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By Laurah Norton
FEATURES EDITOR
Perhaps you've wondered of
the strange and creepy things that
go on at our fine institution —you
know what I mean. The things
they (Big Brother, man, Big
Brother) try to keep us from figur
ing out: yes, my brothers and only
friends, the stinking, dark and
patchouli-soaked underbelly of
Guilford. Your humble narrator,
being A) a conspiracy theorist and
B) a boring person with nothing to
do, has dug up the dirt the New
Quaker Mafia have tried to sweep
under the hemp rug.
Your prospective tour guides
probably told you about our nifty
"group-hug" values, the caf s ster
ling selection of cereal, or that the
large piles of oozing red mud next
to Bauman are actually going to
spontaneously burst fully func
tional "Planeh-AR-ium." Hah. I bet
that tour guide/tool of The Man
never once mentioned the strange
past of Bryan Hall. Yes, Bryan,
home of pony kegs and sports ini
tiations involving female soccer
Vanilla Ice's latest is definitely
By Jeff Irving
FEATURES MUSIC CRITIC
rating: * (for quality)
**** (for comedy)
Robbie Van Winkle is a very,
very confused man. He has sup
posedly found God, yet his most
recent album, the aptly titled Hard
to Swallow, is probably his most
vulgar and offensive work ever. He
claims he's quit doing drugs, but
he has a song on here that is to
tally dedicated to smoking herb.
He also thinks that aping Korn
and fronting a "skate rock" band
[sic], and hiring Ross Robinson
(Korn/Limp Bizkit producer) to
record his magnum opus is going
to restore his credibility and popu
larity. Nuh-uh. Now we simply
have the funniest unintentional
musical comedy since Pat Boone
decided to do covers of Ozzy
Osbourne and Deep Purple. Pat
Boone may have known what he
was doing, though.
Ice's backing band is some
what enjoyable, if a bit unoriginal.
They can be teeth-grindingly
heavy at times, and have gradu
ated the Limp Bizkit school of in
teresting guitar and turntable
noises. If "Go Ninja Go" wasn't
their singer, I may have given
them- at least 2 and a half stars,
but this is Ice' tow, and the only
difference from his previous
Features
players drenched in condiments.
Bryan was actually built on an
cient, sacred ground, a place of
Much Mystical and As
sorted Power Stuff. It
was the meeting place
of an obscure cult of fa
natics who worshipped
a deity called The Fur
niture God. This god re
quired that his follow
ers hurl random pieces
of uncomfortable furni
ture into trees. The cult
was exclusively made
up of packs of huge,
muscled, and really
loud virile young men.
The specifics of the
ritual practices still re-
main unclear, but this lf there is 0 I'" see you there.
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much is known: after consuming
large barrels of distilled grain spir
its, or "Beast Ice" as they called it,
the Children of the Chair would
climb to the top of their dwellings
and hurl anything not nailed to
ground into the unsuspecting foli
age. The ritual required that devo
tees make guttural barking noises
all the while, to show their devo-
rhymes is that he's a bit angrier,
angstier, and a touch more igno
rant than before.
His opening song, "Living,"
begins with standard
Korn hip-hop drum
line no. 7, and Ice
does the scat part
from "Havin' A
Roni." He then in
forms us that he'll
"bash you in the head
until you're dead
with my magnum."
Likewise, the next
song, "Scars," opens
with the lovely, po
etic, "Life sucks, too
much pain/1 can't ex-
plain why I wanna
bash brains." This is his song
about finding God and turning
over a new leaf. A very spiritual
man, that Robbie.
A little bit later is the bitter
"F**k Me." Fortunately he's tak
ing on his critics instead of trying
to get sex from this song (that
comes later). He does, however
claim that he's "got more pricks
than a motherf**kin' porcupine."
I don't know about you all, but I
don't find that either sexy or
threatening.
The next song, "Zig Zag Sto
ries," has it all; a chorus where he
wants to "get you high/ get you
high on pot," sexist verses that
would make Luther Campbell
tion and ward off rival cults, such
as the Inebriated Freshpersons
and Inhalers of the Divine Herb.
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AMY ROUSE
This cult eventually died out. (My
guess? They ran out of stuff to
throw and moved on to mastering
the Secret Art of Cow Tipping.)
The Furniture God still ex
ists, however, and enjoys playing
with the minds of young mortals
unlucky enough to be in the quad
on a Saturday night. (Note to you
astro-physicists out there: a half
blush with embarassment, and a
line where he says that "When I
reach my peak, I explode like
Dante." Wow. The next song, "Too
WWW.UBL-.COM
Cold," is a metallic remake of "Ice,
Ice Baby" minus the drugs 'n' gun
play verse, and it must be heard
to be believed. It's even more em
barrassing than the version that
ripped off David Bowie and Queen.
On "Prozac," he tells us that he
Music REVIEW
* This will give you a migraine.
** La, la, heard it before.
*** I would keep this in my CD collection but
wouldn't take it on a road trip.
**** It hasn't left the CD player since it left the store.
THE GUILFORDIAN
NOVEMBER 13, 1998
dead tree can't hold up a Lazy-Boy
recliner for long. It will fall down.
It will go boom.)
n Other minor kinda an
cient gods reside here as
well, biding their time in
hopes of a comeback.
There's the Vomit God, who
accepts sacrifices in the
form of folks spewing
vodka-and-stuff-they-don't
remember eating into faux
porcelain receptacles.
There's the nefarious De
mon of Bauman who draws
his power from computers
that crash mid-huge paper
and the Lord of Who The
Hell Moves that Big Silver
5E Bug Sculpture Around
Campus. This minor deity
thrives on the paranoia generated
by students who realize that a re
ally scary thing with light bulbs at
tached to its head is following
them.
That thing freaks me out. I
think it might be bugged, (pause)
Get it? BUGGED? (pause) Give me
a friggin' break. You try writing
these things.
"gets crazy like prozac." "A.D.D."
has nothing to do with the condi
tion it's named after, but he does
try to whisper about pain, fire, lies,
and masks over music that's alter
nately quiet and Deftones-like,
and he claims that "I just can't
hide from myself," and "I just can't
f**king be myself." He strangely
sounds like he has a lot of convic
tion here. This is a man who has
certainly misdirected his emo
tional issues.
One of his lowest moments
here is (don't laugh) "The Horny
Song." Over a saggy riff, he asks,
"Don't you know my cream is good
for your health?" and says that
"You've got thirty-one flavors,
know what I mean/ and I want to
take a dip of your ice cream." My
juices are really flowing now, Va
nilla.
I think that this may be one
of the most misguided musical ca
reer moves of the 90s. This album
is worth buying for a good laugh.