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(10/05/09 2:50pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The festival technically started when Ryan Shaw took the stage Thursday evening, but things didn't really heat up until The Roots took to the main stage Friday. From there, literally everything just kept getting hotter and hotter.After performing with The Roots, Questlove took the stage again that night with Ben Harper and John Paul Johns from Led Zepplin for the evening's Super Jam. The trio set the stage on fire for more than two hours, and the weather took notice, climbing into the 90s the next day. People kept cool by attacking the water stations, splashing around in the center fountain or just seeking every square inch of shade that was available. By the end of the weekend, the seats below the bleachers were in higher demand than those on top of them. Saturday brought a fat stack of music, including an afternoon set that featured Ben Harper, Franz Ferdinand, Ween and Spoon – all at the same time. When the sun set and the heat subsided, The Police lit up the earth while The Flaming Lips aimed for the stars. By Sunday, the thousands in attendance shared one common sensation: exhaustion. Bodies littered the festival grounds with more frequency than garbage. The Decembrists and Wilco had to play to half-dead crowds, but The White Stripes help rejuvinate the atmosphere as the sun set on the final day.In the end, the combination of heat, lack of sleep and Zepplin jams left everyone dazed and confuzed.
(09/27/07 4:00am)
"Smallville"\nSEASON 7 PREMIERE: 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, on the CW\nSUMMARY: At the end of last season, the lives of many were hanging in the balance in typical "Smallville" fashion. Clark Kent (Tom Welling) was in the midst of battling the final zoner from the Phantom Zone, who had turned into a Bizarro version of himself. Meanwhile, Lana Lang (Kristen Kreuk) decided to end her marriage with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), only to be blown up in an explosion, for which Lex took the fall. Lois Lane (Erica Durance) stumbled upon Lex's superfreak soldier laboratory, only to be killed in the process. Luckily, Chloe Sullivan's (Allison Mack) meteor-induced power -- healing tears -- was revealed, and when she cried it caused her to switch places with the dead Lois. \nPREDICTION: Clark's Kryptonian cousin Kara Kent, a.k.a., Supergirl (Laura Vandervoort), comes to Smallville, while his battle with Bizarro continues. Also expect Chloe and Lana to come back to life within the first two episodes and Lex to be out of jail even sooner. And maybe Clark will actually do some truly heroic things instead of pining over Lana.
(07/12/07 4:00am)
Ever write a last-minute essay without knowing a damn thing about the topic, but for some reason you're just really on your game, and you write beautifully? You know, one of those grade-A bullshit papers that meets all the requirements and appears all snazzy, but lacks anything truly tangible?\nThat's "Transformers."\nIt meets the explosion requirements for a summer blockbuster. It certainly exceeds the required number of cheesy, cliche action scenes. It even features alien robots, doubling up on the summer blockbuster requirement of robots, aliens, superheroes, natural disasters or time travel.\nFor those reasons, the movie would earn a passing grade. But I'm no easygoing T.A. "Transformers" drops into D+ territory because, behind the glitz and glamour of shiny robots and mass chaos, this is a bad movie.\nPerhaps my disappointment with "Transformers" stems partly from my expectation that it would offer a change of pace from long-winded, short-sighted action flicks. With Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg attaching their names to the project, I anticipated a clean, compact thriller that starts, peaks, ends and leaves you desperate for more. And the trailers only fueled that fiery expectation.\nInstead, "Transformers" felt more like a hybrid between the 1999 cartoon movie "The Iron Giant" and a Chevy commercial. And no, I wasn't feeling the revolution.\nThe cold, robotic heart of this movie rested on the relationship between Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) and his camaro-bot "Bumblebee." This plotline is torn right from "Iron Giant": boy discovers robot, boy grows to love robot, secret government agency tries to separate boy and robot and robot eventually computes a human emotion: love. The only difference here is that we also get some eye candy in Sam's typical nerd-aiming-way-out-of-his-league love interest Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Her acting almost matches her sex appeal, but she leaves LeBeouf looking like he should stick to the Disney channel.\nThe rest of the undeveloped story lines revolve around a troop of soldiers in the Middle East (shocker) and two "pack it in" performances from Jon Voight and John Turturro.\nFrom there, the action scenes were cool and the robots were impressive, but the bang hardly exceeded the bore of the non-robot-fighting scenes. Plus, it seemed that each cool action sequence was capped off with some "Ra-Ra Freedom Ra-Ra" speech from Optimus Prime, which really killed the mood.\nSorry Transformer fans, but you may want to stick to the toys.
