Charlie: So I’m sitting in Lisa Cohen’s room — speaking of which, did the producers of “Weekend at Bernie’s 2” really think that there was fresh comedy to be harvested in the “pretending a corpse is a real guy” genre? Just asking — anyway, so I’m in Lisa’s room, listening to God knows what, maybe Aimee Mann or Tori Amos or something, and we’re trying to plot out how to do our huge joint column, clearly THE event of the Yale Daily News this year, which has otherwise featured mostly articles about Saybrook Dining Hall and garbage like that. And we’ve come up with this tremendously funny idea, despite the Barenaked Ladies in the background, that I’ll do FASHION (I usually do parties) and Lisa will do PARTIES (she usually does fashion). The primary problem with this plan is that, while Lisa knows a lot about parties, probably more than me and Samantha Boardman combined, I know pretty much nothing about fashion that Brooks Brothers and Miami Vice didn’t teach me. And this despite the fact that I was in France all summer, chilling with Frankie Rayder.
Lisa: So I’ve taught Charlie pretty much everything I know in half an hour. — I showed him the men’s fashion magazine to relate the subject to him, then I showed him my closet and tried on a fabulous Chinese jacket that I have, and then I sprinkled in a few witty movie references that he might get– and presto– le fashionisto!
Charlie: So Lisa, have you been to any good parties recently?
Lisa: Oh my god– did you get all my e-mails about Miss America pageant? So we had a Miss America party, with my friends Beth and Jeanette and a bottle of wine. I KNEW Miss Florida. She made top 10. Kelly Gaudet. I partied with her in high school because she went to high school with my best friend. She was Miss Florida Teen and stuff– all those girls are such hardened pageant vets. That was basically my job this summer. I know so much about pageants, completely involuntarily. It’s just like Miss Congeniality. They made the pageant contestants WATCH Miss Congeniality. It was ridiculous. They were all just staring into space and stuff, without watching at all, because none of them believe all the bull—- about how great pageants are. They think they’ll be able to get newsanchor jobs or cheap modeling contracts. They all major in communications. Jesus.
[Lisa: Do I really say “stuff” that much? Oh. I say another word for which “stuff” can be substituted a lot. Yes, I do say that word a lot. And the f-one also.]
Charlie: For those of you keeping score at home, we’re listening to Blondie now. Rapture. Lisa looks like Blondie now, believe it or not. She’s quite the platinum stunner, whereas she used to look more like Virginia Madsen, circa 1996, dirty blonde.
Lisa: I love having my hair like this. But it’s a secret, why. I’ll never tell.
Charlie: And– Lisa just told me. But I’m sworn to secrecy.
Lisa: Forever.
Charlie: Forever.
Lisa: Do you remember the beach party last year, where they got all that sand? That was a great party. At 28 Lynwood.
Charlie: That was not a great party.
Lisa: It was!
Charlie: For those of you who were not there, it was an all right party. Actually, it was a really good party. But it had a few flaws. For starters, you had to take your shoes off. I would rather play Russian Roulette than go to a party where you have to take your shoes off. Then there was the mountains of sand, which I guess made it a beach part but it was also VERY uncomfortable, like more uncomfortable than introducing your ex-girlfriend to your new girlfriend. But the main problem with the party was that someone tried to knife someone else in the street after it. I heard. I’m not a reporter so lay off with the fact-checking. But that’s what I heard.
[Lisa: I did not know about the knife thing. All I know is that I got play both Friday and Saturday as a result of this party.]
Lisa: Uh– what’s hot in fashion right now?
Charlie: One word: headbands. Lacoste headbands. Straight up.
Lisa: I have a GREAT idea [ignoring previous comment clearly because it goes right up there with “What do you mean it’s dumb to wear this Burberry scarf?”]. Why don’t I do fashion and you do parties? I don’t know why we never thought of that before.
Charlie: Damn. All right. Here’s what I think about parties at Yale right now: they suck. I miss TJ’s on Thursday night like hell, for one. Are you a big BAR fan?
Lisa: No, it’s horrible. The thing that I find so creepy about society is how people are friends they would never be friends with and they probably won’t be friends with them for a long time, but they’re excited for that crap. These kids have been around already. I’ve met them. I’ve know they’re cool. You just didn’t want to be friends with them. And then everyone shows up at BAR with their entire society.
Charlie: Yeah. True. Society’s all right, though. I agree about BAR, though. It’s the worst. They make me show my passport at the door, because I can’t drive, and half the time I forget it and everything, and then I have to go home. And then when I’m inside there’s that god-awful music. And the beer is gross, if that’s possible. And if that’s not bad enough, what are we listening to?
Lisa: The Handsome Boy Modeling Agency. [sic. Handsome Boy Modeling School]
Charlie: All right. So Lisa, how about some fashion advice for the lovelorn freshmen?
Lisa: Something you like– I don’t know [Lisa: I think I actually said something very inappropriate here although I don’t think any lovelorn freshmen were involved].
Charlie: Come on! You’re the fashion police!
Lisa: I wear the same jeans every day. (Gasp from the crowd. La Fashionista, wearing the same jeans every day? Wearing jeans? Buying off the rack, for Pete’s sake! Next they’re going to tell us that Don McLean (now playing on the radio) is a real person, and not a clever front for one of the Crickets, like Ja Rule with Tupac.)
Charlie: But what about the lovelorn freshmen? And by the lovelorn freshmen, I mean me. Just tell me what’s hot right now–
Lisa: Skin– skin is back again. Not like 80s mini-skirts, just like sexuality without the vulgarity, or something. Not minimalist either, because it’s sexy, but people should just wear what feels good. It’s about feel. Plus, we’re in a totally new era. There’s going to be a revolution in everything. Finally, stuff in our generation — there’s stuff that we have to deal with, and we’re waking up. We’re not Gen-X and we haven’t totally bought the dot-com hype and now we can feel smug for the first time. And while I have permission to be smug, I hate the Baby Boomers even more than I hate the Greatest Generation. There. I’ve said it. We were like the people in “Dazed and Confused,” but now we have to deal with real stuff. It’ll be great. We’ll be like the Lost Generation, maybe. It takes some violence to make the creative people creative. Or so says Schumpeter, who I have had to read in every class I’ve taken here. In order for art or anything to rise, something kind of catastrophic has to happen. [Lisa’s cavet: but I’ll do with Destiny’s Child and InSync if it means never having to see violence again. Of course.] But what’s hot– Wasabi Chips– clean is hot now, safe music and movies and clothes. There’s some horrible garbage out there right now.
Both Lisa and Charlie (together, in awkward unison as is a very long passage): Yes, there’s a lot of horrible garbage out there right now. Be discerning enough to recognize it and know when to slop in the garbage (like watching Home and Garden Television all of the time — Extreme Homes is an excellent show) and when to toss it out (like commercials with good songs in them). We honestly don’t know what you’ll do without the two of us puppets and the masters behind us, your glorious Scene editors Peter Jamison and Adriana Roitstein-Vega. Try to manage, okay?
Lisa S. Cohen and Charles Baker Finch III are supreme beings of seniority. You come at them with a knife, they come at you with a gun. You put one of theirs in the hospital, they put one of yours in the morgue. You donkey punch one of them, they give you DVDA. That’s the New Haven way.