Saturday, May 30, 2009

Lucha Libre! / Also, What To Do Today If You're NOT Hip! Plus, KU Gets a New Chancellor

The true influence of hipster radio was felt last night when the hosts of "Retro Cocktail Hour" convinced several hundred cheering hipsters to fill Liberty Hall for a double-feature of "lucha libre" films starring Mexico's greatest wrestling hero, El Santo! Now it's almost certain that most in attendance had zero knowledge of the genre beforehand and were simply there because the event was well-promoted and had a certain amount of hipster cache associated with it. But was it entertaining?

Richard: "I saw the luchador El Santo defeat a Frankenstein, a wolf man, a vampire, a vampire woman, a mummy, a Cyclops, a horde of undead, his friend Blue Demon, a mad scientist, and a midget (including a scene where they were all in the same wrestling ring!). Also, he keeps his mask on even when he's making out with the ladies! Sure, the evening was a shining example of hipsterism, but it was also far more entertaining than Terminator 4 or Angels and Demons."

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We spend a lot of time here trying to help our readers get hip, but we rarely cater to the crowd who likes to have fun but simply doesn't care for interesting music, books, or films and who want to live an average "mainstream" American life. Where should those people go on a Saturday?

How about Rockfest in KC? It's happening today, it's perpetually sold out, and it's billed as the "largest one-day rock festival in the nation," featuring such acts as Shinedown, Buckcherry, and Korn.

Richard: "I don't know if it's really the 'largest one-day rock festival' but it's certainly one of the largest collections of truly bad bands ever assembled in one place. Even so, there will be a lot of very slutty, very sweaty, tattoed women there looking to get laid after hearing Buckcherry's 'Crazy Bitch' ('Hey! You're a crazy bitch / But you fuck so good I'm on top of it / When I dream /I'm doing you all night'). So I guess it's not all bad."

Chip: "A lot of my friends from Forttt Scottt are going to this."

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KU has a new chancellor as of yesterday: North Carolina's Bernadette Gray-Little, the first African-American and first woman to hold the position here. Today's LJ-World helps us understand the situation in the only way we know how at KU: by comparing it to athletics.

"The arrival of a new chancellor is similar to a new football or basketball coach taking over a team and requiring every player on the squad to justify his position as starter." (LJ-World)

Chip: "First off, I think we know that the arrival of a new chancellor here is less important than the arrival of a new basketball or football coach. Second, why didn't we just hire Lew Perkins as chancellor? Third, do we really want to bring in a North Carolinian? What if her loyalties really lie with the traitor, Roy Williams?"

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