Pinhead Nation's Back To School Special

The feeling in the air is unmistakable. Around the perfectly manicured campus in Chestnut Hill, MA, wide-eyed incoming freshmen realize that a lifetime of academic preparation has paid off as they've finally arrived at Boston College. Their parents, distinguished collar-ups from the upper echelons of the American patriciate, beam with pride as their children take a ponderous step towards gilt-edged status by gaining admission to America's Best University.

Across New England, less fortunate students are also beginning their collegiate careers, but unlike those embarking on the road to elitism at Boston College, these students are beginning a four-year "road to nowhere". Due to slow academics or familial destitution, these future stable sweepers were unable to gain admission to BC and find themselves left to attend one of several remedial institutions that dot the northeast corridor like syphilitic blemishes on the face of a Lowell prostitute.

At the raffish end of Commonwealth Avenue, hundreds of "Eurotrash to English" translators await the annual arrival of European guttersnipe to Boston University's freshman class. Those fortunate students who successfully manipulate the Patriot Act can look forward to four years of dancing on Landsdowne Street and wondering what happens on Saturday afternoons in the fall at BU's Nickerson Field.


The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service's alert level is always raised in August as several illegal immigrants annually attempt to sneak into the U.S. by hiding in the luggage of incoming Boston University freshmen from overseas.

Those BU incoming freshmen that do actually call America their homeland will spend a different psychological odyssey over their next four years. Despite dreaming of the day they would walk the chestnut tree-laden grounds at BC, academic or economic infirmities denied them their aspirations and left them to rely on their "safety school" option. Unfortunately, for most of these dullards, getting so close to a dream only to see it snatched away leads BU students to display irrational hatred towards Boston College and the future world-leaders who attend it.


For unsuspecting BU freshmen males, dealing with the raging hormones of horny BU coeds will be their greatest challenge.

For many students, leaving for college represents the first time they will be away from home. While BC freshmen have become acclimated to living elsewhere due to spending time at the family's vacation homes in Aspen or Nantucket, for many who attend state colleges, leaving their hovels for the first time can be a tremendously emotional experience.


Despite high levels of radon in recent years at the University of New Hampshire's Stoke Hall, freshmen live together in a communal atmosphere designed to foster togetherness and memorize UNH chants to be yelled at future hockey games.

Usually within the first few days, especially at a subpar university, the first bout of homesickness sets in. Despite the fact that some students are enjoying freedom for the first time and those at UMaine or UNH are taking their maiden voyage in flushing an indoor toilet, memories of home usually make the days long. To combat the anticipated feeling of a freshman's yearning for the homeland, most schools offer freshman orientation and other enjoyable sops to take their minds off of how morose their existence actually is.


During "move in weekend" at Boston University, the first 100 students to arrive on campus will win valuable prizes. This year's package includes a sodomized Jack Parker Bobblehead doll, a year's worth of Kashi, the "Techno Dome 9" CD, and the NY Times best seller "So You Didn't Get Into Boston College..."

The Beginning of another school year and the arrival of thousands of new students places a lot of pressure on the University's police force, especially at poor colleges who have to rely on untrained security staff rather than trained law enforcement officers. When introducing alcohol to first year college students, trouble usually ensues as many are experiencing cheap beer for the first time. Again, the lack of a taste for a fine glass of 1787 Chateau Margaux can make first-time drinking an adventure. In places like U.Mass-Lowell, where years of drinking rubbing alcohol has created an iron-fist tolerance, criminal problems are less alcohol-related and more to do with drugs and prostitution. Regardless of the reason, new students at substandard schools will likely experience crime for the first time not long after their arrival on campus.


At Merrimack College, the beginning of the fall semester represents an opportunity for ex-convicts to attend college and earn a worthless degree. Those ex-cons convicted of violent crimes can earn community service time by agreeing to play for the Warriors' hockey program.

Despite the anxiety of attending college, spending four years at the proper institution can be the best time in the life of a future collar-up. When your superiors said goodbye to our Prep School chums and embarked on our era at Boston College, we knew it was necessary for our intellectual and social enrichment. For the elite who will be attending America's Best College in Chestnut Hill, your superiors wish you well. For the rest of you, take a few moments as you stroll towards your first mediocre class and ask yourself what went wrong.

To the incoming class at Boston University, consider your time there as an extension of high school, albeit a high school in Beirut or Baghdad. To those academic mongoloids who are forced to attend a state school, your superiors only hope that you don't ingest too much bong-water or Vicks Formula 44D for a quick buzz that could potentially impair your eventual career as a toll-taker or travelling carnival employee.


In Amherst, University of Massachusetts graduate students prepare campus bus stops for the beginning of the school year.

Collar Up.

