TODAY'S WEATHER: Partly cloudy with highs in the low 60s SEE PAGE 6A
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SPORTS: ESPN coach's poll ranks Kansas No.1 SEE PAGE 1B
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 18,2002
WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ISSUE 95 VOLUME 112
No, it wasn't a drunken bedroom bowel,
it was part of the stairway now on the metal satire band GWAR. About 100 people attended the event.
"It's just a huge, epic, horror show," said Beeckafe the Mighty, bass player and vocalist for the band. "It's like a stadium size show, crammed into a small venue. It's like 50 pounds of shit packed in to a 10 pound bag."
All members of the band go by the names of the bizarre creatures they portray on stage.
GWAR took the stage at 10:10 p.m. to the sounds of a fight, with punches being thrown and landed. The crowd called "GWAR," — just as they had done before during and after its opening act, Godothore, took the stage.
The band members, looking like iron-spiked creatures, emerged from a set reminiscent of a skeleton-filled dungeon. People in the front row, dressed in total white, were sprayed with fake blood, spewed from the mouth of a mannequin head with
However, he said those hands were not like GW
body performa-
tion, 1020 Massachus-
tales. Fla. In 1836.
"Slipknot take them selves too seriously," Flattus Maximus said. "They are a bunch of idiots in math with stupid music."
He said GWAR was built on rumor and not taking himself seriously.
The band GWAR, famed formed Saturday at the shows the band at a gig
"They come out and see this is a very thought-out comedy show, almost," he said. "Imean GWAR is just a joke on pretty much everything going on everywhere, including music."
"Even 48-year-old women can get down to GWAR." Barbara Ponder said.
GWAR also spanned a generation gap, said Barbara Ponder, who watched GWAR for the fourth time with her 26-year-old twin sons, Timothy and Thomas. She said at her first GWAR show her son put on her stage to be put in "the meat grinder." Since then she has come to know the group. Her son Thomas boasted that the group calls her "GWAR Mama."
"Last week, Tim and Tom saw GWAR in Houston, and they came back with an autographed condom from the band for me."
GWAR finds inspiration for its music from current events and popular culture. Flattus Maximus said. Its Granada show referred to Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush and the Pope.
Hesaid that she made the band unique.
"The band itself is a complete joke on what goes on nowadays in music and stuff like that." Flatten, Maximus said.
GWAR began an art project at the Commonwealth University of Virginia. The band is based on a self-created mythology about a group of creatures banished to earth and frozen in Antarctica, Flattus Maximus said.
According to the group's legend, the name GWAR came from the first word GWAR lead singer, Oderous Urungus,
"It was more like a maring gwaanaaarrt." Reckale the Mighty said. "The original name was like 89 letters long. But around the third show they were like,
The group was even p Granny a,1993 for his Pallus in Wonderland
We have to cut the name down to something that fits on a flier."
Beefcake the Mighty said it was the band's longevity that made it better than other shock-rock bands.
"GWAR has been together for 17 years, and most of these groups have been together for two or three," he said. "And GWAR's the masters. Like Oderous says, 'We're the band that made KISS put their make up back on.'"
Contact Tims at tjtms@kansan.com. This story was edited by Laurie Harrison.
Lawrence Sprint center to close, lay off workers
Kansan staff writer
Bv Mike Gilligan
On June 1, Lawrence will have 509 more people looking for work.
Sprint PCS announced Friday that it would close its Lawrence contact center, 1 Riverfront Plaza, and lay off all workers, effective May 31.
"I was surprised to hear they were closing," said Lydia Sandoval, Stafford senior and Sprint employee. "Sprint seems to be growing so fast that I thought the center would stay open."
Sandoval said she had worked at
the center for three years and found out about the lay offs on Friday. She said she would stay at Sprint until it closed and then find a new job after she graduated in May.
Mike Wildgen, Lawrence city manager, said the closing would hurt Lawrence's downtown.
"We'll lose the traffic downtown and the synergy with more people being downtown," he said.
Employees had no advance warning of the layoff announcement.
Tina Burns, Lawrence resident, said the employees were told Thursday that there would be a mandatory
meeting on Friday.
"They didn't tell us what the meeting was going to be about," Burns said. "When we showed up there was a Fox 4 van and reporters standing around."
Burns said employees were told the center was closing because stock prices were down.
The Lawrence center is one of five centers Sprint announced it would close by June 2002.
According to the Sprint news release, the centers were closing to improve Sprint's competitive position and reduce costs. The increasing
use of self-automated services was another reason for the closings, the news release stated.
3,000 employees will lose their jobs when the five centers close.
The other centers closing are in Atlanta, Tallahassee, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., and Irvine, Calif.
Sprint would not say how many University of Kansas students are employed at the center.
Contact Gilligan at mgilligan@kansan.com. This story was edited by Eve Lamborn.
Greek groups give foster parents a night off
By Caroline Boyer
Knopf staff writer
Kansan staff writer
A 3-year-old boy jammed Play-Doh into a press and watched as a Theta Chi fraternity member pressed the lever to squeeze out the substance.
