If there’s one thing Sherman Ave prides itself on, it’s follow through. That, and our stunning mastery of the entire AP U.S. History Flashcard set. So, in the hopes of amping you up to take the 2013 Sherman Ave Readers’ Poll, here are the results of last year’s 2012 Sherman Ave Readers’ Poll. Enjoy the blast from the heinous past.
Most Heinous Event of 2012
With 18% of the vote, the winner was: Evanston revoking the Keg’s liquor license. The Keg may not have survived the wrath of Tizzy, but it did manage to eke out a one-vote victory over the advent of #YOLO, followed closely by the I Agree With Markwell campaign and the notorious Vandy seal clubbingscandal. Rest in peace, old friend. We swear to hold you forever in our memory by linking to this every goddamn opportunity we get.
As much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think that the good old Cardiac ‘Cats have a Nebraskan hail mary’s chance of making The Grandaddady of Them All. Unfortunately, there are more impediments blocking Northwestern from making the Rose Bowl than there are ways for NU to lose a game, but these three sticking points immediately jump out to me as reasons Northwestern doesn’t have a chance to make this New Year’s Tournament of Roses:
When I think of this football season, I think of the proverbial Sweet 16th birthday in which nothing went according to plan. The one where you invited all the right people, planned all the right activities — maybe even picked up a six-pack of O’Douls — and yet, despite your best laid plans, the shit still somehow hit the fan. In fact, the fan-shit encounter wasn’t even benign enough that we could clean it up with Windex and some elbow grease. We’re talking a full-blown, weird-kid-in-kindergarten level of shit splatter, as if Quentin Tarantino were invited to direct the sequel to 2 Girls 1 Cup (presumably titled 3 Girls, 1 cups). Continue reading →
Once upon a time there was a student who couldn’t name a single player on her university’s football team. Once upon a time there was a high school recruit sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, comparing the merits of Michigan, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. Once upon a time there was a fanbase that Continue reading →
Now that Northwestern has won the Gator Bowl, pissing all over Mississippi State, improving to 2-0 against the so-called “good” SEC, and ending a bowl drought that spanned approximately 320 times longer than Kim Kardashian’s suddenly relevant-again marriage (CHECK THE MATH, BITCHES), I’m sure you’re all probably thinking, “Man, does it get any better than this?”
Well, as fate would have it, it does! If by better you actually mean worse. Because now it’s time for the start of the Big Ten basketball season. AND WE ALL REMEMBER HOW WELL LAST YEAR WENT.
All of our favorite assholes are back (except that goddamn Meyers Leonard. douche.), from Michigan to Ohio State to Illinois, and the Cats will have to navigate this season without the baby-faced assassin John Shurna. And JerShon Cobb. Oh and Drew Crawford is gone, too. WAIT WHAT KIND OF FUCKED UP WORLD DO WE INHABIT I DON’T WANT TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE.
Regardless, it’s time we get ourselves in the mood for basketball by taking a look at the other 11 teams in the Big Ten and analyzing why they’re all fucking pricks. Continue reading →
The University of Oxford board of regents voted unanimously Monday to accept the Big Ten’s invitation to join as a member in all sports. The move will likely make the Fighting Commas the Big Ten’s 15th member, and reportedly came as a surprise to many in the industry.
Hey Wildcat’s! It’s the fourth quarter. It’s time to finish! So let’s put your hands up in the air while we try and figure out what the hell this song is about!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel begins his anthem with an imperative. More command than mere request, Wildcat fans are instructed to throw their hands up in the air to start the fourth quarter off right with a communal movement that celebrates the fleeting temporal relationship between a television timeout and the Northwestern secondary’s imminent collapse.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A reiteration of Danzel’s requisition, harkening back to the initial invocation presented to fans through the luminous jumbotron specter at Ryan Field. There are only so many permutations with which one can raise one’s hands up in the air, but such trifles are not of concern to men like Danzel or Kain Colter.
16x: Air
Bridging the gap between the transcendent heavens and the solid gridiron where mortals run the spread is air — surrounding us, within us, throughout us — air, the wind modern man has breathed for longer than approximately 3,174.60 NU bowl droughts. Like Pat Fitzgerald, we return to the essence that begot us with arms open wide to the infinite blue beyond.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
God, I could just do this shit all motherfucking day.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Are they flashing WNBA scores up on the scoreboard? Oh wait, that’s just the Indiana final.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel utilizes repetition to depict the subtle interplay between the verticality of your limbs and your levels of ampitude. This is a complex relationship that the 20,000 or so Nebraska fans in the stadium will never quite appreciate.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Were the rights to Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” really that expensive?
Yo party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Danzel rapidly changes perspectives, venturing into the mind of party people. Although a bold display of empathy, I have to admit that when party people normally come out to my ragers, they normally say things like “Oh, you were serious about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory theme?” or “Man, it’s been such a long time since I’ve drank anything cheaper than Sköl!” Maybe Belgian party people just rage a little… differently than we do here.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
After setting up his song with repeated exposition viz a viz our hands in the air, Danzel announces his intention to delve into the atmosphere he and his audience have mutually created, expounding upon the aura, or “vibe,” that his beats have created within Ryan Field.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
Taken out of context, this line sounds exactly as stupid and/or sexual as it does within the context of this song.
GET THOSE HANDS UP IN THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR!!!
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
If any party people have somehow avoided raising there hands up in the air, now is the time for them to come out like a Freshman during Wildcat Welcome Week.
Party people come out, come out..
yo, Dj turn it on
LET’S GO ROUND TWO!!!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Oh God. There are only so many times I can put my hands up in the air… I think my forearms are more sore than Monica Lewinsky’s in the Oval Office. Must. Keep. Getting. Pumped.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A bit of biographical information on Danzel. Born “Johan Waem,” the musician broke out of a perpetual cycle of chocolate addiction in the waffle house slums of Antwerp that plagues so many other young Belgians with his deep passion for house, techno, dance music, and getting you PUMPED for the fourth quarter of football games.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Surprisingly, this song peaked at Number 6 in the UK Dance Charts in 2005 but never garnered much interest anywhere else. How the hell it became an NU tradition is anyone’s guess.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Speaking of which, can something really be a “tradition” if it was instituted less than two years after we elected our current president? Looking at you, March Through the Arch.
[INSTRUMENTAL BREAK]
Danzel takes a quick break from pumping you up, providing ample time for the jumbotron to display pre-meds dancing more awkwardly than Mitt Romney at a RZA show.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
What Northwestern lacks in terms of facilities, season-ticket holders, or a pass rushing attack, it more than makes up for with its fan base’s threatening ability to raise its hands up in the air for extended periods of time.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
GET SOME, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA!!! Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
I assume this is also what House Republicans said when they held the government hostage this spring. On an unrelated note: I bet love to see Paul Ryan play running back. The dude makes social welfare cuts quicker than Venric Mark on a kick return.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
The strength of Danzel’s mantra lies in its specific spatial reference point. The bard is imploring his audience to place their hands — one of the most essential tools of the human body — in the very oxygen we breathe, interweaving the supple protoplasm of man with the zephyrous troposphere that sustains us.
[FADEOUT]
Wildcat fans are led to believe that Danzel’s jam will continue ad nauseam, a never ending ode to the power of triumphantly raising one’s hands in the air into perpetuity in order to raise stokeage levels at Ryan Field to near illegal levels in Evanston.
Sherman Ave 
