08 September 2006

Dorks. You Are Pot-Eating Dorks.

Cloyne Court is a student co-op on the north side of the Berkeley campus that for decades now has managed to synthesize the worst aspects of a hippie commune and a punk squat into a malodorous feral brew that while not exactly lethal, still exuded enough vague, brooding awfulness to be decidely soul-sapping.

It didn't smell as foul as the now-closed Chateau on south side, and I don't recall anyone actually dying there from an overdose (like the also now-closed Barrington), but I always found it profoundly depressing. It seemed like every time I went there for a punk show, the pit would be taken over by some spastic acidheads doing the grasshopper dance or some thicknecked frat boys trying out their version of slam dancing by knocking the bejeebers out of all the skinny kids with glasses.

The thing that depressed me even more was that the Cloynies were super-privileged and in most cases, super-bright kids with the opportunity to study at one of America's best universities, and yet were being constantly pressurised into acting, as the Mr T Experience would put it, hella dumb.

So obviously this ultra-hella dumb event should have come as no surprise. But I'm sorry, kids, I can't help asking: what the hell were you thinking of? This is the 21st century, fer crissake, and you're having hippie pot parties? Kendra, who lived in Cloyne for several years and yet seemed to come out relatively unscathed, takes a slightly more moderate view of the shenanigans, but still seems to more or less agree with me: how embarrassing.

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