MAGAZINE - Dolphin.upenn.edu - University of Pennsylvania

MARCH 24, 2008 | Volume 8, No. 10 

magazine

FIRST 

LOOK 

9 

POLITICAL WOES 

Isaac katz 

Isaac’s not so sure it even matters who 

wins the Democratic nomination. 

12 

90 MINUTE COMMUTE 

michael Sall 

Mike spends a summer commuting to 

work. He’s not very good at it, though. 

4 

6 

7 

11 

15 

16 

sportsfan-101 

michael field 

Michael would like to bring back creativity to college sports student sections nationwide. 

photospotlight: Hallowed halls 

Pauline Baniqued 

That’s so cliche 

one penn dude 

One Penn Dude has no qualms with hearing the same things over, and over, and 

over again. 

photospotlight: spring 2004 

Richard Liebowitz 

review: saturnalia 

Steven Waye 

Steven reviews the Gutter Twins’ latest release. 

crossword: Words that have z’s in them 

The editors 

cover: Embrace, sHELBY PRINDAVILLE 

Contact 

FIRST CALL, Ke l ly Wr i t e r’s Ho u s e 

3805 Lo c u s t Wa l k, Ph i l a d e l p h i a, PA 19104 

w w w .f i r s t ca l l m a g a z i n e.c o m 

f c pa p e r@g m a i l.c o m 

Contributors 

Ed i to r-in-Ch i e f: Mi c h a e l Sa ll • Ed i to r s: Tim Pot e n s, Be n n y La i t m a n, Er i c a To b i n, Da n De u t s c h • Ch i e f De s i g n 

Ed i to r: Ch a r l i e Is a a c s • Ch i e f Ar t Ed i to r: Da n Ma r ko w i t z • We b m a s t e r: Tim Pot e n s • Bu s i n e s s Ma n a g e r: An n a 

To l m a c h • Di s t r i bu t i o n Ma n a g e r: Va l er i a Ts y g a n ko va • Tr e a s u r e r: Ra c h a e l Hu t c h i n s o n • Fe at u r e s Ma n a g e r: Kat h y 

Wa n g • Re c r u i t m e n t Ma n a g e r: Ri v k a Fo ge l • Ma r k e t i n g Ma n a g e r: Ju n Pa r k • Ar t i s t s: Da n Ma r ko w i t z, Yu e Wu 

Co l u m n i s t s: On e Pe n n Du d e • Wr i t e r s: Mi c h a e l Fi e l d, St e v e n Way e, Is a a c Kat z, Mi c h a e l Sa ll 

Ph oto g r a p h e r s: Sh e l b y Pr i n d av i ll e, Ri c h a r d Li e b o w i t z, Pa u l i n e Ba n i q ue d 

2 FIRST CALL MARCH 24, 2008

LETTER FROM 

THE EDITORS 

Dear Children of Franklin, 

You probably missed the news 

last week, but Ben would be so proud. 

His home town might be getting a 

little bit taller. The American Commerce 

Center, a super tall skyscraper, 

has been proposed to be built in the 

city of Philadelphia. The preliminary 

design by the architectural firm Kohn 

Pedersen Fox – the same guys who 

designed Huntsman, no less – would 

put the tower at 1500 feet tall. As in, 

taller than the Empire State Building. 

It’s still early in the early stages, 

but I don’t know why the city would 

ever balk at building a giant middle 

finger to New York. Ben really would 

be proud. 

I’ve written about this before, but 

Philly has a massive inferiority complex 

when it comes to other cities, especially 

New York. Anytime we’re given 

the chance to take a jab at New York 

– whether building a taller building or 

throwing bottles at Mets fans – Philadelphians 

will take it, no matter what 

the costs. Inserting 1500 feet of office 

space in Center City will only worsen 

traffic in the city; we’re already at the 

national average as Mike tells us. But 

a little extra traffic is well worth it if it 

gives us another insult to shout at the 

Giants when they come to town. 

Maybe that’s a little extreme – 

Philadelphians aren’t that sportsobsessed 

– but it is the cliché after all. 

Our anonymous Penn Dude doesn’t 

mind clichés too much. We Philadelphians, 

both natives and our adopted 

brothers and sisters here at Penn, 

firstcallism 

need to embrace our clichés. Michael 

laments the death of the “Hey Song” 

at the Palestra, and he’s absolutely 

right. Without our caustic spectators, 

Philadelphia is nothing. 

Embracing this spirit of Philadelphia 

is the key to winning the hearts of 

its people. Ed Rendell is so universally 

adored here not because of his political 

achievements but because of how 

strongly he embodies that Philadelphia 

spirit. In Philadelphia, what Ed 

Rendell says, goes – which is why I’m 

not expecting the PA primary polls to 

change very much. Hillary is in the 

lead because she’s been endorsed by 

Ed, and no matter how many hordes 

of college students Barack unleashes 

on Philadelphia, that isn’t going to 

change. Isaac says the Democratic 

Party is dead, but I’m even more cynical 

than that. The city and suburbs 

of Philadelphia, and with them the 

Pennsylvania primary, are beholden 

to a single man whose popularity is 

galvanized by his weekly appearances 

on the Eagles Postgame show on 

Comcast. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Clintoista, 

a McCainiac, or part of the 

Obamanon: Pennsylvania’s in the 

bag. It may be a depressing outlook 

on things, but real Philadelphians 

don’t let that get them down. More 

important things are afoot; it’s almost 

baseball season. 

