Sherman Ave Interviews: Justin Barbin

If you’ve been to a Northwestern sorority’s formal (ANY sorority), or if you’ve just creepily stalked pictures from any given formal, then you definitely know the name Justin Barbin.  A photographer/entrepreneur/all-around awesome dude, Barbin graduated from Northwestern in 2011, and, after moving back to his hometown of Houston, began to dabble in his longtime hobby of photography.  Flash forward to 3 years later, and Barbin is one of the best-known names at Northwestern – not only for his skills as a photographer, but for his personality, his style, and having a name that is eerily similar to that of Justin Bieber.  Barbin was nice enough to take time out of his very busy schedule to sit down with Sherman Ave travesties Ross Packingham, Prince Giblets, and Felicity Jenkins, and allowed them to ask him a few questions about himself, his passion, and a lot of stupid shit.  Mostly just stupid shit. 

Ross Packingham: So we’ll start with a few questions about your background–

Justin Barbin: Like ethnicity, or…?

Packingham: That isn’t what we had in mind.

Felicity Jenkins: But feel free to answer that as well.

Packingham: So from my understanding, you just popped out of your mother’s womb with a Nikon DSLR in hand.

Barbin: Canon.

Packingham: That’s embarrassing, I didn’t do my research. And there are so many pictures online with the camera. Anyway, is that why she hated you?

The Onion Definitely Has A Record Label, And So Far Nobody’s Laughing

The Onion, everyone’s second favorite satirical news organization, has branched into the music industry with its own record label.

I just can’t prove it.

Not long ago, I would’ve thought this diversification was preposterous. It seemed inevitable that all record labels were going the way of dinosaurs and dodos, and no one, not even The Onion, wanted any part of it. Now, however, it seems the music industry has finally realized just how drastically it must adapt in order to survive. This is where the good people at The Onion stepped in with all of their trademark, Puck-like mischief.

The first piece of evidence that led to this conclusion was the release of

Album Review: Brown Sugar’s “Zamaane”

Some say that a cappella at Northwestern is like the TV show Glee. But that can’t be, because the kids on Glee bagged football players and couldn’t drink for shit, which we all know doesn’t hold true for acca-biddies and acca-bros at Northwestern.

Others posit that a cappella at Northwestern is more like Community. Marginally popular–but not enough to get people to care enough to watch every performance–and irrationally beloved among the theater community.

While all these theories and more may be true, it’s clear after the first listen that Brown Sugar‘s latest album Zamaane situates Brown Sugar as the Mad Men of a cappella at NU: Genre-defining, poignant, sexy in all the right places, and best after a glass of scotch or five.  Just so long as you ignore the fact that the Mad Men cast is more white-washed than Mitt Romney’s book group and Brown Sugar is, well, the nation’s premiere co-ed South Asian collegiate a cappella group.

Pope Francis I: “New Church Album Will Rock”

A shirtless Pope Francis, on tour supporting his album White Smoke Rising.

VATICAN — The recently elected Pope Francis I announced that the Catholic Church’s forthcoming album will have “more of a New Testament element.”

The heavyweights of Christ’s gospel and godfathers of the Christian genre are looking to release tracks later this year, but will not deviate far from the mantra that made them one of the millennia’s most followed acts.

Luis Antonio Tagle, the Archibishop of Manila and synth player in the Church, said, “When we were working on Benedict XVI, we got caught up in a lot of great experimental stuff.  It was a much softer period.  Our next papacy is going to be good and it’s going to sound great when played loud!”

The Hangover Cure That Never Fails

Pictured: You, tomorrow morning

Up until I turned 21, I could drink myself into oblivion as often as I wanted and never once woke up to find my body telling me that I had too much fun the night before, a dreaded condition commonly known as the hangover. But mother nature has a sick sense of humor, and since then seems to delight in watching me suffer every morning after I drunkenly belt “Afternoon Delight” on my walk home from telling a group of strangers my most embarrassing secrets.

EXCLUSIVE: Chet Haze’s Holiday Album Delayed Indefinitely

The album climaxes with Chet and Ludacris merrily shouting “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

Sources have confirmed that Tom Hanks’ son and Northwestern’s premiere rapper on all things Hollywood, Chet Haze, has decided to segue into rhyming about the holidays but has run into difficulty regarding the release of his seasonal album, Stocking Stuffer.  The album, which is rumored to feature veteran heavy hitters such as Chamillionaire, has been marked with numerous delays.  A track titled, “T-Giving Family Ruckus” co-written by legendary rapper Ja Rule blew the original pre-Thanksgiving release date on account of the rapper still rounding out a 28-month prison sentence for tax evasion and could not make it into a Chicago recording studio with Haze.

Besides closing The Keg, what else has Mayor Tisdahl achieved?

