even the Colts were not as intrinsically tied to their city as the Browns were before last week. Until the moment Browns owner Art Modell appeared on a street corner across from Camden Yards to announce that they had reached a deal to build a brand-new, 400,000-luxury-box (or something) football stadium in Baltimore, the idea of sports franchises moving had always been sort of a detached experience.

It is hard to imagine a die-hard Tampa Bay football fan (either of them) breaking down in tears on TV upon hearing that the Buccaneers might be moving to Orlando. Houston sports fans were probably rooting for the Astros and the Oilers to move to Northern Virginia and Nashville respectively, so that they could firebomb the Astrodome and convert it into a parking lot or the world’s largest Taco Bell or anything but the world’s ugliest domed, astroturfed stadium.

Fans in Los Angeles probably haven’t even noticed that the city lost both of its football teams last year. In fact, fans in Los Angeles probably never even knew that there were football teams there, unless someone just happened to steal a car and notice that there were cleats and helmets in it.

But Cleveland is a city whose fans are among the most loyal (“insane”), devoted (“really, really insane”), die-hard (“not real bright, either”) fans the NFL has ever known. It is a city whose people supported (“were actually willing to pay $40 for the ticket and $7 for a concession-stand hot dog for”) their team. It is a city that lived for Sunday afternoons. 

Now, all Sunday afternoons mean is colored comics in the newspaper. 

While it is wrong to blame Art Modell for the plight of all professional sports, it certainly is easy. He is an active part of the assault on the modern sports fan that started when the first big-time free agent left a city that loved him for a team with a bigger bank-roll. Basketball fans in Charlotte walk past an enormous mural of Alonzo Mourning painted on the side of a city building. Once the portrayal of a city’s sports hopes, the mural now stands as a tribute to athletes who will abandon a city and its dreams for the extra million dollars a year they must need to Super-Size their McHappy Meals when traveling from city to city.

Now, though, even the most supportive of cities must fear losing not only their superstars to the lure of big bucks, but their entire teams. After watching the Browns announce that they will leave Cleveland, how can any sports fan allow himself to give his heart to any team? If Cleveland’s fans – the sort of people who would go to a four hour football game in sub-zero temperatures wearing nothing but a dog mask, body paint and bikini briefs – can’t hold onto a team, who can?

Flash forward 20 years.

You sit down in your living room on a Sunday afternoon and turn on your television to watch the Nashville Elvises (formerly the Winnipeg Jets, an NHL franchise that moved to Nashville and started playing football instead of hockey in 2007 because the city said it would build them a stadium built entirely of crumpled hundred dollar bills, plus allow the team to keep all of the revenue from sales of overpriced “soft” pretzels) play against the Richmond Egg Shells (an NFL expansion team that unfortunately came into the league after all of the intimidating names had been taken).

At half time of the game, Egg Shells owner Bob “Bob” Ukrop IV announces that the franchise will be moving to Washington D.C. at the end of the third quarter because they city has promised to build them a stadium with solid-gold Gatorade coolers. Then, at the end of the game, they will be moving to Nome, Alaska, where city officials have promised them each “a bajillion dollars and the mayor’s daughter.”

“Hey,” Ukrop says. “It’s a business.” 

That’s funny, we thought it was a game.

Theater Review: WWF Monday Night RAW!

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, November 21 1995

Our first Theatre review, on the appearance of WWF Raw! at the Richmond Coliseum. Most exquisite abstract-art theatre. Actually, I think this was our second-funniest column ever. But I don’t remember this event. In retrospect, it’s entirely possible that only Paul actually ever went to WWF RAW and that I just wrote my parts based on snarky preconceived notions about wresting and its fans. In fact, most of my writing in this period is slathered with contempt for people who were socioeconomically different from me. So, if this is/was you, I apologize in advance.

Hi. We are Jeff “The Berserk Weasel” Carl and Paul “The Mollusk” Caputo.  And we RULE!

The touring company of “WWF Monday Night RAW!” recently came to Richmond for a one-night-only performance.  And these two reviewers have never seen a show that could compare to its power, energy and sheer number of times people were kicked in the face.

Wrestling has been part of High Culture since the first Olympics in 4 Trillion B.C., when Fabius “The Human Phalanx” Celsius defeated Brutus “The Dagger” Omnibus Cum Laude.  Brutus’s manager, Aristotle “The Brain” Socrates then challenged Celsius to the first Pay-Per-View Grudge Match.

Things were different then: everyone was Greek, and also they may not have been faking it.  But today, wrestling is the finest avant-garde (Serbian for “avocado gourd”) theater in the world.  The modern wrestlers’ performances last Monday night were savage in their post-modernist sarcasm.  The Heroes – tragic anti-heroes, really – were garbed in costumes of such astonishing tackiness that it looked as if someone had stuck a peacock in a blender, then stapled the purée to Spandex.  The Bad Guys were equally vile, reminescent of Keanu Reeves in Little Buddha.  Especially notable was Gary Ramirez in a cameo role as The No-Name Guy Who Gets the Holy Bejeezus Beat Out of Him by One of the Stars.

The first sign that Professional Wrestling is artificial is that it was sponsored in part by “News Channel” 6. If you have ever watched Channel 6, you know that their reporters are made out of a semi-realistic foam rubber compound.  The part of “Charles Fishburne” is played by a clever trained weasel.

The most brilliant part of the performance was that when we arrived, the seats were already filled with “fans” there to make it look like an Actual Sporting Event.  Their portrayal of rabidly overexcited Drooling Zombies was brilliant.  We’re sure they were actors, because they couldn’t have been real. There were several brilliantly-timed lines from these performers, like “C’mon Ref!” “Now git ‘im this time!” and “If I eat one more Blue Icey Treat, I’m going to throw up!”  Okay, that last one was Paul.

The choreography was brilliantly chaotic, savagely modérne, a cross between Bob Fosse and “Godzilla versus Mothra.”  It was like a grand ballet, except you kick people in the face.

At the end of matches, the “fans” would rush, like a swarm of crazed bees with “Love Me Some Skoal” tattoos, to line the corridor where the next wrestler would appear. They apparently sensed when to do this with special chromosomes that the rest of us don’t have … or maybe it’s the other way around.  For a moment, we were convinced that we were at an Actual Sporting Event, albeit one in Hell.

Paul lost a coin flip and had to go interview some Actual Wrestling Fans.  They said inspiring things like “Benny ‘The Flying Carp’ Zambesi RULES!” and “Whooooo!”

The WWF “fans” demonstrated their manic enthusiasm by breaking out the crayons and making signs to hold up in case they got on TV. The Coliseum was filled with colorful if unintelligible signs: “Richmond Likes it RAW!” “Gorrilla Monsoon For President!” and “News Channel 6: ‘Coverage You Can Count On!’”

Some “fans” were particularly compelling.  In the third row there was a grotesquely obese man wearing (True Fact!) a cardboard Burger King crown, who whistled to the wrestlers and danced sometimes.  A truly brutal commentary on Materialism and Greed.  Jeff has never been so disturbed in his entire life.

Also, there were two really cute girls holding up signs.  They weren’t a comment on anything, but we spent a lot of time watching them, just in case.

Whenever the “fans’” “favorite” “wrestlers” appeared, thousands cheered wildy, and hundreds of otherwise-dormant brain cells leapt into action.  The critique of totalitarian socialism was savage.  The entire arena looked like a horde of Berserk Redneck Mongolian Warlords, dredged from the shallow end of the gene pool and oozing lumpily up the walls of the Coliseum.

The Coliseum Staff was in on the act as well, giving us a thrill-packed adventure before the match when we tried to pick up our press passes.  The Sluglike Woman (a brilliant cameo!) in the Box Office told us to go to the Lower Concourse. (The scenery downstairs involved a lone befuddled guard sitting amidst whistling wind and tumbleweeds in a vast, open, entirely press pass-less space. A bit overdone. Really.)  The Lower Concourse Office told us to go upstairs. The Upstairs Office told us to go to the Box Office.  The Box Office told us to go to Hell.

Eventually we pestered  Slug Woman (and her sidekick, Sloth Cashier) to call a Box Office Manager, so that she could go back to her other valuable work, cracking walnuts with her skull.  We think they never found our press reservations – the Manager just gave us tickets so we would go away.  

We wonder if they do this stuff to the Times-Dispatch.

But the really moving performances were in the ring.  The Referee was vital: he was Everyman; he was blind Justice; he was obviously drunk.  The “rules” are strict: whenever ANYONE breaks even a tiny rule, the referee MUST grimace and MAKE A STERN GESTURE imitating the infraction, then stare at the ceiling and PICK HIS NOSE while one wrestler’s manager beats the other wrestler SENSELESS with a POLO MALLET.

