Monday, May 5, 2003

I went with some friends tonight, gentle reader, to hear Ross hold forth at Pick-Staiger Hall about the issues of the day. And you know what? It was pretty disappointing.

A professor introduced him and left off on a cryptic “David is on the Board of Directors for The Rape Foundation,” after which Mr. Schwimmer advanced thirty minutes of didacticism. He recounted his college days and exhorted us to use our time not only for our own cares and endeavors, but for the community–local, national, global–as well. You could feel the crowd excitement drop as he talked.

When the speech ended and Q & A began, the NU student body started off with an insightful question: “What’s your favorite Friends episode?” At that exact moment, dear reader, I wept for our student body as we started a chain of embarrassing queries. A girl scampered onto stage to have her picture taken with him; some guy invited him to the local bar; a Caucasian couple believed that Mr. Schwimmer would rap with them (freestyle, mind you) and ran onstage only to find him surprisingly non-participatory, yet they proceeded to “rap” anyway; and of course, there were the predictable questions about role models and making out with Jennifer Aniston.

So all in all, a fantastic night.