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Volume XCIX, Number 10
Monday, September 16, 1985
STUDENT LIFE
how you spent your summer vacation: hitting bottom in beverly hills — central america where you met the real people and not the ones reagan would like you to
‘Cocaine’_____________________ ‘Central America’___________
By Mark Ordesky June 1985
The tension begins mounting in Stanislaus.
The wind is blowing and it’s hot. You’re in a static-filled no man’s land between Stockton’s K-DJK and Fresno’s K-BOS. The last thing you remember hearing was something about Ronnie James Dio at the Oakland Amphitheatre tonight. But all is silent now, except for the wind. You don’t like it, but you’re going to have to live with it. Unless you want AM. No, AM’s no good. Tension in Stanislaus was never beaten by listening to Top-40 bullshit on the AM stations of Central California. You need violent, head-banging noise to put your hostilities in focus.
Or a motorcycle.
You survey the blanketed hills off 1-5 — all gentle slopes and grazing cattle. But you know the hills are a lot steeper and less gentle than they appear to be. Last time you drove this road you pulled over and hopped a fence to get a closer look. You were going to climb one of the sloping hills and fall asleep in the tall, golden grass. But by the time you made it to the closest incline you were exhausted and soaked with sweat. From your new vantage point it was clear that these hills were hard and uneven and that the golden grass that looked so inviting at 70 mph was prickly and dry — leaving painful, little needles in your socks and hay fever in your head.
If you had a motorcycle, you could defeat the hills and tear the prickly grass apart with a simple twist of your wrist.
But you don’t have a motorcycle.
You don’t even know how to drive one.
Better forget about the hills for now.
A road sign ahead cuts through the haze of reverie and puts things in perspective. You’ve been on the road for three hours. At your current rate of speed, you’ll be in Los Angeles for dinner.
Homecoming is only 200 miles away. You’ve been out of school for four weeks, you’ve got everything any sane person could possibly want out of a post-graduate existence and you’re miserable.
Why?
It’s simple, really. You’re wallowing in self-pity and you’re in the throes of a cocaine addiction — even if you don’t know it yet.
Simple, right?
Don’t laugh. This is your life.
July 1985
Down and out in Beverly Hills. Is that where you are right now? You only wish it could be so glamorous. You tell yourself you could be going somewhere — doing some-
(Continued on page 13)
By Mike Kirsch
MANAGUA —"Alto, alto!!” These were the words I heard from four Sandinista soldiers ordering me to stop. Armed with Soviet-made automatic rifles, the sharply outfitted infantrymen approached me, took my camera and escorted me to the man thev called "El Jefe.”
I was informed by the commanding officer that taking photographs in a military zone was forbidden. The film was taken from my camera, my passport was checked, and I was led out of the area and escorted to a nearby, public plaza.
It was July 18th, the day before the 6th anniversary' of the Sandinista Revolution. I was walking near the giant, outdoor plaza on the west bank of Lake Managua, which was receiving last minute preparations for a celebration set for the following day. I had accidently strayed into an off-limits area next to the plaza.
A battalion of about 50 soldiers had fortified the shoreline into a makeshift military base as part of the beefed-up security precautions for the celebration. Soviet-made trucks and anti-aircraft guns were draped with camouflage netting. The soldiers had pitched tents, dug foxholes, and built border walls out of sandbags.
I took two photographs of the base from about 100 yards away. Four young soldiers had finished an early dinner and were rinsing their plates at the rear of a water-tank truck when they spotted me.
A day later, 500,000 Nicaraguans gathered at the site for the celebration. The crowd heard President Daniel Ortega call the United States policy towards Nicaragua "acts of terrorism.”
After the speech, the song, "We Are The World,” by USA for Africa, blasted over the loudspeakers. I watched with amazement as the Nicaraguans and Americans — many of whom were members of U.S. support groups in Manangua for the celebration — danced and sang to the other American songs which followed. I thought to myself, "this is a little Cuba?”
Two months earlier, I had left Los Angeles for Central America thinking — however casually — that I might not return alive. I went as far as writing a will. News reports called Central America a "hot bed” of violence. Communists, "looking to destroy American influence in the area,” according to Reagan Administration reports, were running wild in the region.
My mom was very worried. Her friends wanted to know why her son was spending a summer in "mixed-up” Central America with a bunch of "crazy, mixed-up people.”
My friends and fellow classmates at the university had the same reaction. The phrase I soon became used to hearing was "nice knowing you,” or "you’re nuts.”
Students I had talked with before leaving, had the same opinions or perceptions of Central America as those of many Southern Californians: That all of Central America
(Continued on page 19)