Yours in Philadelphia, 

Tim Potens 

Editor 

A tip for padding 

your resume: 2001 Time 

Magazine Person of the Year 

EDITORIAL 

POLICY 

Fir s t Ca l l is t h e u n d e r g r a d u a t e 

m a g a z i n e o f t h e Un i v e r s i t y o f 

Pen n s y l v a n i a p u b l i s h e d e v e ry 

o t h e r Mo n d a y . Ou r m i s s i o n 

is t o p r o v i d e m e m b e r s o f t h e 

c o m m u n i t y a n o p e n f o r u m f o r 

e x p r e s s i n g i d e a s a n d o p i n i o n s . 

To t h i s e n d , w e , t h e e d i t o r s o f 

Fir s t Ca l l, a r e c o m m i t t e d t o a 

p o l i c y o f n o t c e n s o r i n g o p i n - 

i o n s . Ar t i c l e s a r e p r o v i d e d b y 

r e g u l a r c o l u m n i s t s a n d w r i t- 

e r s. Th e y a r e c h o s e n f o r p u b - 

l i c a t i o n b a s e d o n t h e q u a l i t y 

o f writing, a n d , in th e ca s e of 

c o m m e n t a r i e s , t h e q u a l i t y o f 

a r g u m e n t a t i o n . Ou t s i d e o f t h e 

editorial a n d o t h e r editorial 

c o n t e n t , n o a r t i c l e r e p r e s e n t s 

t h e o p i n i o n o f Fi r s t Ca l l, i t s 

editorial b o a r d, o r i n d i v i d u a l 

m e m b e r s o f Fi r s t Ca l l o t h e r 

t h a n t h e a u t h o r . No c o n t e n t 

in Fi r s t Ca l l u n l e s s o t h e r w i s e 

s t a t e d r e p r e s e n t s t h e o f f i c i a l 

p o s i t io n o f t h e a d m i n i s t r a - 

t i o n , f a c u l t y, o r s t u d e n t b o d y 

a t l a r g e o f t h e Un i v e r s i t y o f 

Pen n s y l v a n i a . 

s u p p o rt e d b y 

t h e k e l ly 

w r i t e r s 

h o u s e 

FIRST CALL MARCH 24, 2008 3

sportsfan-101 

zen and the art of the basketball cheer 

Michael Field 

It was a bright, hot room. Hundreds 

of bodies were packed close together, 

sweating. All at once they began 

throwing condoms and women’s underwear 

into the air. No, this wasn’t 

one of those orgies held on campus I 

never seem to get invited to; it was a 

basketball game between University 

of Maryland and Duke on January 14, 

1984. 

During player introductions, 

when Maryland forward Herman 

Veal was introduced, the Cameron 

Crazies, Duke’s student section, threw 

condoms and panties at him after he 

was accused of sexual assault by a fellow 

Maryland student. Veal had to 

endure taunts of “Rape,” and he was 

greeted with signs reading, “Hey, Herman... 

did you send her flowers?” This 

“tasteless” display was admonished by 

Duke’s coach Mike Krzyzewski and 

president Terry Sanford. To make up 

for their actions at the next game the 

Cameron Crazies sported tinfoil halos, 

hung a sign reading A HEARTY 

WELCOME TO DEAN SMITH, and 

chanted, “We beg to differ,” when they 

disagreed with the refs. 

Where has this creative streak 

gone? Sure, Duke’s fans may have been 

a bit out of line, but they rebounded 

hilariously. Now the only times we 

hear about fan behavior in college 

basketball are when they threaten to 

break the player’s legs (Kevin Love), 

kill their families (Eric Gordon), or 

rape their sisters (J.J. Redick). 

The lack of good student cheers 

can’t be blamed entirely on the students. 

It was our own administration 

that recently told our band to stop 

playing the “Hey Song” at the end of 

basketball games. We have actively 

stopped our student section from being 

good fans. 

Our student section needs the 

help too. I have never seen a worse 

Dan Markowitz is a freshman in Engineering. You can write to him at idaniel@seas and visit his website at http://www.defectivity.com. 


endition of the “DE-FENSE” chant 

than at Penn home games. It’s bad 

enough that our cheerleaders, band, 

and student section are all chanting 

at slightly different times, but who 

decided that the chant is supposed to 

speed up until it is a jumbled mess of 

claps and yells? 

Worse still, our student section 

seems to have embraced the growing 

trend of throwing homophobic 

slurs at the opposition. Come on, I 

hate them too, but think of something 

new. Our student section got especially 

rowdy against Harvard when 

our Justin Reilly was fouled hard by 

Harvard’s center Evan Harris, leading 

to the ejections of Andreas Schreiber 

and Brennan Votel. 

All is not lost in the Palestra. At 

certain timeout breaks the Red & 

Blue Crew unrolls a paper sign bearing 

some sort of jab at the opponent. 