The first match was Enormous Fat Man (played by Chris Farley) and his Flamboyant Manager (Elton John) versus Flamboyant Wrestler (An Overgrown Mutated Weasel) and his Enormous Fat Manager (the late Orson Welles). The wrestlers’ repertoires included a wide range of professional wrestling moves, such as the Almost-A-Punch, the Flying Buttress, the Body Slam, the Denny’s Combo Melt Slam! and the ubiquitous Clutch-Your-Face-When-The-Other-Guy-Pretends-To-Punch-You.

WWF Heavyweight Champion Brett “The Large Intestine” Harte gave a stirring soliloquiy.  Unfortunately, he gave it in a high-pitched yell, about half an inch from the microphone, so what the audience heard was “BLAPHT SZZGRBL kill PHLORGM!  NRZBT “WWF” LIPPY-GORPLER! Minnesota Timberwolves GRLOOOMP!!  FNNGVLST MRDLUNHGP existentialism PHLURG quantum physics HNFF fin-de-síecle London GNRKLTNDFMG Super Size McBHRLTLTHOKKKK!!!!!”  Still, it was pretty inspiring.

One wrestler, who we think was named “Mister Savage,” or possibly “Bert,” appeared in a cloud of smoke and walked directly toward his first opponent, “USA Network Camera Man.” Savage Guy (or whatever) intimidated Camera Guy by screaming at him unintelligibly and covering him with spittle, often in large gobs.  Then he got in the ring and kicked somebody in the face.

One wrestler was really hurt during the performance – the Martha Graham Dance Company also faces many such injuries during a season – and the WWF Emergency Medical Response Team (four fat guys with a stethoscope) sprang into action several beers later.  This must have been very reassuring to the injured man (“Don’t worry!  There are FAT MEN coming to help you!”), since he lay motionless and didn’t try to crawl to a hospital.  Delicious satire on health-care reform.

The show’s climax is the GREATEST EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. The three-hour web of intrigue and colorful Underoos™ that the cast had been weaving all night drew to a Shakespearean finale of Faustian conflict, Herculean effort and kicking people in the face. It was, uh … well … you know. Okay, so we left early.

What conclusions can we draw from all this? 

On the Bad Side, the utterly seamless performance may have left some viewers with the misapprehension that it was real.  Plus some people may be allergic to bizarrely-costumed homoeroticism.  

On the Good Side, we were getting paid for this.

Thanksgiving Special

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, November 19 1995

Our special editorial on what we were and weren’t thankful for, including Miracle Whip, happy Golden Retrievers and girlfriends who hadn’t dumped us. Written with all the pathos and earnestness that two callow 22-year-olds could muster at the time, which is frankly not much. But still kind of touching, actually.

Hi. We are Jeff and Paul.  And just what are yams anyway?

Thanksgiving is as much a part of American culture as baseball and David Hasselhoff. It is a time to give thanks, (Get it?  Thanks … give … ing?  Clever.), a time to revel in the warmth of family, a time to reflect, a time to eat so much that you feel like you will NEVER EAT EVER AGAIN, until tomorrow when Taco Bell unveils its Border Light Leftover Turkey Soft Tacos. 

It is a time for brotherhood and stuffing.  Not necessarily in that order.

To truly understand Thanksgiving, we must go back to the story of the First Thanksgiving. Some historians (all right, one historian) believe that Thanksgiving was invented by aliens from the planet Pong. Another scholar (Rush Limbaugh) believes that Thanksgiving came into existence for bleeding-heart cry-baby liberals who wanted more turkey. (Although, Limbaugh doesn’t need any more turkey himself, if you know what we mean.)  Both of these theories, while believeable, are, as the Norwegians say, “Wrong.” 

If we recall our 17th Century History correctly – which we almost certainly don’t – the Pilgrims, seeking freedom and larger belt buckles, sailed to America, the Land of Opportunity, Freedom and “Miracle Whip.”  They endured many harsh winters, caused by, um … Canada and the Treaty of Ghent.  Just to keep warm , they had to burn witches.  Then they met the Indians and wrote the Magna Carta.  One Indian, Squanto, taught them how to plant “maize,” or  margarine.  This made them so happy that they arranged for a great feast, invited all the Indians and then shot them — including Squanto, whom they blamed for the terrible margarine harvest.  This process (shooting Indians, not planting margarine) continued for several hundred years. We’re not sure what that means but we’re glad the pilgrims aren’t shooting us.

This theory may be “factually correct,” but it too is wrong. Actually, Thanksgiving originated when the first Indians played the first Cowboys in NFL football.

Perhaps we can understand Thanksgiving through our modern, updated observance rituals.

Modern Americans celebrate Thanksgiving by dressing their children in ugly pastel dress-up clothes and  gathering at the ugly house of ugly Aunt Helen, who “hasn’t seen you since you were only knee-high to a weasel and ooooh how you’ve grown!” The men drink beer and watch football in the living room while the young cousins sneak outside with the enormous pot of Uncle Bert’s “special” mashed potatoes and play “Spackle Tag” in the yard. The women congregate in the kitchen, where they drink cooking sherry and talk about how thankful they are that football is on so that the men don’t try to help out with the food.

Football has always been a part of Thanksgiving because without it people would be forced to speak to “relatives,” people who are apparently, through no fault of their own, related to them. If men did not have the haven of televised Detroit Lions games, there would be endless violent arguments about silly family matters like who hates whose family and whose kids painted whose cars with cranberry sauce, blah blah blah.. With football, though, men can argue about important matters, such as why only an idiot would run straight up the middle on third and goal on the four yard line.

In most familes, there is a tradition in which the leading male figure (the male with the least hair) slices, or “trims” (Turkish for “hacks the crap out of”) the turkey that Aunt Helen has had in the oven since, roughly, last February. This tradition is allows males to be a part of it all without screwing up something that would ruin the entire holiday. In Paul’s family (True Fact!) it is his job to open the jars of olives (black and green). And he’s damn good at it.

Despite the fact that Thanksgiving’s mascot is the stupidest animal in the universe (turkeys often score less than powdered donuts and wood paneling on the SATs), it carries a serious message.

It is not our custom to be serious.  In fact, Jeff has never done it before, and the only time Paul ever tried it he couldn’t eat solid foods for three weeks.  However, we do have a lot to be thankful for.

We are thankful that our girlfriends have not yet dumped us even after reading several of our columns. 

We are thankful for baseball fields on Sunday afternoons, for finding a decent song on the radio, for backrubs from the aforementioned girlfriends, and for the way that golden retrievers just seem to be happy about everything. We are thankful that you are reading this column, when you could be watching “Baywatch.”

Nonetheless, we are thankful for “Baywatch.”

We are thankful for Extra Value Meals.

We are thankful that Super-Sizing them costs only 39 cents (plus tax).

We are thankful for the Chinese food at Beijing Café.

We are not thankful that Bob Saget is still alive.

We are thankful that we live in a country where smart-asses like us can make fun of everything.  

We are thankful that we all have so much to be grateful for – whether we realize it or not.  And we are thankful that you are here with us to say “thanks.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, from everyone at the State.  And save your wishbones for us.  All of us.  Or we’re coming after you.

The Guide To Richmond Radio

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, November 7 1995

The complete guide to Richmond Virginia radio stations in late 1995. At the time, this was hilarious. Unfortunately, even I don’t remember why it was funny at the time. Still, I think it’s funny that we said one ‘Lite Rock’ station’s motto was “It’s like never leaving the elevator.” That line was Paul’s, but I consistently take credit for it.

Hi.  We are Jeff and Paul.  But sometimes we fight crime in our secret identities of “Captain Gravel” and  his sidekick, “Fish Boy.”

Welcome to part 7 of our seemingly never-ending series, “The Decline and Fall of Basically Everything.”  Our previous chapters examined the Richmond Marathon, the Martha Graham Dance Company, turnpikes, cancer and the evidence linking Style Weekly to Satan.  This week’s installment is …. what’s that?  You  missed the last six?  We submitted them, but we suppose they were “bumped” to make room for the STATE’s special editorial pull-out section last week on “Why Poor People Should Be Shot.”  Oh, well. 

If you have never heard the expression “A city is made in its airwaves,” it is probably because it is one we just made up for the purposes of this column. However, were this an actual expression instead of an invention of what can only be described as “warped journalism,” it would serve as a great introduction to this column, which just happens to be about radio in the city of Richmond.

Recent changes have put Richmond’s music on the “cutting edge,” bringing it to the “forefront” of the “musical scene,” making it “fashionably late for dinner.” While the changes can only be “positive” for the simple reason that the Richmond “radio scene” sucked “a lot” before the changes, it should be noted that, after the changes, radio in Richmond still “bites itself.”

Now, in studying the subtle nuances of radio in Richmond we must first discount all country music.. The reason for this can be summed up by the following remark by a noted music critic: “AIEEEEEEEE! OK I’ll talk! Please God, don’t make me listen to that!” 

