Not Worthy

Ears to the Ground

For years gone by, the Commentator has done its part for the community, enriching the atmosphere with knowledge in the form of a Campus Media issue. Well, I now extend this part further, to include all kinds of Campus Media: not just the ones involving half-written, marginally edited, and shabbily organized student publications. Of course, I am not speaking about this one. Let's enter the hidden world of Campus Media: (By the way, I just found a clause in the Commentator inside front page reading: "Submission constitutes testimony as to the accuracy." I suggest you ignore this for the duration of the article.)

Neglected On-Campus Publications
While the UO Big Guns Emerald/Insurgent/Commentator/Voice) get trashed in other, more legible parts of this paper, let's take a brief look at those UO-related publications that no one bothers to pay any mind to. And why stick to newspapers? For example, the Crafts Center Workshops Catalog. The Women's Center page-o-facts, or KWVA's occasional (occasional) Bulletin, apparently last updated Autumn '97.

Word on the street is that the Journalism School (or J-School, for the terminally hip) has its own magazine. Flux, I believe. Which says nothing about why in several months of attendance to this school, I haven't seen a single copy. Even though I swear I've been through that building more often than Housing gains residents.

While we're on the subject of Housing, there's always News You Can Use, an amusing little bit of bathroom reading material, available only within the exclusive retreat of the dorms. It's something of a newsletter for residents, yet contains 50 percent recycled material per issue. Notable primarily for listing halls by academic average. Let's hear it for the second floor UI, and the academic probation they are facing.

Internet Et Al.
I think I heard somewhere that the UO is the best-networked university this side of MIT. Well, this may all be well and true, after all, every room and/or person and/or club seems to have its own web site. Even I was able to put something of a home page up. Before I came here, I heard rumors of something called The Ethernet, which supposedly was an Internet connection faster than God him/her/itself. But it is also totally useless because my computer is slower than any catchy superlative I could possibly conceive.

Which brings us all to the point that for all the electrons and bytes of information and whatnot coursing through underground pipes and fiber-optic tunnels (or whatever sci-fi methods they have now): Itís All So Poorly Organized That I Can't Find A Damn Thing. Of course, this could just be a typical rant about the Internet itself. But, somewhere I swear that I heard something about porn on the Voice server. And where was I through all this? Foolishly trying to crack the membership code into the On-line Sex Museum, probably.

Off-Campus Infiltrations
I could spend hours inside the EMU. Not studying. Not playing the piano. Not overlooking the courtyard construction, or its blood brother of a pastime, watching paint dry. But wandering all over the place, finding all the various publications, both those ASUO funded and those merely EMU approved. It's like a post-class Easter egg hunt.

Objective: find the Star Wars club newsletter, or the last remaining Volcano on Earth. At least, I've never seen it. Really, the place has more brochures and so-called E-zines than an auto show. Most of them trucked in from fantastical, Corganesque places like Salem, Portland, and Minneapolis. Included in this list of offbeat, underdog rags are The Oregon Peace Worker, Eugene Weekly (a pale, Red Meat-less imitation of Willamette Week), The Other Paper, Journeys, and something called the Nickel Ads.

The best part is that people actually spend money to advertise in them. As if someone other than a chronically bored and under-drunk (monetarily so) college student would actually bother to look at them, like myself.

Hot Oil Wrestling, Foxy Boxing, and Such-and-Such
No speculation upon media would be complete without an analysis of the phenomena of bulletin boards and bulletin board related propaganda. With some experience in the poster posting business myself, I've concluded that some deal of respect must be dealt to these people. Sure, it's advertising. Sure, Bill Hicks made the observation advertisers are the spawn of Satan. But those Budweiser Lizards sure crack us up... I mean, what are you talking about? You think they're funny? Are you some kind of couch potato idiot? Loser... Er, something.

But really, of all Campus Media, the most informative and successful of these has to be the various postings around campus. Nary a student could wander campus recently, (and even still, as no one bothers to take anything down) and not wonder at least once Does God Exist? Similarly, last term, the community as a whole experienced a Gabbo-related confusion at the chalk-drawn announcements of Andre Kole's impending visit. Nor can one scan one of those boards without the temptation of a computer, apartment, snowboard, or roommate up for sale.

There's always the kiosk, which mainly serves as recurring reminders of Goldfinger's latest visit to Eugene, or yet another return of the Daddies. (Sure, I enjoy their presence as much as the next guy, but do they exist outside of the WOW Hall or the Crystal Ballroom or what?) Usually, the covered area serves as a midday recluse for the Trustafarians spending their inheritance on the dank. Not that there's any harm in that.

Truly, the savviest of media entrepreneurs prefer the shallow flashiness of tiny signs hammered into the ground to actual journalistic endeavors. And while the interest is more commercial than those of campus publications, media is media is media. Why waste time with well-written, spectacularly edited, and confidently organized publications, when you can feel just as informed entering 150 Columbia or conversing with your perma-fried fellow Eugenian who refers to himself as Zeus? Of course, I am not speaking about this one.