Tales from the Lost Semester - Volume 10

Attius

Having been where I’ve been and seen what I’ve seen, I can say with some conviction that living one’s college years on the inside of a University’s Greek system offers that individual with some unique perspectives on life and affords them the opportunity to experience certain events and phenomena that most GDI’s (that’s “God-Damned-Independents for all you GDI’s out there) will never quite grasp, understand, comprehend or, frankly, ever miss. For better or for worse, a vast majority of my college experience was heavily influenced by the structure, rituals, nuances and annoying tendencies of the interconnected system of fraternities and sororities strewn about the U of I campus. In a way it was somewhat comforting to be a part of it all – having left the warm, sheltered womb of high school for the stark, cold, scary world of self-responsibility that college life presents, the Greek system provided the comfort of knowing that you could still run with a clique consisting of individuals who were molded in your likeness, as well as pre-judge those unfamiliar to you on the basis of some vague, overarching stereotype that was based on the two-to-three Greek letters slapped on the front of their residence. What convenience this afforded us!

For all of its faults, many people, including yours truly, realized great benefits for participating in the Greek system. First and foremost, when you arrive on campus fresh out of high school, it is imperative that you find a reliable way to acquire alcohol as soon as humanly possible (as I have established in earlier additions, alcohol is the lifeblood of the college social scene). Given that dorms are chock-full of dorks who wish to enforce lame alcohol ordinances and fraternities are chock-full of guys over 21 willing to buy you beer, the choice is quite simple, for you are instantly able to be where it’s all happening. Additionally, if you’re like me (and I know for a fact that many of my nine readers certainly are), the ability to secure other forms of mind-altering goods is of paramount importance; rest easy, because it’s an itch that most every fraternity had at least four or five guys ready to scratch, and 1993 most definitely saw a buyer’s market. Also, as mentioned in an earlier yarn, when you combine dangerously high levels of 18-to-23-year-old testosterone with ludicrous amounts of alcohol, add a packed-to-the-gills shithole of a bar with blaring music and the attention of college girls to compete for, and throw in a complete lack of adult oversight just for shits and giggles, the potential for unwanted fisticuffs multiplies uncontrollably. It is here that the age-old axiom “safety in numbers” applies – you’re more likely to take less bullshit if you know there are 25 guys who have your back. I’m not saying that it’s right, but it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and every little bit helps.

Perhaps you’re looking for a reason to blow off studying? You’ll always find someone wandering the fraternity house with the requisite low motivation and cash from home ready to be blown on booze. Or if your feeling particularly lazy, someone is always available to sit on their ass with you, order food and watch Commando for the 37th time. Finally, and people I can’t stress this enough, sorority girls are drawn to fraternity parties like moths to a flame – if you throw it, they will come, and they will get shitfaced. And more often than not, a few of them will choose not to leave. Romantic, isn’t it? I guess there’s just something about a man with random Greek letters sewn on his Champion sweatshirt or silk screened on a Beefy-T.

However, we all know that with anything in this world, you must take the good with the bad (or the bad with the good, depending on your perspective). The Greek system was no exception. For me personally, several things stand out. For one, I have always considered myself to be an open-minded, easygoing, accepting person. However, at a school like Illinois with its large Greek population and even larger GDI population, a clear rift had developed between these oft-warring factions over the years (peaking sometime around the late 1960’s, no doubt), and the bitterness and contempt hurled from one side to the other on an ongoing basis was enough to make you want to vomit. I knew plenty of people that were not part of the Greek system, and these were fine people – the fact remains that I liked these folks immensely more than several of my own “brothers” – yet in many instances I was unable to make true friends with people outside the system simply because I was in it. I always found it pathetically ironic that I was being scorned and shunned by these GDI’s because they felt I came from a social set that scorned and shunned those different from its members. But we were all idiotic assheads in our late-teens and early-twenties, so what do you expect?

