The Poet’s Cry
Into the backbeat of horrible emotion
Distilled revelations in the crystalhzed mind
Sullen chapters
The book is closed
As its author dies
The sound of the Poet’s Cry
Drives on and on
Deeper
All around
And suddenly it stops
Silent mourning
The soldier’s boot
The blood in the mud
And somewhere in the downtrodden rot
A flower arises
With fresh new smells
The opaque illusion of rotting corpses
And the playing of harps
A dead horse
— F. Damien Phillips
OCTOBER 5,1990 — THE DECREE — PAGE 3
Ignorance enslaves
(Continued from Page 2)
nections, and not only will our
leaders speak for us, they will also
create us. If we let them, they
will decide what the “American
people” or the “people of North
Carolina” think.
That’s why I’m doing what
little I can for a candidate this
year, which I haven’t done since
I became Cynical in 1972.1 don’t
want to be silent while someone
Club takes trip
By KATIE WRIGHT
Fourteen members of
Wesleyan’s Outdoor Club went
camping for the weekend in Nags
Head on Sept. 14.
Along with the president,
Susan Ingram, and the official
chaperone of the Outdoor Club,
Kim Norquest, were: Maurice
Johnson, Dr. Johnson, Bobby
Bauer, Eduardo Borja, Stew
Crank, Kristie Warrren, Kevin
Hambrecht, Holly Rogers, Gabby
Griffis, Alyssa Cooper, Teresa
Pitt, and Lisa Stells.
The group enjoyed a beautiful
weekend. They had campfires,
took walks on the beach, hiked
Jockey’s Ridge, played games,
got sunburned, and made new
friends under the sun and moon.
“We look forward to our next
trip, and invite everyone to
come,” one member said. “All
you have to do is look for our
flyers, contact a member, bring
yourself and a little money, and
prepare to have fun!”
Obscenity presented by GWAR
offers valid statement on society
who claims to represent me (or
wants to) creates an image of me
that is false. I am a person of
North Carolina and I want to help
define what that means.
I was walking through a
Greensboro neighborhood a
couple of weeks ago. I was knock
ing on doors and asking people
who they were going to vote for.
I was hot, tired, disgusted, and
discouraged. I counted five more
houses on my side of the street
and decided I’d quit after those.
In one of those houses I met
three teenagers who were sur
prised to hear that a black man
vras running for the Senate and
wondered if Mr. Helms was still
condemning homosexual photog
raphy. They said the people of
North Carolina couldn’t possibly
reject Helms for a black man who
supported perverts. Then they
looked at me with hostile suspi
cion.
I decided to cover another
street.
Facts are alarming
(Continued from Page 2)
there are only 750,000. If this
continues, elephants may become
extinct by the year 2000.
• Every three months the U.S.
throw away enough aluminum to
rebuild our commercial air fleet.
•Ninety-nine and a half per
cent of all the fresh water on earth
is in icecaps and glaciers.
That’s enough to think about
this time. We’ll look at more later.
But do think about our world —
and what you can do to clean it up.
By MARK BRETT
The American Heritage Dic
tionary defines “obscene” as
“offensive to accepted standards
of decency.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 18, Oderus
Urungus, lead singer of the heavy
metal band GWAR, was arrested
on charges of public obscenity
after a performance in Charlotte.
One vice officer on the scene has
been quoted as saying, “2 Live
Crew is Sunday School compared
to this group.”
On the previous evening, Sept.
17, GWAR performed in Chapel
HiU to an amused and excited
crowd, none of whom seemed to
be very upset (except, perhaps,
by the half-hour delay in the
show’s start).
The opening Act, Agony Col
umn, got things moving with a
loud, fast, incoherent, and merci
fully short set of hardcore thrash,
setting off a few rounds of
friendly slam-dancing. Opening
for GWAR has to be one of the
toughest gigs in music, and Ag
ony Column did a passable job of
it. At least they didn’t sing about
Norse gods and pretend to be
profound.
After a brief intermission, the
lights went down and the real
show began. GWAR claims to be
a group of warriors from outer
space, and promises to slaughter
and subjugate each and every
audience on Earth. They began
making good on this promise
from the outset, as three people
in hideous form and latex masks
slipped onstage, carrying signs
bearing such slogans as “GWAR
is Obscene Filth” and “Guns Not
GWAR.”
These three protesters were
quickly and horribly dispatched
by the band members, spraying
the audience with what was to be
the first of many gushers of blood
(as a friend of mine said, if you’re
going to see GWAR, don’t wear
anything you want to keep). Af
ter ridding themselves of the dis
senters, GWAR lit into their an
them, “The Salaminizer.”
“A little message from a God
to a slave,” this song set the mood
for the evening, in more ways than
one. In the fantasy world of
GWAR the conquering horde, our
masters had taken the stage and
were were domed. In reality, a
remarkably talented, funny, and
(above all) intelligent heavy metal
band had its audience enthralled.
In either case, GWAR had us right
Review
where they wanted us. There was
no escape.
The rest of the set, in aU hon
esty, is a bit of a blur. As the
show progressed, a seemingly
endless supply of victims was
brought onstage to meet niessy
ends, all spraying the crowd with
blood and other unappetizing sub
stances.
The most memorable of these
was a priest (an actor in a big
foam “priest suit”) who was cut
open, had a few vital organs burst
over the crowd, and was then sod
omized with a two-foot latex
penis by our main man Oderus
(who then climaxed on the audi
ence); and a bag of dead babies,
who had their brains eaten, their
skulls penetrated by the two-foot
latex member, and were cast
aside. After one of these displays,
between songs, Oderus told the
crowd: “Remember: It’s not rape
if they’re dead.”
The point of this display? Keep
in mind that GWAR is, first and
foremost, a parody band. Ozzy
Osbourne bit the heads of bats
and blew up livestock onstage,
and other performers have been
known to drink animal blood in
concert (the real thing, not the
stage blood of GWAR) and make
bizarre pleas to Satan, all with a
straight face. GWAR, in the true
spirit of parody, takes these an
tics a few steps fiuther to point
out their inherent stupidity.
“Satan,” Oderus said on the
night in question, “is too cliche
for GWAR.”
Another portion of the stage
show involved “Private Parts,” a
super hero figure (a guy in a big
foam muscle-suit) who tries to
clean up GWAR’s act, making
mincemeat of both Oderus and
the Sexecutioner (GWAR’s sec
ond-string vocalist). He is then
defeated by GWAR Woman (ap
parently GWAR’s sex object)
with a swift kick to the groin, in a
nice statement, not the only one
of the evening, on both authority
figures and sexism.
And, let we forget, the music
was good, too. The memory of
the complete playlist was annihi
lated by steams of blood and goo,
but they did play “Maggots,”
“Horror of “Yig” (which didn’t
have the bagpipe solo but was ac
companied by a very nice fire-
dance from GWAR Woman), and
the crowd-pleasing “Slaughter-
ama” (which was strangiely inof
fensive after the other excesses
of the evening). GWAR played,
and they played weU. That’s all
that really matters.
So, is GWAR obscene? Yes!
This act is “offensive to accepted
standards of decency.” Is this
necessarily a bad thing? No.
When the obscenity exists to
make a valid statement about the
society that has accepted the stan
dards being violated, it has every
right to exist. This is known as
freedom of speech.
Oderus Urungus was released
from jail Sept. 19 on $1,000 bond.
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