At this afternoon’s Political Union in the Northwestern University Norris Center, Evanston mayor Elizabeth “Lizzly the Grizzly” Tisdahl claimed that “closing down The Keg was one of the best things [she had] ever done.”  Needless to say, this inflammatory statement is an affront to any Northwestern student who has enjoyed an otherwise uneventful Monday night at The Keg – let alone the ETHS students who don’t even have other viable outlets to hone their raging skills.  This is the equivalent to Jimmy Carter taking proud ownership of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, or Creed taking proud ownership of their music.  It also begs the question: If this is only one of the best things E-Tizzy has accomplished, then what would she consider to be some of the others?

Hate A Random Country: Canada

It’s waaay too easy to find a picture of a vagina on the Internet.

It’s widely known that there is only one country in North America that matters.  America[1]. All others are entirely irrelevant.  This scientific fact has been proven time and again, during Olympics, world wars, and presumably obesity contests (we have the most mass, so we matter the most).  However, there are other countries that we are unfortunately stuck sharing a continent with, and sadly, one of them is Canada.

Imagine that you were stuck in a never-ending Northwestern winter.  Now imagine that in the middle of the snow, the only life you could see was a lonely moose jacking off.  Also you routinely got hit in the face with hockey pucks, and your tears froze and turned into little balls of ice before they hit the ground.  Oh, and in the background, Nickelback’s newest album played on an infinite repeat, only occasionally intercut by a song or two from Drake, the rapper who has singlehandedly infected over 39 women with syphilis.  The situation I just described is pretty much what it’s like to live in Canada.

Firstly, Canada is known for hockey.  Their national sport involves various large and drunk eastern European men bashing each other with sticks and fighting for a disc on ice.  Occasionally they pummel each other for no apparent reason.  What the fuck?  Despite Canadian claims of ”originating” the sport of hockey, they actually stole it from Russia, which according to historian “Mittens” Romney, is our #1 enemy.  So not only is Canada responsible for bringing the wretched sport here, it’s also collaborating with our enemies.  It’s like the old saying: “Bring me hockey, shame on you; conspire with Russia, and why the fuck aren’t we invading Toronto already?”

A part of the daily life of a Canadian.

Secondly, their national food is Maple Syrup.  I don’t know about you, but I, like most normal people, don’t like drinking trees.  I don’t swing that way; I don’t like putting liquid that comes from wood in my mouth.  Yet that’s exactly what Canada shoves down the throats of the world.  In Canada, maple syrup is required by law to be 66% sugar (which goes to show what Canada’s government is concerned with regulating useless shit, rather than helping fight Terrorism like REAL countries).  Well thanks a lot for that, Canada.  If I wanted to drink something terrible for me that would burn with sugar as it went down, I would just drink a Smirnoff Ice[2].

Then, there’s the music.  Not only does Canada want us to “call them maybe”, but they have unleashed many terrors on the world.  For one, Justin Bieber, or as I call him, “pussyface.”  Then, Nickelback.  Fucking…Nickelback.  Baby, baby, baby…NO.  Also, Cher.  Anyone with a soul hates Cher.

Yet they get even worse.  Canada is still sucking the metaphorical dick of England.   England is not worth sucking up to (although Pippa Middleton definitely is[3]).  They still have the queen on their (bizarrely multicolored) money!  They could at least grow some balls and put Canadian flags on it, but no.  Random-ass British people.  Yet while Canada remains England’s little bitch, they are also French, which inherently makes them pussies.  This fine line that they walk between kissing the ass of the English and being a pussy like the French makes them even more insufferable.

In short, there’s nothing more despicable than Canada.  From the fact that they originated Nickelback, to their creation of hockey and maple syrup, to their creation of Nickelback[4] they truly are the shittiest and most pathetic excuse for a country on this entire planet.  After all, as their national anthem says… “Oh Canada…goddamn it, why do I live in you?  Fuck my life.”

– Horatio Fourgasm

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[1] Techincally “the United States of America,” but since all other countries are irrelevant, America will here be used EXCLUSIVELY to refer to the U.S of motherfuckin’ A.

[2] Maple Syrup is one of the few things on earth that is even less healthy than Smirnoff Ice.

[3] Side note: Pippa, if you’re reading this…I love you.  Please respond to my letters/e-mails/flyers I’ve tried to distribute around the UK.

[4] A crime so terrible I listed it twice.

Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Dealing With a Terrible Roommate

I’ll kill you in your sleep.

Before I left for college, I had a heart-to-heart chat with my Dad.  There were many things that made me anxious, but my fears about my future roommate exceeded all others. I was terrified that my roommate would be a serial killer, a poltergeist, a hater of Harry Potter, or a fan of Fox news. Thankfully, none of those things came true. At least, to my knowledge. Although I did once catch my roommate, who shall henceforth be referred to as Phyllis, watching The O’Reilly Factor. But I THINK she was doing it ironically.

BREAKING: Chicago Teachers Union running out of sign ideas

Let’s hope they never find his collection of Megadeth t-shirts