His thoughts can be understood better by analyzing the following lyrics from what is almost certainly an actual country music song:

Aaaah love mah truck/

And aaaaaah luv mah Maaaa/

But aaah jest found out/

Mah Maaa run off with maaaah dawg (chorus)

Moving along to what the hip kids these days call “rock ‘n’ roll,” we all know that the life of every radio-listening Richmonder changed when  Redneck Rock giant 104.7 WSUX switched its format from its original  country to its current 106.5 WVGO.

Wait.

No, that’s not right. 104.7, which now calls itself “The BUZZ” switched from its former country music format to its current “alternative” (“alternative” implying that it’s not your first choice) grunge music format. “Grunge” is a mysterious West Coast term that, for all we know, means “a light chicken gravy.”  You can tell that these  “alternative” bands are very progressive and cutting-edge because they have an out-of-context verb or noun name like “Suck” or “Dogbowl” that was apparently chosen at random.  

A typical lyric from one of these songs (True Fact!) by “Pearl Jam” seems to be, as best we can figure it out:

She dog lick fits sponge bone/

I bong the wink, scoop poke Nerf zone/

She slurp funk tick gourd (unintelligible)/

I  gills wig snort, stink clambake drone (guitar solo)

Right now we should mention, for the benefit of those who disagree with us and are preparing to write nasty letters written in flaming dog-doo stuck to the STATE’s door with a knife, that Paul and Jeff’s music tastes are not “cool” to begin with.  Paul still thinks that “They Might Be Giants” is neat, and Jeff is certifiably the only 22-year-old in the world who listens to “Gilbert and Sullivan.”  So you can a.) like it, or b.) lump it.

In response to 104.7’s maneuvering, WVGO 106.5 switched from its old alternative format to its new exactly-the-same but differently-named modern rock format.   Also, WVGO retired (“fired like a cruise missile”) its old morning show hosts,  Mike, Meg, Weav (short for “weevil?”), Bob, Yoda, and Ringo.  They then picked up Howard Stern, who fills a longtime gap in Richmond radio, namely that there weren’t enough “penis” jokes.

Not to be lost in the shuffle, XL102 did not change its format, or even rename of its old format. Instead, they put up huge billboards saying “Don’t Fake It,” and pictures of what must be some woman being tortured by police after trying to use a fake ID.  We applaud XL102’s stand on teenage civic responsibility.

Or … wait a second.  Oh, she’s supposed to be faking an orgasm.  That makes sense, because radio … orgasms … um … okay, we don’t know what the Hell that’s supposed to be about.  If someone finds out, please write to us, care of this newspaper.

XL102 also plays some “Heavy Metal” music.  It can be distinguished by its lyrics, which are something like this:

I am very angry about something!!!!!/

I am really very angry about something!!!!!/

My life is unpleasant, and I am angry about this!!!!!!!/

Now let’s all worship Satan. (guitar solo)

Or at least that’s what we heard.

Meanwhile, B103.7, which at any given point during the day, has up to four people listening to it, recently joined the radio battle by switching its motto from “The best of the 70s, 80s and 90s” to the harder edged, more direct, “All Phil Collins, All the Time.”  Its strategy also seems to be to play the theme song from the TV show “Friends” at least every three songs and sometimes up to twice per every song, and then again during commercials. 103.7’s most direct competition, Lite 98.1, combatted the recent movement on the radio dial by switching its motto from its old “Like Lite beer, but worse” to its new “It’s Like Never Leaving the Elevator.”

In a refreshing display of either stubbornness or apathy, the new WLEE 96.5 seems to be going out of its way to discourage listeners from tuning in. The most striking evidence of this is their occasional use of the motto, (True Fact!) “Keeping the ‘70s alive.”

Our message: LET THEM DIE!

Apparently, someone in the WLEE advertising department thought it would be really great if everybody out there in Listener Land imagined that the 96.5 deejays all had big muttonchop facial hair and were wearing plaid bell-bottom pants and tight satin button-down shirts. This is cool enough.  But then they actually have to play the music that people were listening to back then, which seems to have been nothing but “Steely Dan.”

At the far left end of the dial, we have the steering column. (Important note: There is only one actual functioning non-digital radio dial left in the country. So, unless you are actually in Jeff’s car while you are reading this, you’ll just have to imagine.) On the far “left,” we have Q94.5.  We should probably mention that we would listen to Q94 even if its entire music library consisted of old Menudo 8-Tracks for one simple reason: They keep saying they might call us and offer us $1,000. 

Can you imagine? A thousand drachmas! We could super-size it every time! We’d be living the good life, baby!

Then there is “Power 93,” which, according to their commercials, “JAMZ!!!!”  There are many people in the commercials dancing around and waving their fingers to demonstrate how happy this makes them.  At the other end of the dial, there is NPR, National Public Radio, which has all the excitement of Public Television, plus it doesn’t have pictures.  Paaaaarrrttyyyy!  Lyrics for a typical NPR song go like this:

Dum dum da dee dum/

Dum da da da da/

Dum doop de doop doo/

Let’s all go worship Satan. (flute solo)

Well, not really.  But it would be much cooler if it did.

At this point, we’ll open the discussion to questions from the audience.

Q: Do any of these stations play “The Beatles?”

A: No.

Q: So, then, they all stink, right?

A: Yes.

Perhaps we have been too harsh: these stations all have their good points.  For example, B103.7 plays cool cheesy ‘80s stuff.  WVGO is great to start your day with that first penis joke of the morning.  XL102 must have a sense of humor, for broadcasting “KISS Unplugged” on Halloween.  “The BUZZ” must be good for entertaining mutants and  VCU students. Lite 98 keeps Michael Bolton off welfare.

Therefore, our scientifically-tested recommendation is to listen to whatever station offers to pay you the most money.  God knows somebody should pay people for listening.  

Or whatever.

It’s Supposed To Be Funny

By Professor J. Schnell Carlsbad, Ph.D, Ed.D, Sa.T, Pb.J, M.P.H.

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Plug Magazine, November 1 1995

Plug Magazine (www.pluginc.com) was an early entrant into the Internet content space back when you had to call a website a magazine so that people knew what it was. It was… I’m not even sure I remember what it was. It wasn’t around very long, the domain is currently unused, and I can’t even find any cached copies on archive.org to remember what it looked like. So let’s just say that it was another predictably disappointing highway service plaza on the road to writing stardom for Paul Caputo and me.

Hello there! And welcome to Richmond’s Comedy Web Central! And, as the old sailors used to say, Comedy Ahoy!

This collection of assorted “comic essays” and “crap” is the result of many hours of decidicated effort, a few of which was actually “work.” And it should be appreciated as such.

To wit: What is comedy? Is it innate? Is it a Rabelaisian doctorine of satirical whimsy? Is it a Voltaireian wave of Frenchness? Is it a “Toucan-Sam”-esque cavalcade of breakfast cereal? Is it, as most would figure, just a load of “pseudojournalistic horseshit?”

These are difficult questions. As such, I don’t feel like answering them. In fact, all I really feel like doing is taking another shot of “103 Proof Fighting Cock.” But since they are paying me to answer this, the least I can do is give a scholarly answer: one that is thoughtful, insightful and blatant horseshit.

It all began as the brainchild (“brain” in little finger-quotes) of Jeffrey Carl and Paul Caputo. Oddly enough, both men are albino Swedes.

Jeff had worked for a small newspaper in Westmoreland County, Virginia, where he “received more hate mail before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.” Paul had been a columnist for a Pennsylvania paper, which was only firebombed twice. They brought their respective “talents” in “writing” “journalism” to their college of choice. It happened to be the same college, because both got half-off on tuition: Jeff as a result of an ill-decide scholarship, and Paul because he had pictures of the Dean of Admissions in a Holiday Inn with three cheerleaders and a rubber model of an automatic transmission.

Soon, each rose to a position of prominence on campus: Paul as an outspoken liberal colunist in the school’s library bathroom walls, and Jeff as a drunken fratboy who, in a drunken stupor, fervently retched on classmates. Incidentally, both wrote for the college newspaper.

During their years as school-chums, they grew so bored with their literary efforts being “the talk of the town” that they decided to combine their efforts and become “the talk and Morse Code telegrams of the town.” In some circles, they were also the Bizarre Mime and Braille of the town.

In his Junior year, Paul was named as the Editorials Editor of the college newspaper. In Jeff’s Senior year, he replaced Paul, because the new Editor-in-Chief thought the intellectual quality of Jeff’s columns was better. Also, Jeff was having sex with her (the Editor, not the columns) frequently. Of these days, Jeff later remarked, “Huh?”

But the fact remains that both were campus celebrities and superstars to the paper’s readers — yes, both of them. At any rate, they persisted for months as the “literary” “life” of the “college” they attended (which we won’t embarrass it by using its name but will call the “Univ6sity 6f 6ichmond.”) Their exploits were sometimes legendary, and almost always fictitous. People frequently showed how envious they were by saying of their work, “Jeff and Paul what? Who the Hell are you talking about?” Their burning jealousy was obvious.

