'Hey stupid!' child's play for experienced insulters By SHAWN lIUBLER. Daily Collegian Staff Writer Last month, a wide-eyed freshman phoned Bob “Suds” Carville’s room. “We’ve never met,” Carville told her, “but I hear you have lovely hair. Too bad your bra covers it. “And your head,” he added. “It’s as thick as the crust on your underwear.” Giggling and gratified, the girl thanked him and hung up another satisfied customer for Dial-An-Insult. “We started it on a whim,” says Carville, a lOth-term journalism major and editor of Froth, the University’s humor magaizine. “I was in my room one night and very depressed. I was tired of life, of work, of everyone. “Somehow, I came to the conclusion that we should have everyone call us up, just so we could tell them to go to hell. ” Now in its second term, Dial-An-Insult abused some 3,000 callers inSeptember’s one-week run, Carville said. Last Spring Term, when Carville and several friends started the service, they received 5,000 calls during the four-day operation, according to Centrex, the dormitory telephone service. The “Abuse Line,” which rang in Carville’s dorm room, had been ad vertised in The Daily Collegian’s classified ads and “In Edition.” “Fifteen minutes after the paper got out, we got our first phone call 7:35 a.m.,” Carville said. “For the first hour, it rang every 10 minutes. By the second hour, it was ringing every three seconds. From then on, it rang con stantly. As soon as you’d hang up, it would ring.” Listening to the local music(ians) Get your WE ARE PENN STATE Painter Hats Before the Game outside Beaver Stadium & Starting Wednesday Ground Floor HUB U-031 V."'' '. v ' ,* A PENGUIN PAPERBACK Each caller received four to six insults from Carville, his roommate Robert Lambe (lOth-landscape architecture) or floormate Steve Phillips (7th-biology). This term, Froth co-worker “Fungus” Miller (4th-mechanical engineering) added a second line in his West Halls dorm room. The team used only undocumented abuse, and bought two books of insults to make sure that their material was un published, Carville said. Insults were also donated by Carville’s neighbors on second floor Hartranft, he added. ■'Most callers wanted ammunition rather than abuse, he said. “People would call and say, ‘Give me one for my girlfriend,’ or, ‘I just flunked a midterm. Give me one quick,’ ” said Lambe. “We even got housewives from downtown who’d ask us to tell them about their husbands. So we’d say ‘Hey, your husband is so lazy, he thinks manual labor is the president of Mexico.’ And they’d agree!” One caller relayed insults to his girlfriend until she began beating him physically, Lambe said. “And we only gave him the usual,” he added. “You know, like, ‘Your girlfriend’s a chip off the old iceberg. When you talk to her, you get an echo from her cleavage: Making love to her is like making love to an open window. She douches with Draino.’ And a lot of other stuff you can’t print.” Usually, however, women are more receptive to abuse than men, Lambe said. “Guys usually get all bent out of By SCOTT H. McCLEAR Y Daily Collegian Staff Writer There is a lot of musical talent in.the State College area, which can work two ways depending on how the individual fits into it. “You can make a living in music in this area,” said John Rounds, an area performer and composer for six years. “There’s no reason why you can’t.” With all those people in the area, the music business is very widespread. People in different professions are tied into the local music business in some way. Social coordinators for fraternities or sororities, owners of drinking establishments, and "A wonderful b00k... it should be read b T one who has ever contem ted going to law school. Or 'one who has ever worried ;ut being human." —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. The New York Times OtieL Inside Account of in the First Year at arvard Law School by Scott Turow the daily $2.95 at your bookstore Collegian living students downtown looking for a good time all deal with the music business in different ways. “You can make a pretty good buck as a solo act. That’s, because when you work by yourself, the checks seem bigger,” Glenn Kidder, a local songwriter and performer, said. Kidder, in addition to writing and performing, is teaching a Free University course this term. But the area’s wealth of talent has a negative side to it. The high number of outlets for the musical tal ent would seem to guarantee a job somewhere, but with all the performers in the market, the prices one can ask and still remain competitive tend to drop. How would Freud relate to O’Keefe? Cold. Yet warming. Hearty, full-bodied flavor. Yet smooth and easygoing down. And. O'Keefe develops a