(07/05/07 4:00am)
Go back nearly 40 years. To December, 1969. To a time where people, like the weather, were cold. Cold about race. Cold about religion. Cold about war.\nBut then, unannounced, there came warmth. There came a message. In eight cities around the world, sprawled big and bold across giant white billboards, were three words that everyone had long-been desperate to read.\n"WAR IS OVER!"\nBut to the authors of these advertisements, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, that was too simple. Not to mention misleading. So they added four more words, much smaller than the others and tucked just beneath them.\n"If you want it."\nAnd just like that, the citizens of New York, Amsterdam, Rome, Tokyo, London and other cities were called into action. Not to neccesarily do anything, but rather just to think and to live just one word.\nPeace.\n"The message is 'We can do it,' and it's still valid," Ono wrote to her fans in 1998 after displaying more of the same ads. "If one billion people in the world would think peace -- we're gonna get it ... Visualize the domino effect and just start thinking positive, that we are all together in this. Thoughts are infectious."\nBut where are we now? Lennon has long since passed, silenced by the blast of gun fire. Wars are still waged, hate is still expressed and there are still many places where peace is not given a chance. Places like Darfur, Sudan where somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 lives have been lost.\nIt should serve as little surprise that Lennon's face is back on music store shelves. Amnesty International just released "Instant Karma," a two-disc compilation entirely of Lennon music with proceeds going directly to Amnesty's efforts in Darfur. But the question still remains: Why now? Why Lennon?\n"I'd say that John essentially invented the role of rock & roll 'humanitarian'," said Jacobs School of Music Professor Glenn Gass, who teaches an entire course on The Beatles. "Lennon was the first and biggest pop star to go beyond the music itself and put his name and reputation on the line for the cause of peace."\nLennon certainly wasn't the first artist who people looked to for answers and inspiration, but what set Lennon apart was his transformation from a pop star to an "artist" as opposed to simply an "entertainer," as Gass put it. Many artists before Lennon were labeled as revolutionaries or "protest singers," but very few embraced the daunting task of speaking directly to, not to mention on behalf of, an entire generation or categorization of people. A fine example is Bob Dylan's incessant denial of singing "protest songs" throughout his earlier folk-song days. \nLennon attacked his and Yoko's peace initiative with the same ferociousness he took to music. The tail end of the '60s saw bed-ins for peace, the invention of bagism (a form of non-visual, or "total," communication) and, of course, the famous "war is over" messages. By 1972 Lennon presented such a threat to then-president Richard Nixon that the jowly commander in chief tried to have the former Beatle deported.\nBut as soon as Lennon had achieved high status among the world's foremost peace practitioners, he backed off. By 1975 Lennon was out of the music game and refering to himself as a house-husband.\n"He was overwhelmed in the position he was in," said associate history professor Eric Sandweiss, who specializes in popular music, among other topics. "he could have had some real political power, but as far as I can see, he was deathly afraid of it. He even warned people not to listen to him or others as prophets."\nFor Lennon, the time had come to finally realize what many before him had not even dared to approach. It truly takes a lot to change the world, and perhaps no one individual is ever going to be able to do it.\n"(Many rock musicians of the time) were aware of that potential political power but had the sense and perspective to be a little skeptical of that power and back off of it," Sandweiss added.\nIt all gets back to the natural tendency of popular culture -- or perhaps culture in general. In an effort to raise awareness and increase emphasis, people, things and efforts are naturally grouped together in nice little packages to present to the mainstream. That's why every Oliver Stone movie has the same soundtrack and commercials about retirement blare top-40 hits from the Summer of Love. \nSanweiss talked about how music can serve as an electrical socket and "as soon as you have that connection to the past through one channel, it opens reality and a sense of being there for all other aspects of society and culture." He called music one of the many ways to get back to another place and time. But much of what we see today is a hot-wiring attempt by this corporation or that foundation, trying to short-circuit their way to some sense of "real connection."\nSo, as the CDs spin and spout fresher versions of Lennon's work into the air and as the money pours in to an effort well- worthy of the support, let us not forget the most important part of John and Yoko's message in that December of 1969:\n"If you want it."\nBecause Lennon would probably be the first to tell you: Peace isn't purchased for $19.99.
(07/05/07 4:00am)
Ever write a last-minute essay without knowing a damn thing about the topic, but for some reason you're just really on your game and you just write beautifully? You know, one of those grade-A bullshit papers that meets all the requirements and appears all snazzy, but lacks anything truly tangible?\nThat's "Transformers."\nIt meets the explosion requirements for a summer blockbuster. It certainly exceeds the required amount of cheesy, cliche action scenes. And it even features alien robots, doubling up the summer blockbuster requirement of robots, aliens, super heros, natural disasters or time travel.\nFor those reasons, the movie would earn a passing grade. But I'm no easy-going T.A. "Transformers" drops into D+ territory because behind the glitz and glamour of shiny robots and mass chaos, this really is a bad movie.\nPerhaps my disappointment with "Transformers" stems partly from my expectation that it would offer a change of pace from long-winded, short-sighted action flicks. With Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg each attaching their name to the project, I anticipated a clean, compact thriller that starts, peaks, ends and leaves you desperate for more. And the trailers only fueled that fiery expectation.\nInstead, "Transformers" felt more like a hybrid between the 1999 cartoon movie "The Iron Giant" and a Chevy commercial. And no, I wasn't feeling the revolution.\nThe cold, robotic heart of this movie rested on the relationship between Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) and his camaro-bot "Bumblebee." This plot line is literally torn right from "Iron Giant:" boy discovers robot, grows to love robot, secret government agency tries to separate boy and robot, robot eventually computes a human emotion -- love. Only difference here is we also get some eye candy in Sam's typical nerd-aiming-way-out-of-his-league love interest Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Her acting almost matches her sex appeal, but she leaves LeBeouf looking like he should stick to the Disney channel.\nThe rest of the undeveloped story lines revolve around a troop of soldiers in the Middle East (shocker), and two "pack it in" performances from Jon Voight and John Turturro.\nFrom there, the action scenes were cool and the robots were impressive, but the bang hardly exceeded the bore of the non-robot-fighting scenes. Plus, it seemed that each cool action sequence was capped off with some "Ra-Ra Freedom Ra-Ra" speech from Optimus Prime which really killed the mood.\nSo, sorry Transformer fans, but you may want to stick to the toys.
