THEO HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE becomes a square

Things are getting rather silly in ACC basketball. Duke's women crushed its two latest conference opponents by an average of 33 points, never losing the lead and extending its conference winning streak to 35 straight games. Down by 23 with 1:34 to go on Monday, Virginia valiantly attempted to fight back by fouling Duke every time they got the ball. Apparently they thought they were playing the 2000-2001 Maryland men's team. As it turned out, they were not. They lost by 27. In men's basketball, Duke's supposedly pathetic 17-4 record has started a panic among the student body. Meanwhile, other uplifting events this past week included the Kappas' "Red Thong Party" (no, not the sorority you idiot, although you wish), and the Griffith showing of 8 Mile, which apparently had nothing to do with the Proclaimers' hit "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)."

Anyway, in an abrupt, jarring and poorly-conceived transition, the other day this guy was talking about his theory that all the musicians who come to Duke realize how square many of the students are here and dumb down their act to please us (for those of us who don't know what "square" means, you could research some non-contemporary American slang, or just take a look at the picture of Bill English that graces this publication once per fortnight). I have no idea if this is accurate or not. But it got THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE to thinking. If many Duke students really are oppressively square, and if this cat's theory was correct, what will Duke's upcoming musical acts do to cater to the undergraduate student body? I spoke with "gear"ness expert Sy-(Snootles)-and-the-RambliA±-(Root-Beer)-Gnome, and we came up with some of the following ideas:

George Clinton plays Page March 19. He could begin by saying, "Hello, I'm George Clinton. I'm the guy from PCU." Parliament/Funkadelic could go straight into the groove of "Atomic Dog," then, just when many Duke students are completely bewildered, cut into Snoop Dogg's "What's My Name?" from 1993, which uses the exact same groove. "Oh," Duke students will say. "Here we go. Now we're talking!"

How would Arlo Guthrie, who will be in Page on March 24, adapt to the Duke crowd? Well, since Duke's Class of 2004 has repeatedly claimed themselves to be the unluckiest class in the history of Duke, they probably wouldn't be impressed with "Alice's Restaurant," Arlo's 18-minute epic about the Vietnam draft. Really, what was the big deal about getting drafted to go to Vietnam? Duke juniors today have to worry about real concerns, like not getting priority in housing picks and fulfilling a foreign language requirement. So what could he do instead? Well, Arlo's father is Woody Guthrie, the legendary gritty genius who spent his life rambling among America's people playing and writing songs. Since Arlo does like to play his old man's tunes once in a while, maybe he should just play Woody's anthem "This Land Is Your Land" 17 times. Then maybe again 15 more times after intermission. No lack of hipness could keep Duke students from accepting this tune, a piece enjoyed equally by hip and unhip alike.

On April 25 in East Duke, a string quartet will play the world premiere of a Paul Schoenfield piece. Paul Schoenfield, hmm, never heard of him. Okay, let's lose this Schoenfield idea, and just go with Beethoven. Students know Beethoven. Plus, there won't be any of that messy atonal stuff. Actually, scratch that play some Nelly. Habana Sax, meanwhile, in Page March 1, can delve into Cuba's amazing musical heritage of Gloria Estefan hits. Then they could play some Ricky Martin. He's actually from Puerto Rico, but their flags are so similar, what's the difference?

This Sunday, Feb. 23, meanwhile, the Duke Symphony Orchestra performs its latest entry in the "All About Brahms" series in the Chapel. Apparently the symphony got the name from the oft-heard conversation between Duke students, "I'm totally into Haydn, man." "No way, man. I'm all about Brahms." Oh, wait, maybe I'm thinking of "I'm totally into the Beast, man." "No way, man. I'm all about Busch Light." Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe they should actually rename the concert "All About Busch Light." It might be the best thing to do in a university where the majority of students seem to go by the old adage, "Never attend a live music event when you can drink beer instead." This is, after all, the school that managed to pack about 352 people into Page Auditorium to see De La Soul, and usually gets outnumbered about 49 to one by Durham residents at every concert it puts on.

The Duke Jazz Ensemble will be playing shows in Baldwin throughout the semester. Hmm, jazz. Could be a tough sell. The Ensemble needs something besides the sheer delight of Paul Jeffrey's Colonel Sanders tuxedos to get students to shell out the 15 bucks. They bring in guest artists who I'm sure are awesome, but no one at Duke has ever heard of them. It's time to go for the biggest name of all. We need Kenneth Gorelick. Yeah, you got it. Kenny Motherf---ing G. Sure, every note he plays is more detested than urine and contains about as much jazz as six milliseconds of Count Basie brushing his teeth, but he's well known. Well, okay, that's a bad idea I guess. Oh wait, hell, let's bring in Chevy Chase! He's an even bigger celebrity! Wait, what? We already do that? Oh, okay. Well I guess we could bring in Herbie Hancock, and keep yelling requests for his 1983 synthesizer hit "Rockit." That would really be gear as hell.

THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE would like to acknowledge the elusiveness and nebulousness of any definitions of "hip" and "square," but would suggest listening to a-man-whose-hero-was-Woody-Guthrie's 1965 "Ballad of a Thin Man" or the-gentleman-whose-photo-headed-last-week's-column's 1986 magnum opus "Hip to Be Square" to elucidate the matter, as well as attending live music events.