Some of my personal favorites this 

year were: “We may be having a down 

year, but you’re still Dartmouth,” and 

“Tyler, you look better in the mask,” 

the latter a jab at the face mask North 

Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough 

sported last season after breaking his 

nose. 

In fact, in spite of our administration’s 

protests, I believe our student 

section is one of the best in the nation. 

Even without the support of the band 

the student section has been singing 

the “Hey Song” a cappella. Instead of 

chanting a fight song ad nauseam like 

some schools — I’m looking at you 

Notre Dame and Michigan — we still 

come up with creative taunts. When 

we faced North Carolina at the Palestra, 

much of our student section held 

up pictures of Hansbrough’s mother 

with the word MILF underneath. 

The big problem now is that 

March Madness has started, or is already 

over depending on when you’re 

reading this, and Penn is nowhere to 

be found in the bracket. This leaves 

the cheering to other schools. While 

schools like Duke and Kansas may 

have had great fans once, the fan field 

has recently evened out. Long ago 

was the time when the Cameron Crazies, 

the gold standard of basketball 

fans, had their band play The Who’s 

“Pinball Wizard” and threw quarters 

at North Carolina St.’s center Tommy 

Burleson, who was caught breaking 

into pinball machines. 

Sure, plenty of schools still have 

loud fans that give them large home 

court advantages, but sheer noise 

can’t make up for creativity. It wasn’t 

until the Cameron Crazies sat down 

and had one of their own strip down 

to a Speedo and dance that North 

Carolina’s free throw shooters began 

to miss. And after that game Coach 

Krzyzewski “banned” Speedos from 

Duke basketball games. 

The fact of the matter is that the 

fans can have a big influence on a basketball 

game. Sometimes it’s getting 

into a player’s head with a chant and 

sometimes it’s throwing a cup at Ron 

Artest, starting a brawl between players 

and fans at a game at the Palace of 

Auburn Hills a few years ago. While I 

agree that behavior is certainly out of 

line, I believe we need to give our fans 

a little more wriggle room. 

One of the reasons people go to 

sporting events is to let off steam, and 

what better way to do that than jeer 

at the opposing players? Let the fans 

cheer the way they want; if nothing 

else it’s a whole lot of fun. FC 

Michel Field is a freshman in Wharton. 

You can write to him at fieldmb@wharton. 


PhotoSpotlight: 

Hallowed halls, BY pauline baniqued 

Pauline is a senior in the College. You can write to her at paulineb@sas. 


Clichés don’t bother me as much as 

the next guy. In high school, and 

even college, we are taught that clichés 

are bad. Wikipedia tells us that a 

cliché is “overused to the point of losing 

its intended force or novelty, especially 

when at some time it was considered 

distinctively forceful or novel. 

The term is most likely to be used in 

a negative context.” (I cite Wikipedia 

because I can — no teacher is going 

to deduct points from me here.) I am 

not saying that we should use the term 

“pretty as a picture” more or that there 

should always be an evil twin, but I do 

think we shouldn’t discard something 

just because we’ve heard it a few times 

before. 

We all fancy our lives to be different 

and unique from everyone else’s; 

we were taught at a young age that 

we are all “special.” The truth is that 

we are not. All lives are generally the 

same: we’re born, we have a childhood, 

we go to school, we work, we 

retire, and then we die. We all get out 

of bed in the morning and go to sleep 

at night; we all brush our teeth, eat, 

shower, and shit. Along the way we 

have experiences — the experiences 

are universal, but they are important 

to us. We experience happiness, we 

That’s so cliché 

But does it really matter? 

One Penn Dude: Rambles et Al. 

experience loss, we experience love, 

and we experience grief. These experiences 

have been around forever, but 

they never get old. 

Looking back to my childhood, 

it’s funny to see how people played 

along. “Mom, I lost my crayons. I 

lost my crayons!” “I’m so sorry, honey. 

We’ll get you new crayons tomorrow.” 

When we’re little we think everything 

is a big deal, and the people around us 

indulge us. They agree — it is a big 

deal. Now that we’re older, we don’t 

get so much sympathy. When someone 

breaks up with their boyfriend or 

girlfriend it is as if their life is shattered, 

but we know it is not. We’ve 

seen it time and time again; they’ll 

get over it and move on. Even when 

someone loses a parent, it breaks our 

heart, but we know that their world 

will continue. We’ve seen other people 

go through the same thing and we’ve 

heard other stories — we have proof. 

There is a book my mother once 

told me about (hi, mom!), but the 

name escapes me. It is about the stages 

of life and how they are similar for 

all of us. I think the aim of the book is 

to teach you how to navigate life, but 

I am more concerned with the breakdown. 

In our teens we all feel insecure, 

in our twenties we are afraid of growing 

up, in our thirties we are scared 

that our life is not heading where we 

want it to, and so on. I’d imagine that 

once we hit sixty we all wonder if the 

life we led was one to be proud of, and 

after that we worry about dying. 

My point is this: even though the 

same things happen over and over 

again, that does not make them insignificant. 

If your grandmother moves 

into your house because she can no 

longer take care of herself, if you think 

you might be failing out of school, or 

if your friend just died, I still want to 

hear about it. You can talk about it, 

make a movie, or write a book; I’ll 

listen, watch, or read. Everything 

that happens to me is important, so 

everything that happens to you must 

have meaning. It doesn’t matter if it 

sounds “cliché.” Share your story, and 

don’t let anyone tell you not to. And if 

you’re really stuck, tell me – I’ll listen. 

