The Boys Consider Graduation Weekend

Readers, graduation weekend has arrived and the town is full of guests and activities. As for the boys, they usually devote the Friday night of graduation weekend to seducing sorostitutes' mothers at the Sandbar.

But there's also a new event in town tonight that might be of interest to some: for the first time, KU is adding a special graduation ceremony, the Lavender Ceremony, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students. In this ceremony, "instead of the typical academic robes and gowns, participants are encouraged to wear whatever they’d like." (LJ-World).

Chip: "I'll bet the costumes will be fabulous. Isn't that a gay word? Am I allowed to use that word?"

The announcement of the ceremony prompted the usual wave of homophobia on the LJ-World talkbacks, but most of the comments have been removed at this point, leaving only a few enraged frat boys there to bicker with the Larryville liberals:

ChiHawkInKS says: "I just want to be honored as a straight man... thats all. Where is my ceremony?"

Also in the talkback mix, as always, is "BarryPenders," the legendary and ever-present talkbacker who ends every post with a bitter "Darwin bless you all." We can rarely understand his thoughts, but we find him endlessly fascinating and want to meet him.

Barrypenders says:

"This sounds like PAD 'Profiling'.

But, that is the hypocracy of PADs. Mexican Lawbreakers are 'Profiled' out to break residency laws of the country.

C'est le vie for PADs.

Stimulus, PAD Hypocracy, and Posercare live unprecedented

Darwin bless us all"

Grumpy Old Lady Editorial of the Week / Style Scout

Local retiree Judy Stuart is fed up with Larryville kids and their loud music and spicy foods, and she airs her opinions in today's LJ-World:

"I tend to eat where I know the menu, not some strange ingredients that I cannot pronounce. Spicy foods do not agree with many older people. Then, there is the noise, smoking outside before you can even get in the door, loud music and parking that is too far for the older people to walk safely. I would like comfort food that I know what I am eating. There is no Cracker Barrel with its wonderful gift shop within 45 miles of Lawrence. There is no place to get good fast food fish like Captain D’s. There is no Red Lobster or Olive Garden. There is no Bob Evans with its down-home food."

Chip: "I don't think anyone has ever articulated so well my exact feelings about the local restaurant scene."

Richard: "Agreed. If we had a Cracker Barrel, I'd eat there four times a week at least, although I believe she's wrong about the radius, as there are delicious Barrels in both Topeka and Olathe. She's certainly correct in that Captain D's is excellent, and, to my palate, far superior to Long John Silver's."

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Today's Scout subjects don't have anything particularly silly to say (well, maybe the second one does), but we'll go ahead and take a look since you all love to slag off their sartorial opinions.

First up is Carol Malakasis, 22, a student in French and Italian, who is "very open-minded when it comes to fashion" and "like[s] big jewelry, oversize cocktail rings, and black and white color combinations." Her friends tell her she looks like Penelope Cruz.

Richard: "I wonder if she'd be very open-minded if I suggested a Vickie Christina Barcelona-type scenario. Perhaps our friend Keith, local French scholar, knows this lady?"





















Then there's Alex Anderson, who describes his look as "Carefree and comfy - like a feather pillow without the down" and believes that Larryville needs a piazza "so that everyone can get together from all walks of life." People tell him he looks like "a slimmer version of Jack Black."




















Readers, you know what do do? Are they fashionable, or aren't they?

Larryville's City Fathers Approve 16-Passenger Pedicabs! / Plus, It's Limerick Day!

Having apparently decided that smaller pedicabs are not quite awesome enough, city fathers last night approved the use of 16-passenger pedicabs. In an odd twist, however, these particular pedicabs will not be allowed to operate on Mass. Street, which would seem to be the logical destination for 16-drunkards in a foot-powered contraption. Are the boys excited?

Chip: "The city fathers will apparently not be satisfied until Larryville has a fucking pedi-Ark that takes up a full-city block and is filled with two of every kind of freak in the city."

Richard: "There are only two kinds of hipsters: those that prefer PBR, and those that prefer Hamm's."

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Readers, did you know that May 12 is Limerick Day, which celebrates the birthday of Edward Lear? At the LC, we enjoy a good dirty limerick as much as the next person (Chip: "It's so easy to rhyme words with 'fuck.'").

Here's a nice one for you:

There once was a fellow McSweeny
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
Just to be couth
He added vermouth
Then slipped his girlfriend a martini

(source: interweb).

