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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1998)
The Battalion dnesday • April Wednesday • April 1, 1998 Fill In The blanks Book of and metaphors. descriptions celebrates similes birthday Chris Martin staff writer H elp me out — I need an adjective. Slimy? Okay, now I need a number. 88? Great. Now another adjec tive. Pulsating? Alright, now let me read this back — “Slimy 88th birthday, Pulsating Libs!” Wait a minute, that didn’t work out. How about, “Happy 40th birthday, Mad Libs!” Yes, the great staple of elementary book fairs, family vacations and band bus trips has circled the sun 40 times as of this year. Like mix tapes and beef jerky, no childhood road trip was complete without one of those shiny flip books with titles like “Mad Libs,” “Son of Mad Libs,” "Bride of Mad Libs”and “Inbred Cousin of Mad Libs.” Mad Libs was more than mere amusement, mind you. It secretly and subversively was educa tional, like “Schoolhouse Rock” and "Sesame Street.” Looking back to Mad Libs makes one pon der, can learning truly be fun? My word, let’s get those guys working on Physics 202. As simple as the Mad Libs are — filling in the strategically absent verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs of funny little stories — there was always that one kid around to screw things up. “Give me an adverb,” you would ask. “That’s a word ending in -ly.” V “Uh,” the kid would think, and then offer "silly?” And when we finally found out that a noun was not just a person, place or thing, but — egads — an idea, you would get results like “One day Tom rode into town on a big green socialism.” Mad Libs were especially fun when deliberately skewed to be either gross or sexual. Adjectives like “burning,” "heaving” and “festering” were espe cially popular. And the rapture provided by the dis covery of turning gross nouns into equally gross adjectives by the simple addition of -y or -ish. Got boogers? How boogerish! The game was the brainchild of Roger Price, the humorist-illustrator responsible for “Droodles,” those simple but abstract scribbles that made no sense until you read the caption, and television writer Leonard Stern, pioneer of “The Honey- mooners,” “The Steve Allen Show” and “Get Smart.” I can imagine the moment of conception. One guy turns to the other and says, “There’s too many books out there today that are complete and au tonomous entities. So here’s my idea. We make these books with stuff missing. All the important details are blank. The kids will love it!” It sounds odd, but 100 million copies later, the kids still love it. Like Tic Tac Toe before and Tetris after, Mad Libs has the three essential qualities of a timeless pastime: easy to learn, an infinite possi bility for variation and most of all, it’s fun. It’s pul sating. It’s boogerish. Chris Martin is a senior journalism major. I> is a Battalion sen ^s! te,T;|5S brings new show with radio personality to tackle ‘Saturday Night Live’ (no later than thtB NEW Y0RK (Ap) if the desired mntim leadlines and if will not be run in U Howard Stern on enough to , Jhome Saturday tny question®’ ? t845^r The ribald radio rsonality will jr in a late night Stern show on CBS that will chal lenge NBC’s "Saturday Night Live,” the Daily News reported Tuesday. The show will begin this summer to get a jump on “SNL,” which usually doesn’t begin its season until October. Because of concerns about Stern’s raunchy humor, CBS af filiates can reportedly opt out of broadcasting the show. In 1990, Stern was host of a syndicated show that often beat “Saturday Night Live” in major markets, but its risque content scared off stations in smaller markets. The show ended in 1992. The main competitor to “SNL,” Fox’s “Mad TV,” draws about 4.5 million viewers a week, compared with 9.2 mil lion for the NBC show. Mew qroup uplifts music cpedibilitq o fS pice Gins All Saints All Saints London Records Critique: F R emember the days of the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Stones, the Wlio. Great bands with great music. These days, the isle is spawning such Toxic Avenger-style mutations such as Oasis, the Spice Girls and now All Saints. Like all weird events this year, El Nino seems to be the likely cul prit, but until then, this side of the pond shall be subjected to yet another talentless all-girl band who think cleavage somehow translates into good