Snowstorm makes up for Girl Talk disappointment

I was pretty underwhelmed by our much-hyped Girl Talk show on Saturday night.

There were definitely some upsides to the performance, which I’ll get to in a moment. But the show itself wasn’t that great. First, it started about 40 minutes late, and there was no opening act, not even a student DJ to keep the crowd entertained through the unexplained delay. Then, Gregg Gillis and his laptop (yup, that’s Girl Talk) got on the platform and made his computer play two songs as the lights went down. After that, though, we all had to stand through about 15 minutes of annoying nothingness. Where was the music? Not in the Bacon Field House! Then, finally, he made his computer play a few more songs. All told, we had maybe 40 minutes of music.

I don’t think I ever even saw the guy. I did hear some of his shouting about how Wesleyan wasn’t Trinity, or something. I guess that that was supposed to motivate us, or something. But for all the articles I’d read about his amazing performances and the electric atmosphere, I found the show severely lacking.

I mean, the girl on stage who was drunk enough to be grabbing at her chest and, uh, jiggling (for lack of a better word) her breasts in front of 1,500+ people didn’t even take her shirt off. Some skin might’ve made up for other shortcomings—especially the shortcoming that was guys in tight pants with love handles, shirtless.

Such. A. Bad. Idea.

I suppose if I had been stumbling-drunk, like so many of my fellow students, it might have been a bit more tolerable. But as it was, I was only under the influence of my own inability to dance, and my mild embarrassment for the drunken antics of my fellow students.

And speaking of stumbling-drunk students, wow! I have never seen so many people, so drunk, in the same place before. It was so bad that, even in line waiting to be patted down, I had to physically grab the shoulders of the guy behind me and steady him so he’d stop stumbling into me. Needless to say, it didn’t stop his stumbling.

Oh, yeah, my non-affinity for dancing. Never before (well, OK, the private school dances in high school are an exception) had I had it so forcefully shown to me that alcohol and grinding almost invariably leads to hooking up. I mean, I’d always figured that if I could get over my fear of dancing, I would probably end up with more sexytimez. After all, if Girl Talk confirmed anything for me, it’s the pattern that leads to the stereotypical college weekend hookup:

1. Ingest copious amounts of liquor;
2. Go to party;
3. Listen to the same music you’ve heard for the past 12 weekends;
4. Find member of opposite—or same—sex (this is Wesleyan, after all);
5. Grind junk into said member of opposite or same sex;
6. Boner erupts: intensify grinding;
7. Song ends; find dark room or closet; then,
8. Collect belongings and go to your place.

Sigh. If only I could learn how to grind my junk into a member of the opposite sex in a rhythmic manner. Might I be served platters of ass?

Sigh. That’s not my style, anyway.

I also noticed that, despite my involvement in 14.6 million campus activities, I’d never seen half of those students’ faces before. Where do you live, Wesleyan students? I want to meet you.

Anyway, aside from my (at times mean-spirited) criticism of the performance itself, the event had a lot of merit, in spirit. It brought the campus together for a good cause—financial aid—and was a great opportunity to work with donors and student groups to make something big happen. It was also a decent substitute for Winter Carnival, the restoration of which was a major part of my social agenda in my successful campaign for the Wesleyan Student Assembly.

Plus, it also ratchets up the cachet of Wesleyan… not that we need any more cachet lately. Roth said it best at commencement: “Wesleyan, you are so cool.” He was so right.

Blah. Enough about Girl Talk. It had started snowing as we were in line to be admitted to the show—beautiful, big, flaky snow that was gently falling and sticking to the ground. In fact, it was the first snowstorm this season for which I was awake!

When the show ended, the snow had already piled up about an inch deep on the ground, and was quite slippery. Hordes of drunks tried to make snowballs, and were even less successful in trying to throw them. A bunch of drunks slid happily in their leather jackets on the wet sidewalk; some slid into the street near oncoming traffic. Cars honked as the throngs flocked out of Freeman; driving far too fast, it looked like an invitation for disaster. Luckily, I don’t think anyone was hurt.

After saying goodbye to Dara, Katie, Zaza, Yuci, Yumin and her boyfriend, Laura and I headed to Tommy’s place to watch a movie with his boy-thang and Yelena. At about 3:00, I headed out for the snowy and (sigh, willfully) lonely walk back to the house. With each footstep, the compacting snow made a gritty and quite audible crunch. There were no cars around, so upon reaching Home Avenue, I walked down the middle of the street, leaving my footprints in the white fluff behind me.

I reached the end of the street and it was perfectly quiet—almost scarily silent. The branches weren’t moving, there were no people around, no cars driving by, and no music from parties lingering into the night air. Just the snow falling. I swear, I could hear it. That’s how quiet it was.

Then a car came up the curve on Beach Street and nearly slid off the road. I considered how lucky I am to have a driveway in which to park my car, brushed the snow off of Aurora, and went inside to eat some French bread pizza and think about how much my throat still hurts.

Damn. What a beautiful snowfall.