Wyclef, rumors, and mixed messages

As CUSG has demonstrated abundantly this year, you can’t roll your joint and smoke it too. If Boulder’s most highly anticipated day of the year didn’t get enough press as is, the CU administration has been rolling out increasingly controversial memos to students this year in an effort to finally make a genuine impact on the number of hippies lighting up on Norlin Quad.

On Friday CUSG will host a a concert in the Coors Event Center featuring Wyclef Jean. Students attendance is free and the doors open at 2 p.m. (CU Independent/Kai Casey)

Whether the administration will successfully be able to herd the faded masses into the Coors Event Center (to see internationally renowned Guy-Who-Likes-To-Get-High Wyclef Jean) will only be seen at the time of judgment on Friday. Does this concert constitute the most legitimate attempt CU has made in recent history to actually curb the number of hula-hooping pictures circling the internet? Absolutely. Have there been some absurd mixed messages circling around the nature of the event? You betcha.

At this point, everyone’s heard the rumors: myths of students being locked into the Event Center after 4pm and forced to witness an entire Wyclef Jean concert, fire hazards be damned.

“These are all false,” said Carly Robinson, vice president of internal affairs at CUSG. “None of that is the case, it’s just like any other concert.” Despite the ever-looming nuclear explosion of drugs that’s waiting to go off once the show starts, it’s clear that students can expect this show to run like any other Program Council event.

As much as the irony of the situation seems all but palpable, Robinson claims that CUSG is extremely pleased with the choice of artist, but maintains its neutral stance towards marijuana.

“It’s not a message about being pro or against marijuana, it’s a message about the value of our degree and how much of a disruption it is to our campus on that day,” Robinson said.

While this rally to bring the annual brain cell genocide to a (literally) more contained area is valiant, it’s questionable if this event will actually curtail the personality that the school has developed, especially when hints of Program Council using enormous fans to circumvent the amount of smoke expected to arise in the venue come out.

In regards to the apparent contractual agreement with Wyclef to not even mention the day in question or marijuana at all, Heather Starbuck, director of Program Council, called the provision a mutual agreement with CUSG.

“It’s more that we suggested it because it’s a university event, and we don’t want a political slant,” Starbuck said.

That being said, Starbuck acknowledged that there is not much the school can do if Wyclef chooses to break that rule (which considering the section of “Something About Mary” where he literally chants “Mary J, Mary J” over and over, may prove somewhat unreasonable)  however neutrality is clearly the golden word of the day.

Despite the options for what to do on campus this Friday are more or less completely laid out for students, many are still unsure how the day will pan out.

“There’s definitely going to be people who show up and get pissed off, but they’re stoners so they’ll find some other place to smoke, said sophomore Todd Holton. “I definitely think people will make a scene though given the attitude of people in Boulder.”

Others still side with the school’s cause, and doubt the legitimacy of the Norlin smoke-out as a form of rebellion. “It’s kind of just become a party, it’s not really an excuse for legalizing marijuana anymore, so I understand why CU wants to get rid of it,” said sophomore jazz studies major Greg Wahl.

All of the hullabaloo surrounding the event is only building tension for what will actually happen when the clock strikes twenty past four on Friday. The purported “devaluing” of the degree that CUSG claims is happening seems a bit exaggerated; generally speaking the impression one makes in an interview as well as one’s ability to demonstrate their qualifications makes a larger difference than the sparse images that show up when you type their school’s name into Google.

Still, until the day arrives and it is seen whether students show up or shut up, there’s no way of knowing how well CUSG and Program Council’s plans will work. If this truly is the stoners’ end of days for CU, we must heed the words of Zenmaster Wyclef: “With what goes up, must come down, ‘The Laws of Gravity’/To win at chess, you’ve got to trap the king, ay.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sam Goldner at Samuel.Goldner@colorado.edu.