But what we truly prefer are haikus, whose short form is perfectly suited to lazy hipsters. Indeed, we often finding ourselves turning to the fine work collected in Siobhan Adcock's Hipster Haiku, such as this:

Hand-rolled cigarettes
You call everything “po-mo”
I think I love you

We'll happily buy a PBR (or Hamm's) to the person who submits their best hipster limerick or haiku in the comments (they must be hipster-related). Come on, poets, reveal yourselves! Here's ours:


The Transmittens coo
sweet songs of sparklemittens
Cow clouds make us smile.


Please order your copy of Hipster Haiku today:

Hero of the Week / Lost Fans Speak Out

Occasionally at the LC we like to profile citizens who are making a difference in Larryville. Most recently we saluted the dude who saved Free State Brewery from the terrifying, railroad-spike-wielding transient known only as Horse Shit. This week we turn our attention to a more subtle story.

Two separate power outages plunged downtown Larryville into chaos yesterday, leaving citizens concerned as to whether they could procure their daily necessities (such as Dempsey's "Central Soy Tofu burger with pickled onions & asparagus topped with tomato aioli") in a timely fashion from darkened businesses.

Luckily, one enterprising young hipster baker at Wheatfields made sure none of his customers had to wait long for a delicious loaf. Josh Hilliard donned a head lamp from his bike kit and went right on baking, gaining him a front page photo in today's LJ-World:











Our Rustic Italian Round tasted more delicious than ever yesterday, Josh. Fine work!

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Last week, Lost decided to kill off half its cast. And, after tonight, only two episodes remain before geeks across the world must deal with a huge void in their lives that can only be filled by...some other form of sci-fi or supernatural geekery. Tonight's much-anticipated episode, "Across the Sea," is purportedly set in 23 AD and details the origins of good and evil on the island. Fanboys tend to fall into two camps regarding this episode: (a) it will successfully cement the show's status as a groundbreaking work of television art or (b) it will once and for all "jump the shark" and prove we've all wasted the last six years of our lives.

AICN fanboys seem to be spending most of their time right now debating last week's teaser for tonight's episode:

Hardboiled Wonderland says: "I can make out Jack through the bushes. Sawyer's hair and stance is instantly recognisable. And that's Sayid yanking the spear out of the boar. But how the hell did Ilana Verdansky survive being blown to bits by the dynamite? Does this mean Arzt also survived? And does this mean Smoke Locke wasn't lying when he told Sawyer he could bring Juliet back to life? " He also queries: "Where did the metal wreckage come from to trap Sun??? I've freeze-framed that scene endlessly, and I still can't work out where that metal wreckage came from and how it managed to weld itself against the sub's frame trapping Sun perfectly."

Richard: "I'm a bit of a geek myself, sure, but the only thing I've ever 'freeze-framed' endlessly on Lost is Kate's titties."

Larryville's New Headquarters of Hip! / Another Visit to the Larryville Craigslist

Perhaps more than anything else in town, Larryville's "student-run radio" station KJHK helps keep us hip. Last week, "KJ" (as hipsters call it, because they are too lazy to pronounce all four letters) moved from its long-time home in the Shack to a sparkling new location on the second floor of the KU Union, where it's possible to walk by and observe the hipster DJ's in their natural habitat (and probably harder for them to hide their weed and PBR's).

The Pitch's Nick Spac.k reports on the final minutes of the old KJ and the first minutes at the new:

"The last song played was the Soft Boys' "I Wanna Destroy You," followed by a chorus of goodbyes, courtesy of a Simpsons clip. Roughly two minutes later, the station was back on the air from the Kansas Union, with a chorus of DJs announcing the switchover. The first song played? Appropriately, it was "This Is Radio Clash."

Richard: "Didn't Simpsons quotes stop being hip somewhere around Season Eight?"

Chip: "I think the DJs are going to find it a lot harder to deny my requests for Justin Bieber tunes when I'm standing with my face pressed to the glass, watching them and judging them."


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Our weekend readers may know that we've started a new series (inspired by a defunct Lawrence.com idea) which examines Larryville's Craigslist listings. Here's a touching "missed connection" from the site:

"We met last Thursday night at the Jackpot. You were in town from Salina. You're taller than me, and I have dark hair and a beard. You are burly and manly. You showed me your dick in the bathroom, and then you came home with me and stayed the night. It was fucking hot. I want to see you again. Come back to Lawrence. Get in touch."