But the fact remains that at their graduation, Jeff received a standing ovation, and Paul received several direct hits from vegetables and small rocks. Paul later laughed these off as just being the result of unusual indoors atmospheric conditions.

During this time, an awkward friendship was formed: Paul admired Jeff’s brilliant comic wit, and Jeff admired Paul’s girlfriend. It was like a match made in heaven, if heaven were full of Fiery Pits and Screaming Dead People. Actually, that’s Hell I’m thinking of.

But the match was made nonetheless: Paul and Jeff had found common comic grounds: Dave Barry, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and “David Hasselhoff.” Both particularly admired the episode of “Knight Rider” wherein KITT’s evil twin, KARR, tried to kill David Hasselhoff. Incidentally, both had attempted the same thing previously and Jeff was arrested for prowling around Hasselhoff’s estate with an axe, muttering “It’s time to make the donuts, David.”

Jeff and Paul became fast friends, and they labored for months thereafter, working for hours and hours, diligently laboring, to convince people that even though they were “fast friends” that they weren’t gay. Jeff got engaged, just so people would realize.

Jeff and Paul also became a top-notch writing team, and began to pour out articles. Their first work, “Modes of Semantic Epistemogoly in Post-Jungian Realism,” was rejected by “Science” magazine. Then their second article, “Mating Behaviors of the Tuft-Titted Grutmouse” was rejected by the “Audobon Society Quarterly.” Incidentally, it was accepted by “The Richmond Times-Dispatch.” They had hit rock-bottom.

But then they turned back to comedy, and the result from critics has been non-stop apathy ever since. Paul and Jeff began writing for “The Richmond State,” and they began receiving figuratively hundreds of letters a day.

Jeff and Paul also began writing a movie script, which they abandoned when they realized that it resembled too closely “National Lampoon’s Senior Trip,” and also “Citizen Kane.”

Soon thereafter, they had an idea. “Hey,” they said. “Let’s order CHINESE FOOD!!!!” Soon after that, they had another idea. “Hey,” they said. “We’re hungry again. Let’s get A PIZZA!!!!!!!” I’m not sure how the idea of writing for “Pluginc” came about.

At any rate, their first columns on “The Web” were greeted with a tremendous wave of people ignoring them. This was actually an improvement on their college careers, which had involved tremendous waves of people, including (TRUE FACT!) Male Cheerleaders, trying to “beat the shit out of them.” Encouraged by this — as well as the fact that Kevin and Chuck fell asleep one day with their HTML Editor open — they set up their own Web Pages, making them “Caught in the Web” or “Linked in the Net” or “Passed Out on the Floor.”

And so you see the Web Archive before you. Peruse it. Browse it. Shriek violently and throw fruit at it. They don’t care. They get to count the “hit” anyway.

The kindest recommendation I can give to these young hooligans is that they have never vomited on me personally. Their stuff may or may not be funny. I can’t tell Then again, they have never let me out of these straps to check.

In short, “Enjoy!” Or, “Belive me, you’ll puke on your keyboard if you try to read this!” Or, “Or whatever!”

As long as these cheese-dicks pay me for this. Otherwise, I really couldn’t give three shekels and a dead rat’s ass.

The Decline and Fall of Basically Everything – Volume I

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, October 23 1995

A scholarly discourse on the wrongness of traffic jams on Cary Street; the question “No, Honey, REALLY, what’s the matter????”; the Richmond Marathon; fat guys in goofy hats; throwing up but still running; and Yoko Ono. Like pretty much everything else we wrote for The Richmond State, it all seemed uproariously funny at the time.

Hi.  We are Jeff and Paul.  And we will be Julie and Omar, your Cruise Directors.  Welcome aboard!

Actually, we are here to warn you, valued STATE reader, about a matter which no doubt concerns you deeply, especially if you are as weird as we are.  This is aside from the serious matters which worry us every day, such as “What’s for dinner?,”  “How could they fit that much cholesterol in it?,”  “How in the name of God are we going to pay for that without actual jobs?” and “Would we like that ‘Super-Sized’ for only 39 cents extra?”

We are worried about the declining state of basically everything.  Except “The Simpsons,” which is still fine.  And so we present our first in a series (unless they can us after this one) of in-depth examinations of all of the individual reasons that the world as we know it is more or less going to pot.

The first and most glaring example of this striking decline in everything is the recent Richmond Times-Dispatch Marathon, a couple of Sundays ago.

Now, while running is great cardiovascular exercise (French for “hating yourself”), there are several downfalls to it. The first is that running is bad for your knees. Well, not your knees. A runner’s knees. You are clearly not a runner because you are sitting down reading this column. Were you a runner, you wouldn’t have time to read this because you would be a.) running, b.) eating tofu while running, or c.) struggling to get out of your straitjacket.

Ergo, (Latin for “So, anyway,”) the second downfall of running  is that really serious runners are crazy as a football bat.  We know this because we used to be runners. As members of our respective high schools’ varsity cross-country teams., we learned that runners are people with heart, desire and the knowledge that they did not have the coordination to play actual sports.

We ran over hill and dale.  We discovered the limits of endurance.  We discovered self-discipline.  We discovered that wearing those really short running shorts made us, as guys, very uncomfortable.  We discovered conclusively that the fabled “runner’s high” was actually just a “bad trip.”

But that is neither here nor there.

What is both here and there is that the Times-Dispatch Marathon was the largest public display of general disaster in the city since the last time the Yankees burned it.  Or the last time they had the marathon.

If you were watching Channel 12’s special live marathon coverage, you missed the best part of the race. It was a moment that defined running: The Moment.The Moment itself was momentary – it seemed to last only a moment, but it was a momentous moment. Especially for those who had to wash momentos of the moment off their clothes. 

The Moment occured with the eventual winner, Mark Harrison, several miles from the finish line and a full mile ahead of the next runner. Harrison, striding with confidence and determination, took a brief moment to glance at the fans on the side of the street. Seeing the cheering faces and the waving hands, Harrison turned his head and vomited. 

And he kept running.

Then, as an encore, he threw up again.

Without breaking his stride.

Now, as former runners ourselves,  we know we what Harrison was thinking: “That damn fat guy with the goofy hat.”  Allow us to explain. 

The most distinct difference between runnners and fans at an event like the marathon is that while runners are often delirious on top of being insane to begin with (as evidenced by the fac t that they are voluntarily running 26 miles), the fans are merely sadistic. Your average running fans will stand on the side of the road, smiling, remaining stationary and drinking beer, while the runner struggles by, sweating up to (true fact!) fourteen gallons of water per second.

Then, seeing the runner, the average fan will actually yell something like, “Keep it up!” or  “You’re almost there!”

Now, being runners ourselves, we know that “almost there” translates directly into “You poor bastard.  Ha ha!”

The runner will usually grin encouraginly at the fans and mouth something like “Please kill me.”

We are certain that Harrison’s reasons for vomiting had nothing to do with the actual physical exertion involved with running. Instead, we know that there was a fan, most likely a fat one, wearning one of those hats with two beers attached to it and the two bendy-straws hanging down to suck on, who yelled something like “Hurry up!” as Harrison was running by.  His only response, since strangling the fan would require far too much energy, was to “barf”, or, as the French say, boot.

Jeff saw the Richmond marathon first-hand, sitting in his car, stuck in the traffic jam on Cary Street, which extended (true fact!) a bajillion miles long (the traffic jam, not Cary Street).  Hundreds of cranky motorists sat in their cars, watching the valiant efforts of these hearty athletes, and all (the cranky motorists) thinking, “If that traffic cop wasn’t here, I could just run over ‘em and be on my way.”

Consider this proposition: a runner weighs roughly 150 pounds and is made of soft, fleshy material.  A car weighs up to four tons and is made of metal (except for Geos, which are made of Nerf).  

Furthermore, the cars are on their way somewhere important, like Denny’s or home to watch “The Simpsons.”  

The marathon runners aren’t going anywhere, and they’re even doing that slowly.  These people have so much free time that they’re running 26 miles to go in a big circle. And, while we are certainly in favor of “free time,” that’s just ridiculous.

Think of all the things these people could have been doing with their time.  Like curing cancer.  Or feeding ducks.  Or  sending us money.

Let’s look at this whole “marathon” thing from the eyes of the runners. The reason we can do this is not because we are actual runners ourselves, but rather because we are columnists and we know everything. For instance, we know the very simple and obvious solutions to age-old questions like “What is the meaning of life?” and “Why are women insane?” and “Hey, honey, what’s the matter?” and “NO, REALLY, WHAT’S THE MATTER?” Of course, if we just came right out and told you theanswers to these questions, there wouldn’t be a need for a professional columnists and we’d have to live in cardboard boxes instead of the luxurious dumpsters we live in now.

So, years ago, more than three thousand  (a number we made up in lieu of doing any actual research) potential runners were sitting on couches and in diners across the city, nation and world. Suddenly these people got glints in their eyes, which sounds as if it should hurt.  Anyway, followed by the glint, these people got ideas, and they started thinking strange thoughts. 