I think my email is in the lower righthand 

corner. FC 

The author of this column wishes to 

remain anonymous. You may write to him 

at OnePennDude@gmail. 

You are cordially invited to the 

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O 

ver the past 

few years, reality 

shows on television have become 

ever more popular. From the bottom 

of the barrel (Fear Factor, The Real 

World, Big Brother) to competition 

shows (American Idol, The Apprentice, 

Project Runway) to supposedly 

more honorable or charitable fare 

(The Biggest Loser, The Big Give, 

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), 

reality shows have largely replaced 

scripted shows on TV because they 

are easy and cheap to produce while 

winning sky-high ratings. But reality 

shows have nothing on the most dramatic 

reality show of all: this year’s 

Democratic primary. 

It almost seems like Hillary Clinton 

and Barack Obama were fated to 

fight each other. It is the ambitious 

woman versus the eloquent black 

man, the conniving bitch (as Tina Fey 

said on SNL, “Bitch is the new black”) 

versus the wordsmith of meaningless 

platitudes (what does “Yes we can!” 

really mean?). However you want to 

look at it, the two are equally matched 

and increasingly combative. Hillary 

has the support of old Democrats, the 

party faithful, and those still loyal to 

the Clinton political machine. Obama 

has the support of young voters, African 

Americans, and those sick of the 

Bush-Clinton dynamic that could potentially 

rule America from 1988 to 

2016 – 28 years of just two families. 

As Obama and Clinton head into 

the Pennsylvania primary, the campaign 

is only getting more heated. 

Pennsylvania is the biggest of the remaining 

primaries and still weeks 

away (South Dakota and Montana 


have primaries on June 3, six months 

after the original caucuses in Iowa). 

Obama has a slight lead in delegates, 

a lead seemingly insurmountable 

without Clinton turning the tide at 

the party convention by convincing 

enough “superdelegates” to vote for 

her. (A superdelegate is a party big 

shot – governors, Congress members, 

party leaders – who can vote any way 

they want.) 

Here is the rub. If superdelegates 

turn the tide and elect Clinton as the 

Democratic nominee, Obama’s supporters 

will be outraged at the subversion 

of the democratic process 

and likely stay home from the general 

election. In particular, black voters, 

Obama’s most loyal supporters (90% 

of them voted for Obama in Mississippi, 

the most recent primary), will 

probably lose all faith in the process, 

as well they should, and choose not 

to vote against John McCain. On the 

age over the time between the Civil 

War and the early twentieth century, 

positioning itself against the big cats 

and having a stronghold among poor 

Southern voters disenchanted with 

big industry. Franklin D. Roosevelt is 

surely the best example of this part of 

the Democratic Party, elected to fight 

the Great Depression and passing the 

New Deal to help the common worker. 

The Southern base was lost in the sixties, 

when Lyndon B. Johnson and the 

Democrats supported the Civil Rights 

Act of 1964. Today, the party base is 

entirely in the Northeast, with much 

of it comprised of well-off liberals uncomfortable 

with evangelicalism and 

megachurches. 

But during George W. Bush’s 

terms as President, the Democrats 

have laid down and accepted everything 

thrown their way. Already 

weakened – since John F. Kennedy’s 

assassination in 1963, Republicans 

the Taliban), Americans offered large 

bounties for terrorists. Needless to say, 

many innocent people were picked up 

and transmitted to Gitmo in exchange 

for American money. 

The triumph of the American legal 

system – due process and the rule of 

law – has been, shockingly, abandoned 

at Gitmo. Prisoners are held without 

being charged with crimes, without 

recourse to defend themselves, without 

access to the evidence presented at 

the “tribunals” (what a word! It calls 

to mind Soviet Russia more than anything) 

they are given, and without access 

to the Koran for prayer. They are 

allegedly being tortured according to 

human rights groups, and they are increasingly 

attempting suicide. Worst 

of all, American attempts to criticize 

countries like China for their human 

rights offenses such as torture are absurd 

and laughable now that America 

itself has refused to ban torture itself. 

I think the end of 

the Democratic Party 

would be a fantastic thing. 

other hand, if the superdelegates stick 

with Obama, women voters will grow 

disenchanted with losing the seemingly 

one chance for a female president 

and also stay home. Either way, 

the Democratic nominee, at one point 

an apparent shoo-in against an immensely 

unpopular Republican party, 

will have a big strike against him or 

herself. 

This may be stretching the issue, 

perhaps, but the controversy over the 

Democratic nomination (not just the 

superdelegates, but Michigan and 

Florida as well) could go a long way 

to destroying the Democratic Party. 

This is the point I want to get to, and 

it is why I spent four paragraphs summarizing 

the situation of which many 

of you may already be aware. And I 

think the end of the Democratic Party 

would be a fantastic thing. 

