There’s this kid I thought was the last honest cowboy in the ol’ Davis ranch. He’s my little buddy. I consider myself his drunken fairy godmother. I do my best to ensure that he never brings home girls who look like a hybrid of Amy Winehouse and Jabba the Hutt, like his beer-goggled buddies apparently do every weekend. Quality over quantity, people! There’s not much use in getting on someone’s nuts if it’s destined to end with a speeding ticket on your rushed quest for a disinfecting shower at the hospital. In the interest of protecting the innocent, we’ll affectionately dub this fella Bambi.

Since Bambi belongs to the last of a dying breed, the chivalrous, I was particularly disappointed when he told me that he was retracting a bid, so to speak, on a girl who doesn’t drink. The reason was clear. Without alcohol, he realized that his chances of ever receiving more than a hug from this little lady disappointingly diminished.

I suppose I wouldn’t be so bummed about it if I didn’t happen to know that the potential future Mrs. Bambi is a cute, smart girl, and that Bambi’s other options just don’t match up. Dammit, Tom Petty. No wonder all the good girls are home with broken hearts.

There’s a sizeable fraction of kids in Davis who just don’t know how to act on their feelings without getting by from a little help from their friends Jim Bean, Jose Cuervo and Captain Morgan. It’s either that or they’re just too lazy to go au naturale.

Liquid courage plays more of a starring role than a lot of people realize when it comes to getting the goods. It can work for or against you. Either you get to walk hand-in-hand to the DC with Mr. Pretty Eyes the next day or you may find yourself running wide-eyed with terror down First Street while praying that no one you know is driving by.

My theory is that, in general, booze just enhances your feelings and makes you more likely to act on what you actually want. This is despite the fact most people choose to just deny and whine about what a mistake they made to save face in front of their friends. Of course, if you actually blacked out and couldn’t pick your new friend out of a criminal lineup to save your life, that’s a different story and I offer my apologies. My little sister (high school nickname: Alcoholrick) did that.

A little part of me almost doesn’t want to blame the boys for this. I mean, look at the poor suffering fools. They were raised to idolize the likes of Stifler from American Pie. It probably never even occurred to them that there’s another route to first base than a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. God forbid Bambi should think to take potential future Mrs. Bambi out to dinner. Like, on a date.

They could hit up some go-carts or mini-golf. Since walks on the beach are not an option in Davis, they could go for a moonlit bike ride and Bambi could attach a radio to his bike so that they could listen to “In the Air Tonight” while they tried not to flatten rogue squirrels.

Times have changed, I guess. It’d be too extreme to pronounce chivalry dead, but it appears to be in front of the firing squad.

I blame this on a little bit of everything – a little bit on culture, a little bit on our age and a little bit on sloth. I pray that the lost boys of our generation will get their shit together someday, because an authentically fantastic girl doesn’t come around nearly as often as a random drunk one does.

As for the nice guys out there, you’re a rare breed and you may not be getting any, but that’s no reason to turn into a jerk. You will get laid by a goddess of a female eventually, and she will know what the capital of Vermont is. I realize it’s probably frustrating that girls whine that guys are horrible and then go for tool after tool, but I have no solution to offer for this at the present. Only condolences.

That said, I’m determined to kick Bambi’s ass right back into the good guy zone while still coaching him on how to get the girl, even if it does involve sobriety. I’d like to consider myself the anti-cockblocker – unless, of course, a dire situation is present. I go by Michelle Rick or Miss Thursday, but you can just call me cupid.

MICHELLE RICK assures you that she will be doing her part to resurrect chivalry by punishing Bambi severely by way of a paddle with holes to combat air resistance. Donate said paddle by hitting her up at marick@ucdavis.edu.

I was in my smoking jacket admiring all of my safari trophies when I got a phone call from my mother Sunday night. My mom plays mandolin in a bluegrass band back in Southern California, and before she has a gig, she gets somewhat nervous about it:

Mom: “William?”

Me: “Hi, Mom.”

Mom: “Hi, I am going to have a heart attack in a few hours so I was just calling to say I love you before I die.”

Me: “What?”

Mom: “I have to play my mandolin and it’s going to actually kill me this time. Just make sure you don’t throw out any of my old tablecloths. They’re valuable.”

What irony. Throughout my youth, whenever I needed to do something I thought was terrifying like go on stage (or sign up for a checking account or pick up a job application), my mom who would tell me to stop being such a pussy and just do it.

Now it’s my turn to try to squash someone else’s aimless fears. I tell her she’s not going to be killed by playing in a band, and that once you get on stage it’s going to be no big deal. She insists, however, that every time she has to play mandolin in front of a crowd she is going to fall over and croak. I just tell her to have a shot or two of tequila before the show. She says goodbye, and a couple hours later, she calls me and tells me the show was a lot of fun.

Moral of the story: Tequila fixes everyone’s problems. Things are never as bad as you make them out to be. (Unless, of course, you’re stuck in some kind of situation that is totally fucked, like a zombie apocalypse or something.)

