University of California Los Angeles - Bruin Life / Southern Campus Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Vapid Transit Every weekday morning I get washed, dressed, scrounge about for something similar to breakfast, and bounce out of the apartment to stand on the street corner. In two minutes a kindly old fashioned gentleman stops and asks me to get into his expensive late-model vehicle. The witty Playboor reader might put six and nine together and figure out that I ' m a professional Wrong. I ' m only an amateur degenerate; the rest of the time I ' m a loyal bus rider. I bought a parking pass one quarter and regretted it from the start. By the time I arrived at campus my nerves left me in no mood for the next phase finding a spot in a structure for which two passes had been sold for every available space. The whole process took five minutes longer and cost me at least double what I ' d pay on the bus. Moreover, riding alone in the car in no way approximates the cool adventure of bus travel. If one is lucky enough to live in an area served by the Santa Monica Bus Line 2 he is in for a treat. The exotic perfume of 40 bums and tramps making their way to the V.A. is a symphony of smell. Of course, the vast majority of us do get to school by automobile. Perhaps in the decades to come this will be a quaint memory of a faded and frivolous era. No matter, we seem to enjoy the car; all the while loudly complaining about the cost but refusing to consider alternatives to the sleek tin phallus. Some of the braver souls among us ride their motorcycles to school. These people are apparently undaunted by the imminent likelihood of their pliant bodies being forc ed to conform to a variety of unyielding surfaces. A decade ago the bravado of the biker made him more sexually attractive, ' a la the Wild One: Marlon Brando. Now he is more likely to be on a tight budget. The two-wheeled sex appeal of the chopper has been usurped by the once sissy-ish bicycle. Astute Playboor readers will no doubt be familiar with the homely sight of two neophyte cyclists stopped for a moment to consider each other ' s derallieur. Spokes, pedals and chaffing against a stupid pointed vinyl seat suddenly become the price one has to pay for ubiquitous love. Happily there are some side benefits to riding that bike up all those goddamn hills. Alpha Phi Omega, the service fraternity, helps approximately 2,000 people become car-poolers. This makes the automobile more economical and more interesting. The primary for a successful car pool is to have dependable people partic ipate. I have never been in a car pool. Thumbing is one way to get places, not necessarily those intended. Some people center their social life around the thumb, for others it is a last resort. The unpredictability of thumbing usually makes it a poor way to a destination on time. Some people have more luck than others in hitching a ride. It must have something to do with an honest face. I have never found thumbing convenient. The real drawback to being a is not the difficulty in getting to campus but the absence of campus community feeling for the commuter. When we live further than a short walk or bike ride from the campus it becomes a shlep to return in the evening for that movie, recital or seminar. However, as rents rise in the Westwood area more and more students are forced to live further away from the center of their academic and cultural life.

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Masticatory Fantasies All of us eat, one way or another, whether it be in resplendent luxury in the Treehouse, under a bush with the squirrels or extemporaneously with a friend. Playboor takes a look at some of the more boorishly popular outlets for the satisfaction of that uncontrollable urge to bite, slurp, grind and swallow. Happily UCLA is well supplied with a plethora of the drearily quaint, in the way of gastronomic filling stations. The Playboor student characteristically endures all hardships, never protesting the assaults upon his dignity, or palate. Indeed, he waits in long lines for the privilege.