Meet the ASG Candidates: Aaron and Henry

Earlier this week, Sherman Ave reached out to the four ASG presidential tickets asking to interview them. All four tickets were gracious enough to accept; this is part three of four. Look for the final interview to come later in the day.

What is your favorite shitty beer, and what does it tell us about you?

Henry: Do I have to answer this question if I'm not 21?

So assuming you were hypothetically of-age, what do you think your favorite shitty beer would be?

Henry: Natural Light for sure. No question.

Aaron: I'd say PBR. Now that I'm 21 I like to go to Wob.

But you can't get PBR at Wob!

Aaron: No PBR there. So I get whatever's on tap. Like a Dark Ale.

Henry: So there's a way that I want to answer this question, but I feel like it's incriminating. But I would go on to tell you some stories.

Aaron: I don't think that's a good idea.

So Aaron, how many people did you have to ask before you finally ended up with Henry as your running mate?

Aaron: Legitimately? Three. For a point in time, I was thinking of doing academics. But then I found Henry, who really shared the same ideas as me, and we kind of went off with it. I was looking for a very specific type of person that could really bring the same set of values that I feel like ASG needs.

And how was that honeymoon, once you guys finally came together for the campaign?

Aaron: It was winter break. I mean...

Henry: It was more like a Skype sesh. But it was nice on Skype. Actually no, I turned him down like three times before I finally agreed. I was like, 'Nah dude, I'm not trying to,' and he was like, 'Dude, come on,' and I was like 'Aaahh, quit pestering me.' And I was like 'You know what? Fine, I don't care. Just leave me alone. Stop sending me Facebook chats every 20 minutes.'

So, here at Sherman Ave, every week we like to go and shit on Mayor Tisdahl's house. But what else besides that can we do to improve our town-gown relations?

Henry: Seriously, you've just got to befriend the popos. Befriend the police.

Aaron: Throw down with the police, man, you know? Start inviting Evanston police to parties.

Henry: That's the key. So long as the popo's are out supporting the students, then we're fine.

Say Jennifer Lawrence walks in right now. To the Willard Common Room. What do you do?

Aaron: Me personally? I have no shot. So I'd give her to Henry.

Henry: I think everyone would just defer to me, and I would just pretty much take care of it.

That's good to know. It's what I want in my Vice President.

Henry: Yeah. You've got to have one. It's like a band. There's got to be one guy that's got it, you know what I mean?

How would you replace the Keg? What would you put in to replace what we just lost recently?

Aaron: I would like to put in an 18 and over club. That's what this campus really needs.

Henry: All we need to do is have people just like go there. I mean, it's going to be the same restrictions on people getting in. The door's just open. So I feel like if we all just go there and decide to hang out there and decide to drink there.

Aaron: It should be a potluck. Like a party potluck.

Henry: We just need someone to go steal the key from Mayor Tisdahl, open the door, and then just turn up there regardless.

Unfortunately, that was a trick question. Because nothing can replace the Keg. So if you'd like to repent, now's the time. 

...

A lot of students think that ASG doesn't do anything. How do you respond? 

Henry: They don't do anything that affects you. They do stuff to make each other feel like they're doing something. And they only do stuff internally that doesn't actually affect the majority of students. And then they try and attach their names to any student accomplishment, and make it seem like they're beasts when they're not.

Aaron: Again, our whole campaign is centered around how it's not about supporting Aaron and Henry, it's about how we can support you. That's why we created over 250 individualized profile pictures, everything we're doing is really about the people. It's not about us.

Henry: We didn't write the platform. We got the platform from going out and talking to people. Not during Winter Quarter, when it was illegal to, and when you weren't allowed to be candidates yet and you only emailed certain people and everyone didn't know you were running so you can only go to a limited part. We gave everyone an opportunity to submit.

So that transitions really well into talking specifically about your campaign. How many minutes per-week, if you were elected, will each Northwestern student be allowed to hang out with Reggie Hearn?

Aaron: Reggie's actually not on scholarship anymore, and he'll probably be around with us. A lot.

Henry: What we're planning on doing is creating the position of 'Chief Beast Officer,' and Reggie is our first appointment to that, and he's pretty much just quasi-bodyguard and quasi-dude-to-chill-with. So if you see us, you'll see him.

Aaron: It's a reason to come to Senate. He'll be at all our Senate meetings.

Your campaign materials include a lot of science references. As a liberal arts student, that offends me. 

Henry: I haven't taken a science class here--no, I've taken Diversity of Life

Aaron: That's not a real science class.

Henry: So I haven't really taken a science class. I got a 1 on my AP Physics test.

No way, I got a 2!

Henry: Dude, that's impressive.

No, I don't think so.

Henry: After a point, I was just like 'I have no idea what these arms started doing to me.' I started doing designs in the bubbles, I think I just wrote in gibberish on one of the long-answer questions, and then wrote the answers in Arabic, going 'Trust me, it's right.' I knew I was toast. The only thing I knew how to do was to draw gravity as a force going down.

So where did you guys get the idea for all these elements to be incorporated into your design for the campaign?

Henry: Yeah, so originally our motto was going to be "I'm different," and we were going to make a music video to the song. We were thinking of things that were different, and I was like, 'Yo, all atoms are different.' We were going to make this sweet logo with one atom being--wait no, not an atom, what's that called?--a molecule, where one different element would be like a football, one element would be like a beaker, trying to get all of the school, everybody's different but we're all part of the same molecule-type thing. Then we got the kid who's skilled with the graphic design, he was like 'No, that's too hard.' So we changed it to the periodic table, where all you have to do is squares and letters.

