We had really good perches

We sent two freshman to Orgo Night. Like most wild freshman experiences, it was simply sweaty people crowded into a small space. But what did they think of CUMB’s “jokes” and “music?” Read about it here.

Immediately upon entering Butler 209 on Orgo Night, Bwog made enemies—we endured looks of revulsion from displaced studiers, knocked over an absent girl’s empty soda bottle, and butchered the lyrics to the fight song (sung senselessly by rowdy attendees as every year). Having already given offense to so many, we were in the mood to accept the abuse to be hurled at us by CUMB.

It wasn’t meant to be, however, because we felt weirdly un-offended this year. This was partly because much of the humor wasn’t Columbia-based; jabs at the football team and campus activism were balanced by jabs at national racism and, of all things, the presidential election. But we can’t overly fault the marching band for this outward focus: we were pretty boring this semester.

The first topic of the night was campus activism, forever timely, peripheral, and derided by the masses. The main target was the Student Power Coalition/Barnard Columbia Solidarity Network/”Columbia for the Eradication of People Who Disagree With Us” (this joke made the guy next to me howl with laughter), which the Band dubbed “a bloated, ineffective, dicksucking bureaucracy”, a blundering Super PAC. The audience seemed to agree, although they oohed uncomfortably at any joke that made comparisons to Paris/terrorism/Palestine/fetuses/E. coli at Chipotle. The line “Don’t rape people, you dirty Jew” (proposed as an “intersexual” amendment to NRT’s mission statement) drew groans, in particular. We couldn’t help but appreciate the mention of the decimated Hartley laundry room, but we were moved most by the Band member who waved around a USPS shipping box as the Band played Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble (When You Walked in This Office).” Second to him is the member who casually stood with a Christmas wreath slung over his shoulder.

Next up to be lambasted was the football team, with the general gist being that the Lions still suck and football players probably have brain damage. We’ve been mourning the death of the streak for a while, and it seems CUMB has been too, although their process of grieving is a little different. Jokes moved from mildly offensive (“Really makes you think…too bad the team can’t anymore.”) to direct call-outs of football culture: “It just goes to show that, even at a school like Columbia, football is so revered that when you’re the captain of a 2 ­win team, everyone forgets that you committed a hate crime your sophomore year.” Some of the freshmen were confused by this joke, but were later enlightened by their neighbors. Community! The Band then launched into “You Can Call Me Al Bagnoli”, a twist on the song by Paul Simon, in honor of a #NewEra in Columbia football. At the end, one Band member shouted out “We’re good at music,” although most attendees seemed skeptical.

A section on the Barnard administration followed, although no one besides Barnard students really got the jokes, except for the sexual ones (“Shortly after its creation, the fort went down faster than a Barnard girl.”). The main recipients of criticism were the Barnard winter housing policy, Dean Hinkson, Maggie the Magnolia, and a “blowhard” op-ed about that thing that happened in the quad. Barnard girls felt universally cherished, however, when the Band played “Barnard Girl,” an homage to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.”

CUMB then launched into an extended metaphor (cousin of the vaunted Homeric simile for all you LitHum kids out there) comparing the Ivy League to various GOP and Democratic candidates running in the 2016 Presidential Election. Well, most of the Ivy League. In probably the most subtle joke of the evening, Penn was excluded from the Ivy League routine. Even Cornell, “an Ivy League school as much as Carly Fiorina is a politician,” had its place in the script. And, of course, cheers reverberated throughout Butler 209 when CUMB compared Columbia to Bernie Sanders. What can we say? We “just can’t say no to idealistic liberal extremism.” They then commemorated everybody’s “favorite news source” by playing “What Does The Bigoted Racist Say?”

The next section confronted issues relating to national racism. Between criticizing police in a Minneapolis controversy regarding the murder of Jamar Clarke to ridiculing how Mizzou’s president resigned in the face of a football team strike, CUMB held nothing back. We tend to agree with CUMB on the second point, especially when “our football team went on strike for two whole years and Prezbo actually got a raise.” In one of our favorite jokes of the night, CUMB recognized it shared “a very similar understanding,” with Dartmouth’s Black Lives Matter group, “of what it means to form a safe space.” That is, they both “storm a library, scream a little, and piss everyone else off.” They then played Time Warp “In honor of ass­backwards opinions.”

Finally, CUMB focused in from national racism to campus racism. The Band pointed out how controversies at Yale received as much attention as those at Mizzou, just “for screaming about an email which essentially said that they should all be smart enough to avoid offensive Halloween costumes.” One joke comparing Woodrow Wilson to “your friend who just found out about Serial” fell flat on the crowd around us, partially because many thought they heard the word “Siri.” However, CUMB rebounded in discussing a recent Spec op ed (“we’re starting to notice a pattern here”) which compared “players twerking with basketballs stuffed in their shorts” at Basketball Mania to “a modern minstrel show.” In the end, as CUMB has said before, the Band criticized “Twitter activism,” because, “not everyone’s problems can be solved as easily as using a color swatch system to match students with CC professors.” The Band then closed by forming a “Twitter slacktivist” and playing “Bound 2.”

Due to the number of events and controversies on-campus and off during this semester, CUMB had a lot of material to work with, even if much of it wasn’t Columbia-centered. It definitely worked out in the Band’s favor; we heard plenty of laughs and gasps at the jokes. Although we missed feeling antagonized and slightly insecure, we’re glad we snagged the best seats in Butler, just like last year. We’re looking forward to seeing more from the Band next semester, and we will grade the next performance on improvement. Here’s to enjoying one of the last survivors of the War on Fun.