Number 26

Number 26 - St. Louis University

Saint Louis University (or as the kids call it, SLU; or, as I call it, SaaayyyneeLewwwEEEUnivEEE!) was the first American insitution of higher education to be founded west of the mighty Mississippi and also the first college that everyone forgets exists west of the aforementioned river. One of the largest Jesuit schools in the nation, SLU offers a really exciting and diverse variety of activities for its students to partake in, such as following complete abstinence and learning to field dress wounds of fellow students after they are clapped in the gut by some thugs who lives within one block off any direction of campus (sorry Larry Hughes's brother). This rather humble, Jesuit campus with it's coat of arms conveying two ferrets fighting over a severed devil's head seems like the perfect place for students who didn't get into Washington University of Saint Louis to come and get a fine, deeply divine education and also minor in public speaking and linguistics, seeing as how some day they are going to have to explain to a future hiring manager why the fuck they want to Saint Louis University (Sorry Larry Hughes). Overall, the school itself seems like a perfect place to develop a minor alcohol problem and an even major dependency on fat chicks and riverboat gambling. Toot toot!

Even before such star athletes as Anthony Bonner and Dick Boushka were putting up 5 points and 2.5 boards per evening and gathering dust at the end of NBA benches, Saint Louis was an athletic powerhouse in the same way that I am a 5 foot tall Chinese female bronze-winning figure skater. The mascot, the Billiken, is a mysterious and often debated mythical creature, vague in its rise to prominence and completely absence in physical and mental actuality (I didn't steal that from the Barack Obama Wikipedia entry.) The earliest beginnings of this freakish troll/lizard/demon baby/Chupacabra/Tara-Reid looking abomination are unclear. However, historical documents from the Congressional library and Mad Magazine tell us this:

"Several details seem to be certain. Everyone agrees that the Billiken is a good-luck figure who represents "things as they ought to be." The designer of the Billiken also seems to be fact. Florence Pretz, a Missouri art teacher and illustrator, patented her "design for an image" of the jovial creature in 1908.

It's also known that the Billiken was manufactured in the early 1900s as a bank and statuette and was the national rage for about six months -- kind of that period's pet rock. During this time, the Billiken was turned into all sorts of things: dolls, marshmallow candies, metal banks, hatpins, pickle forks, belt buckles, auto hood ornaments, salt and pepper shakers and glass bottles.

That's about where the certainty ends, however.

I spared you the boring middle parts which told about the mascot being "all the rage" back in the day when life was simpler and people enjoyed stupid things like this because they had elementary school educations and lived in coal-burning houses with walls covered in lead-based paint. Either way,
the story is told that Billikens always possess cheery personalities, broad smiles and rotund bellies. As of today, no one has gone on record to discuss all the sodomy.

One last point on Billiken: To buy a Billiken gives the purchaser luck, but to have one given to you is better luck. A follow up point: To pay for a Saint Louis degree gives the student a lucky chance at fixing my air filter at Meineke's and to have a degree given to you is an unsaid but very known indication that you are, in fact, legally retarded.

 

The Billiken as seen portraying a child in "The Hills Have Eyes"

What could possibly be unlucky about a fat, balding demon with a ridged head, bat ears, man tits,  Hayden Pannettiere arms, Elephantitis feet and a face that indicates that he is shitting on a cold limestone slab? Praise be to Jesus! Apparently the luck made by most hard working Americans (opportunity meets preparation) is only gained at SLU by a quick gut buffing of this demonic effigy. PLEASENT. As they say at Saint Louis: "Ouija boards are what you use only when molesting imps and drinking blood of premature infants doesn't help you!

The school, at some point in the decades between relative irrelevance and complete obscurity decided it needed more than a bronze hobgoblin to represent its mediocre sporting teams. Alas, they came up with this horrific specter to lurp the sidelines,  snarlling its elfin fangs at opposing teams and fronting the Smashing Pumpkins on weekends.

"The world is a vampire..."

God doesn't make mistakes, but I am sure he regrets that Friday at 4:59 p.m. when he quickly rushed to put in the eyeballs of whatever degenerate mistake saw this as his or her vision for a school mascot. I don't have the slightest clue how a crossed-eyed, pig-snouted, Powder look-alike wearing my grandpa's pubes on his head and dressed in a shitty Apex 1990's sweatsuit could ever represent a school for deaf leper's (not these kind), let alone a public institution of "higher learning." Just looking at this not only doesn't bring me luck, but also makes me puke and go number 3 at the same time. It's about as fucked up as Michael J. Fox's clutch and is similar to watching Oprah button her jeans over her cake-batter belly: you just wonder how something that wretched and vulger could even be possible.

Just for comparison's sake, here is a picture of Bat Boy captured by the "Weekly World News" (which, if you must know, won the TMZ Ethics in Outstanding Journalism Seal of Distinction):

Now I'm a great investigative journalist about as much as I'm a crack-addicted, pole-dancing Eskimo, but I think I'm onto something here.  It appears as though the shifty Billiken was finally unearthed eating cat remains in a cage of any room at the Alpha Delta Pi house at SLU. That smell finally makes sense.

Let's gather our collective thoughts, shall we? It seems crazy that a school known for producing the world's best Frosty mixers and psychics could do this! But, it seems safe to say that the Billiken has, and will continue to, terrify opposing teams and the nightmares of any child who has seen it, EVER. In the end, one must hope that a good belly tickling might someday deliver a slew of bullet proof vests and bar-covered windows to all the helpless targets, slowing sauntering, unprotected, around campus each day. Until then, fire away hoodlums...just don't hit Saint Louis's OTHER main statue, the beloved St. Ignatius.

St. Ignatius practicing his "Wax On! Wax Off!" lines from the Karate Kid

Until next time...Seeyah! And DAMN! It feels good to be back!

What I'm laughing at right now: Darko Milicic goes crazy!