They thought, That’s it. I got it. I’ll RUN! I won’t run from anything. or to anywhere, I’ll just run. And I’ll run a LOT, so that I am often sweaty and always always wheezing. And I will badger OTHERS to run, until EVERYONE is running, and we are all so busy sweating and wheezing that our Alien Overlords From The Planet “Gort” will have NO PROBLEM conquering the world!  HA HA HA HA!

Or at least we think it was something like that.

This thought process ended years later at the starting/finish line on 6th and Broad streets when,  when all those trillions (or whatever) of running careers reached a climax. As each of these runners crossed the finish line, they thought, almost in unison, “Great Creeping Buddha!  What was I thinking?”

The Big Question here is: who is to blame for all this nonsense?  The runners?  No.  That would be adding insult to injury and vomit.  The fans?  No.  They had the only ones who had the sense not to actually be running.  The Times-Dispatch?  Convenient, and it’s always good to blame them for something, but probably not in this case.  The City Council?  True, another easy target – and extremely funny – but this is still probably not their fault.  That huge pitcher of Kool-Aid that used to bust through walls and sing during their commericals, back when we were kids?  No.  In fact, that’s just stupid.

Who, then?

That’s right, Yoko Ono.  Why?  Because Yoko Ono – besides the fact that in the “World’s Most Irritating Person” contest she finished second only to “Gallagher”  – broke up The Beatles, leading to a chain reaction of disasters including spiraling inflation rates, the chart-topping success of the band “A-Ha” and an overall increase in crime, disease, volcanoes and gross “yeast infection” medicine commercials during TV programs that guys mistakenly watch.  Ono’s continued existence is one of the Seven Signs of the Apocalypse (French for “going to Hell in a handbasket”).  Other signs include Candians winning the World Series and Keanu Reeves “performing” “Hamlet.”  

So this event, which fulfilled biblical prophecy (Revelation 14:9 “And the Beast shall say unto John, ditch Paul and make irritating albums with me”), began the long cascade of all-around berserkness which is responsible for the marathon and the general decline and fall of more or less everything.  

Or whatever.

The History of the City of Richmond: 1995-2001

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, October 19 1995

The future history of the next 16 years in the city of Richmond Virginia, chock full of extremely short lived topical references. If you did not live in Richmond in 1995, you will find it monstrously unfunny. Then again, you’ll probaby find all of our stuff monstrously unfunny whether you lived there or not.

Hi. We are Jeff and Paul.  That being the case, we have supernatural powers which allow us to see the future.  We recently warmed up our crystal ball (which looks suspiciously like an old “Magic 8-Ball”) and glimpsed at the future of Richmond until the year 2000.  Was it bright and happy?  The Magic 8-Ball leaned toward yes.  Was it funny?  Our vision: Cannot answer at this time.  It is through our fool-proof sequence of complex yes or no question that we can reveal to you, valued State reader, the following:

The History of the City of Richmond: 1995-2001

October 19, 1995 — You pick up the Richmond State and are reading this column. (So far, so good.)

Several moments later, 1995 — While you’re busy reading this, somebody steals your wallet.

October 12, 1995 – The Monument Avenue statue of Arthur Ashe is torn down and replaced with a new one, because city officials say the old one is “ugly as Hell.”  Sculptor Paul DiPasquale retorts, “Well, excuuuuuuuse me.”

November 3, 1995 – New statistics reveal that Richmond’s murder rate is the highest in the country.  Police Chief Jerry Oliver says, reportedly, “Oops.”

December 1, 1995 – Mayoral elections are announced.  Mayor Leonidas Young responds, “Somebody please run and get me out of this job.”

December 19, 1995 – Oliver North announces his candidacy for the mayorship.  His slogan is “North – He Needs the Work.  Badly.”  

January 8, 1995 – The Richmond Times-Dispatch, in an effort to boost a seriously flagging readership, merges with Style Magazine.  The new newspaper is called “The Rychmond Tymes-Dysptach,” and has over 30 pages of personal ads.

January 22, 1996 – In a surprise move, television star David Hasselhoff declares his candidacy for the mayor of Richmond.  When asked why, he responds, “I’m a big musical star in Germany.”

May 6, 1996 – In the mayoral election, Leonidas Young retains his seat after everybody forgets to vote.

September 20, 1996 — Radio personality Howard Stern asks Richmond officials to “let him know when that mayor position is open.” 

January 16, 1997 – The Tymes-Dyspatch, to fight further decreases in readership, switches to an all-comics format.  The headline of the first edition reads, “Mary Worth in Wild Love Triangle, Sources Report.”

February 1, 1997 — Richmond gains national attention when the state supreme court rules that it is constitutional for teachers to confine parents to their room if their children do not perform well in school. 

April 13, 1997 – Four members of the Richmond City Council resign after being arrested for speeding.

June 8, 1997 – The Richmond Braves are kicked out of the International League after losing the baseball playoffs to Girl Scout Troop #327, a Pittsburgh Pirates farm team.  Richmonders vow to get another sports team immediately.  The Richmond Renegades release a statement through their director of public relations that says, “HEY!  What about us?”

     Richmonders simply shrug and go watch the Washington Redskins lose to the expansion Springfield Egg Shells on TV.

June 21, 1997 – The Tymes-Dyspatch, in a last-ditch effort to gain readers, begins just making up news that they think would be interesting.

July 5, 1997 – New statistics say that Richmond’s murder rate is the highest in the universe.  According to these statistics, everyone in the city will be dead by Tuesday.

July 25, 1997 — Controversy reigns on Monument Avenue as ground is broken for a statue of David Hasselhoff.  Confederate-flag-wielding protesters darken the moment, chanting and throwing rocks. One protester says, “I mean, couldn’t they get a real hero? How ‘bout the Dukes of Hazzard?”  Monument sponsors admit that Daisy Duke would make a much better-looking statue.

     Sculptor Paul DiPasquale can not be reached for comment, but releases a statement through an agent, stating, “Hey, they love him in Germany.”

September 1, 1997 — Police Chief Jerry Oliver is replaced by an aging Clint Eastwood. When new Chief Eastwood is asked by reporters about new community patrol efforts, he simply squints and says something about punks, then shoots a television reporter. This earns him a standing ovation.

September 3, 1997 — Howard Stern announces that he is running for mayor.

September 7, 1997 – Police Chief Eastwood resigns in order to star in the next “Police Academy” sequel. At a press conference supportive Mayor Leonidas Young is quoted as saying, “We have police?”

September 15, 1997 — Leonidas Young says “I’m sick of this job.  The City Council can bite me,” and announces that he will host a four-hour comedy morning talk show on WRVA. Howard Stern is reportedly “really pissed.”

December 9, 1997 – A statue of Bo and Luke Duke is erected on Monument Avenue.  The plaque reads: “Just two good ol’ boys; Never meanin’ no harm; Beats all you never saw; Been in trouble with the law since the day they were born.”

January 13, 1998 — Controversy rocks Richmond’s City Council as more than half of its members are forced to resign after they are busted for selling Girl Scout Cookies without a license.

February 6, 1998 – New police chief Barney Fife resigns after it is revealed that he is actually a fictional character.

February 7, 1998 — New statistics reveal that everyone in Richmond has been murdered at least once, and that others have been brutally slain more than six times.  Police Chief Madonna says, “I’m outta here.”

February 8, 1998 – The City Council selects as its new police chief: RoboCop.  One council member says, “OK, so he isn’t real, but we think he’ll scare people.”

February 19, 1998 — Oliver Stone’s latest movie, “Natural-Born Losers,” which depicts the escapades of Richmond’s now-famous city council, is released.

March 3, 1998 – Marion Barry is elected to the City Council after it is discovered that he is only candidate who has already served his jail time.

March 28, 1998 — The popular dance club Paragon wins a landmark legal battle with the City of Richmond, after it sued the city for “being really lame.” The city pleads “no contest.”  Afterwards, the victorious law firm, Joynes, Bieber and Cochran, which represented Paragon in the case, holds a press conference n which they announce that “we totally rule.” 

April 3, 1998 – The new Richmond baseball team, the “Richmond Tomohawk-Wielding-Maniacs,” is selected because, in the team owner’s words, “That way we can still use that stupid-looking indian-thing stuck to the stadium.”

April 4, 1998 – The Tomohawk-Wielding-Maniacs lose to Girl Scout Troop #327.  All six fans in attendance are reportedly “really pissed.”

May 4, 1998 – In a seemingly unrelated incident, David Hasselhoff has a sandwich for lunch, thousands of miles away.  Coincidence?  We think not.

October 30, 1998 — Richmond State reporter Jason Roop dresses up in all black on the night before Halloween, Mischief Night, and covers both of the Comycs-Dyspatch’s main buildings with toilet paper.  Reportedly, nobody cares.  The Dyspatch runs an editorial the next day condemning toilet paper as being the fault of welfare.

