Arts Devo

While Arts DEVO is away, enjoy this classic column from Aug. 19, 2010.

TO DOUCHEBAGGERY Hello. This is your Chico Arts DEVO, and I am here to [enlighten college] students with a super-secret bit of insider info that will help make your stay here even more enriching: When you are out of sight, you know what the locals call you? Douchebag.

I know, I know. It’s bullshit. Though I must confess to having dropped my share of D balloons from atop my hater tower, I am turning over a new leaf and am here to help spread the word: Douchebags are OK. If you are coming to Chico to holler all day, paint the sidewalks with pizza and Jägermeister and crap yourself while tubing down the river, why should any of us care? (You’ll freshen up soon enough anyway—when it comes to douches, nothing beats the flushing currents of the mighty Sac.) You are our guests, and I for one want you to enjoy your stay, so it makes no sense for me or anyone else to be so douchey as to call you a douchebag while you do so.

We all came to this island in the middle of a sea of nowhere to learn something and have fun (those who live here year-round included). And it’s worth noting that while the benefits of a university education vary wildly, everyone’s ass gets rewarded when “Apple Bottom Jeans” hits the speakers. So, please do stumble, “woo-hoo!,” strip and fight to your heart’s content and know that Arts DEVO has your back.

To cats, dogs are total douchebags, I guarantee you, sitting on a stool at the end of the bar at Duffy’s Tavern there will be more than one person reading this and saying something like, “But Arts DEVO is the biggest douche there is.”

It’s true. If you return to this column in the coming weeks, you’ll start to see that I’m kind of an Arts Douche-o. I like music that’s arty and art that’s weird and probably even pretentious at times, and the light I often shine on those things in this column makes some folks think I’m anti whatever they’re up to. That’s not true, but them thinking so helps me make fun of those douchebags too, so it’s all good. My particular arts fetishes are just that—mine. But I’m also insatiably curious about you particular kinks. Besides, isn’t that how the term douchebag works? When someone is doing things in a way that seems antithetical to the way you do them, then they’re a douche. And conversely, you’re a douche to them.

Plus, we have watered down “douchebag” to the point that it’s being completely wasted on relatively innocuous frat boys, girls gone wild, emo kids and the Jersey Shore cast. It is such an awesome term, too; we can’t let it lose its potency. We need to save all our vinegar for when conversation turns to the likes of Tea Partiers, Juggalos or Glenn Beck. (Now that I think about it, maybe we just need a stronger word for such extreme cases, one without the clean-and-fresh implications—something like “colostomy bag” or maybe just “shit sack”?)

Douche on, Douchey So, what am I trying to say here? What does calling everyone douches have to do with this column? Nothing, really. But it is a good exercise for a guy who writes a column about local art, artists and art happenings to step back and take in a wider view of the Chico picture. So, while I’ll still be overly concerned with David Lynch, indie rock and the local art freaks, I want to know what you’re up to as well (send tips to jasonc@newsreview.com ). Maybe we could all meet up and be douchebags together a few times this semester? I’ll be Vanilla Ice, you be Kanye, and she can be Snooki, and us three will just grind it out on the dance floor. I mean, you weren’t seriously thinking about spending your time studying econ, graduating, then getting rich on Wall Street, were you?