Uptight UCLA desperately needs alcohol on campus

  Adam Epstein Epstein believes people
should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content
of their cup. Buy him una bebida at [email protected].

UCLA is viciously overstressed. All symptoms point to a textbook
example of a Type A campus, a cardiac case of a university in
desperate need of a long collective sigh of relief, a communal
kicking back of heels in an oversized La-Z-Boy. Clashing political
slates in heated elections, students being arrested for protesting
tenure policies, the ever-present, always popular “issues of
diversity,” and other family favorites have given our campus
that delightful feeling of, “Hey, hope nobody climbs up on
top of Royce and starts sniping people today.” Luckily, there
is a blatantly simple and painfully obvious stress reliever
available.

It is called alcohol. UCLA is in desperate need of a campus bar.
Our school’s attempts at on-campus student entertainment and
relaxation have fallen shorter than a pre-pubescent Danny Devito.
Now, I’m not one to bash things that I don’t relate to,
but please people, can we at least agree that the
video-game-dancing thing is the stupidest invention in the entire
history of the universe? Is this progress?

I’m all for cutting-edge technology, but when Ackerman
removes the pool tables in the arcade and replaces them with
networked computers so people can play Doom at high bandwidths,
something ferociously wicked is upon us.

  Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin

It is time for a return to good, old fashioned, intoxicated fun
and camaraderie, and a campus bar is the tipsy ticket. As it stands
now, UCLA is one of the few unfortunate campuses doomed to a sober
existence. Berkeley has Bear’s Lair. Santa Barbara has Study
Hall. UC San Diego serves beer at the Round Table Pizza on campus.
We are blessed with the video-game-dancing-thing.

The benefits of an on-campus bar are as numerous as the flavors
of Stolichnaya. UCLA is a campus that often seems to have little
sense of itself, no real rallying point or source of pride where
all students (of legal drinking age, of course) can come together
to be part of an overall college community. A well-run and
enjoyable bar would be such a place.

Sports teams have off years, ticket sales may go down and fans
might be fickle, but alcohol is a guaranteed constant. Students
will never have to worry about the bar declaring early for the
draft, making insensitive and alienating comments, or taking
controversial stances on issues of importance. A campus bar would
be a world within itself, a bastion of student togetherness,
inter-group mingling and interaction.

Student interaction? Isn’t that a novel idea?! As it now
stands, the topic of “diversity” is far and away the
most prevalent issue affecting our school today, deservedly so.
Unfortunately, most diversity exhorters fail to address the fact
that a “diverse” campus would still most likely be a
“divided” one.

Latinos are still going to mainly hang out with Latinos. African
Americans are still going to primarily hang out with other African
Americans, etc. Why not take the focus away from
“diversity” and try to find a way to actually bring
different groups together?

A campus bar is such a way. Nothing brings people together like
a tall, frothy glass of alcoholic understanding. Alcohol has long
been the prime lubricant in our social intercourse, the sacred
throat-anointing fluid that accompanies the ritual of
togetherness.

It will be a gloriously hazy vision to behold: white students
happily guzzling the blackest of porters while African American
students gleefully pound the palest of ales. Middle Eastern
students will chug pints of Sapporo as Asian students enjoy cold
bottles of Kalik. Coronas will be had by all. The music will be
loud, the interactions will be real and the inebriated
conversations taking place will have no mention of slates,
SP-anything, tenure or USAC. Anybody found taking themselves too
seriously will be asked to leave immediately.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. Before this
spirit-laden utopia can bear the booze-filled berries of Bruin
brotherhood, some practical issues must be dealt with.

First off, every great bar must have a great name. Options
abound. Would you savor a Friday afternoon libation at the
corporately sponsored St. Pauley’s Pavilion? Or, are you more
of the scientific type, focused on trying more personal beverages
down at Microbrewology? Those partial to Irish style pubs might be
comfortable toasting students and faculty after waiting in the
lines at Murphy’s Hall, while the honor students among us
would quite possibly take a well-deserved study break in the
hallowed halls of Magna Cum Loaded (my personal favorite). Of
course, to appease the editorial powers that loom over my head, the
Daily Brewin’ deserves a mention.

Funding for a campus bar should pose no problem. After all, this
is UCLA, the corporation where higher learning happens to take
place. It is the home of the $50 sweatshirt, the $100 textbook and
the $2 textbook buy-back. The powers that be are capitalists to the
core. They like their overpriced goods (wouldn’t you?). They
like their money as much, if not more than the next guy. Well, with
the possible exception of Faberge eggs and the
video-game-dancing-thing, nothing in the world is more overpriced
than alcohol. The money would flow out of the bar like foam from an
overzealous pour.

I am quite aware of the fact that there are those among us who
are not the biggest fans of alcohol. Scary tales circulate on the
breeze that people exist who view alcohol as not only undesirable,
but as an unholy liquid of corruption, a damned tonic swilled by
the unenlightened and uncouth rummies of the planet. I have nothing
but pity in my soul for my “dry” constituents. As
legendary rock star/decaying animatronic-robot Keith Richards has
said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. They
wake up every morning knowing that’s the best they are going
to feel all day.” Amen, brother.

By no means, though, would a campus bar send students down a
sudsy slide of sin. UCLA students are too driven and goal oriented
to let the presence of on-campus alcohol negatively impact their
academics. Hard-working third- and fourth-year students deserve
more credit and respect than has been given to them up to this
point and should be recognized as responsible adults who are able
to handle the occasional on-campus libation.

It is time UCLA acknowledges the numerous potential benefits of
a campus bar and allows a new era of excitement, community and
enthusiasm to envelope the school. It is time for teachers and
students to get to know each other on a first-name basis over a
pint of Guinness. It is time for real student communications, real
face-to-face dialogues and straight from the heart,
arms-over-the-other-guy’s-shoulder quotes like, “This
guy here! This guy here’s the greatest, hey yeah!”

It is time to mellow out, deeply exhale, have a beer with an old
friend, or buy a beer for a new one. Winston Churchill said it
best: “I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has
taken out of me.”

Let the taking begin. I just hope I can get free drinks.