A Preface to Lunch Elitist tastes not my jam

Author: James O'Brien

Last week, Daniel Streitfield's op-ed quoted an all-DJ e-mail from "a prominent member of WRMC." According to Streitfield's op-ed, the e-mail read, "It has come to my attention that THIRD EYE BLIND is leading in the online concert survey the Middlebury College Activities Board has sent out … you should take the survey and vote for SOMEONE ELSE." Hmm … what if I don't want to vote for someone else? What if I want Third Eye Blind, because they aren't Cake? Apparently this WRMCer assumes that everyone who works at the radio station shares his/her backwards snobbery. The logic goes something like this - if I can hear or ever have been able to hear your music on the radio, then I hate you.

The WRMC member went on to write: "Ozomatli is cool, but they're trailing big time [in the voting], so I'd go for Cake. They're pretty nineties, but they're alright, and they're WAY cheaper than Third Eye Blind, which means that we'll have more money left over for an actually sick spring side concert." What does "pretty nineties" mean exactly? I'm imagining Ozomatli singing Spice Girls covers and playing with Tamagachis on stage while the audience inhales fumes from their Nickelodeon Gak. Also, it makes a lot of sense to me that this shadowy WRMC figure would pick out Ozomatli as the one band to praise. Apparently after scrolling the list, he/she found that Cake only had the second weirdest name, and as a result, gave Ozomatli the station's full moral support. If I could address you directly for a moment, WRMC, I cannot wait for your spring side concert! I wonder what sick band you could get for us. Accidental Goat Sodomy? I hear Aggressive Crotch Display doesn't charge much these days. I'm afraid they may be a little mainstream for you guys, so just make the choice yourself. You are the experts - though Ambiguously Sizeable Tangerine has been getting a lot of critical praise lately. Just a thought.

The WRMC station is like a breeding ground for what Nietzsche called "slave morality." I'm sure that the prominent members of WRMC - since they are far too sophisticated to actually listen to the radio like a normal slob - have read the entire Nietzsche collection in their spare time. For those of you who haven't, slave morality is a set of values created in opposition to what the "master morality" sees as good. By "morality," Nietzsche means a set of values that actually create a culture, not just "rules people follow so that their parents will think they're good people" (my definition of morality). "Slave morality" is a great description of the WRMC culture, which we will call "WRMC morality."

WRMC morality is based on the idea that everything which is popular is bad, and the opposite of popular must be good. Third Eye Blind is popular? Gimme some Cake. People are wearing what? I will find an outfit that is somehow the exact opposite of that! I'm sure this thinking even dictates their Girl Scout Cookie orders. Thin Mints are popular? I want Lemon Chalet Cremes. Ah, there's nothing like being elite. And by "elite" I mean "different." And by "different" I mean "the same as everyone else who really wants to be different." And Lemon Chalet Cremes are gross.

In the online edition of The Campus there is one comment under Streitfield's aforementioned Cake op-ed. In it, the immortal "Dean Ferguson" offered this opinion about the situation. "I would say no, the WRMC concert committee does not have the duty to recruit the band that wins the poll … As cliquey as they are, the committee probably knows music better than you or I." Oh, come on, Dean. I'd say that the professors in the Middlebury music department probably "know music better than you or I," but I still don't want them picking our spring concert. They are old. And I sure as hell don't want WRMC picking my music, because they will spite us. Also, Dean, WRMC did not pick Cake - MCAB did. And I agree with their right to do so because MCAB isn't sending out incendiary e-mails left and right trying to rig their own voting process.

It isn't really fair to group all of the WRMC leaders in with the writer of the anti-Third Eye Blind e-mail, but I'm really not about fairness. I'm more about making bold, unsubstantiated claims that have little basis in reality. In that vein, WRMC fanatics, I sincerely hope that someday soon, when you are burning incense and reading up on your 13th-century poetry by candlelight, you knock over an open bottle of imported wine, leaving your clothes stained and your throat dry as you choke down that last bit of caviar.

James O'Brien '10 is an English major from Medfield, Mass.