Thursday, June 11, 1998
A Room with a View
SOMETHING: Men haven’t evolved far from gorillas,
judging by the look of their apartments
Hi, I’m David Collins. You may remember me from such columns as
"The zaniest polka in Vegas" and "They said paraplegics couldn’t
disco." Now I’m back in my biggest role yet, as a Viewpoint
columnist.
Anybody who has ever enjoyed an episode of the Simpsons knows
that the previous paragraph refers to one of Springfield’s funniest
characters, fading matinee idol Troy Maclure. What you may not know
is that the voice behind the character is none other than the late
Phil Hartman. That first paragraph is my tribute to him.
You might wonder, "What kind of tribute rips off an
entertainer’s act?" After all, my opening paragraph would have been
more likely to generate a lawsuit than a polite thank-you note if
Hartman were still alive. But put aside your cynicism; I’m simply
expressing my grief in the most sincere way – by stealing his work
and claiming it as my own. Although some would categorize this as
necrophilia (i.e. screwing the dead), be reminded that I’m only
following in the footsteps of the greatest mourner of our
generation, Puff Daddy.
When the Notorious B.I.G. died, Puff Daddy didn’t let us forget
him. Puff was such a friend that he lovingly released an earful of
Notorious’s newer songs, as well as a tribute single. I’m sure it
was purely coincidental that Puff was plastered all over those
videos. Now, of course, Puff is recognized as a genius in his own
right because of his unique myriad talents; he’s very adept at
walking backwards down narrow passageways while trying to rap, and
he’s even capable of pretending to conduct. If you’ve ever tried
fake conducting, you know how difficult the skill is (harder then
falling down but slightly easier than mastering air guitar).
Following in the spirit of Puff’s tributes I’m going to take it
upon myself to release lost Newsradio episodes and Saturday Night
Live sketches which were cut. Of course, I may have to digitally
remaster the scenes so that instead of Dana Carvey or Andy Dick,
I’m the one quipping with Phil (did I mention we were good
friends?). But as long as his memory lives on, I’ve fulfilled
Hartman’s wishes. Actually, it might be more precise to say I’ve
fulfilled his lifelong dream. How noble of me.
Since Hartman has gone to his final resting place, we all must
ask ourselves, "Where am I going to live next year?" (I needed a
segue, and I thought the transition "Now that Phil’s dead, wouldn’t
his place make a great pad?" seemed too distasteful.)
Since spring quarter is almost over, those of you who are not
graduating should figure out where you’re going to live next year.
(Those of us who are graduating already know where – home.)
OK, I know a certain segment of the population already has his
place to live picked out. But these are the same people who spent
preschool figuring out both their major and their senior year
schedule. They’re also the annoying students in your class who
believe that they’re "procrastinating" if they don’t finish a rough
draft two weeks before the paper is due. Of course, upon
graduation, they will have a job, spouse and dental plan waiting
for them. But it all evens out in the end; this group of people
will choose to die early in order to take full advantage of their
excellent life insurance.
But for the rest of you, now is the time to figure out where to
live next year. I’ll be honest; you don’t have too many options.
Finding a good place to live in Westwood is almost impossible.
You can either pay about double the fair price of an apartment,
or you can pay triple the price and live in the dorms. I have no
way around this dilemma. I also have no advice about how to get
good roommates or affordable parking. The only thing I have to
offer is a glimpse of what’s in store for you once you move into an
apartment of your own – and even then, I can only tell you about
apartments occupied solely by males. That’s the end of my
limitations, however, because I’ve done extensive research in the
field of rapidly spreading ecological disasters, commonly called
guy’s apartments.
You may think that you’ll be different, that your apartment will
stay a habitable, hospitable place to lay your head. But don’t fool
yourself; after the first two weeks, the words "security deposit"
will be just a fleeting memory as you begin turning your apartment
into the perfect bachelor pad.
Be warned, the scariest thing in all of nature is a bachelor
pad. No guy can, in good conscience, deny this; after all, we’ve
seen the creatures that go scurrying underneath the pizza boxes
when we turn the lights on in the morning.
Of course, many women have also observed that men live in
extremely messy environments. As a matter of fact, that lady who
went to live with the gorillas didn’t do so in the name of science,
as she later claimed. No, the truth of the matter is she had just
finished living for two months in an apartment with her fiance and
two of his best buddies. After that experience, she longed to live
with beings who had at least some hygienic tendencies (If a gorilla
sees a maggot crawling on his friend’s back, he will remove it; a
guy in the same situation would probably just laugh and try to find
his camera.)
But, despite what the women of the world believe, they have no
true comprehension of what it means to live in a guy’s apartment.
You see, whenever a guy brings a girl back to his place it plays
out like this: He opens the door, and she politely tries not to
notice the piles of dirty laundry, the stacks of dirty dishes and
the mounds of old pizza boxes and newspaper. Then, just as she
begins to convince herself that this is all a bad dream, the great
stench hits her. As she attempts to avoid breathing, one thought
goes through her mind, "He could have at least picked up the
place!"
What she doesn’t know is that he’s standing there thinking,
"It’s a good thing I finally cleaned this place up." While she’s
trying to remain conscious and avoid stepping on anything that
might dissolve her shoe, the guy is patting himself on the back for
moving everything into its own pile.
You see, the natural state of a guy’s apartment is much like
that of a landfill, but somehow dirtier. The whole place is just
one lump of dirty underwear, plates that have only been washed once
and pizza boxes. If a guy’s lucky, there’s a couch sticking out
from the pile. But from this couch, he can look at the only
well-maintained thing in the entire place, the big screen,
cable-ready altar of masculinity – that much-worshiped monolith
also known as the television. You see, a guy can go months at a
time without washing his only pair of gym shorts, and most guys
will start losing their hair before they ever wash a dish. But the
television in any guy’s apartment will always be perfectly
maintained, without a single molecule of dust on the screen.
Of course, there are lots of other great things about a guy’s
apartment, like always being out of whatever you need. When you go
to eat your corn flakes, you’re out of milk. You go to wash your
hands, no soap. And heaven forbid you ever need to take a crap at a
guy’s apartment, because God knows there will be no toilet paper.
If the guy who owns the place is really cultured, then there might
be a roll of really hard paper towels sitting on the toilet. If
you’ve ever been foolish enough to heed nature’s call at a bachelor
pad, you know how screwed you truly are. You just sit on the toilet
for a few minutes trying to figure out what you can do. You really
only have two options, you can just pull up your drawers and then
use a chisel and some bleach when you get home, or you can try to
move your butt into the sink.
However, that takes a lot of balance, and you’re likely to fall
down and attract attention, and then the guy who owns the place is
going to be really upset. I mean we guys may be a little messy, but
even we don’t like it when you crap in our sinks.