music. Admittedly, only one of the girls is British, but the band was formed in London, so you do the comparisons. Upon examining this sexual experience wrapped in cellophane, the most notable track title is “Under the Bridge.” Wait one hot minute! Coincidence? I think not. These four lasses have attempted to cover the song that mined the rebel image of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They put a lackluster En Vogue spin on the ballad complete with faux funky beat and over-done drum machines. Everyone remembers the girls in high school who never did a single homework assignment themselves. They always got their boyfriend to do it, or a best friend or, in the case of the dreaded group project, the girl would take the credit for everyone else’s work. Well if the music industry was high school, and increasingly it seems to be turning into that, All Saints would be the class cheaters. Not a single track on their self-titled album has a original thought on it. Such questionably credible acts as Salt ’n’ Pepa, TLC, En Vogue and even the Spice Girls themselves fall victim to these garbage raiders. Imagine that. A song so bad the Spice Girls wouldn’t even do it. All Saints have tried to throw off the obvious comparisons to the Spice Girls, claiming they are concerned with their music, not their im age and making movies. Ironically enough, the only two tracks the girls wrote together sound so “spice-erific” I can imagine Sporty pointlessly kicking her legs in the air on the video. Maybe like their role models, they should ditch the music and follow the spicy route to success. Perhaps adopting cool nicknames like “I wish I was young enough to be Baby” or “I could be Posh, but I don’t have the common sense to get my roots done” would help, but it isn’t too likely. The only semblance of talent — excuse me as 1 laugh at the use of the word in conjunction with this band — comes from Shaznay Lewis who is credited with co-writing the majority of the songs from All Saints. While her rapping is a shameless heist of Left Eye with the occasional petty thievery attempt at sounding like Salt, she brings the group some strength. The rest of the girls sound like background vocalists who walked into the wrong recording both. The only thing worse than listening to this album is having to write a review for it, and after hours of having this album on repeat, it is time to sacrifice this record to the lions. All hail the patron saints of talentless music groups: All Saints. Aaron Meier night news editor tlP US SAVE THE PI^H '' .u>"i ■ '/■"■'i J ft™ Fame iy Free Jason’s Deli delivery after 4 PM with Student I.D. The Politically Correct Alternative. Pizza is one of the most stalked and preyed upon meals in the United States, and is at the top of the endangered foods list. Please help save the pizza by making a conscious and politically correct decision at your next meal: Call Jason’s Deli. Not only will you be working to save pizza from extinction, you’ll feel better because you’re eating higher on the food chain. Jasoris deli 1404 Texas Ave. S. • 764-2929 • 764-2712 FAX email: www.jasonsdeli.com $6 minimum order QoCden National Honor Society Will be having a meeting Wednesday, April 1 st • 7:00 p.m. Rudder 510 Study Abroad Representatives will be giving a presentation Wolf Pen Creek Amphitheater (Rain Out: Bryan Civic Auditorium) Ticket Prices: $10 in advance $12 at the gate Group Tickets: $8 for groups of 10 or more Ticket Outlets: Christian Bookstores, Wehner, MSC, College Station Parks and Recreation or any Aggie Men’s Club member For more information call: Wayne Hanks 775-0579 Sponsored by The Aggie Men’s Club Benefitting Still Creek Ranch - ”A Home for Boys and Girls” * A * st n * The Career Center is seeking a Graduate Assistant to assist graduate and professional students of Texas A&M with their career planning and job-hunting needs. Primary duties are: • Individual career advising • Publicizing / informing of current Career Center activities • Developing new services tailored to the needs of graduate students Salary and work hours: $12,000 for a 12-month appointment Start date: ASAP. Position open until filled Direct Resumes to: Terri Morrison Assistant Director Texas A&M Career Center 209 Koldus Reckless Panhandlers CD Release Party Opening Band 12th Egg Conspiracy April 2nd - 9:00 p.m. Third Floor Cantina $5.00 Cover CD’s on sale for $10 each