Anyway, it took me a long time to figure all that out (not the part about zombies). Once I found out that people in banks aren’t going to stab you when you walk through the doors, I could safely open a checking account. It was no problem, and I could probably do it a second time. Isn’t that something.

There’s some inherent fear of things that are out of the ordinary. Humans are creatures of habit. Doing something you’re not used to is always going to be weird at first, especially if it’s something that involves a ton of other people. (I’m not talking about porn). No guts, no glory – as they say. Sure, it’d be easy to sit inside watching “Arrested Development” and drinking vodka for the rest of your life, but there’d be no real gratification from that. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Sometimes you’ve got to get out and do whatever it is that terrifies you. Maybe you’ve always wanted to play guitar in a band but your stage fright is crippling. Maybe you’ve always wanted to kill a bear with your bare hands, but that bear always looks awful big when you get down to it. Maybe it’s something much more frightening and conventional, like asking a girl if she wants to go watch a ’70s kung fu movie. Maybe that’s just me.

I always remember that first scene in True Romance where Christian Slater is trying to get a girl to go with him to a Sonny Chiba marathon, and it’s not going well.

Broad: “You want to take me to a kung fu movie?”

Christian Slater: “No, I want to take you to three kung fu movies.”

Broad: “No, thanks.”

At least he tried. It’s the least any of us can do. I have yet to meet a girl who appreciates a good kung fu flick, but I know I’ll keep trying.

Really, you could call my column “What would Ol’ Dirty Bastard do?” every week. I think it’s safe to say that ODB was a man who would advocate trying to get what you want. He threw odds and fear to the wind. He was the kind of man who would take that shot of tequila and just get on stage. (Or, in his case, many shots of tequila, a blunt, a couple of beers and maybe some cocaine.)

Whatever. I’m not advocating that, but the message is the same. Get out there and do what you want to do, even if it freaks you out.

WILL LONG’s favorite kung fu movie is Master of the Flying Guillotine. If you’ve ever heard of it, or if you think you’ve got a better one, e-mail him at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

Rural-PRIME needs support

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed reading your article in the Jan. 13 edition about the Rural-PRIME program at the UC Davis School of Medicine. I am a 1975 graduate of the school and have been in rural family practice in Southern Monterey County for a little over 30 years. I have served as a preceptor at my practice for UC Davis medical students. At the present time, our local hospital and clinics are in negotiations with UC Davis to become an official rural clinical site for Rural-PRIME.

This program definitely needs everybody’s support. Speaking firsthand, I understand about the severe shortage of primary care physicians in the rural areas of California. UC Davis is making a dedicated effort in this regard. I recently found a 1990 edition of a magazine called the UC Davis Physician in a desk drawer. Even then, there was talk about the unique problems of rural practice and what could be done about them.

The problems are not new, but hopefully, we are in the process of developing some creative innovations.

Sincerely,

BRUCE D. GREENBERG

Associate Clinical Professor

Volunteer Clinical Faculty

UC Davis School of Medicine

Headline: Diesel trains should be moved

Dear Editor,

I am a resident of Solano Park, UC Davis’ family housing apartment complex. I live just across from two railroad tracks that serve AMTRAK and freight.

While I would voice many complaints about living next to active railways, I would like to focus on just one: idling trains. Every night, a train parks across from my apartment and idles for hours, spewing diesel soot into my home and neighborhood.

There seems to be no need for trains to park in a family neighborhood. There is an abundance of empty land southwest of my home. There are plenty of reasons not to idle trains near where children sleep; diesel soot from engine exhaust has been linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease and asthma. That risk scales with exposure.

I call for UC Davis to step up for the children they house. Negotiate with the rails to park their trains elsewhere.

Sincerely,

JOSHUA LEE

Headline: Library administrators shouldn’t get a raise

Editor,

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

To quote a Dateline UC Davis article printed Jan. 22, “The UC Board of Regents this week agreed to extend the stipends that Helen Henry and Gail Yokote are receiving as fill-ins for University librarian Marilyn Sharrow, who is on leave and has announced her retirement effective Mar. 1.”

Henry and Yokote also got new base pays. Why?

We have been to meeting after meeting telling us that we have to take pay cuts, and now they get raises and a stipend on top of it!

Oh wait, I get it. Our pay cuts went to give them more money, not the campus. And then the administration wonders why we do not trust them to do what is best for us. Hmm, I wonder.

Kudos to John Meyer, who has left his salary – although a large one – the same.

MICHELLE BRACKETT

Bindery Assistant/Lead Book Processor

Shields Library

Sometimes I hear people complain that the world is becoming “too PC.” These people are worried that their freedom to speak, uninhibited by respect for other people, is under attack. But as long as people like Tiffany Lew are writing columns like “Rise of the Girly Men” (Jan. 22), racism, sexism, homophobia and heteronormativity will have a place in the public media.

