THEO HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE goes back to the future

When I kick it with Dr. Emmitt Brown, who in 1985 perfected a time machine, we go out cruising in his DeLorean Friday nights, blasting Huey Lewis and the News. Sometimes we hit 88 miles per hour, thrusting us into the middle of Durham sometime in the future. Dressed in a puffy 80s vest, Sy-(Snootles)--and-the-Rambli(Root-Beer)-Gnome collects some Chronicles from these future years, and this weekend we stumbled upon an interesting future trend here at Duke. Apparently, the Second Annual Allen Building Lock-In on Feb. 1 began a misguided trend of revitalizing the Allen Building Takeover concept, though for somewhat less worthwhile purposes. Just so THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE could help quell this trend, I have enclosed four different Chronicle articles from the next decade describing the Worst Ever Future Allen Building Takeovers.

April 13, 2003: Allen Building taken over by students protesting K-ville Line Monitor selection--Protesting the selection of yet another person who has never tented as Krzyzewskiville Line Monitor, a group of students seized the Allen Building yesterday, grinding school operations to a halt until police showed up and pepper-sprayed everyone. Holding signs reading "He's a non-tenter," "He's one of them," and "He's another Jeremy Morgan," the protesters marched to the Allen Building and "took it over." When administrators pleaded that the school could not operate with them occupying the building, the group issued a statement saying, "We don't care. We only came to Duke because of the basketball team."

November 6, 2003: Undergraduates unhappy with Washington Duke Inn tipping take over Allen Building, ask to speak with manager-A few angry undergraduate students crippled the University yesterday by taking over Duke's administrative building and demanding to speak to the manager of the Washington Duke Inn about their "tipping practices." "We'd like to speak to the manager," they said in a statement. They didn't really know what to do after that, though, so, with no Risk board, the protesters basically just sat around, though a few reportedly retreated to the bathrooms to masturbate when they got bored. Apparently, pelting The Chronicle with several letters per week over a six-month span had not gotten them the improved service they demanded, resulting in more serious action. Their move comes at a pivotal time when, in light of the success of the Inn's plan, the Board of Trustees is considering adding an automatic 19 percent gratuity to Duke's $34,000 tuition, despite the objections of Andrew Nurkin.

February 5, 2005: Pratt students take over Allen Building to object to lack of girls in classes-Several undergraduates in the Pratt School of Engineering occupied the Allen Building on Tuesday to protest the female ratio in their classes. The leader of the effort, Newton Eliot, spoke these words in a speech to explain their actions: "I'm not in a fraternity, and I'm a nice guy, the combination of which makes me completely unappealing to Duke women. So, I figure, since I can't date them, I could at least look at them while I'm in class. Our professors are a bunch of weirdos who tuck their shirts into their underwear. Some of our classrooms have no windows. There's got to be somewhere else to fix our gaze. I'm not talking here about demanding a situation where I'd actually get 'The Pack' out of my dorm vending machines instead of gummy bears. I just want to look at them. I thought when they changed the name of the school to the guy's name who owned Viagra, it would help to illustrate how virile we really are. I urge the administration and President Skip Herrod, to take action."

September 28, 2008: Students in Craven Quad complain about living too far away, take over Allen Building--Duke has continued to build dorms for the last 10 consecutive years to appease students who felt they had to walk too much, but apparently its job is not done. Residents of this year's most out-of-the-way location, Craven Quad, stormed the Allen Building yesterday to protest their plight. As it stands now, residents of the quad are well over a hundred yards from the bus stop and even further from the Bryan University Center. Their takeover will, in all probability speed up Duke's long-term plan, which is to have all residential, academic and administrative buildings placed on top of the Bryan Center.

Trent was the first dorm to go, in 2003, as it was doomed by complaints from people who, though they had never actually lived there or had even ever been to the place, deemed a potentially long 10-minute walk so long that administrators had to close the dorm. Edens Quadrangle was next, as residents suggested that maybe the administration didn't realize that they had to walk uphill to get places. Edens was therefore demolished. The loss was offset by building several stories on top of the existing Main West dorms last summer. "It sort of disrupts the Gothic feel," Duke's head architect admitted, "but we felt that students had dealt with so much construction since coming here, it wouldn't be fair for them to stop constructing, just because there was nothing else to construct." It seems right now that their construction is not yet complete.

THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE would like to lament the cutting of a reference last week. He/she would also like to support those of you who went to the Jimmy Buffett show in Raleigh last week by calling it unfair to say that Buffett just whitens up black music. He also whitens up white music.