(06/21/07 2:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Swooping in over the scene, the cars are packed a mile back and the mood couldn’t contain more excitement. An array of guitar licks, base drum kicks and colorful melodies radiate up from the masses in the same way heat twirls and wafts up from concrete. Stories of Bonnaroos past are shared through open windows, and somewhere soon stories of Bonnaroo present will take form.Somewhere soon a “noise-ician” will wail, a shaman will teach, a clown will laugh and an artist will redefine his medium.And then, somewhere soon, they will all go home. They will pack their things and leave this place, and the dust they raised will slowly settle back into the Earth.Early in the weekend when the vibrations are still sky high, the sputters and whispers of 300 conversations fill the air just outside the entrance to the Bonnaroo grounds. But above them all is the amplified voice of Ray Bong, screaming his song through the screeches and scratches of his music.It doesn’t matter what you do.The man will find a way to put his finger on you. So you got to do what I do.And come to Bonnaroo.Where the man can’t get you.He calls himself the President of the United States of Bonnaroo, “the only free country on Earth.” The squaking and thumping and buzzing and hissing of his music is as outrageous as his wardrobe. His dirty bare feet kick sandals to the side and start pushing pedals on the ground. His knees shake beneath his camo shorts, and his arms flail freely from his sleeveless tye-dye shirt. And as he prepares for his solo on a 1978 electric toy guitar, his tongue whips back and forth against the grey stubble on his face, moving right in motion with his red, yellow, green, blue and purple hair, which sways across his sunglasses.I refuse to be held down.Now I’m going to make a wacky sound.The solo begins and the crowd circles in on the self-proclaimed “noise-ician” from New Orleans, and he continues to tweak with an array of boxes, buttons and levers resting atop his keyboard. For the grand finale, he picks up the wireless drum synch and parades around the crowd. He holds the small black box over people’s heads and shifts it side to side like he’s adjusting the antenna of an old television, tweaking the pitch of the song with each motion.As the song concludes and the crowd thins, a passerby tells his friend, “That guy is my favorite band.”In another time and some space away, 40-year-old Patrick Ironwood sits cross-legged under a tent in a yellow T-shirt and a billowy, blue dress covered in pink and yellow flowers. He’s speaking, quite frankly, about drugs. He’s not selling them and he’s not trying to label them as good or bad, right or wrong. He just knows the reality of this place.“In this venue, people will be tempted with the experimentation and exploration of drug use,” he says. “I want to give you real information on how to explore safely … because the Tool mosh pit might not be the place.”Since 1971, Ironwood has lived in the Sequatchie Valley Institute just an hour south of Manchester, Tenn. The community of 10 to 15 people uses limited electricity and eats only what they can produce themselves. He subscribes to the shamanistic belief that it’s possible to go into the subconscious and tinker with the world from within another dimension. Glancing at his notes, he tells the small crowd, “It’s been called prayer, but you can learn how to do it where it really works.”It’s not so much a promotion of psychedelic drugs, but rather a promotion of their possibilities. A lot of people use them recreationally, but the important part, he says, is making sure people bring something back. “Bring the tools out of the tool box,” he says.While Ironwood talks about mushrooms, ecstasy and LSD, his eldest son Sage – not even old enough for kindergarten – sits naked next to him, hunched over a piece of wood painting a picture of a palm tree and a wavy ocean. Then, unannounced, Sage interrupts to steal daddy’s attention. When the attempt fails, the naked boy takes off running and strands of hay fall from his long, golden hair.Zipping through a forest of festival patrons, the look of elation on the boy's face is reminiscent of a young animal getting its first taste of the wild. And then, he is gone.Perhaps that day, perhaps another, a separate group of children – these ones fully clothed – giggle and point at Flower, the clown who just made a fool of himself. Again. Outside the Kidz Jam tent it is hot, it is loud and the smell of marijuana smoke can hit you at any turn. But inside it is safe. Cold water and shade are in abundance, and laughing too hard is the only real danger for the group of nearly 20 kids sitting on the grass.In 2004 Rain Blanken, executive director of Kidz Jam, contacted the Bonnaroo coordinator to inquire about establishing a kid’s tent. “(The coordinator) has kids, so she liked it,” Blanken says. Now, anywhere between 100 and 200 children benefit from Blanken’s proposal.Walking between stages, the first visual cue is the giant SpongeBob moonwalk. Then there is the sound of children laughing. Then a red fire truck brushes your leg as the 3-foot driver yells, “Beep beep.” Then the spray of water splashes off your face and laughter ensues as the man holding the water gun says, “Come donate to Kidz Jam.” The nonprofit organization from Troy, Ohio, runs strictly on donations, and for four years Nancy Bennett-Cupps has contributed. Her two youngest kids, Zoey and Arlo, are 5 and 9, and every summer they come all the way up from Tampa Bay to play at Bonnaroo. To them, it’s a place where people dance, play hula hoop and burn lots of incense. When Flower finishes his final act, Zoey and Arlo say thank you pack their things and head off to their next “activity”: hacky sack at the Ziggy Marley concert. With time slowing and exhaustion growing, George