tongue in beak
To send funeral orations to the Tongue in Beak e-mail us at beak@kansan.com or call Lucas Wetzel at 864-4810
This page is satire. All names are made up, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Other use of real names is accidental unless otherwise noted.
BRIEFLY
Party bus, syllabus in tragic accident Everyone died. And then you found $10.
Headline ends in bloodshed And all that remained were the testicles.
Group's mission spreads to Out House
In an effort to help diversify its audience, the campus mission group "Bibles n' Stuff" has announced a partnership program with The Out House called "Preaching From the Pole"
The program, which started last week, involves strippers quoting Bible verses while they dance on stage to hymns. The Dut House has actually replaced its sound system with an organ.
Patrons of The Out House have already become more religious because of the program, the club owner said. He was amazed at the amount of people that called out the Lord's name when Mary, one of the club's more voluptuous dancers, took off her top and said, "Let there be light."
Preaching From the Pole also plans on starting its own philanthropic venture similar to the Marines' "Toys for Tots" campaign in which patrons bring toys for underprivileged children in exchange for lap dances. They are still having trouble coming up with a name for the program.
Pharmacology club throws kick-ass party
An unofficial KU pharmacology group was believed to have held a week end-long party, but nobody who attended could remember enough to provide details.
Student defends inalienable right to download
A new student movement is stirring controversy and gaining support campus-wide and beyond. Sophomore Kenny Nelson, founder of The National Download Association, has put academics on hold as he travels the United States delivering speeches for the NDA.
Those who support the NDA believe that file sharing is an inalienable right given to citizens by the U.S. Constitution.
"A well-regulated network of file sharing is necessary for the stability of a free state!" exclaimed Richard Palm, a Wichita junior who claimed to have three NDA bumper stickers. "We might need our downloads to overthrow the government should we be forced t do so."
New measures to ensure download safety include the ban on automatic downloading systems that are able to download more than 30 files per minute, and background checks on all those who want to file share. Nelson spoke at the NDA convention to a sold-out Lied Center crowd.
"From my cold, dead hands," he said, holding a mouse pad over his head.
Exile from Neverland: TIB delivers last gasp
By Lucas Wetzel
beak@kansan.com
Kansan senior satirist
The appearance of media helicopters over Michael Jackson's ranch last month was disturbing to Tongue in Beak for several reasons. Not only had our spiritual leader fallen publicly from grace, but our staff was also forced to flee our pastoral meeting area.
No more white gazebos or ornate gas lamps. No more lovingly kept lawns and flower beds. Goodbye, make-believe Indian village. Adios, Bubbles the Chimp.
After Jacko's curious fall, our humble staff decided to relocate and prove that we still have it where it counts: the Last Call dance floor.
For those of you who haven't been, Last Call is the best thing to happen to Lawrence socialites since Tremors got its mobile liquor license and became the "T" (If you don't believe me, just check out the blacklights). Last Call is a great place to meet, except that it's hard to collectively come up with funny story ideas when you're making out with 18-year-olds on the curbside of the Borders parking lot.
But what the hell. You're only Kansan satire editor once. Or twice, in my case. And with all the serious news today, it's hard to know what to do. War in Iraq, teens with guns, a poisonous water supply. Not much fun can be made out of that.
We also would have liked to have covered important campus events such as Student Senate, but to the best of my knowledge all they've done this year is put their pictures up on hotornot.com. That, and something about a magic school bus.
But student senators aren't the only ones concerned about their images. National satirists have
woooped in on our turfand stolen the spotlight. Last week's Onion featured a confused Hashie, and Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca visited the Union and scooped all of our material with a single joke about librarians aiding the disarmament in Liberia. Drats!
Nonetheless, Kansan editors have assured me that the Tongue in Beak will thrive next semester. Only it won't be called the Tongue in Beak anymore. It will be a glossy, full-color insert called Best Buy. And instead of witty commentary, you'll see pictures of electronic crap you can purchase.
Hey, wait a minute...
Oh well. In the words of George Harrison, all things must pass. Even George Harrison. Despite the changes, I am confident humor fans across campus will still be heard exclaiming, "Dude, did you see the Onion?" Oh, Onion. We jest and are snide, but you truly are the standard and authority.
That being said, I encourage you to start your own humor publications. Just keep it original and don't underestimate the importance of having a diverse staff. All the pseudonyms in China couldn't hide the fact that we were a bunch of white kids. Still, We did our best. Hey anarchists: we kid because we care.
Before our EKG goes all the way flat, I'd like to thank my staff and all the Kansan editors and photographers who made the page possible. I'd also like to thank Joe Ass, for reading. As for me, I'm heading out on K-10 past DeSoto, all the way to oblivion. I'll leave you now with the words some girl drunkenly scribbled on my notebook in Germany so many moons ago: Happy trails to flowers and whales, with political lies and sad goodbyes. A fond farewell to you.
Lucas Wetzel,Wes Benson,Sam Hopkins,Sean O'Grady Jeff Akin, Matt Davis, Kevin O'Halloran, Sam Amburgey Katey Birge,Mindy Osbourne, Miles Stearns Spencer Roberts, The Boston Red Sox, Geoff Bowers Graham Shafer,Mark Pacey,Zain Speldrong
My brain is fried
Staring down at the precipice of my future, I find myself particularly retrospective and contemplative as I prepare to graduate. Looking back 14 and a half years, it seems kind of silly, but I always supposed that I
to some extent I have done so.
would have experienced college in a very cinematic way—drinking beer, chasing girls, foiling "the Dean." And certainly
I remember this one time I was on a four-day Quaalude bender and was stalking this ex-girlfriend who I never really dated. To make a long story short, I ended up passing out in a pool of my own (and probably several others') filth. When I awoke, I was in the Leavenworth federal pen having served the first three days of what would eventually prove to be a two and a half-year prison sentence. Luckily I was able to audit Western Civ. and save myself an extra semester.
The point of my story is this: Qualuludes are recreational. They should not be your primary intoxicant. You know the old saying, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Well, for most of my junior year, it was more like, "I'm so horribly sad and lonely I could habitually abuse horse tranquilizers."
This brings me back to my original point: Life is funny. When I came to KU, I hoped to spend the best four years of my life studying anthropology, building bridges between disparate and conflicting societies. A decade and a half later the closest I've gotten is stealing my neighbor's National Geographic to ogle the "Women of the Sahara."
Actually, upon further inspection, life isn't as funny as originally thought. But at times it certainly is weird. Believe it or not, there was a time when I thought I might never graduate. The Gulf War had just ended and I was struggling to maintain a 1.5 GPA and a job at the Kansas Union White Castle. My girlfriend had never materialized and my bursitis was flaring up. All signs seemed to be pointing me toward academic failure and a life on the streets turnin' tricks for salt-taffy.
Then I took a class that forever changed not only the way I approached school, but life as well. The class was an independent study Math 101 course, taught absently, though lovingly by Prof. James Q. Hammersteinderfeld. Each day I jumped out of bed and into the graphs and models of college algebra. With each stroke of my TI-85, I grew stronger, more confident, more certain that not only would I graduate but I would do so within the next 10 to 12 years.
And here I am, sitting dictionally before you, about to do just that: Graduate. So when I walk down the hill in several weeks...at four o'clock in the morning...by myself, I will know that, though my road is indeed less-traveled, the road I have not taken is probably the one that would have made all the difference. And if somewhere ages and ages hence, you find me sighing, it's probably because I'm tired or drunk. In either case, leave me alone.
Collins is a non-traditional student in History.
squirrel
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