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In This Issue

• Columbia Dry Humps for Gaia
• Springtime, Nipples Everywhere
• Lerner Daycare Creates Funny Smell
• Letters to the Editor(s)
• Meta-Clubs on Rampage
• Lion's Cock Viable Alternative to Human's
• God to Spend Summer in Boca
• Odwalla Bars Make Us Do Dirty, Dirty Things
• Naked and Loving It
• Has It Been Eight Years Already?
• Shades for a Bright Summer
• Emeritus: Greek for "Fat and Old"
• Horoscopes-A-Plenty
• A Salute to Business-Casual Racism
• THEY Watch
• Wacky Fun Whitey
• The Staff of 17.9
• Take Back the Night - Gone Wild!

The author (far right) applying the work ethic that kept him around for so long

There were eight of us. After the first year, finances caught up with two, sending them to pursue more amenable pastures. The next year we lost another two. One, Skunk, took off because his aunt hacked up his uncle and dumped him in the Hudson. The other, Peter, went off to make Jazz records for Verve. Then there were four. The next two years knocked three of us out. Tom and I ran afoul of the law and James ran aground in the Army. In the end, only Theresa made it out in four years.

In my case, it cost a lot more time. But all of us made some beautiful mistakes along our way to figuring things out and making a path through the world. But that's why we came here. None of us picked Columbia because we wanted to read the great works or study with esteemed faculty or get our tickets punched at a top ten school. No, we came here because we wanted to be in New York, where the action is. And we were not alone in this thinking. But now I worry that I am.

I did not come here to study or go to big athletic events. I did not come here because my friends did. I certainly didn't come here to look good in a job interview or on a grad school application. All of these things would be better accomplished somewhere else! After all, undergraduate education is still the minor leagues, and will never be respected by professors or professionals.

If you haven't gotten stuck in the 2nd Ave N-R station waiting an hour for a train at four AM, you're not making the most out of this university. If you'd rather cruise for drunken sex at Cannon's on a Friday night than go down to Smalls, transfer to Arizona State. The students there are drunker and more attractive. Most of all, if you can't blow off a week of classes to go to a festival in Montreal, catch a show in Baltimore, or just hole up in Brooklyn with some heads, you're in the wrong place.

These days I feel alone on this campus. Everywhere I look, I see people forming clubs, hanging out in groups, and making attempts at forming a community. Did you come to Manhattan to recreate high school? Was it that much fun the first time around?

Though I've been here long enough, I refuse to let my priorities change. This term, I took a week off to attend a conference in Capetown, South Africa, where I was chased by rhinos and prostitutes. I know I'll remember it longer and more fondly than any academic or social event held during my absence. And that's the bottom line. When you're forty, fifty, whatever, what do you think will matter from your time at Columbia? Your degree? Your frat, club or team? Your CC papers? Your memory shall be your only legacy. Will yours be worth remembering?

Admittedly, I (not to speak for the others) took things too far and got held up a bit on my way. But that's all part of the fun. Listen, this is the last time in your life when you will be almost completely unencumbered by anything. Don't waste it finishing The Genealogy of Morals or organizing some leftist group, whose ideology you'll outgrow in a decade's time. Remember Mikey's speech in The Goonies, when the gang considered giving up and climbing out of the wishing well into the depressing world of bankruptcy and broken dreams? "Up there, it's their time! Down here it's our time!"

I beg of you, make the most out of your time down here. You'll never have another chance to be young, single and free in New York City. So take it as far as you can. Sneak escorts into Wien. Crash roof top parties at the Met. Eat too many mushrooms and get lost in Chinatown. Shoot off to Atlantic City at midnight on a Tuesday. Take a year off to travel the country and figure out what you want. That's what I did, and I still finished in seven semesters. Doesn't matter that it took eight years, its still over too soon.