Long and Jim Thomas take a break beneath the shade of their own artistic creations. Tucked deep in the corner of Bonnaroo is the Art of Such ‘n’ Such – a collection of interactive sculptures, paintings and games.Just last night, fire jugglers whipped fire balls through the air as dancers ducked and weaved through the shadows that moved as much as they did. With the swing of a giant mallet against the lever of an old-fashioned carnival game, a metal ring shoots up a pole and clangs against a bell. With the toll of the bell, a giant fireball erupts into the night sky and lights up the awe-struck faces that respond with cries of jubilation.But today it’s the sun that burns down on the faces of artists disassembling their work. From behind his large-rimmed sunglasses, Thomas describes the goal of the artists as an “organic aesthetic.” And Long, who speaks from the shade of his fedora lined with red and yellow flames, explains that many view art as something distant or removed. “We wanted to create an out-of-the-box gallery,” he says. “Bring it to people in a way that is approachable, in a way they haven’t seen before.”For the past few days, this art was interactive in the sense that the people dancing around it were as much a part of the art as the structure itself. But today, the only interaction between creator and creation comes when the pieces are removed and loaded onto a wagon. Then Thomas and Long take a deep breath and march forward, dragging their work into the distance beneath the heat of the summer sun.Swooping out, away from the scene, the cars line up again with their headlights cutting a path through the dusty haze. The excitement is gone and windows are closed, as Bonnaroo present becomes Bonnaroo past.A man smashes his fist into a port-a-potty, over and over, screaming some inaudible obscenities. For the first time, frustration is a visible entity. And as he walks away, still mumbling to himself, he rubs his fist and shakes his head, finally able to feel the pain.Somewhere soon the “noise-ician” will unplug his toys and the shaman will visit the distant dimensions of his dreams. Somewhere soon the clown will remove his makeup and the artists will drive away from the environment that empowered them. And somewhere soon, as the last car leaves, the dust will settle down – back to the Earth – waiting to be kicked up again.
(06/21/07 4:00am)
WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE AS FLEETING AS THE\nFESTIVAL ITSELF. WHERE TIME IS MEASURED\nIN SET LENGTH, SUN STRENGTH AND THE SORENESS\nOF YOUR SOLES. WHERE SPACE IS CONQUERABLE\nTHROUGH THE POWER OF MUSIC. WHERE\nTHE QUESTION IS NOT WHEN OR WHY, BUT HOW?\nWHERE THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS BONNAROO.
(06/04/07 12:34am)
Dear God,\nI’m writing to recommend David L. Adams for a position in heaven.\nThose who knew him best knew a lot about Dave – sometimes too much. They knew to call him “Dadams,” never “Dr. Adams,” and they knew to get used to the phrase “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but ... ”\nBut if there was one thing that those closest to Dadams knew, it was that the man could write the hell out of a letter of recommendation. Dave Adams could glorify students in ways their own mothers couldn’t.\nThis character trait is rather emblematic of Dr. Dave. You see, writing a letter of recommendation is perhaps one of life’s most selfless acts, and Dave Adams was certainly one of the world’s most selfless people. He never directly benefited from taking hours out of his days to gush on and on about a particular student. Rather, he simply drew his pleasure from helping anyone he could.\nAnd that’s why I write you now, God, because for all the letters Dadams wrote – and I would bet there are hundreds – he deserves to have at least one written for him.\nI know the requirements for a position in heaven aren’t too exhausting, but I also know that there are those who lead good lives and there are those who make better lives for others. Dave was in the company of the latter. \nYou need look no further than the inundation of prayers that have reached your heavenly ears these past two days. I’m sure there are even some already in your company who can echo the sentiments of those of us still here on earth.\nGod, I am a writer. One day, I’ll make my living finding the right words to say. But as I toil over this letter recommending Dave Adams to you, I realize our language is inadequate for such a task. There is no adjective that describes the size of his heart, no verb to describe what we would do for him and no title adequate to represent what he represents to all of us. \nThere is only “Dadams,” a symbolic title for the countless students he’s fathered over the years.\nI, like so many, owe a lot to Dave Adams – if not damn near everything. I know people in New York who would say the same thing. I’ve even happened upon a stranger from Sacramento who would agree with me. \nYou see, this planet is littered with flesh-and-blood examples of why Dadams deserves a place in heaven. And these are the best ways to measure a man such as Dave – not by the sum of his accomplishments, but rather by the accomplishments of others who have him to thank. \nGod, I know I’m not the perfect person to write this letter, but on behalf of everyone who knew Dr. David L. Adams, I feel safe in asking that you please pave a path to heaven for the man we loved so much. \nAnd as a favor, would you mind paving it in yellow bricks?\nThank you,\nBrian
(05/17/07 4:00am)
Step 1: Kick balls, take names
(05/10/07 4:00am)
Bonnaroo isn't just for hippies anymore, but you'll feel like one by the end of the weekend. It's a marathon of shows from noon until 4 a.m., day after day, and no matter how tired you are, you'll be up with the Tennessee sun at 7 a.m. Bring lots of snacks, soap and sandals you can leave behind.