- DW

Mailbag Friday, 8/19

Another Friday is upon us as is another installment of Pinhead Nation's Mailbag Friday. Remember, if there's something on your torpid mind or if you need a superincumbent opinion to solve one of your menial dilemmas, you can drop your superiors a line at mailbag@pinheadnation.com . If you're fortuitous, we'll answer your inquiry and do our best to make you a better member of society, as unattainable as that may seem.

Q - Tim P. (Cape Cod, MA). Dear Pinheads, this is a problem so great, I've been suffering with it for many months now. My chauffeur, bartender, caddy, and chef couldn't solve it. I was watching the Red Sox vs. Yankees on my plasma at my Cape house a few months ago when it hit me. I noticed that the Red Sox all have long and unkempt hair while few speak English and those who do are all from square-shaped red states that I can't locate on a map. These people have "public school" written all over them.

On the other side of the field was the Yankees, short hair, all-business, and acting like professionals. If that hick commissioner would let them wear collars on their uniforms, they'd be popped proudly. I also noticed that Red Sox fans hate the Yankees like Kenmore State students hate those from America's Best University.

Please don't question my collar-up credentials as my collar is popped so high it's visible from space. After my parents spent $12k per year on my Montessori School, I attended Cape Cod Academy, after which I received a BA from Boston College in philosophy. I don't know what to do, my world view has been shattered. Please advise.

A - Tim, thank you for your email as it is refreshing to receive correspondence from another member of the haut monde. Your dilemma is one I am quite familiar with. While the Red Sox are the team that our fathers took us to see from the company box, the Yankees do represent collar-up baseball in its purest form. Their winning tradition is unparalleled and, lets face it, no team has enjoyed more Perrier-Jouet after a championship victory than the Yankees.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind, Tim. The Boston Red Sox were created long ago to provide entertainment for the blue-bloods of Boston and named in their honor. Back in the early 1900's (prior to the invention of the true popped collar), the cognoscenti of Boston showed their superior social status by wearing red socks around town. To the early 20th century commoner, seeing a Boston Brahmin sporting red socks carried the same social weight as a contemporary, yet feculent, Northeastern graduate beaming with envy at a Boston College alumnus today.


Not only did the early Red Sox honor Boston's upper-crust, they did so while wearing collars on their uniforms.

So, as you can see, the Boston Red Sox are the only true collar-up ballclub from its inception. Although the Yankees have had more on-field successes and do not carry themselves in the rapscallion manner that today's Red Sox do, as you know, our own personal social peerage is defined by our lineage. The history of Boston baseball is one that honors our collar-up forefathers, the creme de la creme of Boston's elite and the predecessors of our town's collar-up philosophy.

Q - Anonymous (New York, NY). Guys, I'm new to your site and I do get a kick out of it. Here's the deal. I work with a guy at a company called "MMC" who is obsessed with you. He has no idea that I'm emailing you guys, but everytime I walk by his computer, he's on your blog (Apparently, it angers him greatly). I don't have a question for you but I just wanted to let you know that your site is effecting his productivity. See ya later.

A - Thank you for your concern and we appreciate hearing about Pinhead Nation's impact on the financial services industry. Your superiors find that simpletons with horrible minimal wage-earning jobs tend to strike out against those who succeeded in life. Despite several offers to make a dunderhead's life better by sharing our philosophy of elitism, it's rare that those who drown their sorrows in Old Milwaukee take advantage of the opportunity.


Although accomplished and all-knowing, Pinhead Nation has been known to anger the feebleminded at the workplace.

Well, that's going to do it for another edition of Pinhead Nation's mailbag. We welcome your questions and may post them on next week's edition. Your superiors advise you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to improve your standing. With a lot of work and some luck, you could go from washing lettuce or pouring coffee to actually owning your own tuxedo someday. The choice is yours.

Collar Up.

- DW

Disturbing Trends in Hockey East - Summer 2005

While your superiors enjoy the solitude and whistful santuary of our annual summer jaunt to the Greek Isles, it's quite therapeutic to return and catch up on current events on the homefront. At times, living the life of privilege while you reprobates wallow away in your jobs that involve the phrase "thank you, drive up", before going home and climbing into bed with a pugnacious wife can lead to moments of guilt from the people you wish you were.

Nonetheless, upon our arrival back at stately Pinhead Manor, I dispatched one of our minimum wage earning proles to fetch the last few weeks' worth of periodicals for our perusal on his way back from his night classes at U.Mass-Lowell. As we sat by the fire sipping our 1914 Pierre Ferrand Memoire Cognac, your superiors chortled at the news of the day.

Maine Man caught enjoying himself in New Hampshire Toilet

It’s always captivating to keep up with the social activities among the raffish in the "land that time forgot" once hockey season is over. Although NASCAR is always a popular flavor among the knuckledragging white trash in New Hampshire, it seems playing "Marco Polo" in a pool full of undigested corn giblets and other human waste is also a popular summertime pastime in the Granite State.


