University of Colorado - Coloradan Yearbook (Boulder, CO)

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'12 Boulder has a reputation as a cultural train-wreck, featuring freaks from every state, plus a healthy population of European and inter- planetary exchange students. Our little city sports more accents than an airport, and 0 here today, Mars tomorrow attitude that insures a new neighbor every few weeks. The look of the area is Early American Bomb Shelter, with architectural styles only NASA or Woody Allen could love, and several trillion tons of brick on campus for that institutional touch. North Boulder Victorians look great on television, but Table Mesa dwellings are as mundane as Marlboros and always a mess. Only insomniacs and psychotic philosophy graduates live near campus, since insanity replaced instant karma on the streets and the rent makes tuition seem like small change. Dorms are for dinks, digressives, and those fun- loving frosh. Of course, there's always Nederland. Music is the closest equivatent of formal religion in Boulder, with plenty of rock cathedrals and jazz temples for the faithful. Four record stores can thrive on the same block, selling enough Steely Dan to stay afloat between special orders for the hard- to-find Charlie Parker anthology. Punk-rock is potent on the local level, but Firefall clones and country cauterwaulers make up the majority of hometown talent. Concerts are a daily occurrence, and the next Bob Dylan is probably performing downtown right now. AM radio was outlawed in town after Elton John, but FM stations here can be built with one Jackson Browne album. And you can even play Black Sabbath at 78 backwards and see God without anyone laughing, although it's rumored that a pepperoni pizza from Abo's works better. Boulder's restaurants feature menus ranging from sirloin to sprout satads to anchovy subs, but fast-foodchain fun better epitomizes the local .t x ?thi , collegiate culinary preferences. Anything plastic is potential protein to the discerning junk-food inhaler, the more carbohydrates, the better. McDonald's leads the field, but chronic junkies often frequent Burger King, Dairy Queen, and 7-H. Round the Corner is for those in the need of hamburgers without styrofoam accessories and Haagen-Dazs caters to elitist ice cream addicts with a mouthful of sweet teeth. The demise of Tom's Tacos on Baseline was not a factor in the resurgence of the Gyro at assorted Broadway beaneries, but somewhere has to have the worst food in town, besides the ever- carcinogenic Packer Grill.

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Ah, love, sweet love. The Eternal Quest for Sexual Companionship begins the minute a nice-but-naive freshperson has that first eye-popping encounter in the dorm dining room and ends four years later in suicide, or worse, marriage. Everyone knows the chase is more fun than the kill, consequently, Boulder looks like the Boston Marathon on a hot night on the Hill. Best bet for those zipless pickups is the mall or the Harvest House, But the Broker, the Dark Horse. or anywhere that plays anything by the Village People remains ever casual and officially jaded. Some enterprising Valentinos score at the Aristocrat, while others swear by the Rec Center sun-deck. Coot Lake is cool if you're into orgies, and Norlin Library was built for romance behind the rocks. The dorms are fertile breeding grounds for intimate interludes and Soap silliness, groping for Greeks is a game played every weekend at the animal house of your choice, and you can often find that dream date lounging by the Varsity Townhouses' pool. Everyone wants somebody to love, but few college cuties are too enthralled about waking up the next morning with no blankets or pillows on their side of the waterbed. Considerations like that aren't contemplated while con- suming your fifteenth White Russian with a potential armpieoe at intimate gatherings of 500 in a two-bedroom apartment. Boulder parties, like home, are always better before you get there. As prospective breakfast-cookers parade by, you frantically consume alcohol before the masses, and those mushrooms hit like a May snowstorm. The stereo or some lost-oause band is blaring variations of what some laughingly call adult-oriented rock, causing minor brain damage and one-word conversations. Nobody is sure who actually lives there, so domestic destruction becomes inevitable. Talking to members of the opposite sex is always a harrowing experience, especially when they don't want to talk to you. A back- stage pass is essential to gain access to those private parties in the bedroom, where coquette cocaine- maniacs and their blow-dry connections share sneers and snorts. And if you don't attend at least five parties every night, you missed the good one. i , q ilk, 7 x 1'1

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fee Yes, there's never a dull moment in Boulder. Just follow the bouncing bong to the teenage ideolist's vision of college life and the best of the West on weekends, where food stamps are a convenience rather than a necessity and the snow never sticks. Just remember, you're here to be educated and not in the finer points of rozor-blode finesse. No? Fake it. Books should be dusted twice a semester to maintain that scholastic demeanor, and classes attended when it's too windy to toss Frisbees 0t prospective pickups sitting innocently on the lawn, ftwell, excuuuuuuse me J. Extensive lying to your parents then becomes on cart form, especially the classic dioling-for-dollors call and the popular Dad, I dropped all my classes on the day after the deadline discussion. Collect, of course. It's an acquired sense of the absurd that distinguishes Boulder from the rest of the world, sorta like life in the Ieft-turn-only lone without 0 signal. We're all bozos in this burg, but if we acted mature, they'd take our childish complaints seriously and make a concerted attempt to prepare us for the real world. No fun. I'd rather stay in our scenic sand box, leaving adulthood to the Denver commuters. Everyone sing along, Oh, home and deranged. .