(05/10/07 4:00am)
Lollapalooza's artists are making daddy Perry Farrell very happy by bringing home lots of A's on their report cards. WEEKEND gave A's to many of the artists' new albums, including TV on the Radio, Modest Mouse and Peter Bjorn and John. Bloomington also caught glimpses of Spoon and G.Love at Bluebird and they're worth traveling to Chicago for.
(05/10/07 4:00am)
Umphrey's and moe are like the Welch's and Smuckers of the jam scene. They often tour together and transition from one band to another, one musician at a time. As one member's guitarist leaves, the other's gets on stage, etc. Both have extensive histories of playing in Bloomington (moe played an acoustic set in Borders last semester).
(05/10/07 4:00am)
If a Wisconsin music festival is good for anything, it's good for old-school acts ripped straight from the '70s and onto the stage (probably because much of the state still operates in this era). Aside from the likes of Roger Waters (Pink Floyd fame) and Peter Frampton, you also have Heart, REO Speedwagon, Blue Oyster Cult, Buddy Guy and The Family Stone Experience -- a tribute to Sly and company.
(05/10/07 4:00am)
We -- this summer's WEEKEND caretakers -- need your advice and opinions as the magazine expands on the Web and in print. If you love music, movies, DVDS, videogames, popculture or the Internet as much as we do -- trot on down to Ernie Pyle Hall and get yourself a job.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
In my time here I’ve studied journalism and philosophy, though I’ve never claimed to be journalist nor philosopher. I’ve lived, learned and moved forward.\nIt’s taken me four years, but I’ve finally learned something: Through all the time spent making friends, joining groups, chasing degrees and trying to make money, it’s easy to get confused about what we’re really seeking here at IU. But what I’ve learned is that it’s happiness we’re after. College is a continual path of re-defining happiness.\nWhen we were kids, it was playing kickball, making s’mores and staying up late. When we were teenagers, it was playing hooky, making out and still staying up late. In college, it’s playing beer pong, making love and sleeping in late. \nThe moral here is not to get too caught up in the emotionals of graduation. Yes, friends have been great and this school is amazing, but that’s not why we’re scared. We’re scared because these are the things that make us happy, and without them, what’s left to bring us joy?\nThe answer is everything. New people, new places, new drinking games; new ways to improve ourselves and the world around us. Sadness only empowers the symbols, not what they represent.\nIt should bring a smile to your face, not a tear to, to know you found happiness and comfort in a place you once considered intimidating. What you’re leaving behind isn’t real in the intrinsic sense of the word. Your memories, and the happiness you’ve felt – that’s real. The thing about life is there’s plenty more where that came from.\nIt’s that hope which inspires me to share one, true philosophical discovery I’ve made, and it didn’t even strike me until earlier this week while I was writing my final philosophy paper – about an hour before it was due. \nMy parting words are simple: As we move forward from here, we must be conscious of that direction. Forward.\nWe are armed better than most with the ability to change this world, not as one or two or ten, but as a collective whole. And with that ability we must strive to move toward a utopia, not away from a dystopia. Live lives of hope. Not lives of fear. \nYes, occasionally we will fail. And occasionally we will succeed. But it’s the direction we are headed when these peaks and valleys occur that matters most. For I’d rather stumble on the path to greatness, than pick myself up from the road to mediocrity.