The Democratic Party came of 

10 FIRST CALL MARCH 24, 2008 

have held the White House for almost 

two-thirds of the forty-five years – the 

Democrats have failed to do anything 

to check Bush’s historically increasing 

powers. The war in Iraq was based on 

the premise that Saddam Hussein was 

developing weapons of mass destruction; 

he had stopped those programs 

in the mid-nineties. Either Bush knew 

that, in which case he’s a war-monger, 

or he didn’t know that, in which case 

he’s incompetent. But in either case, 

the Democrats allowed this unnecessary 

war to go through without significant 

opposition. 

Even worse, they have failed to do 

anything about Guantanamo Bay and 

other human rights offenses perpetrated 

by Americans during the course 

of the war on terror. After the war in 

Afghanistan (a real war – one that it 

is progressively failing as the focus on 

Iraq has led to a quiet resurgence of 

All this has been extensively documented 

– no need to list all the rights 

lost under the Patriot Act, the Federal 

Intelligence Surveillance Act, and on 

and on – but the Democratic Party 

has done nothing to stop it. With 

the Democrats beating each other to 

pieces, McCain seems increasingly 

likely to win the general election, and 

he has, if anything, even more hardlined 

stances about such issues than 

Bush does. What America needs is 

a new political party, one willing to 

stand up against the abuse of human 

rights against detainees and others as 

well as one both willing and able to 

fight against the Republican party’s 

increasing domination of the political 

sphere. I am not optimistic. FC 

Isaac Katz is a junior in the College. 

You can write to him at isaachk@sas.

Photo Spotlight: 

Spring 2004, BY Richard LIEBOWITZ 

Richard Liebowitz is a sophomore in the College. You can write to him at liebowit@sas. 


We all have those personal occasions 

we look back on fondly 

with a cringe and shudder. I remember, 

for example, when I was walking 

home from work over the summer 

and this fairly large man was about 

to walk into me; he was clearly in my 

way, on the wrong side of the sidewalk, 

and I refused to move to the side 

– out of principle. It was like a game 

of chicken, but I was in the right. So 

when he hit me, and he did, I looked 

at him with a pointed glare – only 

to see he was blind. Then the bright 

orange jacket his dog was wearing 

made much more sense. As well as his 

cane. And the fact that, without looking 

both ways, he had just crossed a 

dangerous intersection long after the 

blinking red hand had stopped blinking. 

I still wince every time I think 

about it. 

In fact, come to think of it, I made 

a possibly more shameful mistake, 

also on my way home from work, that 

I probably shouldn’t admit to in public. 

But I will anyway, since this time 

it was different. A 76-or-so-year-old 

woman saw me a long way off rushing 

up the steps to the subway. I was clearly, 

visibly, in a frantic rush to catch 

the train, and this time she wasn’t 

blind. And I really only brushed her 

elbow. And there was absolutely no 

reason for her to cry out “Owwww!” so 

loudly. I mean, she was on the wrong 

side of the stairs. And it’s not like I 

shoved her. Actually, I didn’t really do 

anything wrong at all. Why should I 

be ashamed that some whiney old 

hag tried to pull the ‘senior’ sympathy 

card? And she definitely didn’t have to 

give me that nasty, moaning, certainly-contrived-to-make-me-feel-bad 

glare. Damn it, if that cranky bitch— 

Okay, I just winced again. I may 

have basically slide-tackled a frail old 

woman without feeling guilty. But how 

could that happen? Who am I? How 

did I become such a MONSTER? 

Well, clearly, it’s a result of the 

deterioration of the easy American 

commute. Yes, that’s right, this article 


90 minute commute 

the ins and outs of getting to work 

Michael sall 

is not actually about self-deprecation. 

As easy as it may be to assume the 

blame for my own actions, I can’t ignore 

the truth: both of those incidents 

occurred during my commute home 

from work. So really, this isn’t about 

me. This isn’t even about mistakes 

(which weren’t mistakes). This is about 

something much, much bigger. This is 

about our nation, about hard-working 

Americans, and about how such hard 

workers must get home each day after 

working so hard. With my own eyes 

and bruises I have witnessed just another 

example of the goings-to-hell of 

our society. We’re doomed. 

And the Transportation Research 

Board of the National Academies 

agrees with me, more or less. According 

to their “Commuting in America 

III” report, published in 2006, the 

average American spends 51 minutes 

roundtrip commuting to and from 

work. Think about that for a second. 

That amounts to nearly 9 whole days 

each year, all devoted merely to getting 

to work and back. That would 

be like spending your entire spring 

break, morning and night, just riding 

on a jam-packed subway or driving in 

rush-hour traffic. Every year, until you 

retire. And that’s the average. 

Even worse, over 10 million 

Americans had roundtrip commutes 

of more than 2 hours, and a third of 

those had commutes of more than 3 

hours. That’s an incredible amount 

of time to spend simply on the road 

between home and work, especially 

when you have another 8 hours—not 

including lunch, of course—of actually 

working on top of it. 

And it’s not like our commutes 

are getting any shorter. In fact, it’s the 

opposite. In 1980, the average roundtrip 

commute was 43.4 minutes. It increased 

only 1.4 minutes over the next 

decade to 44.8 minutes in 1990. And 

by 2000, we’re at 51, an increase for 

the decade of 6.2 minutes (the report 

is based on data for the year 2000). 

That’s pretty much exponential. 

Actually, that’s not quite true, 

since the report acknowledges a bias 

in the 1990 data, requiring an adjustment. 

