In 1998, DMX asked the nation, "Where my dogs at?" In 2015, we can’t help but make a similar inquiry: "Where our Gators at?" Before you answer that question, it’s time for this week’s edition of…
Darts & Laurels
Whenever we read a story that involves a drunken college student embarking on a mission for good eats, we generally hope for the best: After all, is there no quest so righteous or so just as trying to acquire the dankest of dank foods long after most restaurants have closed? We wanted to believe Luke Gatti, a former student at the University of Connecticut, was the hero these troubled times called for — we couldn’t have been more wrong.
On Sunday, Gatti swaggered into a UConn cafeteria with a beer in hand, drunkenly demanding he be served, and we quote, "f-----g bacon jalapeño mac and cheese." While no one in the Alligator office has ever had the pleasure of enjoying this dish, we won’t deny it sounds amazing.
However, the lengths Gatti went to get it, including, but not limited to calling cafeteria workers "f-----g idiots," go beyond the pale. Gatti was arrested that night and has apparently been expelled from the university. For besmirching the good name of drunk eaters, Gatti gets a larger-than-usual Dart.
Oh Congress, is there anything you WON’T do to undermine whatever remaining dignity there is in the Capitol building? Around noon Thursday, Kevin McCarthy, the current House majority leader who had been the frontrunner to replace John Boehner as House speaker, withdrew his candidacy. McCarthy cited the ideological divide currently dogging the Republican Party as his reason for removing himself from the race, saying the party needs to "unite behind one leader."
If one had been paying attention, it was evident McCarthy had dropped because he would have most likely suffered a humiliating defeat; like Boehner before him, McCarthy was not "conservative" enough for the party’s pocket of Tea Party hard-liners.
For doing a better job of destroying themselves than social progress and educated voters could ever do, the Republican Party gets an elephant-shaped Laurel.
If you’ve been on social media since late Wednesday evening, there is a solid chance you saw — or at least heard about — a sexually explicit video that came from the ranks of national fraternity Alpha Tau Omega’s chapter at Indiana University. If you know anything about the video, which we would prefer not to discuss in detail, you know why that chapter is getting a Dart.
On Thursday, several music news outlets (looking at you, "Consequence of Sound") reported LCD Soundsystem, the post-punk/dance-punk/everything-happening-at-once band that defined much of the sound of the last decade, would be reuniting for festival dates next year. The band dissolved in 2011 after frontman James Murphy broke up the band in what was — if we’re being completely honest — a pretty obvious attempt to manufacture the band’s legacy, rather than letting it take its natural course.
Although we regret the band’s demise, we’re thankful for what it left behind, so the promise of live shows was pretty tantalizing. The news of a reunion was promptly shut down by "Entertainment Weekly" and Kris Petersen, a manager at DFA, the band’s label. In one tweet, Petersen curtly addressed the regrettable nature of many music news articles: "it would be great if music writers could write about things that actually happen instead of lcd reunions & grimes + frank ocean records."
For telling it like it is, Petersen gets a Laurel. For toying with our emotions, hopes and dreams, CoS and other music publications get a Dart.
