"DUMBFOUNDED": A MEETING REIMAGINED, by Big Bill

SATURDAY, OCT. 8: Recently (Sept. 29), Tracy Daly, the district’s pleasant head of “marketing, government, and community relations,” visited the IVC Academic Senate. She came to solicit the senators' input re some marketing ideas, including possible changes to the district logo. The old logo just won’t do somehow, she said.

We looked at it. One senator opined that it “lacked dimensionality.” Another suggested that its fonts are outdated. “Those fonts are so 1996,” he said, rolling his eyes. Another senator said simply, “I don’t get it.”

Someone in back explained that the color blue is for “fidelity” and that the red “means history.” I asked: “What about the ‘Ratitude’? What’s that stand for?”

Then Ivan said, “if we want more students, we’ve gotta stick the word ‘Pacific’ in our name somewhere! We’re pretty close to the beach, you know!”

“This logo looks corporate,” offered Dmitri.


“There are people who live less than a mile from here and they don’t know we exist,” suggested Alyosha.

Then someone declared that two of the colors in the logo have to stand for the colleges. “Red is for Saddleback, and beige is for IVC,” she announced, peevishly.

“What’s ATEP’s color?”, asked Fyodor. We all laughed. (ATEP is some kinda park. We think it's in Tustin somewhere. Could be.)

I grew bored. There was a missing ceiling tile, and I stared up into it. Saw a rat. Brown.

“What about this radio ad—the one with the surfer?” asked a disapproving Nikolai. “Is that really the image we want to project?”

Nikolai was referring to the radio ad in which an announcer, representing our colleges, interviews a very stupid surfer, representing students. (To hear it, go to

http://www.socccd.org/chanc/update8-16-05.htm

and scroll down to the ad.)

Somebody said they were “dumbfounded” by the ad. Somebody else said the ad was “unbelievable.” Nevsky explained that KROQ-FM, where the ad aired, is the home of Adam Carolla (I think that was the name). According to Nevsky, Carolla’s shtick includes portraying “junior” colleges as populated by stupid people.

“What message are we sending,” asked Nevsky, “by representing students as Mongoloid idiots?”

Someone snickered.

This is a “colossal embarrassment,” said Daleski Rayski, who cringed hideously as a fly flew round his head.

Tracy nodded at all of this. Then she explained that various people signed off on the summer campaign. Among them: Trustee Lang and Chancellor Mathur.

“So don’t blame just me,” said Tracy.

Suddenly, the air conditioning stopped. A dreadful silence fell upon us.

Then Vladimir said: “We used to define ourselves as the college where you can get a real education. That was our niche.” We’re not the “party school,” he added.

That’s for sure.

Sensing a lull, Tracy unveiled two proposals for the new district logo (see). “They’re in a diamond configuration,” she said. “The diamond stands for jewels, I think,” she added.

We stared at the proposed logos. No one said anything. You could hear a mouse dropping drop.

After five minutes of silence, Tracy gathered her things and, amid the oppressive nothingness, she simply left the building. –Big Bill