But if not exponential, the adjusted 

results are still very much linear 

in growth. Based on those 3 (statistically 

significant, of course…) data 

points, it looks like our commutes are 

growing at a rate of almost 2 minutes 

every five years. Wow! Good heavens! 

Ok, I admit that wasn’t quite as dramatic 

as I had hoped. Let me try rephrasing 

for greater impact: every five 

years, we add another 8 hours to our 

annual commuting times. Extrapolating 

enormously here, after 15 years, 

we’re just giving away another day. 

Now, that does kind of suck. 

But I should stop playing with the 

numbers like that (I really hope there 

aren’t any statisticians reading this) 

because the data alone, without any 

inappropriate regressions, are alarming 

enough. The fact remains that today, 

I’m averaging a 5 minute walk to 

class—or a 10 minute total commute, 

if you can call it that—and the rest of 

America is doing 51. And “commute” 

is only defined as the roundtrip travel 

time between home and work. It 

doesn’t include hitting the snooze button 

four times, then taking a shower, 

then getting dressed, then eating 

breakfast, then finding your keys, 

then finally leaving your place before 

running back inside to grab that last 

thing you always forget. It probably 

does include stopping to a get a cup of 

coffee on the way, but still, when are 

these people waking up? 

The report doesn’t say, but the 

wise reader might ask when Americans 

are beginning these ridiculous 

commutes, and the report does have 

an answer to that. As expected, the 

peak start times are between 6:00 am 

and 9:00 am, with 64% of workers 

falling in this range. But here is where 

I’m completely shocked: over 11% of 

workers have to start their commutes 

before 6:00 am. 6:00 am! And they’re 

merely walking out of their doors, fully 

dressed and ready to go, by this time. 

I thought 9:00 am classes were bad, 

but 11% of all American workers are 

probably waking up before many of us

are even going to bed. Moreover, that 

figure compares with maybe 9% of 

workers leaving by 6:00 am in 1990 

(that being my best calculation based 

on some confusing, indirect data 

provided by the report), so naturally 

things are only getting worse. 

And what kind of article would 

this be without some international 

comparative statistics to show just 

how bad we really have it? While 

Americans are averaging 51 minutes, 

Germans are averaging 44, the 

French are at 36, the Spanish have 

33, and Italians are enjoying a mere 

23, all roundtrip. In fact, the entire 

European Union is averaging just 38 

minutes. (The source for this data, if it 

interests you, has an impressively long 

name: The Fourth European Working 

Conditions Survey by the European 

Foundation for the Improvement of 

Living and Working Conditions, or as 

I like to call it, the FEWCSEFILWC.) 

We can at least take some relief in 

the fact that we’re not alone – the UK 

has it 3 minutes rougher than us with 

an average 54 minutes, according to 

the RAC Foundation. But that’s just 

because more of them use public transit 

– specifically, about 14% of workers 

in the UK take the bus or rail (the oneway 

travel times of which can average 

between 36 and 61 minutes) whereas 

only about 4.5% of Americans do so. 

Still, as a recent New Yorker article 

published, workers in Japan 

commute for an average 90 minutes 

each day. And in Bangkok, one of the 

worst cities in the world for commuting, 

citizens are averaging two hours 

each day. Well, that does make me feel 

a little better, actually. 

You would think, though, that 

with the advent of technology and 

computers and everything else, these 

numbers would instead be improving. 

We have better cars, better forms 

of public transportation (SEPTA isn’t 

getting any worse), and even better 

traffic control systems. We have all the 

accessible information we could need, 

with GPS displays in our cars and 

Blackberries in our pockets. I would 

think every one of these things would 

be working in our favor. 

Plus, with the internet and the 

rest of improvements in communication, 

more Americans are working at 

home (in fact, 4.1 million Americans 

did so in 2000, versus 3.4 million in 

1990, and only 2.1 in 1980), so these 

people don’t even need to commute… 

every little bit helps, right? Why, then, 

are things getting worse? Why are 

commutes getting longer? Why do 

Americans have to leave for work so 

much earlier? 

Well, there are plenty of good ex- 


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planations. As “Commuting in America 

III” suggests, some of this is due to a 

trend of Americans seeking to simply 

avoid the rush hour, with more and 

more workers beginning their commutes 

before 6:00 am or after 9:00 

am (the 64% of working Americans 

falling in this range was 67% a decade 

before). Some of it is also due to an 

interesting movement where many 

Americans are starting to live in cities 

and work in the suburbs, rather than 

the other way around. Then there is 

always population growth, another 

decent explanation, and with that 

comes the issue of traffic. 

Traffic, actually, is a rather good 

explanation, and it’s easy to complain 

about. The Texas Transportation Institute 

produces an annual “Urban 

Mobility” report that measures all the 

extra time we have to spend in traffic – 

that is, the additional time we spend 

on the road solely due to congestion. 

For the “average peak period traveler” 

(so, only looking at workers driving 

during rush-hour) in 2007, this added 

up to an extra 38 hours of traveling 

each year. That’s over one and a half 

days, above and beyond usual travel 

times, just because of traffic. They 

also went a step further and calculated 

how much it cost us: 26 extra 

gallons in fuel, adding up to $710 per 

traveler in 2007. To determine these 

figures, the study looked at 437 specific 

U.S. urban areas that ranged in 

population. If you just look at those 

areas with populations of more than 3 

million, that figure jumps to 54 hours. 

