Fraters Libertas

The Weekend At The College Didn't Turn Out Like You Planned

I've just polished off Michael Medved's great new memoir Right Turns. As would be expected from a man of such wit, there are several laugh-out loud moments. My personal favorite stems from when Medved was invited to interview for a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin?

Stout.

In less-than-exciting Menomonie, Wisconsin--about an hour and a half East of the Twin Cities. Circa 1975.

To set the stage a little, Medved was living in "Beserk-ley" California at the time and wanted to get away from the "Dreary, decadent, dysfunctional, drug-infested demimonde." He figured a scenic small town in the upper Midwest offered just the change of pace he was looking for.

He was invited to interview with the entire liberal arts faculty. They even agreed to pay for his trip, under the stipulation that if offered the job, he would accept. If he was offered the job and did not accept, he would have to pay his own way.

After flying into the Twin Cities and renting a car, he made the drive to the house of the dean:

I arrived in snowy Menomonie several hours later than expected and followed the directions to the home of the dean, who had hospitably suggested I come for lunch. As I got out of the car, the stabbing cold represented the first shock and I recoiled, physically, at a horrifying sight on the front steps of the house.

Blocking the path to the door were the bloodied, frozen carcasses of five furry animals. As a newcomer to the Midwest, I knew nothing about the appropriate etiquette of entering homes by jumping past orderly displays of dead creatures.

To call the Yale-educated, California-living Orthodox Jew a fish out of water in Wisconsin is a bit of an understatement.

Upon entering the house, he soon realized his ordeal was just beginning.

I walked into the warmth of his neat little ranch home, where the aroma of ham overwhelmed me. I hadn't eaten since the peanuts on the plane, but I'd been keeping kosher long enough to feel queasy over the sweet, pungent odor of fresh-cooked pig flesh.

After suffering through the meal (and skipping the ham) he was escorted to the a dormitory that had been arranged as his overnight accommodation.

Even in the late afternoon, the noisy brawling that echoed through the hallway reminded me of some Hollywood prison movie in which the frightened new inmate quickly realizes the danger of his situation. Despite my determined attempts to ignore the ruckus, I couldn't shut out the noise of snapping towels and smacking flesh in the Sunday evening showers, or the shouted arguments about the relative size and fragrance of the defecations that the eager students had produced.

Later that night--after a disgusting meal of baked perch at placed called the Bolo Inn (named after a dead dog) he retired to the dorms once again to find:

In general, the natives had progressed from towel fights in the shower and disputes over their bodily functions to drunken revelry complete with the noise of shattered glass and enthusiastic vomiting.

He decided that night that he had to do everything in his power to avoid moving to Menomonie. The problem was that if he were offered the job and did not accept it, he would be out 600 bucks, an amount he describes as a large sum for him at the time.

So he decided to take bag the interview.

When I crawled out of bed after a restless night, I began planning to present myself in a manner so obnoxious, so disturbing, so utterly distasteful that any self-respecting faculty committee must feel forced to reject me.

I courageously resolved on a course of minor self-mutilation: while shaving, I sliced a long, nasty gash along my chin, then blotted the blood onto my shirt. Growing gleeful at the appalling results, I grabbed a first aid kit and used iodine, a gauze pad, and adhesive tape to make my self-inflicted wound look incalculably worse than it was.

Blinking at the horrifying reflection in the mirror, I felt proud and satisfied: I looked like a homeless psychotic. No university could possibly hire me.

After showing up ten minutes late to the interview, he was warmly greeted by a dozen faculty members. One asked what happened to him. "I cut myself shaving. For some reason it happens to me a lot."

Ignoring his oddball personal grooming habits, the chairman of the committee began the interview by asking Medved to provide a one-word answer of want he most wanted to bring to the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

I paused for a moment, hoping to come up with a single pronouncement that could instantly erase my already dwindling chances. I finally burst into a broad smile as I came up with the ideal response. "If you want one word, if it has to be one word, then I'd have to say that word would be...drugs."

"Drugs?"

"That's right--recreational drugs. Marijuana, hashish, cocaine, maybe a little bit of LSD. You see, I've been struck since I've been here with how behind the times, how conservative this place seems to be. Remember, I'm from Berkeley, which is probably the opposite extreme. So if you want your students to begin to catch up with trends in academia, you're going to need much more of a drug culture here on campus. I have a friend back in Berkeley who made a film about a bunch of kids who do laughing gas together, then have a big orgy. Anyone know a dentist in town who can help us get the gas?"

They greeted my little discourse with a long, pained silence, and glared back at me with open mouths. I went on in a similar vein (with a bloody shirt as my visual aid) for the rest of the interview, talking about the need for more political activism and student dissent, for more sexual experimentation, for more of the countercultural values that had taken hold everywhere else to begin sweeping away the traditionalism of Menomonie. I actually enjoyed the role playing, as I gave insipid, even sickening explanations for advancing ideas I actually hated.

Feeling his ridiculous performance had guaranteed him a denial of the position and the attendant humiliations that living in Wisconsin would bring, he retired to an adjoining room to wait for the dean.

After about fifteen minutes, the dean emerged from the boardroom with a big smile and an extended hand. "Well Michael," he beamed. "I think congratulations are in order. You got the job. Now we can start talking about trying to help you move."

I tried hard to hide my shock and horror. "I got the job? I was afraid that some people might react poorly to some of what I had to say in there."

"Oh you were controversial all right. But we think we need some controversy. This can be a pretty stodgy place. We're trying hard to send out a message that we're not just about industrial arts. Some of your ideas--about politics, the sexual revolution, all the rest of it--would really start to shake things up. Michael, you'll be a breath of fresh air.

Out 600 samolians, Medved returned to Berkeley to consider other career opportunities.