Rise and Shine with Breakfast Bud

Who needs an alarm clock when you have roommates who, upon first wake, bust out the grinder for us to bake?

Wisps of gasoline and just-lit cigarettes left tire skids on the lining of my inner nostrils. The stagecoach’s radio hummed, an unintelligible static of Brazilian soccer and the newest Radiohead album. A reptilian gasoline tenant approached from his post and asked me if I wanted rocket fuel. I said, “Fill ‘er up,” then rolled over in my bed sheets, stony-eyes growing wide in the Isla Vista haze.

Back here again, huh. Never fails. I need a spliff.

Clink, clink.

Clink.

Clink, clink, clink.

Glorious. I tried to grin as I yawned. For some reason I failed.

I told the snarling raptor to fuck himself with the gas hose before springing from my midday slumber to swoop a spot in the living room rotation. I’d have to throw five to the roomies for this one - thanks for sure. Raptors can open doors, but my crew was wise enough to know they also slowed them. So, for now I’d be safe, tripping behind the locked ones tagged “Perception” while the raptors sniffed around inside the kitchen across the hall.

I’ve woken up more dazed than confused these past few years, thanks to the glorious signal call commonly recognized as the metallic clack from a weed grinder. Whether I’m hung over after a night of strikeouts or from downtown debauchery, I can pass out easily knowing the clack from my roomies will rescue me from my imposing death at the paws of rabid womp rats or from a base jump off a 3,000-foot bong dubbed El Capitan the next foggy Isla Vista morning.

I’m just saying that, if you want to start your day off right, an alarm clock is the wrong way to snatch your mind from the dream world. Find something that excites you out of bed. Not quite pulling-at-your-boobs-and-flinging-you-out-of-bed exciting, but enough to get you chillin’ for the rest of the day. Like a little Bob Marley number on vinyl or a brewing coffee pot, if that’s your drug. Just don’t subject yourself to the obnoxious thunder of a morning alarm: I bet you’ll just hit the snooze and bypass that 8 a.m. section every time. Your TAs will thank me. Try it out for yourself, your day will be all smiles - then you’ll really start confusing people.

But if Jane’s your girl, then you know what I’m talking about. Fuck Starbucks, avoid the corporations and the caffeine. Nothing flings you around in the morning like a fat bong rip. Cheers, mates. Pass it around.

Stoners are lucky. We’ve been known to smoke in herds. We do smoke in herds, single file at times to hide our numbers, but not paranoid enough to give a shit about a tiny break from the rotation. But this means if one of us wakes up, six vultures may be pecking at the early bird’s joint by the time it’s burned down to the crutch. You could run for the weed shed, but honey, if you don’t go now, some clever girl will likely pounce on that joint before you even get close to your hidden stash.

Even a wooden grinder ain’t saving you from this situation, so deal with it. Smoking is a social stimulus, a communal activity that spreads the individual perspectives of those involved to everyone else in the room. It’s dreamlike in itself - maybe without the womp rats, though. But I’ve never had a dream involving weed - one that I can remember, at least. Ironic maybe, but it just might mean something.

I smoke when I’m awake.

I drool when I’m asleep.

I hope I’m not the first writer to drown in his own drool.

That’s why I sleep on my stomach.

That’s why I’m not a rock star.

Pongs and Bongs Live On

If it’s not burning, no one is listening.

After grabbing the 10th spot in the Princeton Review’s Top 10 Party Schools list last year, you’d expect there to be some more respect thrown UCSB’s way in 2008. Tenth again? Wouldn’t chucking our own regulation soccer goal off of a cliff and into the ocean after a NCAA championship bump us up a few spots on the shit list?

I’m sensing some strong East Coast biases in the Princeton pressroom on this one. Come on, the University of New Hampshire at #7? Everyone around here knows an inflatable raft can hold just as much beer as your granddaddy’s slough, with the added benefit of keeping that keg a whole lot colder. It looks to me like UCSB’s ranking may stem more from our pot-smoking activist ways than our rowdy banter of beer pong and beer bongs.

Last year, High Times magazine ranked UCSB 2nd in the nation in terms of marijuana-friendly campuses and the college counterculture. Despite the fact that our school’s National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws chapter is only a few years old, the members’ dedication in promoting the legalization of marijuana carries on the legacy of our politically active university. But could the Princeton Review be following the sleepy stoner stereotype instead of this campus’ historic ability to challenge the system?

Most of you enrolled here with the underlying knowledge that our Gaucho predecessors torched a Bank of America branch back in 1970 in protest of the Vietnam War. If not, then maybe Pirate mentioned it to you between “Arrrs!” outside of S.O.S. By now though, you’ve come to accept the fact that everyone will comment, “Oh, party school,” after you declare your Gaucho allegiances. But what have you done to contribute to the reputation?

Two years ago, I had the indulgent fortune of receiving an unannounced phone call at the Daily Nexus’ confines from Mr. Double Barrel himself, Brooks Firestone. The 3rd district supervisor ranted on for minutes about the top 10 reasons why UCSB students should refrain from setting moldy couches aflame in the condom-strewn streets - all while I silently snickered at the exploding tire joke slowly processing in my head. But I couldn’t overlook the fact that this suit had wasted hours in the attempt to persuade students from committing so-called acts of vandalism with vague threats in the form of a sugar-coated, plastic-wrapped and altogether unreliable list - sound familiar? In case you’re wondering, we never published it.

It’s not just outsiders ruining our campus cred either. University officials have recently begun attempts at stretching the school’s authority into unincorporated Isla Vista. Want your parents to find about the drunk in public citation you got last fall? You might as well start sending your report cards home now. The future looks grim, my friend.

Halloween also happens to fall on a Wednesday this time around the collegiate rotation. While I can’t actually accuse the faculty of having the audacity to plan this academic atrocity, don’t be surprised when the end of October rolls around and you find yourself plagiarizing papers instead of carving pumpkins and packing bowls.

To top it off, the other night, my buddies and I were disturbed from an epic twilight jam session to the sound of a middle-aged bum pounding a wrench against the battered front door. Really now, why are you living in Isla Vista if you’re complaining about noise at midnight? If it’s too loud, you’re too fucking old. Please, don’t let this town become a passing legend, whispered about between 70-year-olds at a rusting Friendship Manor.

After summers spent dodging hunch-backed AARP members on my drive downtown to work, I have come to relish the youthful opportunities that this college town harbors, ones shunned by the creaky members of our collectively blind and deaf society. I’m not losing it without a fight.