DISCO STU explores oft-overlooked venue of artistic expression

I think it was Mary-Lou Retton who once said, "A society's worth can best be judged by its graffiti." Or maybe it was Jean-Paul Satre-I always get those two confused. Whoever it was, I agree with them. Unless, of course, it was Mary-Lou Retton, because I've always said existentialism is for pansies. Or is that Entertainment Tonight? Oh boy, I gotta quit snorting kitty litter, it's really starting to brill my kain cells.

What was I saying? Oh yeah! Graffiti is the measure of society. Well, if that is true, then Duke should rank somewhere around numero uno (I'm bilingual) on the U.S. News & World Report Lame-Ass College Graffiti poll. I'm not talking about the bridge painting hoopla (Graffiti Bridge was Prince's worst album), although I think it spoke volumes about the combined intelligence of the facilities management squad when they called swastikas "Swatches"! No, my concern is with a different form of graffiti, a strange, private graffiti. A pointless graffiti. A smelly graffiti. I'm talking about bathroom graffiti!

I eat Han's Chinese Cuisine twice a day, so, needless to say, I spend a considerable amount of time on the can. I pride myself on having "used the facilities" in every men's bathroom on campus. I've even choreographed a modest parallel bar routine for the handicapped stalls (I'd like to see Mary-Lou pull a double gainer with the seat up!).

Graffiti is impossible in the dorm stalls. The University must have hired a specialized team of engineers to design a stall that is invulnerable to all forms of writing utensil. The walls are made of some pseudo-marble substance, and the toilet paper dispensers have no open white surfaces. So unless you carry around a chisel or a blowtorch, you're not going to get your message out to the viewing public.

The rest of the stalls on campus are a little easier. Most of them have metal walls, which are pencil and pen resistant, but are defenseless against magic markers or Swiss army knives. The open face of a stall wall provides a broad canvas for the epic graffiti artist. Ninety percent of the time, the best that anyone can think of drawing are gigantic, nasty-ass, anatomically askew close-ups of parts of the female body which would make a gynecologist hurl. The other 10 percent of the time, you end up sitting down eye to eye with a tremendous disembodied ding-a-ling from hell. I think I'm beginning to understand what Mary-Lou meant about the "measure of society."

The toilet paper dispenser is a tightly confined space which lends itself more to textual commentary. Unfortunately, things don't get much better in word form. Some dispenser's read like Richard Simmon's appointment book, listing assorted times and dates when, if you so please, Bob or Jim will meet you in stall three for a rollicking good time. Others are so overrun with witty fraternity battles that it's sometimes hard to tell who "kicks ass" more, Deke or Psi U.

Somehow, UNC students seem to have the monopoly over all Bryan Center toilet dispensers. They must have been there with a Carolina blue marker in hand the day they cut the ribbon at the men's rooms. But we've gotten back at them in typically dorky Duke style. On one of the dispensers it reads in shaky, child-like script, "UNC RULE OVER DUKE!" Luckily, somebody on our side decided to really let 'em have it, and replied, "It do?" Nothing says "rivalry" like grammar corrections!

Dorky graffiti does have its positive side every once in a while. For example, in the single stall of Lilly Library's upstairs bathroom, some math major wrote one that gets me every time. As you're sitting there reading through various people's opinions of breasts, a scrawl of black magic marker catches your eye near the bottom of the wall. When you bend over to read it, it simply says, "You are currently sitting at a 45 degree angle." And you are!