Naked Midget Roller Derby

Hi there. I'm Andy Zatz. This is my first column. So far, so good. Well, I guess I should tell the few people at Tufts who don't know me a little bit about myself before I start rambling. I'm from lower upstate New York, I'm a senior majoring in English, and I suffer from erectile dysfunction. My shrink says that it has to do with a fear of intimacy because I walked in on my parents having sex when I was two years old. And I didn't leave the room. I just stood there. And they knew I was there too. But they just kept going.

Was all that true or was I just making it up for a cheap joke? You'll never know. That's going to be part of the charm of this column. This column is going to be freaking awesome, man. Seriously. Anyways, now that you know a little bit about me let me explain how I got into the narcissistic business of writing a column.

Last semester I wrote a couple of viewpoints and my friends who laugh at the same idiocy I do thought they were funny. Then this semester came along. "When are you going to write your next viewpoint?" my friends asked me. "Yes, I should write another viewpoint," I would reply.

So, since the semester started, I've been combing the Daily for an article that piqued my interest so I would have something to write about. But nothing was happening on campus. I need something to outrage me to write a good viewpoint. And it's difficult to get outraged over the fact that Tufts just appointed four new trustees. Things looked hopeless.

But wait. A glimmer of hope. There's good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geiko. And I could write a column! A column doesn't have to pertain to any kind of issue. It's just a rant. And ranting I can do.

The question remained: what should my column be about? The Daily columns all seem to have some sort of a theme. Amber has her sex column. Some other guy does a political one. And then there's the one where... um... Actually I just read the Amber Madison column but I imagine the other ones have themes too.

And I needed a theme of my own. I needed something original. Something that would speak to the common Tufts student (a New York suburban Jew). My first idea was that, for every column, I would take a different drug and write the column while high on that drug. I would call the column "Doing Drugs With the Z-Man" Catchy, right? So I took some mushrooms and tried to write my first drug-laden column. Here's what I came up with:

Dude, what if like this whole world is just an atom. Like an atom on some guy's knee or something. Like I could have a whole universe on my knee right now. How freaky is that? I haven't eaten in eight hours. I have a headache and I don't want to be tripping anymore. Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours and everything will be okay. WHY WON'T IT STOP? Oh my God! My mom is calling me on my cell phone. Okay... Okay... I just threw my cell phone down the stairs.

That was actually pretty good but I don't want to be known as the sketchy drug guy. I want to be known as the sketchy impotent guy. This is my first column and I've already made three impotency jokes. I like how this is going. Anyways, I still needed a theme.

Wait -- I just did a word count and I have enough to stop writing. So, long story short, I decided not to focus on a theme and just do a column about whatever I felt like writing. If a campus issue comes along that piques my interest, I'll write a column on that. If it's a slow week at Tufts (aren't they all) then I'll write about something mundane about every-day Tufts life. In this instance, I felt like writing about me writing a column. Took the easy way out this time. But stay tuned readers -- I've got plenty more asinine stuff up my sleeve. Till next time.