Senior Farewells
Bryan KellyThe Every Three Weekly is entertainment, but it is dangerous entertainment. As in, if you utter something stupid, and you see some skinny guy pull out a little book from his pocket and write in it, you’re fucked, dude. That’s the Every Three Weekly.
Here’s a little story about what this satirical newspaper means to me: About two months ago, my girlfriend and I visited my hometown, Sterling Heights, MI, about an hour east of here. In my closet, we found a little gem of a senior farewell written four years ago from my last year at Stevenson HS that was printed in the school paper which I, ironically, wrote humor for.
Besides calling out my classmates for being sluts and meatballs because everybody got laid more than I did, and Capitalizing Everything Because I Wanted To Write Like Hunter S. Thompson, the piece was trite, cynical and mean-spirited rubbish. I believed Osama bin Laden to be an actor bankrolled by the U.S. government. I said I wouldn’t miss this generation, which had wasted its “big chance” on “alcohol and airbrushed t-shirts”.
Four years later, I was crushed that I could be so baldly negative about - what? High school? The president? National security? What the fuck did I know?
Today, I am stupider about and less interested in the big issues than I’ve ever been in my life. But I still believe cynicism, pessimism, “realism”, all perversions of the “expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed” philosophy, are not necessary for, nor consequent of, intellectual enlightenment. In light of that, and of what this paper does, the Every Three Weekly is just entertainment.
It’s been both a painful and unrewarding, and a rich and merry job editing the Every Three Weekly. It’s how I’ll always define my time here at Michigan: writing the alternate worldview to emails from Teresa Sullivan and Mary Sue, to articles on www.umich.edu and mgoblue.com. The E3W’s worldview defies the starry-eyed, optimistic press machine that keeps the administration shielded from a scathing, merciless ass-kicking it so richly deserves.
I am finished with Michigan and with the Every Three Weekly. My college days of jiggling bitties’ titties are over. I also better give up my obsessions with death, sexual perversity, gross alliteration, old football games, meatspin.com, and yelling at people from cars if I’m to become an adult. I confess to knowing nothing about my generation, although I suspect (only suspect!) that we owe a lot of what we think about to 9/11.
I sometimes still get pissing mad that so much seems to have gone wrong in my last year - Appalachian State, Henne’s busted shoulder, the fucking Buckeyes winning the Big Ten again, the commencement catastrophe. But it’s over. And what’s more, a lot has gone right. There’s that girlfriend I mentioned - she’s a total hottie! And hey, this Rodriguez guy doesn’t sound half bad. So fuck it - here’s to happy thoughts. The lion has lied down with the lamb. I am done with cynicism.
P.S. Fuck, fuck, fuck that atonal whistling guy who walks up and down North State Street, that asshole ruined every morning fall and winter semester. If you are reading this, you better watch your back, cocksucker. OK, now I’m done with cynicism.
Michael Ravenscroft
I was wondering the other day whether I should give advice in my farewell, or reminisce, or march out the slapstick. I am probably among the many who find it strange that those in charge of the University’s primary source for vitriolic satirical journalism should wind down their semi-professional careers in humor with such a moment of reservation. Perhaps it’s that vegetarians geneverythreeweekly. com 7 Senior Farewells erally have lower blood pressure. Maybe all that literature and philosophy has finally kicked me into submission. Or maybe it’s that I haven’t been intimate with a girl in some time. Or a guy, for that matter.
Or maybe it’s that as I watch bulldozers level the knolls around the Diag where our impromptu graduation is to take place, and smell the freshly dug earth covered in straw that looks more like a slapdash petting-zoo than seating for a public-ivy’s soon-to-be alumni, I realize that there’s no closure afforded in graduation. I doubt the thin sheaf of paper I’ll receive in the mail in a few weeks time will make things seem more final. There are no words really to describe how it feels to step down from one’s collegiate perch and start scraping the world’s shit from your shoes. Instead, there’s just “it,” as in, “This is it.” Now, more than ever, college feels nothing like the brochures I got in the mail four years ago, with pictures of laughing groups of interracial friends having a grand time studying on a sunny lawn outside the law library while a Frisbee soars overhead. It never felt that way. And I’m terrible at Frisbee. Perhaps I’m coming to terms with college as it is as opposed to the idealization that inevitably comes in waving a weepy goodbye to your alma mater.
