When U student and self proclaimed “genius artist” Duncan Hodges arrived on campus last Thursday for his 10:45 Beginning Pottery class, he was met not with open hearts and smoothly spinning pottery wheels, but the cold and administrative stare of Sidewalk Services longarm Hank Headman. Hodges was handed a mop and pail and told, without explanation, simply to “clean it up.”
The night before, Hodges had tagged sidewalks all across campus, as well as several administrative buildings, with various chalked messages and images of a political nature or otherwise, the most prominent one being the message to “Stop Wasting Chalk.”
“I was trying to make a statement about making statements,” said Hodges. “A lot of people don’t know that every time somebody here in the United States uses a piece of chalk, a baby elephant in Africa dies. It’s true. I was kind of toying with that idea with my ‘living mural.'”
But what Hodges calls ‘living mural,’ others call crap or worse?or at the very least, an obscene waste of chalk. “I don’t get it,” said Terry Milnard, a U sophomore studying sociology. “It seems like he’s contradicting himself, you know? I mean, if he believes so firmly in not wasting chalk, then shouldn’t he find a way to express this that doesn’t, well, waste so much chalk? Like passing out flyers, or something else on paper?there’s plenty of that stuff to go around.”
“That’s just a prime example of the main thing wrong with this country today,” said Hodges. “Of course I’m contradicting myself. It’s called being ironic, duh. Irony is art too, you know. But they don’t teach you that in school, now do they? No, of course not, because they’re too busy giving out ‘educations,’ whatever that means.”
Other U students have commented that some of the messages, like “Rot in Hell Chalkkillers!” or “Chalk Is People Too,” go a bit far, or that others, like “Chalk Chalk Fat Fat Rape Fat Dead” make no sense at all.
“Also, I think ‘chalk’ is supposed to be spelled C-H-A L-K,” said Carol Bell, a pre medicine student majoring in chemistry. “Not C-H-O-O-K, as it appears on the entire northern half of campus.”
Hodges was, however, quick to defend himself. “I was already half done tagging campus when I realized my mistake, and I didn’t have time to go back and correct it. I just wish people could look past that and see the message behind it. But they can’t of course, because they’re all idiots.”
Hodges became especially caustic while cleaning up after himself Thursday, blaming what he called “the worst kind of censorship” on various local leaders, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Europe’s relatively recent conversion to the Euro.
“This really sucks,” said Hodges. “I mean, are you just going to write down everything I say, or do you think you could help me out here a little?”
Hodges continued in this vein for several hours, a job that could possibly have been cut in half if only he could have found someone?anyone?to help. But perhaps the saddest part of this story is that it rained that very night, a rain that would have done the entire job for him in a matter of minutes if only it had come sooner.
“Idiots,” said Hodges, shaking his fists at the torrential sky. “Idiot raindrops. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.”
Disclaimer: The Comical is pure satire and appears at the beginning of every week on The Chronicle’s Web site. Please take the stories as jokes and don’t call your lawyer. Thanks.