“Trend” columns like Lew’s are meant to be low on substance and high on humor. Lew certainly did write a piece without substance, but her attempts at humor, which target “girly men,” “metrosexuals” and people of Asian descent, not only fall flat but are also disturbingly prejudiced and misinformed.

“Rise of the Girly Men,” is a complaint about the decline of mainstream “masculinity.” Because of its blatant stereotyping, the column received a lot of negative attention and was quickly taken down from The Aggie website. Justin Louie Lock, representing Asian & Pacific-Islander Queers, wrote a condemnation of the column in Tuesday’s Aggie.

When a friend of mine brought the column to my attention, my first impulse upon reading it was to just point and laugh at Lew’s general cluelessness. Its insidious undertones, however, should not be ignored. I hope the outcry against it will serve as not only as a rallying point for supporters and allies of all marginalized people, but also an opportunity to educate those still in the dark.

In a time when LGBTQ rights are a high-profile issue in our country, Lew’s column vaguely posits that those who don’t conform to their gender roles are “an epidemic we’ve got to fix.” Lew may be an undergraduate newspaper columnist, but she sounds an awful lot like Pat Robertson equating queerness to some kind of perversion or social danger.

Additionally, Lew’s dismissal of people of Asian descent reflects the discrimination they face as this generation’s “model minority.” I discussed “Rise of the Girly Men” with Amber Yan, a friend of Asian descent who was particularly struck by Lew’s “Western Orientalism.”

“Asian culture, and specifically Chinese and Japanese, is notorious for being extremely patriarchal and generally male-dominated,” Yan said. “Any conscientious Asian-American can attest to that. To continue perpetuating the stereotype of effeminate Asian men (and submissive Asian women) is insensitive at best, offensive and degrading at worst. I mean, isn’t that kind of thinking a little late 19th/early 20th century imperialistic?”

Indeed. The real social danger here is what Lew’s mindset represents. That a column mocking people based on race and gender identity was written for a college newspaper, and that an Aggie editor thought it was worth publishing, speaks volumes about the prevalence of prejudice in a place even as progressive as Davis, Calif. This column reveals not only her prejudice, but also the ignorance that permitted it.

“Rise of the Girly Men” makes a lot of basic mistakes, like confusing sexual orientation with gender identity. According to Lew, if you’re a man who spends time on your appearance, you’re in danger of “ditching your manhood.” Masculinity, therefore, is reliant on following carefully proscribed gender roles, such as inattention to appearance and not indulging in “emotionally-intense conversations.” Women, it seems, are the only people ridiculous enough to spend time on grooming; men, it seems, are not allowed to have feelings, or to express them.

Lew does allow a loophole for gay men to be “girly.” Gay guys are “set with their sexuality. They know who they are and they’ve left no room for confusion,” Lew argues. Her implication that all gay men are “effeminate” is ridiculous (is she sure that she knows any real live gay people?), but what else is implied is that it is demeaning for males to behave like women. Men who identify as straight cannot be “girly” because this is a bad thing – although Lew doesn’t explain exactly why.

Lew also seems confused about another construct: race. Asian men, she says, are “statistically and genetically destined to be predisposed with more estrogen than any other race.” Citation not provided. Relying on old stereotypes – like that Asian men are asexual, or less “masculine” than men of other ethnicities – is much simpler than citing sources.

Despite the offensive nature of “Rise of the Girly Men,” I really do hope that people can channel their frustration into outreach and organization. These discriminatory misunderstandings about the queer and Asian communities can be changed thanks to the people who are fighting to make the world “too PC.”

HALEY DAVIS can be reached at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.

Packed classrooms are unfortunately becoming a norm for many departments. Students can cope with crowdedness, but being excluded from the crowd is another story.

Reduced course availability, dropped courses, waitlists and the PTA process are enough to prevent some students from graduating on time. One student mentioned in Tuesday’s article “Students scramble to enroll in required courses” must push her graduation date from spring to winter 2011. Her required class is not available in the spring or summer.

In many departments, larger class sizes and fewer course offerings are not unseen results of budget cuts. These departments are not offering classes because they can’t. Oftentimes, the effects that students see in the classrooms come from fewer staff.

Amid the recent fee hikes, students are even more frustrated at what they are getting out of the university. Students are paying more money, but they are not receiving more benefits. On the contrary, they are getting much less than they used to. In some cases, students pay one or two quarters more in tuition in addition to the standard four years in order fill only one requirement.

The university needs to ensure timely graduation in an effort to better serve students’ needs. Either this is the unfortunate effect of inflation or just a problem that needs to be addressed with alternate solutions.

Courses in high demand, especially required courses, must be accounted for through more paths. Many departments, for example, make exceptions for students who need that one last class to graduate. It’s time for other departments to do the same.

The rush to sign up for classes is coming soon with a new round of registration on Feb. 8. Students will have to plan further in advance, making sure to check course availability lists that change quarter to quarter. If students can’t enroll in classes they are paying for, the system must be reviewed.