But maybe it’s not as complicated as all that. Perhaps the time for ludicrosity is simply drawing to a close, and the time for retrospect is upon me. Fair enough. For all the jokes I’ve made over the years, I might allow myself just one moment of wizened clarity.
I think everyone remembers the day he or she arrived at college, the moment when life indisputably changes for us all. But we also remember the smaller moments. We remember the first time we got a college-level grade; when we threw up in the street in front of a group of middle-aged town-folk; when we spoke to a girl or guy who opened up our world; when we stayed up all night listening to music, smoking cheap pot, drinking cheaper beer, laughing with friends at the sheer hilarity of things; when we talked about disbelief in God and fear of our government; when we lost someone special; when we found someone special. Every now and then we catch glimpses of our former selves in pictures with friends over the last four years, and wonder how many lives we’ve lived in this all too brief series of moments.
The Every Three Weekly was an integral part of my time here, if only because writing humor—though it’s a spectacularly resounding cliché—helped me find myself. I’ve realized that if you can’t laugh at life, you’re not living: you’re boring. And when all is said and done, I love the Every Three Weekly because I get the same feelings of self worth and purpose out of writing for it as that lonely, drunken frat guy, who marches defiantly up to the jukebox amidst the scalding background noise of everyday life and empties his last quarters into the coin-slot for a double-play of Don’t Stop Believin’. Because for us, the infants of 2001, this is life, and whatever we end up doing, we should love and laugh every chance we get. For as much of a joke as the world is becoming, we should be laughing as we try to fix what so few people took so short a time to nearly destroy. Some say we’re the lazy generation, but I think that’s just because we laugh more than they do. When you look like you’re having a good time, people assume you’re not doing anything worthwhile. But that’s why we’re not yet bitter; because we know that we’re going to walk through the uncertain doors of tomorrow with a laugh. And if you’re not afraid to laugh at anything, you’re not really afraid of anything.
As my college career draws to a close, I now understand that for me, college is more than the numerous buildings in which I’ve studied, learned, eaten, drunk, slept, been hungover, idled, languished, worked, shirked, loved, cried, and laughed. College is meaningful for the moments like these, when you realize that life is bigger than you thought, and that there really is something that’s worth living for. That something is whatever you make of it, and for me, it’s enjoying the freedom of thought that humor so eloquently provides. And now that it comes time for me to walk away from these buildings, I have only my honors thesis, a slip of gold-leafed paper, and a stack of yellowed copies of the Every Three Weekly as proof of my time spent at UM. Unfortunately, newsprint doesn’t last. As metaphor would have it, newspapers gradually fade until they crumble into moldy dust, with only a few pale remnants of what once gave someone a pretty good laugh. Knowing this school, this life, this place, this feeling that something is over and that something else is just beginning, the Every Three Weekly will remain with me long after the paper it’s printed on disintegrates. I’m proud to pass what I believe is the best thing about the University of Michigan to the next generation of college kids who, like me four years ago, haven’t a clue how rich life can truly become when you’re laughing with friends. I won’t weep, and I won’t say goodbye. I’ll simply smile, turn around, and start walking.
Now, which way is West?
Jerry Kozak
“A Conservative is someone who yearns for a past that never existed and a Liberal is someone who seeks to forge a world so politically correct that life becomes one painful series of apologies after another.”
That quote describes perfectly the two main ideological forces that have conspired over the years to push me into moderation, running as fast as I could from one right until I smack square into the other. Coming from a small, conservative Midwest town, I have had my fill of the former, and as I suspect that I would be preaching to the choir in discussing the problems with conservatives, will here only address the latter half of the quote.
