Are You Bored? I'm Bored.

WEIRD IS FINE by me. Obnoxious is OK, too. I'm also basically tolerant of arrogant, exasperating, condescending and offensive. But I have no patience for boring. I can't deal with dull. Dull books, dull movies, dull people, dull days--they drive me to distraction.

Politics, I have recently decided, is dull.

As a government major, I have to write papers about politics every week. At The Crimson, I have to edit columns about politics every day. John Locke, OMB, David Souter, ICBM, Richard Pipes, NRA. It gets tiresome. Where's the poetry? Where's the color? Where's the innovation?

It isn't difficult to figure out who's responsible for politics' vanilla flavor. Those self-important Cross Pen/paisley tie/hair gel gov jocks sucking your section leader's posterior become politicians when they grow up. And if you don't believe me, you didn't attend the IOP schmoozefest at Winthrop House last year, when undergraduates were introduced to the House of Representatives' newly elected members. As conversationalists, these Congressional airheads ranked slightly behind CPA's and slightly ahead of dead people.

ENTER ALAN CARUBA.

Caruba has always been obsessed with ennui. He links boredom to drug and alcohol abuse, high school dropout rates, violent crime, alarming suicide statistics and the general decline of the American family. He also thinks that boredom is, well, boring. There are better ways to spend a life.

So in 1984, Caruba founded The Boring Institute, dedicated to the proposition that "There's No Excuse for Being Bored!" He designated July as "National Anti-Boredom Month." He began releasing his Fearless Forecasts of TV's Fall Flops. (Bad news for "Eerie, Indiana.") He began announcing his annual list of "The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year." (1990 champion: Donald Trump.)

And he began running for President as a representative of The Boring Party.

"Technically, it's inaccurate to suggest that I ran," he said in an interview from party headquarters, his Maplewood, N.J., home. "I'd say I strolled. I run only to the bathroom. I've got a little bladder problem, you see. I like my beer, but I just can't hold it. You know, I've heard the reason beer runs through your body so fast is that it doesn't have to change color. But that's a story for another day..."

Perhaps. But the story of Alan Caruba is a story for today. Because the 1992 presidential race is shaping up to be a snoozer of epic proportions. And Caruba is testing the waters once again.

"I've got nothing better to do," he explains.

IN 1988, only 50 percent of the American public bothered to vote. For every Joe Schmoe who helped decide who would lead this country into the '90s, there was a Jack Schmack who stayed home.

And who could blame Jack? He could have cast his ballot for Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, a perfectly nice Harvard Law School graduate with crash test dummy charisma. (A compelling comparison, no?) Or he could have supported the candidacy of Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush of Andover, Yale and the Sy Sperling Inspirational Speech Club for Men. Or he could have stayed home to rearrange his sock drawer, twiddle his thumbs and watch candlepin bowling. You make the call.

"A lot of people are bored with the political process," Caruba says. "They should be natural constituents for me. Frankly, I think I'm the most interesting candidate out there these days."

Caruba isn't exactly out there yet. He has only announced that he is officially "hesitating" to run for president.

"If you come out and say you want the job, the media totally ignores you," Caruba told me. "Look what's happening to Tsongas."

But Caruba is certainly making plans. He plans to run his write-in campaign from his front porch. He plans to skip Iowa. ("Who wants to stand around in the freezing cold in the near vicinity of farm animals?") He plans to install a pool table in the Oval Office. He plans to grant statehood to any Canadian province that wants it--except Quebec, "which nobody likes, anyway." Most of all, he plans to inject a little life into an inevitably humdrum campaign. And he thinks he's just the guy to do it.

"I crack myself up," Caruba says. "I find myself endlessly entertaining."

HERE ARE THE FACTS about the Titan of Tedium:

He is 54 years old. He stands five feet, 10 inches tall. He weighs 155 pounds. He's got Jack Nicholson's hairline, C. Everett Koop's beard. He attended the University of Miami, and he thinks he graduated, although he doesn't recall attending any classes at that fine institution.

He's served time as a free-lance writer, an editor and a public relations executive. In addition to his Boring Institute duties, he's the founder/president of The National Anxiety Center, a watchdog organization dedicated to ferreting out cases of "the media scaring the hell out of people with stories about doomsday asteroids and poisoned apples and global warning." (If you're a little hazy on the concept, like I am, Caruba will explain it tonight on the Ron Reagan Show. No lie.)

He's got "the stamina of a bull, the courage of a lion." Provided, of course, that he gets eight hours of sleep plus "nappies." He drinks "medicinal" sherry on the rocks at four o'clock every afternoon. He smokes expensive cigars. He's a chocoholic. His sex life is mostly a memory. ("A happy memory, but a memory.")

Here are Caruba's views on some pertinent issues. Some of them even make sense:

Education: "It should be our Number One priority. It's a national disgrace."

Business: "I'm very pro-business. Free trade, the works."

AIDS: "It's a major epidemic and it's not being addressed as forcefully as it should."

Diplomacy: "I'd love to meet with foreign leaders. I think we'd get along famously."

Drugs: "Washington's been parading programs for 30 years with no success. Enough talk--it's time for some action. I think you have to cut off the problem by making it impossible to launder money outside the U.S. The way to do that is to make our international currency a different color. That way, it will be easily traceable." (OK, OK, I didn't say all of them made sense.)

Harvard: "It's a Mecca for nerds."

The Presidency: "It's a cool job. No question about it.

And here, for the record, are Caruba's thoughts on the competition:

Paul Tsongas: "He has the charisma of fungus."

Tom Harkin: "Harkness? Harkus? Who? Harkett? He hasn't made much of an impression on me."

Jerry Brown: "Well, he's got good taste in music. I don't know if I'd want him running the country, though. Do you want to see a summer White House on Mars?"

George Bush: "Sheesh. Anything but Bush."

THE BORING INSTITUTE is more than the Political Inaction Committee for the Boring Party. It is an entity unto itself.

The Institute first gained national prominence when Caruba issued a press release claiming that the annually tedious Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was in fact a 10-year-old videotape. Good clean fun.

But then the letters started pouring in. Serious letters. From seriously bored people. Depressed senior citizens. Juvenile delinquents. Drunks of all ages, colors and creeds. So The Boring Institute began issuing tips--useful, helpful, serious tips--on beating boredom. "Get the reading habit." "Develop hobbies." "Be a joiner." "Say, 'I can!'" "Be nice to yourself."

Fabulous. Now The Boring Institute is boring, too. Dry as dust. It's just another self-important voice crying out in a noisy wilderness. Which makes sense, because Alan Caruba comes off as somewhat of a bore himself. He repeats jokes, over and over. He rambles. He says the same thing to every reporter. He quotes bumper stickers. He vows to make "an endless series of boring speeches until Congress bends to my will."

Last Sunday around midnight, I walked through the Yard with a few friends. Silence. Complete silence. Scarcely a first-year light was lit. So my friends and I decided to inject a little life into the Class of '95. "HOLWORTHY SUCKS!" we shouted. It was all we could think of.

More silence. Then a window opened, and a couple of weary Holworthy frosh stuck out their heads. "Bo-ring," they chanted. "Bo-ring." Then they went back to sleep.

Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that American politicians can do better than "Holworthy Sucks." They can do better than "We believe that all Americans have the right...to leave the world a better place for having done the best they could with what they had, where they were." (That's the Boring Party platform. It's stolen from Teddy Roosevelt.)

But if they don't, I just might stay home next November

Michael R. Grunwald '92, the editorial chair for The Crimson, spent last week walking through Harvard Yard. He had nothing better to do.

'I crack myself up. I find myself endlessly entertaining.' Alan Caruba