I’m at a loss. I just walked home from the library, somewhat startled to hear Young Ivy blaring from the middle of the Green. For a moment I was disoriented, and then of course I saw the long, thin green light and realized what I was hearing and seeing: Theatre-On-The-Walk™, aka the Sun God’s “depiction of [his] emotional life experiences,” aka J.J. Recor dancing around making an ass of himself. Now I try to be the type of person who reserves criticism for people I know, because I like to have an adequate knowledge base from which to make my judgments – I think pure cynicism sucks. Why, then, does it not at all bother me to write this (soon to be quite disparaging) criticism of Mr. Recor, given that I’ve never met him? Because he’s not doing anything worthwhile.

Case in point: tonight I witnessed—and was negatively inspired by?—the juxtaposition of Young Ivy’s “Shirt Off” (aside: if he was before your time at Dartmouth, watch and enjoy) and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” This, of course, was accompanied by the dazzling light show generated by the Sun God’s mid-Green lightsaber swordplay.

Now how the fuck does that “display [Recor’s] humanity and all of lifes [sic] vulnerabilities that follow suit”? I don’t know. Maybe in another life he was a little guy who liked to take his shirt off? Maybe he has unusual feelings toward lions? I still don’t know, but I’ve been thinking about it for about thirty minutes right now and can’t come up with anything. If he’s trying to say something meaningful, he should do something meaningful. If he wants to express his lingering teenage angst about life and love, he should do a performance at the Hop and call it a day. If no one gets anything out of his midnight shows (and I assure you no gets anything positive out of them), how is his display of humanity productive in any way, shape, or form?

Okay—I just wasted more time looking at Recor’s blogspot… So, he might, in an ideal world, help students, “recognize that life isn't as serious as we sometimes make it out to be.” But does that actually happen? The only "serious" thing I can think about when seeing the Sun God is how seriously confused about life he is. If you want people to take things less seriously, you have to show them reasons to take things less seriously: make them laugh, or show them that they can still succeed in a terrible job market with heinous amounts of debt and brain damage from regular alcohol abuse. I think that’s pretty obvious. Now, as far as I can tell he makes no claims about one’s ability to pay the bills in the real world. And yet, might dancing around on the Green in a costume that blares music be light-hearted enough to make people crack a smile and relax? Well yes, if you’re wearing a fish costume and doing it as part of pledge term. But not if you act like what you’re doing is serious and you do it every God-damn day.

This led me to another thought: perhaps Recor is just being the ultimate hipster. Is he being completely fucking ironic by trying to make something trivial (his antics) seem serious? If this were the case, he would actually be outrageously successful at achieving his aims. (Quick, someone pull off his mask and see if he has a moustache, and sweep the Green for any empty PBR cans.)

But seriously, if that is his goal I think it’s all lost upon anyone whose name is not J.J. Recor.

So at this point, I can only think of three reasonable explanations for his actions:

1) He doesn’t realize that his project is, at best, highly ineffective and, at worst, a total failure, because he is totally unaware that we all think he’s a douchebag.

2) He realizes he’s making a total tool of himself, but doesn’t care because he’s actually a tool and is doing this for his own self-aggrandizement.

3) He thinks that by inspiring so much animosity toward himself he will teach us to not judge people (assuming we, one day, realize our transgressions).

If any one of these is his explanation, he’s fucked. The only idiots we like are the lovable ones – the blissful Barbie and the kind (but stupid) giant. I suppose some people like douchebags, but, then again, he’s here, and that’s at Harvard.

Finally, as we current and former Catholics know, guilt is a son-of-a-bitch to ignore at all costs. We make every effort to brush off the pang of conscience we feel after mocking Recor, and so he fails to teach us anything about our own hard-heartedness. So, even if we've managed to figure out why the fuck he does what he does, we’re still far from understanding how it’s supposed to make any difference.

So, Sun God, if you can share with me your wisdom or plan or ultimate goal in a way that is logical, coherent, and practical, I will rescind each and every harsh remark I’ve made. But until then, stop pandering to us about the fragility of life and the loss of love. We know, it sucks, but most of us deal with it in a way that doesn’t make us out to be insufferable narcissists.