There are a certain breed of liberal (and a lot of them in Ann Arbor) who seek to destroy much of what makes life interesting. I am speaking of the intellectual ponce at the Daily who argues strongly that the word “bitch” be entirely removed from the English language, the Stonewall Democrats who go out of their way to take offense at the Quickie Burger logo which features a cowgirl riding a cheeseburger, and the annual protesters who take time out of my day trying to tell me that Columbus was evil and exploited the indigenous tribes that he stumbled upon (I have no idea how they chose that particular egoistic, “evil” prick from the thousands of others who paint the pages of our history books, but I digress.) If these people had their way, we would all live in a world so sterile, so incredibly boring and devoid of controversy and color, that it would scarcely be any better than if the Bible thumpers got to attach electronic sin-monitoring tethers to our genitals.
People are real, and when you gather thousands of us together from a myriad of backgrounds, you get a melting pot. Inside that pot, there is potential for a lot of problems. You have rich and poor, Muslim and Jew, Stoner and Moralist, and the whole time, evil white males are conspiring to keep everyone else down- probably while simultaneously killing puppies. The solution to getting them all to get along is not to dump a gallon of bleach into the pot, sterilizing it and making it taste like luke-warm shit. Instead, I say we laugh. We are never going to get along, we might as well enjoy the controversy and take the edge off of it by acknowledging the discord and having some fun with it.
And that, to me, is where satire and institutions like the Every Three Weekly come in. Comedy is the white knight (easy, turd, I didn’t say what color the knight’s skin was, they are just wearing white, is all) that makes sure none of us are taking ourselves too seriously. It takes what people are thinking but dare not say, what they talk about behind closed doors with their friends, and tosses it right out into the Diag for everyone to see and discuss. Satire is a luxury afforded by education, because it is predicated upon actual tolerance and respect. Stupid people don’t have satire, because they don’t have the faculties to separate the ironic use of the word “bitch” when discussing a gathering of feminist dogs from what they yell abusively at their wives with sincerity. Satire is one of the greatest gifts afforded by a place like Michigan, and it deserves your support.
So laugh it up. Life is short, it’s never going to be pretty, and you might as well revel in it. Writing and editing for the Every Three Weekly has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life, and a breath of fresh air in a town often stifled and sedated by its own selfrighteousness. I cannot tell you how great it was to get angry letters from Asian students after an article made the ridiculous claim that “all Asians have hollow bones” or to find out that a Women’s Studies course actually used our article about a dog being gangbanged by other dogs as a discussion piece about misogyny. If there is a battle between soul-crushing political correctness and those of us who reserve the right to laugh, the Every Three Weekly is on the front lines, and it has been an honor and a privilege to serve alongside of you all.
Brandon Gudger’s Señor Farewell-o
To quoth the late Mark Twain, and my fucking mom every chance she got: “You regret more things in life you didn’t do than things you did do.” Great fucking proverb if you want your kids to become heroin addicts, dude. Me, I stick to my old mantra: “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” And right now, the gander’s higher than creamed corn, dude.
Now, Brandon T. Gudger is not a man to be haunted by his regrets. Sure, I regret a certain 1/8th of Ypsilanti bud that had me curled up for three hours crying about that Youtube clip of a sick elephant trying to stand up. I also regret giving Crack Sally the PIN to my CHASE ATM account. But then love is blind, or at least has glaucoma, and anyway, those are bullshit regrets.
So imagine my surprise when I sat down to write this see farewell ditty and felt a pang of regret that I wasn’t gonna be around forever to muse about being the resident Dungeon Chillmaster of the E3Dubs. It seems like only yesterday I was hanging at my place in my boxer-briefs (that’s correct, femininas, your prayers have been answered) watching Zardoz, when I got the call from Bryan and Mike to get off my tuckus and write my farewell ditty. Those fags are always ragging on me do do some shit. That’s why I love their gay asses.