big head on contact. Conflict. Conflict. Trauma. Trauma. Freud's diagnosis? We think he would have said. "It's too good to gulp!' And you will. too. In the final analysis. Imported from Canada by Century Importers. Inc., New York, NY Illustration by Frank Baseman “There’s a sort of glut of bands here,” said Sherry McCamley, who plays keyboards and sings with a ’sos revival group, Stevie and the Six Packs. The locally based band is riding the nostalgia wave, but only as a hobby on the weekends for some extra money. “The Six Packs play in the area, but go on the road to play firehalls, fraternaties and bars in other parts of the state. There the pay is a little better,” McCamley said. There are alternatives to the traveling. If a band is lucky enough to land a job as a “house band,” they can store their equipment where they work. If Keefe lien Ale idgjood to gulp. shape,” he said. “They take it per sonally.” Added Carville: “We’d tell them, don’t take it personally, take it individually it hurts more.” One professor, told this term to return an emergency call, reached Dial-An- Insult by mistake, Lambe said. After several minutes of abuse, he said, the enraged victim bellowed, “See here, young man, I was told to return a call to this number. I did not expect to be in sulted!” “Sorry, sir,” Lambe snickered, “but you’ve been had.” The ultimate affront disconnection was often awarded to late-night or early-morning callers, who were in formed that they were Vtoo dumb to abuse,” Carville said. Insult battles lasted only minutes, Lambe added. “We always won, of course,” he said. “Most people know six or seven good insults. But we know literally hundreds . . . besides, we’re naturally abusive people.” “And we’re probably the ideal men,” Carville said. All callers were told that they had reached Dial-An-Insult, the team said. Often, however, Carville and company would initially identify themselves as the University Creamery, the office of University President John W. Oswald, the Sub Shack, or the Lazy J. “Half of those places didn’t even have an 865 exchange, and people fell for it anyway,’’Lambe said. “Sometimes we’d just say, ‘click,’ and put our hands over the receiver,” Miller Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag LQnch | FOOTBALL SPECIAL If | BAG LUNCH $1.5011 J Hoagie Potato Chips ' « Orange Drink Pastry | I FINDLAY SNACK BAR | o and *£ m P.S.U. Mobile Food Unit :o o (Parked in front of Shields Bldg.) ; m I 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. f S’ Saturday, Oct. 21, 1978 ,| Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunch Bag Lunc/i A weekly-look at life in the University community Thursday, oct. 19, idts-j The Beaumarcs is one such band. The Beaumarcs are based in the Shandygaff Saloon, but the band, from Altoona, can leave.their equipment in the bar and take some or all oflheir equipment to weddings or other jobs. *’ “The area seems receptive to original music: is sort of isolated here, but it will get better. Redple have left the area, and maybe someday a NeuCYork City group will do a song that was written here in State College,” said Rounds. -7 “And that’s what to look for the release; of a local song on a level where it would have a possible national market.” said. "And they’d go crazy on the other end, wondering whether you’d really hungup.” This term’s new feature, from 10 to 10:15 p.m., was “Classic Insults from;the Past: Stuff Your Mother Used to Laiigh At.” * “We’d do really banal stuff, lilC'e ‘You’re a meanie,’ or ‘Your mo£her wears army boots,’ ’’ giggled Carvjlle. “People loved it.” After one week, the team informed all callers that the “Abuse Line” wad no longer in service, Nevertheless, tiiev, still receive three or four insult request?' each day, Carville said. J >' The service, which will probaby reopen next term, is too time-consuming for constant operation, he said. 6ar ville’s room billed on the door as! the “People’s Republic of 204 Hartranftlj also houses Froth headquarters, andifefT personal or business calls get through while Dial-An-Insult is operating. ; The group has also promised to notify Centrex when the service resumes, they said. ' !” “It took a full time operator just to handle our line at the ’ Phillips said. >■{” Two weeks ago, two East lialls numbers were incorrectly advertised in the Collegian Classifieds as DiatiAn- Insult. The phone owners, victims ;of a practical joke, said they were forced to disconnect their phones after three.davs of non-stop ringing. , Lambe said, however, “If people really want to be insulted, I’ll still iijsult them, if I’m in the right mood.” !. Even a naturally abusive persoii can have a heart;
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers