Promoting unity through fighting a common enemy

Monday, October 21, 1996

SOCIETY:

Philanthropic advice: storm ASUCLA and demand return of the
‘Classic Joe Bruin’Hey, hey, UCLA! It is I, Viewpoint’s resident
philanthropist, back again to provide useful and FREE information
to you, the reader. (Philanthropy, for those of you not familiar
with the sometimes-philanthropic Greek system, is defined as
"active effort to promote human welfare.") That’s what I do in my
columns ­ I promote human welfare on this campus. I’m like
that troubleshooter guy on Channel 2, except skinnier. And with
longer hair. And I’m in the newspaper and he’s on TV.

Before I begin my column today, I’d like to take a brief moment
to thank my editor, Geoff Martin, who, in the interest of quality
control made me rewrite most of this column. Geoff, like me, shares
Viewpoint’s unwavering commitment to excellence (which before now
I’ll bet you never would’ve guessed even existed). As I’ve said
before, I love each and every one of you with all of my heart, and
I only want to do what’s best for you. (Sob sob.) Geoff shares my
love for you, and so he kindly asked me ("Redo it, or we’ll find
someone who will, Skinny!") to make some minor improvements to my
work. Anyway, if you think this column sucks, just imagine how bad
it was before I rewrote it. (Who-eeee!!) You can express your
gratitude to Geoff by e-mailing him at

[email protected]. I did.

Enough about that. As I’m sure you all recall, in my last
life-changing contribution to Viewpoint I provided FREE tips on how
to attend UCLA for FREE. (Somehow I am unable to type the word FREE
in lowercase letters.)

Today I plan to eliminate all (insert your special interest
group here) boundaries, by uniting our campus against a common
enemy who threatens the well being of everyone and everything
associated with UCLA. This enemy is the New Joe Bruin.

Right about now you’re probably asking yourself,"How could
something as innocent as New Joe be evil? How could he be my
enemy?" Or maybe you’re asking yourself,"What kind of name is
Horey? Did they drop the W?" (Or you may ask yourself,"Self, how
did I get here?")

Unfortunately, I can’t answer questions about my name (who are
you to judge me?) or Talking Heads lyrics, but I CAN expose the
evil that ASUCLA calls New Joe. (And incidentally, if your name was
Horey, would you do a lot of prodding into your family history? I
don’t think so.)

When New Joe was introduced last spring, we were all forced to
ask the question,"What is that thing?" And then, when we had been
assured that it was indeed a bear (and a BRUIN bear at that) we
were forced to ask, "Why do we need a new mascot?" The answer, my
friends, is that we didn’t need a new mascot at all ­ we had a
perfectly good (and happy) mascot in Old Joe. So I declared a one
man war on New Joe, and today I invite you all to join me in my
fight against him and all that he represents.

Why must New Joe be destroyed? Let’s consider the evidence
against him.

First, New Joe looks nothing like a bear ­ he looks more
like Joe Wolverine than Joe Bruin. He has a huge body and a tiny
little head, and probably does more to scare small children than
opposing teams.

What’s more, New Joe is bad luck. Do the math; our men’s
basketball team won 11 NCAA championships under the leadership of
Old Joe. How many NCAA championships have they won since New Joe
took over as mascot? That’s right, none.

Just how evil is New Joe? I believe that he could be the
Antichrist.

Absurd? I think not. Consider the facts for a moment: there are
11 letters in "New Joe Bruin", only one short of 12. Half of 12 is
6, and the number of the beast (that’s from Revelations, Bible
scholars) is 666. If that isn’t compelling evidence, I don’t know
what is.

Besides, if New Joe isn’t evil, as The Man (or more commonly,
"ASUCLA") would have us believe, and he is a necessary addition to
our beautiful construction-ridden campus, why don’t we need a new
Josephine? This and many other questions remain unanswered by
ASUCLA, which is why New Joe and all that he stands for must be
eliminated from our campus. Who knows what areas of UCLA life New
Joe intends to destroy, but I for one do not want to wait around to
find out.

In my opinion, the abolition of New Joe would be worthwhile just
to be able to watch Ackerman (which, pardon the digression, but
shouldn’t that hideous tent building be called "Tackerman" now that
it’s serving as a Temporary Ackerman and not a Temporary Powell?)
try to get rid of all their New Joe merchandise to make way for the
return of Old Joe merchandise. Come on, admit it. You’d laugh.

Of course, it would be unfair for me to raise all of these
important questions about New Joe (and to call for his impeachment)
if I didn’t have viable alternatives to him in mind. Fortunately
for our campus, the New Joe scandal does not have to end in
disaster. Obviously my first choice would be to see Old Joe return
to glory in all of his pudginess and teddy bear-like glee, but that
seems about as likely as a third David Lee Roth/Van Halen reunion,
so I have a few ideas for alternative UCLA mascots. They
include:

The UCLA Lowered Integras: Come on, there are a lot more of
those around here than there are bears. (Plus, "The Daily Lowered
Integra" is a fine name for a newspaper.)

The UCLA Rabid Squirrels: Again, much more prevalent on campus
than bears. And from what I can tell, they fear nothing and no one.
("Out of my lunch, you little bastard!")

The UCLA Futons: Not really intimidating, but they’re cheap, and
everybody has one, and you can sleep on them. (Now if that isn’t
the image we want to present, I don’t know what is.)

The UCLA Trojans: That’d show them once and for all. ("Ha! We
took your mascot, you suckers!")

The UCLA Parking Enforcement Guys: Their numbers are
immeasurable, no one wants to have to deal with them, and again, I
see a lot more of them on campus than I do scary
wolverine-bears.

The UCLA Jackasses: I’d pay money to see that on a T-shirt, and
besides, I think "jackass" is just about the greatest word in the
English language. ("Will that be cash, or would you like to pay
with your Jackass Gold card?")

I’m sure that after reading my carefully crafted arguments
against New Joe and my brilliant suggestions for possible
replacement mascots, many of you are ready to forget your
differences and take up arms together against New Joe, overthrowing
him by any means necessary. I would urge you all NOT to do this,
particularly because if New Joe is harmed in any way, yours truly
is going to jail. And they don’t let you write Viewpoint columns in
the big house.