24 hours later, here I am, hammering out another fine installment of The Gudger Life. That would’ve been a sweet name for my features - like the names the Michigan Daily writers give to their columns, except less trite. I guess that’s a regret. Shit, and I just spilled yogurt on the keyboard. There’s another regret. Lesson learned: thinking about regrets begets primo regrets, dude.
So few memories...Like the time those fag-buckets at the Michigan Daily called us a “humor rag.” Or when they said we were “hit-or-miss.” Those guys sure do love to piss on the little guy. Know who else loved to piss on the little guy? Hitler, dude.
Or that time I stubbed my toe and fathomed the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. That was bitchin’, am I wrong?
If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that the cure for the blues is the YouTube clip of the baby panda sneezing. I want that on my fuckin’ tombstone man, right inside the Gudger family mausoleum.
Nine months ago, Bryan and Mike came to me and said, Bran-don, we are gonna make the E3W all about Ann Arbor. No grand pronunciations on Iraq or censorship, or that snatch Britney Spears. We are a Michigan paper serving Michigan, and could I help this paper along into its pubertic renaissance? And I said, OK, and could you guys stop talking like a couple of fags?
Looking back over the issues gives a fleeting impression of what I call the essence of the E3W. Something unidentifiable, something inarticulatable, something fuzzy. Something I wrote down on my hand last night shooting pool at the Monkey Bar while 90’s songs played on XM Radio. It looks like “Milf babe breast worship”. Or maybe it’s, “Anus lo mein landfill”. Ah, nevermind. It’s probably just some Nirvana lyrics, dude.
We’ve really accomplished something at the E3W, and I’ll always remember it fondly. And if I start not remembering it not so fondly, I’ll pack another bowl and watch America’s Funniest Animals (the numero uno media of choice for the stoned blues). Wait, what am I remembering about fondling? I got it, it’s “Crab T. wuz teh funnest”.
Cough.
Michael Angelo
So usually these farewell articles and reflections are about the past. As a member of this fine humor rag for four years, I have been a part of some of the most intelligent, witty, vile, offensive, and downright hilarious humor ever put in print. No, I’m not talking about the “Local Dog Gangbanged” article.
Regardless, during this insane time in American history, it’s really important to have a good laugh. Though satire always contains hidden truths, half of the time the stuff we write could show up in the evening news. I always like to say the E3W is like the Michigan Daily, but with 50% more comedy and 50% more facts. Consequently, you really can’t let all the crazy bullshit going on get to you, or you’ll go crazy. Or start watching cable news.
I watch a lot of cable news.
The vast majority of the articles I have written you wouldn’t know because they either fall under the topics of politics, sports, or people likely to sue me if they ever read the article (no, none of the sports articles were about Michael Phelps, don’t sue me damnit). Now that I think about it, I have never written anything about President Bush due to the fact that I can’t possibly make him funnier. To me, Bush is like the Daily’s Crime Notes section, impossible to make funnier. As you’re reading this, someone in Markley has probably stolen all the windows in the lounges while President Bush somehow believed Czechoslovakia was a STD. In either case, DPS will have no suspects.
Thankfully, many of my fellow writers haven’t had that same problem or we’d suck as much as the Gargoyle. Or a bad case of Czechoslovakia. I’m biased, what can I say?
I was attracted to the paper during Summer Orientation because I just couldn’t understand how a school could support, much less allow, a paper that renames North Campus to Butt-Fucking Egypt. Apparently it has something to do with the “Constitution” and the “First Amendment” but to this day I’m still not convinced. Every few meetings I would look over my shoulder expecting DPS to show up and break up the meeting with tear gas and billy clubs.
I’ll miss writing for the E3W. Every few days after distro I see people, many of them confused and looking for the Daily, grab a copy and immediately have a “What the fuck is this, where is the sudoku?” look on their face. Once they start reading, usually they laugh and sometimes they look disgusted, but invariably the paper will end up on the ground in a bathroom somewhere.
If that’s the legacy of this paper, I’m cool with playing my part.
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