Dear Larry B.,
Each morning I imagine you wake up around 6:45 a.m., kiss Adele on the shoulder, throw on a modest three-button suit, lace up your running shoes (which you're fairly confident makes you real hip) and then head downstairs to an impeccably prepared breakfast of herb-baked ciabatta bread, poached free-range eggs and grass-fed, organic bacon. Yeah, I saw how you ball when I moseyed on over to Gifford House for Senior Dinner. Well, actually, that's a lie. I'd planned to go, but I'd had a very large snack that afternoon and didn't feel like throwing on a button down, so I took a nap instead. However, my roommate went, and he told me all about the endless sushi buffet. I see how you roll …
Anyway, while you roll up you sleeves and grab a mug of fair-trade coffee, I imagine you take approximately 3.5 minutes to peruse the Tufts Daily. Ya know, just to catch up on the hockey team's losing streak and to check the Married to the Sea. It appears, then, that you missed my final column last semester about the merits of NQR. I talked about how Tufts should be proud of the event — how it crosses the boundaries of our socially stratified environment. When was the last time you walked into Carmichael, Larry? It's abhorrent. All the athletes sit at one table, all the pretty girls at another and all the mathletes are delegated to the dungeon-like confines of the back right. It's just like "Mean Girls" (2004), which I watched with about seven dudes in a Best Western yesterday. Don't judge. It's a quality flick. Rachel McAdams as a blonde and LiLo looking all types of real hot back before she hopped on the Charlie Sheen career path of banging seven-gram rocks on the reg.
Now a couple hospitalizations and an absurd student arrest later, you've gone and infuriated the campus by canceling NQR. Let's talk about this for a hot minute.
First off, brilliant tactical move, Larry. I tip my cap to you. You announce it right before spring break, knowing that half of us will drink ourselves into a large enough stupor over the following week to forget you even canceled the bloody thing. Strong play. Second, you pulled this nonsense in your last semester. The act of pulling the plug on the student body's favorite event won't fall on the shoulders of Tony Montanaco (See what I did there? Imagine G. House being raided by several dozen of Drew Faust's thugs). And most importantly, you announced it on a Monday, after my column came out, leaving me a full two weeks before I had the opportunity to respond. Well, Mr. President, here it is.
In all seriousness, I can't understand your stance on alcohol over the past four years. First, the good: Yours is one of the highest-profile names on the Amethyst Initiative. You give it some serious credibility and simultaneously signify that you are interested in addressing college culture's obvious drinking problem through new and progressive means. Then, the bad: The one free pass on weed or alcohol is (basically) removed. Then you (unsuccessfully) try to make Spring Fling dry. And now the unthinkable: You cancel NQR.
You are an enigma, Larry. I'd like to know where you stand now. Did MADD ride you so hard that you flipped sides like Anakin? You were a shining beacon, a student body hero. You had our faith and support. That beacon has dimmed a little bit the past couple years. Enjoy Harvard. We'll toast to your departure straight Bacow style — with a marathon. Perhaps in the buff …
