The Oakland Post

10 Within 10 Award recipients happy to be awarded for their work after graduation

Alyssa Ochss March 6, 2019

The recipients of the 10 Within 10 Award were recently announced by Oakland University’s Young Alumni Chapter, an award given out to alumni who have made an exceptional impact within their professions...

Federal judge rules male-only draft unconstitutional

Laurel Kraus, Managing Editor March 6, 2019

Compulsory service, or mandatory military service for a period of time, is currently a requirement for all citizens in various countries including Norway and Israel. A United States Federal Court judge,...

Trump administration ends summit with North Korea successfully

Timothy Kandow, Contributor March 6, 2019

On Feb. 27 and 28, President Donald Trump and Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi, Vietnam for the second summit between these two leaders. The meeting's intent was to discuss the denuclearization...

Mens basketball defeats IUPUI to close out regular season

Men’s basketball defeats IUPUI to close out regular season

Devin Boatwright, Staff Reporter March 5, 2019

The O’Rena was packed on Saturday night as the Golden Grizzlies faced off against the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Jaguars on the Blacktop. The Golden Grizzlies ended the...

Postie Perspectives: Who can help The Who?

By Sean Miller August 8, 2014

Can you believe The Who is reaching its 50th anniversary? I can't either...(not that I have been around as long as them). For The Who's anniversary, the band is going on tour and asking fans from around...

Postie Perspectives: When the lights go OUt

Kaylee Kean August 6, 2014

7 a.m. My alarm goes off. It's a theme from How To Train Your Dragon – called “Test Drive”, if you really want to know – and it usually works in getting me on my feet. Not today, however.I don't...

Postie Perspectives: Reflections

By Andrew Wernette July 21, 2014

There is a certain joy in mowing down tumbleweeds with your car, I’ve discovered. I encountered them on a road going through a windy plain in northern Arizona, where they slowly rolled across the pavement in front of me. Sometimes it would time out just right, and pshhhh! I’d watch them explode to pieces in my rearview mirror.

A dollar bill sat on my hanging corkboard in my room. I received it a very long time ago. There was nothing special about it except that it was crisp and flat, and I rarely come across bills in such a condition. I put the flat dollar away in a box, and many years later I found it again and put it on my corkboard to decorate it. I never spent it. Since it had remained perfect for so long, I wanted to keep it unspoiled.

Last night I looked at the flat dollar bill as I have for some time now, and I remembered a metaphor I once learned. There are those medieval tales of a dragon holding a damsel or some sort of treasure hostage, and then a knight (like St. George) comes along and slays it. The dragon has no real use for whatever he has in his clutches, but yet fiercely clings to it anyway. It can be interpreted that the dragon is one’s ego, which tends to cling to money, ideas, hidden talents, true self, etc. out of pride or fear of revealing or sharing it to the outside world. Meanwhile, the “treasure” sits idle and useless. It follows that, if you can “slay” your ego, you will be able to utilize that which you have and reap its true benefits.

I thought about that as I looked at the pretty-but-useless dollar bill, which led me to consider all the other, more important things I haven’t used, said or shared out of fear or pride; all those missed opportunities. I reached over and took the bill. I looked over its perfection once more. Then I took out my wallet and slipped it in with the other bills. I slowly folded the wallet and placed it back into my pocket.

On Rochester Road, between college and my town, there is a large, gated cemetery. It is relatively new and mostly empty. Through the gates there is a large statue of an angel, and then two edifices. The second one is very grand and made of dark stone, a striking building among the surrounding land. I have always espied it in passing, wondering if it was a giant mausoleum. So one day I decided to pull in and see for myself.

It was exactly what I thought: a giant house of the dead. I wandered past the bronze statue of Mary and the Christ in the atrium and stepped into the main corridor, which was lined with vaults of black marble. It was trim, well-lit and silent; almost futuristic in feeling. I began walking down the carpeted hall.

There were many empty vaults, but a good number of them had names embossed on the marble plates. Some were older, some recent. I saw only one other person throughout the building, and he stared solemnly at one of the graves near the floor. There was a withdrawn emotion in his face.

Upstairs there was a second floor to the mausoleum, which was almost identical to the first. I walked on, looking at the surnames. Not a soul stirred in the great hall, yet I did not feel alone, either. I was surrounded, by silence.

Eventually I descended the staircase and walked out the door of the building. I drove my car to the gate, leaving behind the black edifice and the cemetery shrouded in white.

After my mate climbed down, I went up the ladder through the hatch and found myself standing on the tarred roof of the apartment. It was a cool November evening, and the lights were beginning to sparkle. I looked across Brooklyn over to distant Manhattan. I might have felt more excitement for that moment if I hadn’t been so exhausted. After a minute or so I clamored back down the hatch to where my work crew bustled about.

You have to understand: we worked from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. for days on end, looking after disorientated storm evacuees in the basement of Lehman College in the Bronx. The hours were long, and I watched as personnel shuffled down and up the hallway late into the night. When morning came, our small crew slept on cots in one of the glass badminton rooms, trying to beat away our exhaustion. It was strange waking up each day to see the onset of evening; little time was left to just wander around. There was drama and weirdness brewing within our crew, too. So when our shift ended one morning after many nights of keeping the watch, my brawny, Native pal Forrest and I decided to sacrifice some hours of sleep in order to go out and explore.

We stepped out of the shelter into the buzzing freedom of the morning air, and we walked down the street to the nearby train station. I had suggested Little Italy, since I had once stayed in that area long ago. We took the train into Manhattan and rode it all the way down to Canal. When we emerged onto the street, the city greeted us with all its glorious, chaotic splendor.