November 4, 1998 — The Richmond State shocks the newspaper world by buying out The Rychmond Comycs-Dyspatch.

     Says new editor in chief, Jason Roop, “Hey, why not? They’ve got some cool buildings, once you get the toilet paper off them.”

May 11, 1999 — Mayoral candidates Howard Stern, Oliver North, Colin Powell and Ringo Starr each receive zero votes.  The winner is write-in candidate General Robert E. Lee, despite the fact that he has been dead for more than a hundred years.

June 30, 1999 – General Lee posthumously resigns as mayor.  City officials say they will seek a new mayor from the entertainment industry because “they are involved in fewer scandals than the other candidates.”

August 9, 1999 – The entire City Council is arrested for being City Council members, which is now a felony offense.

September 2, 1999 – The Richmond State-Dyspatch reports that the Virginia Supreme Court has declared that parents can be shot if their children receive a “C” on tests.

November 23, 1999 – Geneticists successfully mate a VCU student and a University of Richmond student.  Doctors report that the child is born wearing a Brooks Brothers shirt, but has its nose pierced.

January 1, 2000 – The Mayor Formerly Known as Prince declares that Richmond is once again seceding from the Union, citing “irreconcilable differences.”  State troopers are given orders to shoot anyone with New Jersey license plates on sight.  A second Confederate government is formed; new Attorney Generals Joynes, Bieber and Wapner call the move “entirely constitutional, except for the illegal bits.”  In the midst of the controversy, plans for a new Monument Avenue statue of Howard Stern go unnoticed.

     As responsible journalists, we feel that no city should know too much about its own future. It is for this reason that we stop this future history at the dawn of the new century. After that moment, it is up to the city of Richmond to determine its own future.

     Also, our Magic 8-Ball has too many bubbles in it to read correctly, and to go any further would mean to compromise the sanctity of our predictions. Jeff has even suggested that we make stuff up just to fill space.

     Lord knows we wouldn’t want to do that.

The Pocket Guide to Post-College Survival

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State, or at least the closest I could find to it
The Richmond State, October 1 1995

The Richmond State was a plucky upstart alternative newspaper (not that kind of “alternative”) that challenged the editorial might of the stodgy Richmond Times-Dispatch beginning in 1994. It folded in 1997 and left so little of a legacy that there is a grand total of one search result for it in all of the Googles, which is a link to the Library of Congress where you can find which libraries have copies on microfiche. At the time, Paul Caputo and I thought this was our ticket to comedy stardom. We were exceptionally stupid.

Hi.  We are Jeff and Paul, and we recently graduated from a local college that we won’t name, but rhymes with “Poon-a-nursery glove Bitch-fund.”  And, being thrust into a cold, hard world with only a $60,000 slip of paper (“diploma”) as protection, we thought we’d write something to save all of you future graduates out there from making all the same mistakes we did, so that you can go on to make new ones.  Thus was born our “Pocket Guide to Post-College Survival in Richmond.”

First thing’s first.  Don’t actually put it in your pocket.  Folded-up newsprint is disgusting. Especially this stuff they use here at the State. What is this? Grape juice?

(Tip #1: Don’t taste it. It’s not grape juice.)

The second thing is that just because you, when you graduate, will likely not have a plan (“clue”) or job (“job”), is no cause to be upset.  It is cause for full-fledged panic.  Your immediate reaction should be to drink so much that your only memories of your senior year of college are savage hangovers and some class that was maybe “Introduction to Management Systems” or “Systems of Introductory Management” or “Inter-System Management of Suction” or “13th Century Algerian Literature.”  Or something.

At any rate, when you recover from your illness (“hangover”) and are kicked out (“graduate”), your plan is simple: 1) Panic again. 2) Drink more. 3) Hang the tassle from your graduation cap over the rear-view mirror.

After a couple of days, when all of this has grown a little tiresome or life-threatening, you face two options.  The first is to keep drinking, go back to your old fraternity parties, drink even more, beg money from your parents for astounding amounts of cheap Scotch, and finally end up as one of those people who lie outside of 7-11s, arguing with “those damn squirrels.”  Do not do this.  Your other option is to come to terms with your job situation (“none”) and attempt to find one.

You will not be successful immediately, unless you are seeking a career in the growing fields of asking “would you like that Super-Sized?” or drug dealing. There will be days when you feel as if you may never find a job. This is probably a result of the stack of “thank you but ha ha ha ha” letters from companies that have lots of jobs but none for you, which you have under your bed, along with the four-month-old Taco Bell-flavored Doritos you forgot you had left there as a snack for the mice. Finding a job that fits all of your personal requirements (“pays money”) will take a little time, and you need to know how to survive (“not die”) in the meantime.

Incidentally, there are certain vitally important hints for this interim period that have been learned and passed down through generations of ex-grads.  We have, due to excess drinking, forgotten them.  But, as best as we can reconstruct them, they include:

• Ramen noodles are your friend.  At four for a dollar, they are perfect for your budget.  And they contain a whopping zero percent of all your daily nutrient requirements.  Except “sodium,” of which they contain about a billion percent of your needs for the next decade.  But they are easy to make (“have microwave instructions”) and are tasty hangover remedies.

• Low-cost housing is your friend.  Just because a neighborhood is “unfashionable” or “constantly life-threatening” is no reason not to move in, if the price is right.  “The price is right” in this case indicates that it is the cheapest damn thing you can find.  You and your roommates – and you will have roommates – simply need to develop simple security precautions.  These can range from being safety-smart (“sleeping with a shotgun under the pillow”) to simple friendliness (“taping a sign that says ‘please do not kill us’ on your door.”)

• Free pizza.  Pizza Hut has a “If Your Order Isn’t Right, It’s Free” policy.  Order pizzas without anchovies.  Needless to say, you can always insist that you wanted anchovies on that.  And, if some bizarre slip-up occurs and they did put anchovies on it, say you wanted kelp or hummus or something.

• Join the planetary family.  If you find that you need an automobile and you don’t have one, think Saturn.  They have a wonderful “30-days, no questions asked” return policy on their automobiles.  Simply pretend you have a wonderful credit history (“lie”) and purchase one.  Twenty-nine days later, return it, claiming you hated the headrests or that the stereo wouldn’t stop playing Queen.  Get another Saturn.  Repeat.  Rinse.

Special Note: Do not do this indefinitely.  You may have heard of the Saturn “Family.”  This is not to be underestimated: sooner or later, they will get wise.  And you don’t want Vito and Luigi Saturn from the “family” paying youse a visit.

• Be a cool cat.  If you are living in an affordable (“cheap”) apartment, it may not have air-conditioning.  Richmond summers can be a little warm (“a sweltering hell-box”), and air-conditioned living is a real must.  If you don’t have friends with air-conditioning to mooch off of, there are several other free sources of coolness to investigate.  Try the local library: those are always air-conditioned.  And, since nobody reads anymore, you can camp out there for days at a time, undisturbed.  If you are somehow surprised by a rogue librarian who notices your tent and campfire in the reference section, do not panic.  Simply explain that you are trying to finish Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury,” and that you’re up to page seven.  They will understand.

• Learn and experience the merits of afternoon television. One of the most detrimental things an unemployed post-grad can do is feel listless and worthless. Afternoon television gives us something to look forward to. And hey, can we help it if the world doesn’t recognize the positive qualities we would bring to any organization that would pay us to join their professional team (“anywhere that would pay us?”) No. Without “Quantum Leap” or “Knight Rider” reruns, or everything on ”Comedy Central” there to offer moral support at three in the afternoon, when the rest of the world is out working and getting pay checks every week, life would seem, well, worthless.  And, dammit, in that darkest hour, Montel is there for you.

Get a pet. You need someone to talk to, don’t you?  And, compared to your roomates, they will seem neat.

Go back to campus. Watch people go to class, studying for tests, handing in papers. Laugh heartily and yell things like, “Chaucer sucks!” and all those things you could never say during college.  Hey, we might be unmployed. But at least we’re not still learning anything.

• Or whatever.

You may have spent some or all of your college years working as an intern (“slave.”)  This process involves you telling some company that you would like to work there – and this is the part companies love – without them paying you any money.

“Hold on,” you say.  “What would make me want to do that, unless I had gone completely raving berserk?  Or just really rock-stupid?”

But wait!  Surprisingly enough, there are many benefits to the concept of internship (“indentured servitude”).  First is that an internship gives you valuable experience.  Experience is important because it can be redeemed at the end of the show for valuable prizes and luggage.  Second, many companies end up hiring their interns.  Unfortunately, these people never go very far on the corporate ladder because their superiors realize that these people were what the French call “dumb as a bag of hammers” (or, literally translated, “duh”). That is, they had few enough functioning synapses that they worked for no money at all, so they’d probably bankrupt the company in a week if they were ever in charge.  Third, you can steal pens, stationery and toilet paper, in addition to making long-distance phone calls from your internship.