The Maine man claims his name is Andy Dufresne.

In late June, Gary Moody, (possibly under the alias of Larry Moores), a 45 year-old man from Maine on probation after his sixth drunk driving conviction (moonshine related), left the state of Maine without permission. He found his way to Albany, New Hampshire, where he found it boisterous to climb into the waste tank of a pit toilet on US Forest Service property and let people do their business all over him.

Nauseating? Yes. Unfortunately, in rural wastelands such as these, toiling in a septic paradise is commonplace. He was discovered after a 14 year-old girl heard a noise coming from the tank, looked down and saw a face looking up at her. Your superiors can only surmise what pick-up line Moody, covered in human waste, used to woo the underage heroine.


He also requested to be called Mr. Hanky and greeted police with a loud “Howdy HO!”

The Hallowed Halls and Hollow Heads of Cushing Academy

Speaking of Maine and New Hampshire, how could we not comment on the pathetic situation that developed over the summer involving yet another Cushing Academy hockey alum? This coming just months after another Cushing hockey alum, BU dunderhead Chris Bourque, left BU because his coloring-within-the-lines assignment at Kenmore State's College of Basic Studies was subpar.

This situation involves Keith Yandle, an allegedly talented recruit (read: bust)that chose to follow his brother Brian (a big fan of Pinhead Nation as evidenced by his attempted assault with a deadly weapon at the Whitt a few years ago) to waste 4 years at the University of New Hampshire. Yandle, upon his arrival in Titletown, USA, would quickly learn about UNH's annual hockey failures coinciding with the vernal equinox as well as inevitable future losses to Boston College in the postseason. But this is where the plot thickens. UNH, a school with absolutely no academic integrity whatsoever, did the unthinkable: They told Yandle he lacked the intellectual fortitude to attend the University of New Hampshire and pulled their scholarship offer right off the table. Again, your superiors are at a loss to imagine what one has to do to fail to earn admission to the University of New Hampshire.

So Yandle, finding himself without a collegiate home, did the one thing that came naturally: He traded in a career of NCAA tournament embarrassments for a career of NCAA violations and decided to attend the University of Maine. As dumbfounded as most of us were, in hindsight, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. The University of Maine is a school that is putting up a building to honor the most dishonorable and corrupt coach in college hockey history. U. Maine is the institution of "higher learning" that took a transfer like Brendan Walsh, a player kicked out of BU because of his affinity for Natty Light (in his defense, we surmise it goes well with the Indian food on the BU campus).


A completely irrelevant picture of Keith Johnson. Still, we wonder how he’s behaving this summer now that “jennajennajenna2004“ who, like his play on the ice, is almost legal.

BC coach accuses BU of gender discrimination

Here’s another interesting story this summer that is just begging to be addressed by Pinhead Nation. Back in late May and early July, a story broke concerning a former Merrimack player named Michael Cox. Cox, a women’s ice hockey coach at Boston College, applied for a similar position at Boston University. Your superiors surmise that Cox must have a soft spot in his heart for corpulent Middle-Eastern beauties who enjoy long walks on the beach and eating at the Y.

Regardless, this position would have been under new head coach of the BU women’s program and former BU men's assistant coach Brian Durocher. Upon hearing the news that Durocher had hired two females for the assistant positions, Cox accused Durocher of discriminating against him because he was a male, contending that he was far more qualified for the job than the coaches hired.


Durocher’s move to the women’s team works out well because he’s used to coaching BU players that play like girls.

After an exhaustive fact finding mission, the one stunning fact uncovered by Pinhead Nation was that Cox, a Merrimack grad, was actually gainfully employed in a job that didn't involve the sale of narcotics. Your superiors can only assume that Boston College offered Cox a job because of some sort of outreach program or due to the fact that someone lost a bet. If not for Cox' hockey background, we assume that his choice of employment would likely be at a Burger King, Wendy's, or some other 'culinary crackhouse'.

Overall, it's unlikely Cox will be able to prove his discrimination case against BU as apparently, they didn't want Cox in the position. The whole situation is ironic since most men at BU love Cox.

Speaking of Burger King…

Keith Foulke’s comments anger BU grads everywhere.

This story put a target on the back of Keith Foulke the minute it came out of his mouth. Still, your superiors were amused with his comments considering they are so similar to our own. Here’s what happened in case you were too busy working the overnight shift at the junkyard and missed it…

After pitching like garbage once again, the Fenway Faithful booed the closer off the field. In postgame comments, Foulke said this about being booed:

“I'm more embarrassed to walk into this locker room and look at the faces of my teammates than to walk out and see Johnny from Burger King booing me."


There’s a reason why Burger King starts with “BU”. This BU grad’s job will be in peril when Chris Bourque’s hockey career quickly follows his academic one.

