It’s important to be active. As John Wooden said: Ability may get you to the top, but it takes stamina to keep her there. Or maybe you don’t care about stamina. Maybe you’ve got lipstick tasting on weeknights and need to pass the time between classes and then. Never fear. UCLA offers a vast array of student clubs that are sure to convince you of the splendors of apathy. Here are some of them, reviewed for your convenience.
Bruin Republicans. The new BR leadership has set itself a challenging task: to prove that it’s possible to be white, Christian, and Republican. Calvinist Chairman Greg Moeck, once a closer for his high school baseball team, will try to get more saves this year than Mariano Rivera ever did. Beyond the bible, Moeck is a pragmatist, who prefers what doesn’t work now to what might not work in the future. Previous BR chairmen had been conservative idealists. A certain previous vice-chairman has also been named by Dr. Laura Schlesinger as one of the ten stupid things women do to mess up their lives. All kinds are welcome, however. It’s now three years since the club privately raised $30,000 for their anti-Mecha campaign, which they promptly parlayed into $9,000. If you happen to spot a former board member sipping Mai Tais in the Cayman Islands while getting massaged by Margaret Thatcher look-alikes, report it to the current treasurer immediately.
Bruin Democrats. Politically, our campus looks like Dennis Rodman after losing his right testicle in a poker game—skewed heavily to the left. The sexual fantasies of a disproportionate number of UCLA activists bear Mao’s teeth-marks. This puts the Democrats in the relative center. If you think communism was cute, but never sexy, then the Dems are for you. They are on cordial terms with the Bruin Republicans and engage them in a friendly public debate each quarter. These debates make Hannity & Colmes seem like Lincoln & Douglas. The Dems look decent on some issues, less decent when their President Gabe Rose is taking off his shirt—as he did at the USAC election-results ceremony in May, much to everyone’s gradual blindness.
MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan). I know what you’re thinking. What’s the point of MEChA, when there’s already a Taco Bell on campus? The latter offers a far tastier version of Latina/o/e/i/u culture than the racist revolutionary politics of El Plan de Aztlan. Far-left Mecha actually seeks to overthrow our government and return California to Mexican rule. Its motto as stated in its founding document is: “For the Race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing.” A few years ago, they led an effort to ban Taco Bell from campus, ostensibly because the company bought its tomatoes from poor people. But even Mechistas aren’t moronic enough to believe there was anything wrong with that. Clearly, the real reason for their campaign was guacamole-green envy at the eatery for making them obsolete.
L.O.G.I.C. (Logic, Objectivism, Greed, Individualism, Capitalism). As you can tell from their name and homoerotic bicep logo, these guys put the “orrect” in “politically incorrect.” LOGIC’s purpose is to spread and discuss the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Which would be great, if their style didn’t so much resemble the face of Ayn Rand.
Lyndon LaRouche. Feeling fat, burdensome, obese, like there’s just too much of yourself? Mope no more. Become a LaRouchie and you will feel nonexistent, light as air, your individuality subsumed in a faceless cult of worship. The object of this worship is one Lyndon LaRouche, an old man best known in the outside world for his innovations in brainwashing technique. He also runs for president every election on a socialist platform. Although they recruit more frequently at more locations on campus than any registered club, the local chapter of the national LaRouche cult is not officially a UCLA club; they operate from a compound in Eagle Rock. This year, their recruiters will most likely ask you to help them save the world from Dick Cheney and the neocon cabal. In a perpetual state of recruiting, one wonders when they find the time to actually do the promised world-saving. One concludes that their real goal is probably to get an even number to pitch in for pizza. After all, LaRouchies believe in a revolutionary math system and they wouldn’t want to strain it with any testy long-division. Imagine the buzzkill if remainders were to reveal any holes.
You know the sensation of talking to someone for 45 minutes and then finding out that every word he said is in some ten-page pamphlet from headquarters. You don’t? Engage a LaRouchie in conversation this year.
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. Yet another year dedicated to literally putting the “y?” back in women. The Women’s Studies Department is the real repository of phallophobic feminism on campus, but apparently even some feminists would rather have a first-degree burn than a degree in women’s studies. FMLA is for them. As the Vagina Monologues has taught us, our alphabet’s penultimate letter isn’t only important to feminists because they mistake Lynyrd Skynyrd for a dictionary. Sometime around Valentine’s Day, expect to see a FMLA-sponsored symposium on “The Feminine Y: Consonant or Vowel?” I’m more concerned with finding out the plural for “toots.” For those like me, this group is not recommended. Gender-war discourse has never been accurate or pleasant. After all, it’s men who should be from Venus—we’re the ones with the third eye.
CalPIRG (Public Interest Research Group). It’s bound to happen. You’ll be wandering around campus, talking to yourself. You’ll be trying to compensate for that previous argument with yourself, in which you somehow failed to get the last word. Then you’ll be rudely interrupted. “Have you pledged for the environment?” he’ll say. It will piss you off. The man is from CalPIRG, a local chapter in a national network of Naderite environmentalists. CalPIRG members will say just about anything to get your money, so beware. As their former president said, “About 80 percent of the money is used to hire advocates that lobby on issues students are concerned about…the other 20 percent is used for operating costs like rent, postage, phone, and copies.” You know what lobbying in Washington mostly consists of? Drunken piggy-back rides around Dupont Circle. Substitute sponge-baths for showers and you’ll do much more for the environment—not only by saving on water, but also by limiting the number of Men’s Health magazines your RA needs to buy.