Or try working for a temp agency (“hating your life.”)  Jeff had a friend who – no kidding – had a temp assingment shoveling coal into a furnace.  If necessary, remind yourself frequently “I may be shoveling coal, but I’m extremely qualified to do it.”

If this does not work, and you don’t mind slumming a little, try looking into the growing fields of selling crack or transvestite prostitution.  Or bother people for change outside of stores on Franklin Street.  At least that way you won’t have your alma mater bugging you for donations.  And if you finally decide that you have absolutely no scruples whatsoever, and are willing to walk on the seedy side of life, try getting a part-time job in TV news or with the Richmond Times-Dispatch (“Times-Disgrace.”)  That’s what we did.

To sum up, everything will eventually be okay.  Someday you will have a real job and spend your afternoons relieving stress by beating young interns with electric cattle prods.  You will work your way up the corporate ladder (“the highway to hell”) and find the well-paying job of your choice (“have too many mortgages to enjoy it.”)  It’s a simple fact of biology – everybody who currently has a well-paying job is probably going to die before you do.  So there willbe openings.  The secret is just to hang in there, stay tough, keep your options open, and keep eating Ramen noodles.

Dead Editors’ Final Message: “We’ll See You in Hell”

By The Dead Editors’ Society (Jeffrey Carl, Paul Caputo, Scott Shepard and Chris White)

University of Richmond Collegian, April 20 1995

For this final DES column, we included Chris White, who was the incoming Opinion Section editor. All of the “Pebbles” and “Max Vest” jokes were from Caputo. The “piteous sigh” line was from Shepard. I’m proud to say that the line “Here’s to our dark lord Rosenbaum” line was mine. This was our last attempt to collectively say everything we could think of that was funny about the University of Richmond and also massively offensive, since only White would be around to get blamed for it. I think it worked quite well. As the last thing I wrote for The Collegian, it was suitably offensive, hyper-topical, self-absorbed and self-referential to pass as a reasonable farewell. To pre-quote what I want engraved on my tombstone as a summation of my life, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Presenting a whimsical collection of drivel from Collegian Opinion Editors, past and present

Mr. Shepard starring as Mr. White 

Mr. Carl as Mr. Brown

Mr. Caputo appearing as Mr. Blue

Mr. White as Mr. Pink

[Editor’s note: Go ahead. Write a letter. This is the last Collegian of the year and we’ll all be gone in a couple weeks. Nyah nyah. P.S. Bite us]

Everyone in the Dead Editors’ Society not named Chris is what the French like to call graduating.  (Stage direction: piteous sigh from readers.)

There has been so much to say over the past four years, that we in the Society are proud to have not said any of it, while still taking up lots of valuable Collegian space that could have been used for stories about 9 Divine or something at the Jepson School going wrong. Or whatever.

So we have inducted a new member to the Secret Sisterhood of Deceased Editors. Or whatever. Anyhow, we have much secret knowledge, gleaned in our four years, to impart to our Dead Editor Pledge, Chris. Then we get to spank him. At any rate, we figure now is as good a time as any to let you, the reader, in on all of the valuable information that we have discarded over the years in order to write about the lake and chicken sandwiches. Behold all the bizarre facts about the University of Richmond which we have discovered and should have — had we ever pretended to be real journalists (or even “not total asses”) — let you know. 

And boy, will you be sorry you found out. UR Strange But True Facts:

• When logging onto the VAX, do not select the option that says “Global Thermonuclear War” unless Matthew Broderick is around to fix it. Your user privileges can be revoked for this.

• All of the Physical Plant’s vehicles can be assembled to form Voltron, Defender of the Universe. Also, Trabants and Yugos. 

• If you ask the library’s computer, “What is the meaning of life?” the disk drive will spit Cheez-Whiz out at you.

• Corrie Spiegel supplements her meager income as Collegian Editor by dancing at the “Paper Moon,” Thursday nights at 10:30. For just a few drachmas more, you can get her to do that thing with the whipped cream.

• All four of us have, just to be popular, dated Sigma Chis.

• Pebbles, D-Hall worker extraordinaire, is in fact Anastasia, lost daughter of Czar Nicholas II, who was made very dead during the Bolshevik revolution. She will reclaim the throne as soon as the fries are done, which should be in two minutes.

• All of the police cars are Autobots, while all of the silverware in the D-Hall are Decepticons. Do not bend them (the silverware, that is) unless staging a protest for the return of Rib-B-Que.

• All major financial decisions of the University must be approved by the ducks. This explains why the purchase “tasty bread crumbs” now takes up over 60 percent of the school’s budget.

• Due to budget constraints, the entire new fine arts building will be held together by secret sauce.

• The real purpose of the D-Hall? Conducting experiments in casserole-based life forms.

• If you play the school anthem backwards, it says in a creepy voice, “Here’s to our dark lord Rosenbaum.”

• Dogs are really, really dumb.

• Swinging a dead cat over your head in the library will not cure warts. 

• Max Vest!: the Musical.

• Nostradamus predicted that the dorms would get cable this year. He also predicted that Ticket Lady would be replaced by a horde of evil winged monkeys and that the Anti-Christ would be named “Rope” or “Rupe.” Ha ha. We don’t know anybody by that name. Near as we can tell, he was on crack.

• Snorting “Reddi-Whip” will not give you a buzz. However, snorting mulch will. Go crazy.

• The real WILL director? Darth Vader.

• In the waiting room of CAPS, they play a muzak version of “I’m a Loser, Baby … So Why Don’t You Kill Me?”

• The school’s motto, when translated from the original Latin, reads “Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow.”

• The Rape Van was originally The Great Space Coaster.

• The only men’s Rush events worth attending? “Smash your favorite puppy.” The only women’s Rush event worth attending? “Lingerie party night.” Don’t think we don’t know. Well, we don’t know for sure. Okay, we fantasize about it constantly, but it would be worth attending if they did have it.

• The secret ingredient in Pier specials? Soylent Green.

• “That’s What You Think” is used by newspapers nation-wide as an index of regional stupidity. We have often won.

• History professor Martin Ryle was David Hasselhoff’s stunt double during the first year of “Knight Rider.” Philosophy professor Matthew Freytag was KITT’s. 

• The secret SATminimum used by the Admissions Office is “dumb as a bag of hammers.”

• Prolonged exposure to secret WDCE-waves causes sterility, blindness and occasional stomach discomfort.

• The Career Development Center sucks. No, really. Do you even know where it is? Neither do we. Let us know when Wal-Mart comes to give interviews. 

• The ghost of Weezie Jefferson haunts the Deanery. No one knows why.

• The ghost of David Hasselhoff haunts Weezie Jefferson. We can dig that.

• The Dead Editor’s Society originated in 1968 as a popular rock ‘n’ roll band called  Vesticles, but disbanded when only one of its songs, “You Can’t Do That in the Commons,” became a hit.

• If you put six monkeys in a room with typewriters, they will poop. If you put six monkeys in a room with six typewriters and make them type, one of them will eventually produce The Collegian, probably within 15 minutes. If you use six depressed artsy monkeys, they will type The Messenger. If you use six large pieces of zucchini, you will get The Web.

• Next year, the new official language of the school will be Wookie.

• In the early 1980s, the Orientation Program included repeated forced viewings of “Revenge of the Nerds.” During the 1983-4 school year, the curriculum science requirement could be satisfied by watching “Weird Science,” “Real Genius,” or “Our Friend, Zinc.”

• If only one of us can be as successful in life after graduation as Todd Flora is, then life will have been worth living.

• Do not taunt Happy Fun Roop.

• Max Vest took his current position only after the job replacing C. C. Deville as guitarist for “Poison” fell through.

• Bob Jepson is currently making plans to donate millions of dollars to the University to build the first ever “School of Styrofoam Technology.”

• The Student Health Center caused the great Black Plague of 1347, after it advised a student to cure his illness by “just coughin’ all over everybody.”

• The lake is 1/3 Ny-Quil, 1/3 Bourbon, and 1/3 Mountain Dew. It’s fun and it’s flammable.

• 9 Divine is composed of former members of “Warrant” and former members of the Bulgarian KGB. In general, the Bulgarians sound much better.

• We said it before, we’ll say it again. Welcome to Honky Town.

• If you press a button on Paul Caputo’s back, he makes cool laser sounds and explosion noises.

• Those “private functions” that the Lora Robins Gallery is always closed for? Usually either RCSGAcoke parties or human sacrifices to Mithras, god of rich, creamy fillings.

• If you pull the string on Jeff Carl’s back, he says, “I hate you. I quit.”

• If you scratch a penny on Scott Shepard’s forehead, it says, “You win a free order of small fries.” Congratulations.

• East Court and West Court exist, but only as underground prison facilities for girls who are naughty. Ooh lah lah.

• The only Landing event worth attending is the famed but really sick “Donner Party” Landing.

• The new, improved RCSGAPresident Jim Maloney is filled with creamy nougat and chewy caramel. Almonds are optional. Pants are not.