In saying this, Foulke offended BU grads everywhere. Not only were the Burger King employees that graduated from BU offended, but it seems all of the BU grads working at fast food establishments were offended as well (ie - 95% of BU grads… the other 5% are fortunate and get coffee for BC grads with real jobs).

Shortly thereafter, Foulke was placed on the disabled list and hasn’t been seen around Fenway since. Personally, we think the FBI was involved, putting him in a protection program and relocated him for his safety. There’s no telling what an angry mob of BU students can do. Your superiors reminisce about the riots back in 1999 when local officials closed down Landsdowne Street clubs for a week while simultaneously prohibiting foreign languages from being spoken on “campus“? Like tryouts for cheerleaders back when BU had football, it was one ugly scene.

Quick hits:

- The Nation raises our flumes to hockey player Angelo Esposito, who snubbed both Boston University and UNH by choosing to play hockey in Canada rather spend four years playing in Boston College's wake. It's rare such intelligence is found in youth, but Esposito seems to have luminosity beyond his years.

- Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for Pinhead Nation’s first ever Preseason All-Milk Carton Team selections. Despite several other prognostications, your superiors will educate you on Hockey East's most overrated players destined to fail in 2005-2006.

Enjoy the rest of summer and do your best to keep your wretched families cool. If it’s any consolation to you BU grads working in the hot kitchens, Maine grads on the "dead beat dad" list or former UMass valedictorians currently pushing tin for the local trash pick-up service, it’s gets hot at the country club, too. Your superiors feel your pain.

Collar Up

-MAV

NCAA Gets It Right

Summer simply goes by too fast. While your superiors spent the last six weeks sailing the Paraiso around the Island of Ithaki in the Ionian Sea, the people you wish you were couldn't help but feel badly that we hadn't had the chance to maintain the blog you can't live without during our extended vacation. Needless to say, summer is over and it's time to get back to business.

Upon my return to stately Pinhead Manor, I was immediately greeted by one my drones who informed me that the NCAA had finally acted to punish the several subpar universities who insult native American heritage with their mascots. Before long, racist monikers such as "Fighting Sioux", "Illini", "Braves", and "Seminoles" will, like the Boston University hockey program, become things of the past.

Although collar-ups can all agree this is hardly enough, the NCAA announced that schools with "hostile or abusive" mascots or nicknames will not be allowed on team uniforms worn in any NCAA tournament after February 1, 2006. Since NCAA Divison 1 football does not have a tournament, it's unlikely football programs such as Florida State, Illinois, or Utah (all with derogatory native American nicknames) will be affected.

One program that appears to be right in the cross-hairs of the NCAA scrutiny is the University of North Dakota. Although located in Southern Canada, UND and their "Fighting Sioux" mascot is, perhaps, the most offensive in America. Since they are scheduled to host a regional in the 2006 NCAA hockey tournament, UND will be forced to cover approximately 6,000 "Fighting Sioux" logos, which features an offensive image of a native American's profile.


North Dakota's "Fighting Sioux" logo will be reinstated at Englestad Arena when its hockey program gives a scholarship to a player born in the United States and is under the age of 25.

North Dakota's battle with the NCAA over their nickname and logo is hardly a new one. When former Fighting Sioux goaltender and admitted Nazi sympathizer Ralph Englestad underwrote the financing for their new arena, egomanically called "The Ralph Englestad Arena", he installed thousands of "Sioux logos" throughout the building as incentive for the school to not change its nickname. Although Englestad has gone to the "Great Reich In The Sky", it's delicious irony that while he now shares a cave with Hitler and Himmler in eternal damnation, his arena will be removed of its distasteful images.


North Dakota's original logo and nickname was deemed "not offensive enough" and was quickly scrapped by Englestad and the UND administration.

Mascots and nicknames are supposed to be fun and a point of pride among the university. Supporters of the native American nicknames will point to the "heritage" of the area and the dillusional point that nicknames such as "Seminoles" honor the original residents of the area. Many school's mascots and nicknames do recognize proper heritage without resorting to hate. Navy "Midshipmen", Florida "Gators", and Pittsburgh State "Gorillas" come to mind.


Boston University's "Terrier" mascot honors the physical attributes of BU coeds since the school's inception in 1867.

Pinhead Nation raises our flumes to the NCAA, who have taken the first major step into making their organization a collar-up society. Though many insignificant universities have changed their nicknames to reflect the times we live in, U.Mass-Lowell changing from "Chiefs" to "Riverhawks" comes to mind, your superiors hope that eventually legitimate universities in America will follow suit.


Some mascots, like UMass-Darmouth's "Angry Pirate" appear to promote homosexuality, but have yet to be deemed offensive. Your superiors aren't sure what a "Corsair" is, but it is clear you don't want to bend over in front of one.

Collar Up.

- DW