Aaron: I mean for me, being a pre-med, it's something that's really important because we're all here for academics, which comes first. And yet there's so much more, and I think that's the duality of the periodic table. You may be there to study, but you're also there extracurricularly, being a student-athlete, being involved as a student, being a writer for Sherman Ave, whatever you may be. Everybody brings their own different element. And that's something we wanted to highlight.

Henry: Our first platform was called "Celebration," because we want to highlight everybody's different element. We're happy for everybody to have their own niche, their own element but we want to bring it all together to the foreground at Northwestern.

Aaron: Again, going back to our point, it's not about us. It's really 'how can we make you better?' And 'how can we really help you?'

Henry: People have been stressing, like in the VP debate yesterday, all the other teams stressed PR, like 'We need to get our PR, we need to let them know what we're doing.' But I was like, 'No, we need to get our PR going and let them know how we can help them, not how we are forcing our stuff on them and trying to tell them what we're doing and trying to make us sound good.' What we need to do is make them look good. We're very much men of the people. That's the goal. It's not a communist campaign, don't worry.

So what element defines you guys?

Aaron: My profile picture's 'president.' It's something that I'm really looking forward to doing, and something that will be able to bridge all of my elements together. Because again, I'm involved in so many different things, whether it's MARS, Hillel, Tour Guiding, working for the National Student Board of Directors for Sodexo, I think it's a lot of different elements, and it's not fair just to put one element. And that's where the whole molecule idea came from, because not one student here is just one element. We have so many different parts of who we are, and I think if I were to be able to harness all of those, that would make me a great president.

Henry: I would say that we're probably like a--what's that called--compound. Is what I would be. I don't know if you can combine like a noble gas with rugged iron or something. Because I feel like that's for sure what I would be.

Aaron: It probably wouldn't work.

Henry: I told you, I don't take science. But definitely noble gases. Covalent bonding. And ionic bonding. With iron and

Aaron: Gold?

Henry: No, I wouldn't say gold, because that's a little too flashy, but I would definitely say something pretty hot like that though. Oh, mercury. That's good stuff.

Fuck, marry, kill: Ani, David, Benison?

Aaron: Marry Benison, for sure.

Henry: Benison is the way chillest. Kill, ooh...

Aaron: Gotta be...

Henry: I want to kill them both. I'm not banging any of them, that's for sure. Actually, can we reverse it and just bang ourselves?

Yeah... Yeah. There are no rules here.

Henry: Two kills, one marry. Benison's super chill. Double-kill Ani and David, and bang ourselves.

Aaron: I second that.

What does your favorite Chet Haze song suggest about you?

Aaron: Chet Haze has songs?

Henry: Mine would have to be his newest one, "Finest Girl." I don't know if you've seen the music video, because my boy Mike Lombardo sits in it and looks hilarious the whole time. He's just like, 'Where's my boy Chet Haze? Where's my boy Chet Haze?' I thought that was hilarious.

So what are you willing to give Sherman Ave in return for our endorsement? Keep in mind that the last candidate we endorsed literally lost to a 60-year-old kibble saleswoman.

Henry: Well, I can guarantee that I am by far the funniest kid of the eight. And I can just provide you with quality material all of the time.

Aaron: Really?

Henry: By far. Not even close. You could probably just go around school and ask 'Who's the most chillest slash hilarious dude?' and I guarantee like 78% would say me. Aaron may say that's more like 85%.

Aaron: It's almost like 90 now. With all the campaigning. What can I give back?

Henry: I mean, he's got the nickname. Of the Bear Jew. He's 6'5", 250 pounds. He wears a Nike slash Adidas yarmulke depending on the day. And it's from Inglourious Basterds.

Aaron: And that's where Sherman Ave could really do a lot of fun shit. We'd make history.

As?

Aaron: As the biggest candidates in the history of ASG. Physically. Measuring over 12 feet tall, over 470 pounds. That's a force to be reckoned with.

We'll have to do some archival research to independently verify--

Henry: We'd for sure take out like any other VP-Prez combo in the nation.

Aaron: Easily.

Henry: In the nation.

So can you fill in the blank--

Henry: We'd definitely increase--Northwestern's kind of looked like as "Nerdwestern" right now--if we had two massive jocks-

Aaron: Whoa whoa whoa, I'm not a jock.

Henry: Yeah, you're a bit. But I am. That would definitely really increase our swag level.

Aaron: The greatest thing about Henry and I is that we're so different, we really reach out to two communities on campus within our networks. Him and I had maybe three or four mutual friends before we did this, and having that has enabled us to branch out and really meet a lot of new people, and bring in new faces to ASG, which is what we really need.

So can you just fill in this blank? "Rack city bitch. Rack rack city bitch. Ten ten twenties on ya ____"

Henry: I think I know this. Is it titties? Is the answer.

Congratulations. Final question: If you could lock anyone on this campus in the basement of any building on this campus, who would it be and where would you lock them?

Henry: So I think you're trying to get us to say Chet Haze. And I don't mind.

....

Henry: Bryson, because he takes all the girls that come to my apartment.

Sounds good? Any last comments before we end this?

Henry: Um, no.

Aaron: We keep it real.

Henry: Yeah, we keep it real. Make sure they know that we keep it real. We keeps it real. We keeps it real in the right way, that we're not like--our campaign team is basically when keeping it real goes right. That's the motto. And we're different. Watch out for the music video.

Aaron: Also, there might be a dick pic leaked?

Henry: We're thinking of all kinds of tactics. It's a very strategic move.

Aaron: That's like, ballsy.

Literally.