Photo Illustration by Oliver Renick

With finals week upon us and the Cornell news scene generally slow, I am left with no other option than to give my personal analysis / recount of Slope Day 2009. It seems the Review’s personal Nostradamus, Eddie Herron, correctly called this one in his earlier post in March titled Slope Day = Snore Day. As a side note, I’m sorry that my pun ‘Nope Day’ isn’t as good as Eddie’s ‘Snore Day,’ and generally doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Anyway, it sure was a snore day. Snore meaning the performers were for the most part boring, it was humid and sticky, and many people were unconscious, literally, snoring loudly on the slope. Now I’m not sure how the number of sleepers compared to the usual one, as it was my first slope, but there seemed to be more people who succumbed to the siren of the sandman due to boredom and heat, as opposed to heavy and rapid alcohol consumption.

The rapid alcohol consumption was surely in play, though, no doubt; or at least it must have been, because some people were actually enjoying the music. While the hot humid weather, the obnoxious snoring drunks, and the disturbing fatties with the giant turkey legs available at the food stands all contributed to a sub-par slope experience, the music definitely tipped the lameness scale, seeing as how it contributed about 90% of the weight. The ‘music’ started off with a band called the Apples in Stereo (wow, I thought my title to this post was bad). Granted, they did have some good guitar riffs and decent instrumentals, I’m quite sure I was not the only one who couldn’t get past the lead singer’s voice. It sounded like a castrated(?) Michael Jackson, except if while Mikey was singing somebody was taking a cheese grater to his ‘nose’. Not to mention that when the singer finally stopped singing, his comments were awkward and gave me the same feeling I used to have watching early Sinbad routines (look them up, they were pretty slow…). All of this began to make a lot of sense when I found out via the slope day page that TAIS actually did that “rocker” of a song for oldtime The Powerpuff Girls show on Cartoon Network.

Nope.

After Jackson’s nose in the Stereo decided to leave, the much awaited Asher Roth showed up! HoOoRay! He was terrible. I know this because I watched his whole show and then conducted an unrecorded survey of sample size n=? and enough of the n agreed that he was terrible. And if my survey isn’t enough for you, search YouTube and you may find plenty of video time chronicling the water-bottle throwing that succeeding in hitting Roth and his shaggy-haired homeboy a few times. It’s all good though, because Roth utilized his crowd interaction skills to curse out the assailers and get the crowd to chant about how much those particular Cornellians sucked. When he was done making fun of the fans, he decided to do a ‘freestyle’ rap about none other than fat people, nutrients, sustainability, and making healthy choices eating food. Wow.

Even the Ivy League nerds at Cornell knew that this was not good rapping. Finally, Roth and his random friend dancing with him on stage concluded with the hit song I Love College. While this song and some of his others have a head-bobbable beat, they just don’t come through as an entirety. Of course a lot of college kids really love this song because it hits so incredibly close to dorm, and it’s kind of funny, it’s the same subject matter as the rest of his songs, and frankly, it gets real old, funny, and stupid, real fast. Why do I want to hear this? Big deal, Asher, you woke up, smoked weed and got a girl ‘completely naked.’ Awesome, bro, thanks for telling me. Throughout the show, he touched on such enticing subjects as eating, sleeping, being a college student, skipping class, and playing Madden NFL. Awesome, Roth! Did you make a franchise team on Madden or do you prefer playing ‘quickplay’ mode? How long are your quarters when you play?

I mean, seriously, why don’t you just rap about my personal day, since I’m not a big fan of smoking pot and getting ridiculously drunk during the afternoon. Here’s how mine would go: “Just woke up at ten, sweet / just ate some cinnamon toast crunch, neat / added too much milk, rats! / went to class, bombed a Calc quiz… blast! / does anybody know how to use the Langrange multiplier? / brought a girl to my room, unfortunately my roommate interrupted and we discussed the real life application of economic theory.”

Nope.

Thankfully, the Pussycat Dolls saved the day! Not really, but they actually impressed me the most (which, this Slope Day, was equivalent to finding the image in a ‘Magic-eye’ picture before a blind kid). The lead singer, Nicole, is pretty good at getting the crowd excited, and they have a lot of catchy tunes that I didn’t even realize they sang. Plus, it was hard to tell if she was wearing clothes (Asher must have been the one who got her ‘completely naked’). Plus, I like that song about the buttons. Unfortunately, I tried to loosen up my own but my fingers were too sweaty from the heat to undo them. The PCD were also cut short due to inclement weather, which consisted of light rain. All in all, while they were fun, they appealed to a small audience mostly filled with males who didn’t move much. Even then, though, I think the concept of the Pussycat Dolls could have been a lot more effectively achieved if the Slope Day organizers just gave all the guys a DVD of Moulin Rouge that we could watch in the privacy of our own dormitories.

Nope.

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