"Eeew!" he exclaimed as he reached for more Play-doh.
The boy was one of nearly 50 children participating in the Foster Parents' Night Out at the Big 12 Room in the Kansas Union Friday night.
Members of Theta Chi fraternity, Chi Omega sorority and the National Panhellenic Council played host to the event. Foster parents dropped the children off for the evening and received movie tickets and coupons for free meals at area restaurants. The groups treated the children to pizza, games and a showing of the movie Monsters, Inc.
Kursten Smith, foster family recruiter for the Kaw Valley Center.
Members of Theta Chi fraternity, Chi Omega sorority and the National Panhelien Council play Duck, Duck, Goose with area foster children.
helped organize the night. She said it was the first time for such an event and that foster parents deserved a break.
"They don't get the opportunity to go out very often," Smith said.
Andy Knopp, Theta Chi member and event organizer, said funds to pay for the event came from last semester's Five Drive, when all fraternity and sorority members donated $5 to charity.
Knopp, Manhattan sophomore, said that rather than send the money to a national charity, Theta Chi members decided to contribute to a local cause that they could help directly. He said he got the idea from his mother, a social worker in Manhattan.
"It's a really tough job that they do," Knopp said. "They have to sairife a lot and it takes a lot of time and energy and love to take care of someone on a short-term basis the way they do."
Teller's, 746 Massachusetts St.; Paisano's Ristorante, 2112 W. 25th St.; Pancho's Mexican Food, 711 W. 23rd St.; Raoul's Velvet Room, 815 New Hampshire St.; and Salty Iguana Mexican Restaurant, 4931 W. 6th St., donated coupons for free meals for the parents. South Wind 12 Theaters, 3433 Iowa St., donated 30 free movie tickets.
Contact Boyer at cboyer@kansan.com.
This story was edited by Eve Lamborn.
Crowded seating snow days create ticket problems
By Meredith Carr Kansan staff writer
The two days of classes canceled last month because of snow and ice caused problems for some students who wanted to get tickets for the last two Kansas men's basketball home games.
Alex Bartlett, Wichita sophomore, went to the ticket office in Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 50, the first of two days that University offices were closed because of inclement weather. Bartlett tried to redeem his voucher for student tickets, but was informed that tickets would not be available until classes resumed and offices reopened Feb. 1.
Bartlett was also told that students with vouchers could redeem their tickets on Feb. 7. Originally, the final day for guaranteed voucher redemption was Feb. 1., but the Athletics Department decided to extend the deadline to accommodate students who attempted to pick up tickets on the two days that the office was closed.
Because of overcrowding in the student sections at recent basketball games, all ticket sales were suspended from Feb. 2 to 6, and only 600 tickets were made available on Feb. 7.
As instructed, Bartlett brought his voucher to the ticket office at 10:45 a.m. on Feb. 7, but he was too late. All the remaining tickets for the game had been sold.
"I'm a little disappointed because I didn't know where the tickets went," Bartlett said. "I was frustrated and it was a big hassle because I went up there on a snow day and no one was in the office."
It was also the first day for students without vouchers to purchase tickets, so other students, such as Debbie Johnson, a third-year law student from Wichita, were left without tickets as well.
Richard Konzem, associate athletics director, said the two days that the ticket office was closed and the low number of student tickets available created a difficult situation.
"It is very frustrating to know that people who were supposed to take precedence weren't able to get their tickets," she said. "It makes me wonder who the ticket office places priority on."
"We were trying to accommodate everyone in line, but we were really struggling with the tickets," he said.
Konzem said that each year student tickets were oversold because the Athletics Department anticipates that some students won't redeem their vouchers or attend every game.
This practice sometimes leads to problems at high-profile games, such as when Kansas played Missouri on Jan. 28.
"During the KU vs. MU game, there were as many as three people per seat in Allen Fieldhouse. This is a safety issue for everyone in the building," Konzem said.
Bob Rombach, University Fire Marshall coordinator, came to the Fieldhouse during that game and declared the overcrowded student sections a safety hazard.
To eliminate future seating problems, Konzem said University officials were looking into different seating plans.
He said that one idea was to switch to a system similar to the one used at the University of Texas, in which students receive randomly assigned seats. Konzem said seats would be assigned based on students' identification numbers.
But he said the University wasn't sure if it wanted to do that yet.
"While we have a specified number of tickets, we have to reduce the capacity within sections," Konzem said.
Contact Carr at mcarr@kansan.com. This story was edited by Brandon Stinnett.
INSIDETODAY
COMING IN TOMORROW'S KANSAN
WEATHER ...6A
CROSSWORD ...6A
CLASSIFIEDS ...7A
HOROSCOPES ...2B
FINANCIAL AID: Interest rates on student loans are the lowest in years
STATE BUDGET: A recent survey shows Kansans are willing to increase state education funding.
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at 119 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
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