r r 68 - The Michigan Daily Weekend Magazine-Thursday, September, 18, 1997 ®Weekend, etc. Column BATHROOM BLUES AND SHOWER SERENADES 0 The Michigan D WeekenI Maga 0.4 ~ a pfof heArt..... ' THE CRISP LADY GOES HoLLYWO As the school year gets into groove, and the pace of life begins to reach a nauseatingly frantic tempo, I am increasingly reminded of how few places of solace, rest and relaxation seem to exist. Sure, there are always natural hide- aways like the Arb, or maybe a good hangout place like a favorite restaurant or cafe. But I'm talking about a place where one can hide from the public eye. A place where it's perfectly acceptable to be yourself for maybe an hour or so. A place like the bathroom. Now, now, get your head out of the toilet (intentional pun), I'm not talking about anything perverted. But the bathroom is literally a place where you can let it all hang out - where you can make funny faces at yourself in the mirror, trying to tell what you'd look like if your nose weren't so pointy, or if your ears didn't stick out so much. Even better, you can sing in the shower almost as loud as you want, and aside from a couple angry knocks on the door from your irritated room- mates, no one will be able to do a damn thing. You see, as grimy and funky as bath- rooms can get - particularly bath- rooms like my own, which haven't been cleaned in so long that certain types of bacterial scum actually refuse to live there - bathrooms are sacred places. In no other room of the house - including bedrooms - is the law of pri- vacy so strictly adhered to, making the bathroom the perfect place to let a few out-of-key croons take flight. Once you're in the shower, it doesn't matter what kind of music you like, how well you sing or even what order you sing the songs in. You make the decisions, you choose whether to sing in a high or a low note, whether the theme of the day should be rock, soul, rap, R&B or some twisted version of reggae. No one to criticize you, no one to make demands, no one to tell you the way anything should be done. With decent acoustics and a better imagination, you can go from a stressed-out college student with no I future and boring classes to Al Green performing in front of a packed house (hopefully with your clothes on) -- all before your shampoo starts to lather up. What better place than the shower to lose yourself in song, forgetting about the worries of signing up for LSATs, applying to grad school or finding a job - much less finishing that paper for this afternoon's class. The older we get, the more it seems we have to conform to others' expectations - ideas about what we should be or ought to be, instead of what we want to be. In this sense, even the bath- room isn't entirely free from the outside influence. Women use the bathroom to put on makeup or do their hair, all in an attempt to conform to soci- ety's standards of beauty and acceptable appearance. Men shave and comb their hair for essentially the same reasons. But at least there will always remain the sanctuary of off-key harmony in the shower, if nothing else. You may be thinking to yourself, "I see people whistling or even singing to themselves all over the place." A courageous few do exist. Often, though, they're branded as weirdos, out- casts from society. I have also tried singing in public, sort of. A couple of years ago, while mowing the lawn at my mom's house, I decided F F that the lawnmower made enough noise to drown out my notes and make it safe to sing. I wailed my heart out. The experiment seemed successful, until the next day when our next-door neighbor - an elderly lady, harmless enough - beckoned me over to her side of the fence. "Was everything all right the other day?" she asked earnestly, a look of concern in her crinkled brows. Uncertain as to what she was referring, I asked her to elaborate. 'All I know is, about five o clock, I heard some of the worst hollerin' I've ever heard. Thought maybe some- CHRIS body was hurt, or maybe an FARAH animal trapped in the garage." ARAH'S Needless to say, said ani- °AUCFT mal was yours truly. _______ I wads kepl ltintied by the incident, but -e moral of the story seems clear: We may not have all been born with voices like the Velvet Fog, but most of us are lucky enough to have bathrooms. And in bathrooms, we can be ourselves and sing all we want - without some old lady telling us we sound like wounded men in the throes of death. Unless, of course, you happen to like having old ladies in your bathroom ... but let's not think about that one. - Chris Farah is a Michigan Daily sportswriter You can e-mail him at cjfarah@umich.edu. I never liked her. Not one bit, I tell you. She doesn't care about me, or about how I'm going to balance my course load this semester, how I'm going to make it from the Perry Building to East Engin in less than 10 minutes or if I'm closed out of the one class I've been waiting to take for years. I push her but- tons and get no response. The CRISP lady just doesn't cut it Especially with the prospect of James Earl Jones now entering the pic- ture. Sure, it's a long Jennifer Petlinski shot. There's the Daily Arts Editor cost of getting the whole voice-auto- mated system redone, whih runds like it could become complex. And then there's the fact that the administration won't even listen to what the James Earl Jones For CRISP Lady Task Force has to say until the group gets a certain number of signatures on a petition. Well, gosh darn it, everybody. Get on that petition and sign away. I mean, we've got a bunch of students with apparently a lot of time on their hands, ready to fight for the cause, and we've certainly got nothing to lose. After all, what can be worse than the CRISP lady's voice? And how great would it be to have James Earl Jones? Maybe you need some convincing. Let's take it purely from an entertain- ment standpoint, shall we? Reason No. 1: Inspiration When you hear the CRISP lady tell you that you have an 8:30 a.m. Communication Studies class, you have the potential to get really pissed off. Even if you knew that you would be registering for it, you still may notice that she comes across sounding mean, like she's gloating that you have to wake up that early. Of course, this wouldn't be the case with Jones; the man has the power to move mountains with that voice. I mean, think about what Mufasah's (Jones') voice did to Simba in "The Lion King." The poor little lion couldn't get his dead daddy's voice out of his head for the rest Qf the movie.Why-e e dd tey keep flashing back to it? Because it was so damn moving. And what about Darth Vader? People listen to that. If Jones tells me I have an 8:30 Comm class, then you better believe that I, and probably a slew of other stu- dents, will be there. With that deep, pur- poseful, get-down-to-business, bellow- ing voice, Jones will convince me that I have a purpose in life: to get to Comm at 8:20 with time to spare, pen in hand, ready for the challenge. None of this CRISP lady business. She can't even convince me to make it to my discus- sions. Now what good is that? Reason No.2: A Star Is Born Here's my favorite reason because I've always wanted to be in a movie. With Jones on the voice-automated system, we all have the chance to star in one. Just pick your favorite Jones movie. Maybe it's "Return of the Jedi," "The Hunt for Red October" or "Coming to America" or "The Sandlot' if you have bad taste. Pretend Jones is actually conversing with you through the phone, feeding you lines. Feel free to add dialogue as you wish. (Please note: Do not, in the meantime, though, forget to be pressing the buttons as you register, or Jones may have to return you to the main menu and hang up on you.) This "Star is Born" reasoning can be dangerous then; you have to be aware of the b6undaI4s between fantasy and reality. Then maybe in a few years, after the system gets really fancy, we'll be able to hear a "Choose Your Own CRISP Adventure" over the phone. For exam- ple, "if you choose "Masculinity in Crisis," Section 001, 008, your life will enter a semester-long period of decay in which you will feel like you're dying a 56THTUE Mal slow death twice a week ..." This, of course, will add to of purpose that Jones will giv dents as we attempt to register es. 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