Among them, the Philadelphia urban 

area retains the national average of 38 

hours. Based on this national figure, 

that’s still adding another 9 minutes 

to the daily commute of drivers. 

For whatever reason things are 

getting worse, though, it’s worth questioning 

why we are accepting it. Don’t 

we care? Couldn’t we take a closer job, 

or if not, at least move closer to work? 

We have people in the cities working in 

the suburbs and people in the suburbs 

working in the cities – that makes no 

sense. Why don’t they switch homes? 

Or jobs? 

The best explanation I’ve read, 

honestly, is that people are just, kind 

of… too dumb to notice. A little while 

ago, economists Bruno Frey and 

Alois Stutzer of the University of Zurich 

published a report titled “Stress 

That Doesn’t Pay: The Commuting 

Paradox.” It was a psychological study 

seeking to determine how people value 

their commutes relative to compensation. 

The results showed that, if you 

were to increase your commute time 

from zero to an hour each way, your 

salary would have to increase by 40% 

to satisfyingly make up for it. That implies 

that those who commute should 

be receiving significantly more compensation 

than those who don’t, but 

this simply isn’t happening. Hence 

the “Commuting Paradox”: people are 

commuting even though it’s terrible. 

They’re simply not realizing they need 

to be paid more for the unhappiness 

of it. 

Now, there may be plenty of other 

good explanations, but already I’ve 

provided an abundance of statistics, 

and you’re probably wondering exactly 

what my point is. You could be 

thinking I want to encourage my fellow 

Americans to recognize their nonsensical 

habits of commuting. Maybe 

I want everyone to take a closer look at 

their situation and decide if their own 

commutes are really worth it. Maybe 

I have some great ambitious plans to 

fix traffic, commuting times, and early 

wake-ups. Maybe I’m trying to warn 

the rest of the student population 

about life after school. Or maybe I just 

get some sick pleasure out of alarming 

anyone who will listen about the 

inevitable impending doom! 

Well, if you were supposing any 

of those things, you were wrong. Really, 

this is all one big elaborate rationalization 

for those two previously 

described incidents that took place 

during my own commutes home from 

work. Clearly, in the horrible times we 

are suffering, these things are bound 

to happen. My commute at the time 

was far above average, 90 minutes 

each way. Of course I’m going to be in 

a rush, and it’s just common courtesy 

to give me more space. So the next 

time some old lady gets in my way, I’ll 

tell her, “Sorry, times have changed. 

Now move it.” And as for that blind 

man – well, okay, maybe I still don’t 

have much of an excuse there. If you’re 

reading this, sorry about that. FC 

Michael Sall is a junior 

in Wharton and the College. 

You can write to him at sallms@wharton.

Review: saturnalia 

A Reach towards the light for a match made in hell 

Steven Waye 

The privilege of writing a piece on 

The Gutter Twins’ Saturnalia is, 

for me, the critical equivalent of handing 

out a lifetime achievement award. 

The aptly named Gutter Twins, Mark 

Lanegan and Greg Dulli, have toiled 

in parallel obscurity for a decade and 

a half, cranking out some of the most 

inventive and visceral music from that 

period. Dulli’s quartet Afghan Whigs, 

described by Rolling Stone as spending 

“the bulk of their career on the 

brink of stardom,” and Lanegan’s band 

Screaming Trees, the forgotten sons of 

the Seattle grunge scene, are shunted 

aside in discussions about 

the greatest rock 

acts of the 

90’s. To this 

day they are 

prohibitively 

overshadowed 

by bands like 

Soundgarden, 

Pearl Jam, and 

Alice in Chains, 

despite producing 

catalogues that 

have aged as well 

or better than their 

c o n t e m p o raries. 

They are the neglected 

younger brothers 

of jaded flannel rock, 

the Kevin Dillons of 

the alternative scene. 

However, in my 

eyes these are two of 

the greatest frontmen 

of their era, and the longevity 

of their careers, if 

nothing else, supports my 

claim. They have managed 

admirably to con- t i n u e 

to make compelling music leading up 

to this 2008 release without tragically 

self-destructing (Layne Staley, 

Kurt Cobain) or becoming a flickering 

echo of their own fading stars (Chris 

Cornell, Eddie Vedder). While admittedly 

uneven, Saturnalia highlights 

the complimentary creative prowess 

of two backburner legends in the twilight 

of their careers, and when Lanegan’s 

smoky growl tangos with Dulli’s 

fire-breathing wail, the result is some 

truly stunning black magic. 

The opening track, “The Stations,” 

sets the tone, with Lanegan crooning, 

“O mama, ain’t no time to fall to pieces,” 

with every ounce of bitterness his 

pack-a-day baritone can muster. The 

guitars and strings wail in the background 

as Dulli joins Lanegan for the 

chorus, lamenting a salvation that 

for them only serves as a consistent 

reminder of what they always 

pined for but never 

tasted: 

“They 

say the rapture’s coming/ 

they say he’ll be here soon/right now 

there’s demons crawling all around 

my room/They say he lives within us/ 

They say for me he died/And now I 

hear his footsteps almost every night.” 

