'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
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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
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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.
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Conflict. Conflict. Trauma. Trauma. Freud's diagnosis?
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In the final analysis.
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“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
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A weekly-look at life
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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;