(04/23/07 4:00am)
Would the person who broke my window with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice please come find me? I’m not mad about the window. I would just like to know why it had to be Smirnoff Ice.\nHere I am, having people over, trying to look cool and KA-CHOW, broken glass everywhere. My hard-core points were off the charts right there. Had I been able to bend down and grab a fifth of Jack Daniel’s or, hell, even a Coors Light, I could have cracked it open, chugged it and gone down in Little 500 lore. \nBut no, that’s not how it happened. When another window broke later on in the evening, I had to hope that it broke because somebody had thrown that damn Smirnoff Ice back out the same way it came in.\nSo, if you did this, come find me. Again, it’s the choice of weaponry I want answers about, not the damage. That is a part of Little 500.\nI sit here, now, watching a slow-motion Sunday through the hole in my front-room window, realizing that’s what this is all about. I wrote a column for Sports Illustrated On Campus where I attempted to seek the real definition of Little 500 – is it a race or a party?\nTo borrow an exhausted phrase (and believe me, a lot of things are exhausted these days), this week is about so much more than that. This race, this week, this entire maddening ordeal is all, simply, about life – college life, to be more specific. \nA lot of crap has happened this week. I’ve heard explosions, followed quickly by loud screams of “Little 5!” I’ve seen people puking their guts out and riding their hearts out. But through all of that, what I can’t help falling back on is this is the first Little 500 week I’ve ever experienced without death. And I’m graduating in two weeks.\nListen, everybody knows that things get crazy during Little 5 week. Maybe you fought with your friend this weekend. Maybe your relationship hit a skid. Maybe you just had your front window broken by a bottle of Smirnoff Ice. But it’s the fact that those things can happen, and the week can end, and everything can slowly slip back to normalcy. That’s what this is all about. It’s about life and being able to live it to the fullest. \nIt’s also about the day after, being able to sit surrounded by garbage, and even though you feel like a legion of drunken monkeys beat you with clubs and tended to your wounds with tequila, you know – life goes on.\nThis was, by far, my best Little 500. I may have questioned what I was doing with my life this week, but now that the day is done I’m just glad that I still have my friends, I still have my stories and I still have a life to question. But the reason this has truly been the best Little 500 is because, this time, everybody on campus can say the same.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
A nervous freshman, dressed in a button-down and shorts, clutches a reporter's notebook and slams his friend's car door. Here it is. Race day. \nHe crosses 17th Street from the corner of North Jordan. Sure, it's hot, but he shouldn't be sweating already. The nerves are tight and the gut wrenches. Partly from the shred of a hangover that still lingers, but mostly because within the hour, he will be smack dab in the center of … well … he has no clue what. It's just loud, looming and colorful.\nThen, fumbling for his press pass with his sweaty palms, he looks through the woods, down the path, and there it is -- his first sight of the illustrious Little 500: a girl in pink, puking her guts out; boyfriend holding the hair back. \nI've covered three races in three years, but nothing sticks with me more than that very first moment with the Little 500. Not because it's symbolic for the race -- Little 5 is much more than a drunken fracas -- but because the best places in life are the ones where it's acceptable for people to be puking: concerts, athletic events, wedding receptions, amusement parks … need I go on?\nWhat I'm getting at is: The race, the weekend, the week as a whole is all about making memories that will last forever, those flashbulb moments that we look back on at 40 and say, "Now that was college."\nFrom my memory files to yours, here are some surefire ways to make sure this year's Little 500 is the one you tell your grandchildren about.
(04/10/07 4:00am)
Here’s what I don’t like about America. We never take it to the extreme.\nI wish, just once, this country could crack a Dew the size of Canada, slam it while snowboarding down South America, and launch that into a reverse slam dunk over Australia. Now that would be extreme. \nOr at the very least, I want a free market of human body parts. You heard me correctly. I want kidneys more affordable than caviar, and I want livers to flow like the wine that destroys them. What I’m saying is I want to trade surgery for solace – financial solace, of course – as if there were any other kind.\nThis is outlandish, you say? How appalling a thought, you scoff? Well how about the legislators in South Carolina that are proposing up to six months sliced off a sentence if inmates are willing to donate an organ or bone marrow? This is no joke. It’s actually about to be argued. \nThis gets back to my original beef with America being too afraid to take it to the extreme. Of course, the compassionate supporters of “human rights” are all up in arms about this proposal, and the chances of it passing are slim to none. But I say it’s time America busts a bottle over its own head and makes the conscious decision to push it to the limit. \nChina took the extremist stance on this baby by carrying out 80 percent of the world’s executions in 2006 and harvesting the thousands and thousands of sweet, profitable organs. So it would seem that the best we can hope for is second-most-extreme, but that hardly sounds American. \nI say we take this one step further than the current legislation in South Carolina. They are a coastal state; I say you construct a giant catapult. When a convict is found guilty, they are walked out to the catapult and given the following option: “Donate an organ or be launched into the Atlantic.” \nIt’s just that simple.\nThis may even push us past those super-extreme Chinese. Not only does it prove we are even more committed to harvesting organs, but it would prove we are more serious about capital punishment, too. \nThe other extreme would be to completely outlaw bodily transfer of any kind. But I am pretty sure that would mean outlawing sex, and we’re not that extreme. So I’m afraid we are left with no other option than the giant catapult.\nLook, it’s perfectly obvious what is going on here. Some real visionaries realized that sick people need organs, and criminals need a desperate false sense of freedom. They put two and two together and made this proposal. Where they went wrong is that they started bowing down to the “center-of-the-road,” “smooth-and-steady,” “snoozefest central” legislators out there that demanded these donations be “voluntary” and “safe.”\nI say we march them out on that catapult and tell them, “Vote yes, or it’s into the Atlantic with you.”\nSeriously, somebody in South Carolina really needs to start drawing up blueprints for a giant catapult. Then we can get down to some serious business. Seriously extreme business!
(04/05/07 4:00am)
Three new Kirkwood establishments are competing for students' business -- day and night. Whether it's lunch between classes or a sobering snack after a weekend bar crawl, these restaurants offer a diverse selection of food.
(04/04/07 3:00pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the back seat of a Ford Explorer, Eric Gordon and his 9-year-old brother Aaron sip Baja Blast Moutain Dew and snicker at a DVD that’s blasting rap music. It’s Sunday, and for the Gordon family that means basketball. Then again, for the Gordons, just about every day means basketball.The destination today is Municipal Gardens on the north side of Indianapolis – the site of Aaron’s park league championship game. When they get there, the regular family files out of their regular SUV and embarks on a regular Sunday afternoon. But what’s extraordinary about this ordinary scene is the 6-foot-4, 18-year-old with a man’s body and a boy’s face. It’s the great Eric Gordon – the one they call “E.J..” He’s the No. 2-rated high school basketball player in the nation, and the leading candidate for Indiana’s Mr. Basketball. Just a few weeks ago he dropped 43 points on Michael Jordan’s kids during a nationally televised game.You wouldn’t think any of this, though, watching an oversized high schooler slap hands with family friends then take a seat along the sidelines. As Eric Gordon Jr. leans over to hug his aunt and grandma, you have to remind yourself: This might be the man who restores the glory to IU basketball. Just like his father before him, and just like his little brother these days, E.J.’s basketball career started in the historic gym at Municipal Gardens. As a 5-year-old, he played in the 7-8 year-old division. At 8, he jumped up to the 11-12 year-old bracket, and by fifth grade he was already playing in national tournaments through the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).None of this surprised Eric Sr. too much. E.J. began showing signs of his gifts almost immediately after his birth on Christmas Day, 1988. He took his first steps at six months and was walking on his own three months before his first birthday.“We always knew he was coordinated,” Eric Sr. says, “We just never knew how coordinated he would turn out to be.”It was around fifth grade when the Gordons finally found out. The family was in Dallas, Texas for a national tournament, and E.J.’s squad had a game against another AAU team from Arizona. E.J. had never been much of a scorer, but rather a true point guard. But on this day he went off for 43 points, his team won the game, and they eventually finished second overall.“That was probably the highest scoring game I ever had as a kid,” E.J. says. “And that was at a national event.” Just two years later, as a seventh grader, E.J. got a letter from Wabash College asking him to consider playing basketball for their school. It was an exciting moment – getting recruited before being a teenager – but there were would be many, many, many more letters to come.Watching Aaron play supports the existence of a basketball gene. The youngest Gordon pulls down boards and sinks mid-range jumpers, inspiring E.J. to admit that his little brother is actually a better shooter and rebounder than he was at the same age. It’s hard to think of E.J. ever having struggled with his shot, as just two nights before he drained threes from four feet beyond the arc like a sniper shooting at tin cans.With Aaron’s team losing in the final quarter, the youngest Gordon sneaks a glance at his older brother, and E.J. gently lowers and raises his large, outstretched hands. He whispers a little as he mouths the words: “calm down.” It is reminiscent of the final moments of E.J.’s sectional semi-final. With the victory secured, E.J. glanced up to his father who pointed back at him and nodded in approval.Eric Gordon Sr. has always served two roles in the life of the child who bares his name: father and coach. Eric Sr. was the first person to hand his son a basketball, and he’s been teaching E.J. what to do with it ever since. “In some ways, he’s always going to be my coach,” E.J. says. “Even if he isn’t out there on the court.” Eric Sr. set the tone early for his son, coaching him at every level up until high school. As a fifth grader on the AAU team that finished second place nationally, E.J. would always be matched up against the biggest, meanest sixth grader in practices. Eric Sr. would run full-court, one-on-one drills and every time E.J. looked to him to call a foul, he would just look the other way. “That is when (E.J.) took things to another level,” Eric Sr. says. “He’s just been there ever since.”That toughness was put to the test this past year, but it didn’t come in the form of a big, mean sixth grader. It came in the form of a phone call. During his junior season, E.J. had verbally committed to play college basketball for Bruce Weber at the University of Illinois. The location of the school along with Weber’s track record developing guards weighed most heavily on E.J.’s decision to choose Illinois over schools like Arizona, Notre Dame, and Duke. IU didn’t make the short list mostly because the coaching controversy surrounding then-head coach Mike Davis left E.J. with little assurance of who he would be playing for by the time he got to campus.But that March the landscape changed when IU hired Kelvin Sampson to replace Davis as head basketball coach. Sampson, in turn, hired Jeff Meyer as an assistant. Back in the ’80s and ’90s Meyer coached at Liberty University, and during that stint he brought in a defensive-minded forward named Eric Gordon – soon to father a son of the same name...In the span of just a few weeks, not only did E.J. come to know what coaches he would play for at IU; he literally knew one of the coaches he would play for at IU.Sampson had recruited E.J. while at Oklahoma, and after arriving in Bloomington he got in touch with E.J.’s high school coach Doug Mitchell. Considering their original doubts about IU had been removed, the Gordons felt it couldn’t hurt giving their in-state school a second look. This past fall E.J. visited IU, and after informing coach Weber that he was talking to the Hoosiers, the bidding war was officially on. Weber began calling more frequently and even paid a visit to E.J.’s mother, Denise, at Warren Central High School where she teaches business education.The back and forth game intensified over time, as each school continually “showed E.J. the love,” as Eric Sr. put it. The ordeal weighed heavily on the high school senior – even affecting his play on the court. But in the end, analyzing a worst-case scenario helped him realize his best-case scenario.“Let’s just say you’re having a god-awful day,” Eric Sr. told his son. “If you woke up that morning, and things are just bad, what place do you feel most comfortable? At Indiana, you’ve got maybe a thousand students who went to North Central, or one of the public schools where you grew up. You’ve got your buddy A.J. (Ratliff), he went to North Central, and he knows what you’re going through. You can easily call your parents, and they can zip down in 45 minutes. You can talk to the coaches, any of them, and they know the family pretty good. You can talk to the assistant coach – he coached your dad. When you think of it that way … It’s a no brainer.”All of a sudden, the decision was simple, but the predicament was far from it. E.J. had given coach Weber his word. A call had to be made, and E.J. wanted to be the one to make it. “I was proudest (of E.J.) when he said he wanted to be the one to make that call,” Denise Gordon says. “He stood up and took that responsibility all on his own. He handled it like a champ.”On Oct. 13, 2006, E.J. made the trip down to Bloomington, signed his letter of intent to play basketball at IU, and served as the guest of honor at that evening’s Hoosier Hysteria – the official kickoff to the basketball season. That night Eric Sr. sat with E.J. and had the pleasure of hearing his son’s name – his name – chanted by 14,000 of Indiana basketball’s most avid fans. His boy had found a home. The cranking sound of the buzzer echoes through the tiny gym at Municipal Gardens, and Aaron’s team has lost the championship game. Eric Sr. is quick to point out that the opposing team has more fifth graders than Aaron’s team, but that hardly brightens the mood of a 9-year-old.After receiving his second place plaque, Aaron slumps next to E.J.. No words are spoken. The two just sit there silently. E.J. then places his big, left hand on his brother’s slender, right knee.No more than a couple seconds pass before a woman approaches E.J. and explains how happy she is that he changed his mind – she’s been an IU fan her entire life. Then come the photograph seekers, the autograph seekers, and the general supporters who tell E.J. to, “keep up the good work.” Next thing Aaron knows, he is posing for pictures with his brother and members of the team that just beat him. E.J.’s grandmother, Carolyn, laughs and boasts about her celebrity grandson. On the way out of the gym, the family passes the display window by the front door that contains signed photos from former Div. I basketball players like Chris Thomas, Eric Montross, and Steve Alford. On the top shelf, front and center, is a framed picture of E.J. that’s signed: “Thanks for helping me develop my skills – Eric Gordon.”To deny the attention, the publicity, the hoop-la, would be to deny reality. When you’re 18-years-old and they sell your T-shirt in the lobby of a high school basketball game, you’re kind of a big deal – especially when that shirt features the Michael Jordan logo and reads “Air Gordon.”“When you first start going through it, it’s fun,” E.J. says. “Everybody is giving you compliments and telling you how great you are. But over a certain point it can change you mentally and change how you play.”When it gets to be too much, there is one, simple solution that keeps things from getting to E.J.’s head and that, he says, is, “My Dad.”Eric Sr. doesn’t keep his son grounded by force, but rather by reminding him of his roots and reinforcing his goals. After all, beneath all the signatures and smiling photographs is still just a kid who’s favorite thing to do is hang out with childhood friends from his quiet neighborhood just beyond the bustle of central Indianapolis.The reality is, E.J. has never lifted a weight but his mother will tell you he eats like a horse. In fact, the biggest trouble E.J.’s ever found himself in came when he ate his father’s Steak ‘n’ Shake.“I was starving,” Eric Sr. says. “That really pissed me off.”E.J. will tell you that life is “all about being happy.” His Facebook profile is brief, but it ends with: “I think I’m a good person to talk to and be around. And I love to meet new people.”That’s where E.J. comes from in life, but the attention, now, is all about where he’s going. He says his goals are to win the Big Ten, and hopefully win an NCAA championship. On a personal level, E.J. would like the chance to be National Freshman of the Year and maybe even a candidate for National Player of the Year. E.J. stipulates all of these with “hopefully,” but his father is quick to remove any doubt about IU’s prospects for next season – on the lone condition that junior forward D.J White returns for his senior season.“I see no reason IU wouldn’t be a top-five team preseason and they would compete for a national championship,” he says. “There is just no way in my mind that I can see anything different.”On the way home from the game Aaron and E.J. return to giggling at the DVD that pumps out rap music. They’re watching Hoops Mix Tape, a collection of high school highlight reels from the likes of Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James. After a couple minutes, E.J. says, “play mine.” They shuffle past clips from current high school phenoms Derrick Rose and O.J. Mayo, and get to the section simply titled “Eric Gordon.” Draped in his brother’s massive arm, Aaron grins ear-to-ear as the four-minute montage ends with a scene from E.J.’s AAU game last summer. E.J. gets the ball on a fast break, and some poor kid thinks about defending him before E.J. skies and dunks over the sap – thighs to eyes – leaving his opponent heaped on the floor.It’s surreal to think that somewhere else in the country, some random basketball fan has probably shaken his head and laughed at this dunk, calling it “sick” or “ridiculous.” It’s surreal because at this moment, Aaron can fall over, laugh, and think to himself, “That’s my brother.” But as the clip ends, the surreal once again becomes real. E.J. asks Aaron for some of the candy he got after the game, and the two start to argue over which clip to watch next. Suddenly, there’s no need for reminders about potential or restoring Hoosier glory.It’s just a regular family, in their regular SUV, on a regular Sunday afternoon.