Throughout the album, the musical 

accompaniment serves only as 

an atmospheric backdrop to two men 

struggling to make sense of a life of 

burgeoning disappointment, as a 

movie score might serve to heighten 

the emotional intensity of a tragic 

dialogue. Yet, strangely, Saturnalia 

finds Dulli and Lanegan closer to anything 

resembling peace than we have 

ever heard in any of their previous 

endeavors. The tension and scrappiness 

that defined their output to this 

point is still there, but the interplay 

between Dulli and Lanegan reveals a 

ruggedly beautiful synchronicity that 

led Dulli to dub them “the Satanic 

Everly Brothers.” “We had to become 

the Gutter Twins because that’s how 

we were perceived,” Dulli quips. This 

album captures the sound of two 

weathered men working together in 

world-weary harmony, a kinship of 

the kicked-around. 

Though Saturnalia recycles 

many of its best moments, it has 

plenty of them. “The Body” is an 

ethereal ballad that sounds like 

something “Adore”-era Billy Corgan 

may have penned if he had 

the vocal chops to pull it off. 

Martina Topley-Bird’s guest 

vocals make the song really 

take off and transport the listener. 

“Who Will Lead Us” 

is a hauntingly dark gospeltinged 

ballad that showcases 

Lanegan’s more wistful 

side. “Idle Hands” sounds 

like a dance party in Hades, 

and you can also hear 

the ground shaking as 

Lanegan croaks “With 

idle hands/there’s nothing 

I can do/but be the 

Devil’s plaything, baby/and 

know that I’ve been used.” When 

Dulli accompanies him for the chorus, 

it scares the bejeezus out of me in the 

most beautiful way imaginable. 

“Heaven, it’s quite a climb…” 

reads the epigraph to the bio section 

on the band’s website, a line lifted 

from the Saturnalia track “Seven Stories 

Underground.” Here’s to hoping 

the duo’s ascent continues on for a few 

more rungs, and that they keep dragging 

us up along with them. FC 

Steven Waye is a sophomore in the College. 

You can write to him at waye@sas. 


words that have z’s in them 

ACROSS 

1. “Wild and ___ Kids” hit 90s 

TV show. 

3. Funny hat, or a city in Morocco. 

7. Russian monarch. 

8. United States-based chain 

restaurant famous for all-youcan 

eat fried shrimp. 

9. Polling company. 

13. White wine. 

14. Island where the Z in Tanzania 

comes from. 

16. Energy, vitality, vigor, spirit 

fingers, 4 z’s. 

19. “For sure,” as spoken by 

Snoop Dog. 

22. The only state that fits the 

puzzle. 

23. Referee of the animal 

kingdom. 

26. Definitely not straight. 

27. And the art of motercycles. 

28. Find your way out. 

DOWN 

2. YKK mystery. (Solved: just a 

Japanese company.) 

4. Don Diego de la Vega 

5. Incredible. 

6. Weather-based Dairy Queen 

product. 

10. Not quite drunk. 

11. An intermediate floor between 

main floors of a building. 

from. 

Visit our online home at 

WWW.FIRSTCALLMAGAZINE.COM 

22 23 The Referee only of state the that animal fits kingdom. 

the puzzle. 

15 17 Alcohol, Type of sign, all kinds. 

found in stars. 

and 27 post And the art your of motercycles. comments. So we strip feel club. popular. 


7 

18 

22 

3 

28 

1 

Across 17. Type of sign, found in stars. 

Wild and ___ Kids – hit 90s TV show. 

3 Funny hat, or a closed-down city in Morocco. strip club. 

7 Russian monarch. 20. Like an eggplant, but not. 

8 United States-based chain restaurant 

famous for all-you-can eat fried shrimp. 

9 Polling company. 

13 White wine. 

14 Island where the Z in Tanzania comes 

12. Psychological condition 

resulting from the frequent act 

of turning in a circle. 

14. Like a blimp, but explosive. 

15. Alcohol, all kinds. 

16 Energy, vitality, vigor, spirit fingers, 4 z’s. 

19 “For sure,” as spoken by Snoop Dog. 

26 Definitely not straight. 

28 Find your way out. 

9 

14 

26 

4 

25 

18. Like a witch, but not. Also a 

21. He swings on a rope and screams 

10 

21 

15 

8 

6 

13 

23 

1 

5 

24 

19 

17 

2 

16 

11 

27 

for no Down apparent reason. 

223. YKK Legendary conspiracy. Nintendo (Actually, game. just a Japa 

24. company.) 

Famous clown. 

425. Don Always Diego with pepperoni. de la Vega 

5 Incredible. 

6 Weather-based Dairy Queen product. 

10 Not quite drunk. 

11 An intermediate floor between main fl 

a building. 

12 Psychological condition resulting from 

frequent act of turning in a circle. 

14 Like a blimp, but explosive. 

18 Like a witch, but not. Also a closed-do 

20 Like an eggplant, but not. 

21 He swings on a rope and screams for 

apparent reason. 

23 Legendary Nintendo game. 

24 Famous clown. 

25 Always with pepperoni. 

20 

12

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