by Jeffrey Carl
Thanks to a bare modicum of writing skill and a more obvious fondness for bourbon which aligned with that of my journalism professors, my putative career advanced rapidly through my undergraduate years. I went from a practicum story writer for the University of Richmond Collegian student newspaper in my freshman year to Assistant News Editor in my sophomore year, then on to Greek Life Editor and IT Manager (I read MacWorld magazine!) in my junior year, and ultimately to Opinion Editor in my senior year.
For some reason that escapes me now, I acquired a humor column during this process at the beginning of my junior year. This column, titled “Over the Cliff Notes,” eventually ran for 22 installments and was over the course of two years was read by literally dozens of actual humans, only most of which where KA pledges I forced to do so. Its literary influence was quite literally incalculable, and I’m just going to leave it at that.
It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!
We here at The Collegian pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers. Blah blah blah blah blah. There has been great controversy in these pages lately over Greek life, the IFC, the BBC, Rush rules, Rush is okay but they haven’t had a good album in years, etc. That is why we have seen fit to address the issue of the campus social Greek system once and for all. Or my name ain’t Nathan Arizona.
THE OVER-THE-CLIFFNOTES OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE GREEK SYSTEM™
• General rules: Many gross overgeneralizations about the Greek system tend to be made by foolish people who lump others into silly categories: that certain sororities are all like such and so forth, but this is just a load of hooey. The only down-to-earth, realistic generalization that actually applies to everybody is that all Greeks drink too much beer and all independents are losers.
• Men’s Rush: Fraternity Rush is an unparallelled chance for young men to meet each other, discuss intellectual concerns of the day, and vomit on each other repeatedly. It consists of three main segments:
a. get liquored up at pre-party
b. drive drunk to lodge for stupid theme night (usually “El Soft Taco Supreme Fiesta” night or “Breaking Stuff is Cool” night); avoid vomiting on rushees
c. drag more rushees back to post-party; avoid them vomiting on you
• Bid Extension: Fraternities extend bids to rushees after deciding through a complex, scientific process that includes infrared scanners, mainframe computers, throwing Lawn Jarts at rushees’ pictures and lots of “Crazy Horse” malt liquor. A chapter as a whole will vote on each individual rushee; if a member feels particularly strongly about any rushee who was denied a bid, he may challenge this and play a game of chess with Death for the rushee’s soul.
The next morning, rushees are given an envelope which contains either engraved fancy official bid(s) or an engraved fancy notice of their official status now as losers and the phone number for CAPS, in case they decide to kill themselves. Oh well.
• Pledging: Why should I spoil the surprise?
• Fraternity Life: Fraternity life may seem to be all wine and roses and chitlins and gravy, but there are numerous problems that fraternities frequently face. Sometimes there are simply not enough community service projects to fill up the members’ charitable spare time. Sometimes, young women will attend lodge social gatherings in a previously intoxicated state and make lewd suggestions of physical gratification inappropriate for a young gentleman’s tender ears. Sometimes it turns out that Brian C. Jones is in your fraternity. Any of these situations can be difficult to deal with at times.
• Women’s Rush: HA HA HA HA hee hee hee HO HO HA HA HA HA HA hee hee HA HA HA HA
• Sorority Life: This revolves primarily around Rush retreats (see HA HA HA above) and scrambling for formal dates. Sorority formals, as previously mentioned, are just like bar mitzvahs but with sex in the elevators.
• The Greek Review: This was a study commissioned several years ago to divine the true nature of the Greek system on campus. It took five years to complete because only one of the panel members had a clue and they had to spend most of their time sharing it back and forth. The panel members were split over the final review:
“I loved it. It was much better than ‘Cats.’”
“It crashed and burned and tore a gaping hole in the earth.”
“Great fun … entertaining … Robert Downey, Jr., has never been better.”
“It bit my ass.”
• The IFC (Interfraternity Council): Many people mistakenly believe that the IFC is a rather bumbling collection of incompetent administrators making pointless rules for a system that they really have little control over. This could not be further from the truth. The IFC is actually a tightly-knit secret organization with bold plans for world domination, beginning with secretly buying up stock in the left side of the D-Hall until they control 51 percent, then closing it to independents so that they all starve to death, thereby assuring Greek domination of the University. I’m not kidding.
• The Panhellenic Council (or “Pan-Hell”): See IFC above, add some of HA HA HA
Benefits and disadvantages to the Greek system:
Advantages:
• Improves gas mileage
• Gives fresher, mintier breath
• Spending money on dues prevents you from engaging in some more frivolous use of money
• If Apocalypse comes and Angel of Death is an old fraternity brother of yours and sees the letters or crest on your door, you are spared
• Can tell Vietnam-like stories that begin, “When I was a pledge…”
• Is often quite fun
Disadvantages:
• Now with 33 percent less frosting
• Dreadful problem of having too much beer to drink
• James O. Bryant may be your roommate
• Door decs may pose fire hazard
• Is sometimes quite not fun
Please keep your cards and letters coming to:
OVER-THE-CLIFFNOTES
P.O. Box 666
Battle Creek, MI 867-5309
And beware Greeks bearing columns.