• Never, ever press the big red button.

• “Scott Shepard” is Arabic for “causes genital herpes on contact.”

• Sure, it may look as though they’re building a new fine arts center, but they are actually finishing up a landing pad for spaceships from Jason Roop’s homeworld. We, for one(s), welcome our new ant masters.

• Paul used to have a secret crush on “Moose” from “You Can’t Do That on Television.”

• Chris used to have a crush on “Moose Vest,” from “You Can’t Do That in the Commons.”

• Jeff used to have a secret crush on “Moose” from “Archie.”

• In one of the secret rooms in Marsh Hall is an enormous wardrobe. Beyond the coats and the mothballs one finds snow, and the magical land of Narnia. Alison Bartel Lord lives there, and tries to lure small children to her snow palace.

• Due to budget restrictions, the Shanghai Quartet will be replaced next year by a sixth-grader playing “Hot Cross Buns” on a recorder. Few will notice.

• When we realized that we were leaving, Caputo, Carl and Shepard decided to create a genetically-engineered super-columnist to fill our place. We went to the laboratory, and after minutes of studious mixing, followed by strange incantations and dancing around in rubber yeti suits, created Nimchek. Whoops.

• Shepard lied about Grits. We beat him with rubber hoses, and he admitted it. Grits are really made from people. People like Dennis Callahan. Little Swarthy people like Dennis Callahan.

• The Lambda Coalition, the campus gay and lesbian group, will be joined next year by the Zeta Coalition for people who are secretly heterosexual, the Omicron Rho Coalition, for bisexuals, and the Nil Coalition, for people who just aren’t getting laid at all. President Chris White said, “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”

• All of the current members of the Dead Editor’s Society have starred in pornographic films. Most were made in the mid-70s, before we gained beer guts. 

• Parking tickets suck. Don’t pay them. Join Theta Chi. They’re cool.

• This campus used to be cool.

• Max Vest used to be Alison B. Lord.

• Alison Bartel Lord was never cool.

• Seniors: if you go right now and drink enough Canadian Whiskey, you will forget that:

(a) you have no job and will be sitting in back of a 7-11, drinking “Night Train” and muttering about “those damned squirrels” in 30 days.

(b) you went to the B-school, and your life and job will prove meaningless and unfulfilling in 30 days.

(c) after you graduate, it is socially unacceptable to drink until you find Paul Caputo attractive.

• Contrary to popular belief, the Dining Hall does not put laxatives in the food. Rather, ambient laxatives have been injected into the mulch all around campus. 

• In a few years, after the dust clears, when we look back on these halcyon days, this probably will still not be funny.

Paul, Jeff and Scott are sure that they have left the Op/Ed section in safely incompetent hands. They would like to tell Chris “keep your chin up, youngster, and go get us another beer.”

Chris would like to thank Grandma Moses for proving that art can suck.

Scott would like to thank the male cheerleaders, for making him look virile.

Jeff would like to thank nobody, except for his invisible friend “Winky.”

Paul would like to thank the campus dogs, for having good attitudes.

So long, and see you in Hell.

Good Night, Sweet Print

By Jeffrey Carl

Jeffrey Carl UR Column
University of Richmond Collegian, April 20 1995

Thanks to a bare modicum of writing skill and a more obvious fondness for bourbon which aligned with that of my journalism professors, my putative career advanced rapidly through my undergraduate years. I went from a practicum story writer for the University of Richmond Collegian student newspaper in my freshman year to Assistant News Editor in my sophomore year, then on to Greek Life Editor and IT Manager (I read MacWorld magazine!) in my junior year, and ultimately to Opinion Editor in my senior year.

For some reason that escapes me now, I acquired a humor column during this process at the beginning of my junior year. This column, titled “Over the Cliff Notes,” eventually ran for 22 installments and was over the course of two years was read by literally dozens of actual humans, only most of which where KA pledges I forced to do so. Its literary influence was quite literally incalculable, and I’m just going to leave it at that.

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!

So this is it.  It’s all over.  My last column.  I’m not kidding.

I’m graduating,  I’m looking for a job.  I’m engaged.  I’m starting to get gray hair.

So, what have we learned?  I’m not sure.  The last two years of my college career were pretty much defined within what I wrote here.  Let’s go back and examine some actual excerpts of what I wrote and see if I learned anything:

Jeff Carl’s Greatest Hits

Editor’s Note: Yeah.  Sure.  Whatever.

• Of course, I meant “really bites ass” in the strict biblical sense.

• The only conclusion I can come to is that the radio station should be filled in with cement immediately and all of the DJs should be burned at the stake.

Sorority Life: This revolves primarily around Rush retreats (see HAHAHA above) and scrambling for formal dates.  Sorority formals, as previously mentioned, are just like bar mitzvahs, but with sex in the elevators.

• The law school should be razed to the ground and the earth sown with salt.

• Girls do not actually have – as was previously believed – long, spiny wings or small vestigial tails.

• Research was found to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

Campbell: No.  You are on crack.  What I was talking about was the primal need for a figure of supreme evil, which would ride around in a little electric cart.

Q: Are you really as grumpy and bitter in real life as you sound in your columns?

A: Yes.  

Siskel: Roger, when my people come from the stars to enslave this puny planet, you will serve as food for the Giant Slave Worms of Kodos.  So I give Evil a “Thumbs Up.”

• 7. Thou shalt not toast cheese in the Holy Dining Hall toasters, for the cheese drippeth much and is disgusting, sayeth the Lord.7

• You can get a fantastic buzz if you drink after giving blood.

INTERVARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP RUSH:

Day 1: Meet Your Maker cookout, 4:30 p.m.

Day 2: Fish and Loaves picnic, 2:00 p.m.

Day 3: I-Found-the-Lord-and-Lost-my-Talent: Christian Rock Night, 7:00 p.m.*

Day 4: Bids extended by the Angel of Death

• a)Replace current Collegian staff with clever trained seals

• The tombstones served to illustrate ROTC’s recruitment slogan, “We kill more students before our 8:15 classes than most people kill all day.”

Q: Who is Dr. Staff?  And why is he listed as teaching so many courses at registration time?

ENGLISH MAJOR APTITUDE TEST:

Y  N  3. I like “unemployment.”

• Well, the “grad school” thing sounds okay, because you could stay and see Dave Matthews every Wednesday night for an additional two or three years.  But there’s always the chance that he’ll get big and move away.

• I just quit smoking.

• April 19: The fifth and final “Pray for Revival” campaign ends in disaster as the dead come alive again and walk the earth as zombies preying on the living.  Former Chancellor Boatwright is seen in the library, eating Lexis/Nexis terminals.

• Sep. 7: As a publicity stunt, the members of campus band “9 Divine” kill themselves onstage.

CORRECTIONS: Last week’s column may have perhaps been a little misleading.  Okay, I lied like the dog I am.  Deal with it. 

• The next morning, rushees are given an envelope which contains either engraved fancy official bid(s) or an engraved fancy notice of their new official status as losers and the phone number for CAPS, in case they decide to kill themselves.

• This is my last column.

Ancient History

1. When Lucy and Ethel got the job at the chocolate factory, they got in trouble because

a. it’s just kooky how things work out like that   b. Ethel was distributing Communist propaganda on her lunch break   c. Lucy was stoned off her ass

• Must change UR Alma Mater to “We Will Rock You”

• This is really my last column.

• As we did not receive a response within 24 hours (I checked my machine), we are now in a life-and-death struggle with the tyrannical Canadian Empire.

• “Greetings, you, Senator.  I am the Arch-villain ‘Frogface.’”

male cheerleaders: n. Sissy boys.

• Student government presidents should be used for doorstops or paperweights

• All those “cities” that are supposed to be there are actually just one farm house with this guy named “Gary” or “Indianapolis” sitting on the front porch and shucking corn with his one good tooth.  I’m not kidding.

A: Nein!  We are certainly not using giant mind-controlled squid™ to develop newer and more virulent Pier Value Meals™5!  

num-chuks (nim’ chek): 1.n. A terrifying Japanese weapon of death 2.n. A terrifying American columnist of Fiat Currency.

“The Surgeon General has determined that if you’re going to smoke these, you can kiss your ass goodbye right now”

Well, I guess I didn’t learn much.

Yes, I did.  I got to be a class clown and try to make everybody laugh.  Sometimes it worked.  Sometimes it didn’t.  But it was always fun to try.

If you read my columns, thank you.  If you read my columns and didn’t try to sue me, thank you even more.  If you were one of those who wrote to me or just said, “good job,” then you were the reason I did this.  Thanks.

To every one of the funny people I got to work with – even Shepard and Caputo – thanks.

This newspaper has been a big part of my life here.  I’m sorry to go.  But maybe we’ll all meet once more, somewhere down the road.  You’ll see me again.

This is my last bow.  It was all worth it.

Why?  Because we here at The Collegian prided ourselves on being responsive to our readers.