We were in Chinatown. “I think it’s this way,” I said to Forrest, and we began to search around. Our exhaustion slowly gave away to the wonders around us. It was all vaguely familiar to me from eight years ago; I just had to get my bearings straight. We stepped into a shop to ask for directions and were pointed in the opposite way. After moving along the sidewalks past bustling doorways, we hit a street that immediately struck my memory. This was it.

The two of us wandered into the quaint neighborhood dressed in red, green and white. “Let’s go there,” I said, and we ducked into a fancy bakery that I recognized; I got a pastry, he a coffee. All around us there were Old World delis, cafes and shop names written in italiano. We inhaled the sights, smells, noises and tastes as we began exploring the blocks.

Suddenly, he came out of nowhere: a tall man in a voluptuous fur coat stopped us on the sidewalk, and with a rolling Italian accent he asked: “You hungry?”

He gestured to his restaurant that we happened to be in front of. “Want real Italian food? Come on in. I’m Italian, my chef’s Italian. Come in. They call me the Italian Bear.”

Forrest and I looked at each other. Why not, we thought.

“You don’t like the food, you don’t pay,” the Italian Bear said as he led us in. We were shown a table in the back of the dim restaurant, and the man yelled to his cook, “We have customers!” He hurriedly gave us menus with bread and olive oil.

The two of us chose to split a plate, and we decided to order the most unusual thing on the menu: deep-fried calamari with linguini. We looked around the small dining area, eating our bread. Eventually we got our linguini. I savored its crunchy, smoky flavor.

“There’s something with the sauce,” Forrest told me. Indeed, it tasted as if it was a little burnt. He looked at his dish.

“I think I’ll take that guy up on his offer of not paying.”

I tried to talk him out of it. Eventually, I offered to cover the whole bill. I paid and we stepped back out into the daylight.

Nothing compared to the taste of freedom. We continued to mingle between Little Italy and Chinatown, but after awhile we decided that we had seen everything we could. So we receded back underground and rode back to the Bronx: back to the daysleeping and the nights of keeping watch. But we had managed to break into the light, if only for a few hours.

Our crew was recalled back to California three days later.

Postie Perspectives: Franco and Rogen have gone too far

By Sean Miller July 18, 2014

When is enough, enough?We all know Seth Rogen and James Franco as a comedic duo who have a sort of bromance for each other. Together, the two have starred in films such as Pineapple Express and This is...

Postie Perspectives: This week in music

Postie Perspectives: This week in music

By Sean Miller June 20, 2014

Coldplay's Ghost Stories

With less then a week before the official release, Coldplay has given fans a chance to fully listen to their newest album on iTunes Radio.

On Monday, Coldplay fans received an email urging them to listen to the new album that had just started being streamed through iTunes. The email reads as follows:

“Hello again. We are pleased to report that Coldplay’s new album, "Ghost Stories," is available to stream for free via iTunes now! Head to iTunes.com/Coldplay to listen to the album in full, a week before its worldwide release on May 19. Just click on the featured video to stream the whole album accompanied by a stunning, full-length animation of Mila Fürtova’s Ghost Story artwork."

The email also gave information regarding the pre-order and release times for the upcoming album. The email also told about some concerts and ticket information as well as special television that will be shown on a UK television station, Sky Arts, and will premier on May 19 at 9:30 p.m.

After listening to the album, it is obvious that most of the content is about Chris Martin's recent divorce. Even the song names on the album give you a hint about what they are really about such as “Another’s Arms” and “Always in my Head.”

The song “True Love” leaves Martin singing “I've lost you now, you let met go but one last time… Tell me you love me, if you don't then lie to me.”

Regardless of the content of the songs, the album is a more avant-garde Coldplay then we are used to but it's definitely a step back returning to their older style, moving away from their last album “Mylo Xyloto.”

Postie Perspectives: Ridiculous news of the week

Postie Perspectives: Ridiculous news of the week

Kaseb Ahmad June 5, 2014

Jay-Z physically assaulted by Beyoncé’s sister

What exactly sets a person over the edge? Is it perhaps when a long-term partner cheats on you? Is it the death of someone close? Is it finals week?

When you put three famous people into an elevator, what do you get? This isn’t a joke, I’m legitimately curious. The problems don’t come from fame, they come from family. When you put cranky relatives together, then you better be prepared for a fight. Move over Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, your sister’s bringing the smack down.

Now I know what you’re thinking, why is Beyoncé’s clearly more talented, more famous sister Solange giving Jay-Z a lesson in the form of a whooping? Let’s analyze the situation.

Solange Knowles is an adamant force to be reckoned with in the music industry. She has all these singles I can name off the top of my head like that one that didn’t feature Beyoncé and that other one named… that song with that beat. Solange is the successful one. Everyone knows this; there is no debating the situation. So where is this ferocity coming from? Is she channeling her inner non-existent singles in the form of an attack? Did she want her first hit to be with Jay-Z? The world may never know.

As time passes, the headlines get more and more outlandish. What’s next, Chris Brown doesn’t violate his probation? The next season of Game of Thrones has zero character deaths? Oakland University gets a legitimate parking situation? When will the madness subside?

In all honesty, I wish these rich people with all that money the best. Not that rich people can’t have problems. Well, no I take that back, they can’t.

Postie Perspectives: Annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition to start June 9

By Michael Pulis May 21, 2014

The annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition, also known as E3, is set to start in a few weeks on Monday, June 9 in Los Angeles, California. E3 is best known for the announcement of numerous new video...

Postie Perspectives: We have a long summer ahead of us

By Michael Pulis May 14, 2014

Remembering high school, classes did not let out until the middle of June. For us, as college students, we are already on our third week since classes ended for the winter semester. Instead of worrying...

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