Chip: "I think the showing of the dick is a common courtship ritual but perhaps less acceptable in the heterosexual world, as witnessed by the Collins' elevator incident. Also, I'm glad I didn't happen to be in the Jackpot bathroom at that time, because I wouldn't have known how I was supposed to react."

Richard: "You'd really think this poor sonofabitch might have managed to get the guy's name or phone number after a night together.

The Boys Consider KFC's "Double Down" Sandwich

The boys have long lamented the fact that Larryville offers no other fast-food chicken franchises besides KFC, but luckily KFC's new "double-down" sandwich has given us a reason to start frequenting the Colonel again. Yes, we know we're a little late on this story, but somehow this delicious monstrosity flew under our radar for awhile. In case you're not familiar with it (and you East Side foodies may well not be), the Double-Down uses two fried chicken breasts as its "bun" and in between contains two slices of cheese, bacon, and "special sauce."

Chip: "I like it for breakfast with a side of gravy."

Richard: "Easily the greatest food innovation since the Bacon Explosion."




















And while we're on the subject of KFC, please take two and a half minutes out of your busy Sunday and watch Patton Oswalt riffing on KFC's "famous bowls":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfan5MacmsI



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If you enjoy art, politics, fashion, and/or hilarious board games about prison rape, make sure to mingle with artist/designer John Sebelius (son of former governor Kathleen Sebelius) at his art opening, "Outcast," tonight at the Pig. John has been in the news recently due to his controversial board game "Don't Drop The Soap," which his website describes as follows:

"Fight your way through 6 different exciting locations in hopes of being granted parole. Escape prison riots in The Yard, slip glass into a mob boss' lasagna in the Cafeteria, steal painkillers from the nurse's desk in the Infirmary, avoid being cornered by the Aryans in the Shower Room, fight off Latin Kings in Gang War, and try not to smoke your entire stash in The Hole."

Here's a link to his site, where you can purchase the game and check out John's clothing designs as well:

http://www.gilliusinc.com/dropsoap.html

And here's a picture of the board game. Your kids will always fight over who gets to be the "bag of coke!" Click to enlarge.

Is It Art, Or Isn't It? / Larryville on Craigslist

Larryville's Wonder Fair gallery welcomes a travelling collective of artists known as "Okay Mountain" to town with an exhibibition that begins this evening. Details are sparse, but we found a recent description of another one of their exhibitions called "Butter and Popcorn Go Together Like Kangaroos and Boxing". Please read:

"The show explores the relationships between butter, popcorn, kangaroos and boxing. These 4 items used as icons to create an entire theme-based experience...For the opening performance Andy Rihn will drown a stuffed kangaroo, over the course of the night, in popcorn. Eventually filling the closed garage door at Okay Mountain with fresh popped corn and the area with the aroma."

Richard: "I assume this is a commentary on how we exploit nature (making kangaroos box) for our own amusement (we are simply spectactors eating popcorn). Certainly, it's art."

Chip: "I assume this is just a goof in which the 'artists' have a good laugh about the fact that people take their work seriously no matter how fucking preposterous it may be. Still, I'd vote art if we were allowed to eat some of the popcorn."

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For a brief but glorious time, Lawrence.com ran a column showcasing the best of Larryville-related Craigslist personals and "missed connections." Since it no longer exists, let's take it over. Here's a man-seeking-woman "missed connection" that will move you:


"I see you in Henry's all the time, and sometimes sit next to you.

You are a photographer, and I think that's sexy. Nothing more attractive than a big D90 and a beautiful smile.

Plus, black, thick framed glasses bring out my Cuomo sentimentality.

And, of course, you sing Grease songs with me, and that makes my life.

I think of you when i fall asleep at night.
Sometimes i think i can smell the waffle-cone scent of your hair between ebbs of sleep, loving the momentary vertigo in which i can imagine you next to me.

My life has a new degree of hope because of you.

If you know who this is, I hope this doesn't ruin our friendship.
This post is just something i had to do; a necessary catharsis for my pent up, overwhelming emotions.

Since I like a little shorty, i'm tryin' to put a ring on it. Uh, uh, oh."

Richard: "If it wasn't for the last line, this might well have gotten him laid. What kind of lady hipster photographer wouldn't fall for a Weezer-loving dude who thinks her hair smells like waffle cones?"