Outside of the friction between Greeks and non-Greeks, most of the things that annoyed me about the Greek system were inherent to the system itself. Take, for example, hazing. As discussed in depth back in Volume 3, the ridiculousness of it all reared its ugly head during Hell Week, yet my entire pledge semester was a constant stream of doing things you would not normally do in order to gain inclusion and have people view you as an equal (and even then you were still ranked in order of when you pledged, so the pecking order always remained). Whether it was doing countless push-ups after midnight on a weeknight, being duped into believing you were going to have to walk miles back to campus from the middle of nowhere, memorizing obscure facts about your fraternity and being tested on them (apparently, without TV, video games, radio, or recorded music, the only thing those crazy college guys had to do in 1899 was create a bunch of meaningless facts and rituals for a secret organization), or serving as housemaid and waiter to a bunch of ungrateful slobs, there was some way for you to be fucked with on a pretty constant basis. And the beauty of it all was the omnipresent mentality of “if I had to go through it, so should you,” which sadly I subscribed to for a time after joining in on the fun. I guess whatever doesn’t kill you only makes your stronger. Or extremely bitter. The beauty of it all is that it really didn’t end with pledge semester – we have the aforementioned neophyte status during Hell Week, the semester after Hell Week you are a “JA” (just activated), which brings with it additional menial tasks (i.e. performing work duties prior to securing a new pledge class), and most if not all fraternity activities were dictated by your pre-established pecking order in the whole scheme. It’s a great way to feel homogenous and inferior all at once.

The other element of Greek life that I absolutely, wholeheartedly despised was the set of rules that fraternities were required to abide by in order to convince a sorority house to bestow upon them an invitation to hold a joint social function the following semester. I give you the time-honored tradition of serenading! Yes, serenading, which involved visiting numerous sorority houses on campus and singing a bastardized version of a recognizable song whereby the lyrics were manipulated in order to argue the benefits of socializing with your fraternity, all while the girls sat agape in horror as they tried not to puke up their dinner as they laughed at you under their breath. What a blast! Now as anyone who has heard my lame attempts knows, I cannot sing; in fact, I am absolutely horrible at it. But singing poorly with music I enjoy is one thing – singing poorly with lame, hastily written lyrics over bad music in front of girls you had minimal chance of ever scoring with in the first place as you nervously shifted your feet and wished for death, that’s something quite different. Seriously, who wants to stand in front of dozens of piercing, female eyes and sing lyrics like “Those insert sorority nickname here are the best, they’re hotter than the rest” to the tune of “Hello, I Love You” by the Doors? Certainly not me. When serenades were announced, up until liftoff time I would be engaged in a violent internal struggle: Do I skip the serenade, which will most certainly result in an obligatory $5 fine (per MPB House rules) as well as draw the ire of several older members and result in possible exclusion from social events? Or do I suck it up, make an ass out of myself in front of that girl I have a crush on and contemplate my collegiate future sans sex? For me, a short, nervous guy with fading social skills, these were the moments I dreaded. Looking back, I probably should have taken the $5 hit quite a bit more than I did, but being short did have its advantages, as it was quite easy to make yourself invisible during these treacherous times.

What do these rants have to do with the cryptic title of this essay? Well, as with any aspect of life, you learn something new every day. And one day during the Lost Semester, I learned that U of I had an annual event during the spring semester known as “Attius”. Webster’s defines “Attius” as, well, nothing – it is not a real word per the dictionary. I did some half-assed research and found that Attius is something that’s existed at U of I since the beginning of the 20th century, and the primary focus is on the show that’s put on during Mom’s Day weekend (which I believe fell in April) where groups of co-eds put on self-produced singing and dancing routines much to the delight of all the easily-entertained U of I moms. And guess what? The MPB house, for some Godforsaken reason, decided that it would be a good idea to participate in this debacle!

We were paired with the Alpha Gam sorority (whose services we acquired through the hated serenade process the semester prior) and when time came to assemble guys from the house to participate, some of the more senior actives came calling on the JA’s. “Great,” I thought, “we’re all going to be required to participate in this crap.” I braced myself for the certain humiliation to follow. The problem was that my key JA allies, CS and Pops, actually had a set of balls and, when told they were going to participate, they laughed it off and basically said, “Make me”. However, I was not so staunch in my anti-humiliation stance, and when coerced into participating, I crumbled like a piece of old drywall. Thankfully, my friends Ox and Miser were also roped into participating, so the good news was I wasn’t going to suffer alone. But I certainly was going to suffer.

On the first day of Attius practice (which I believe was twice a week, and I seem to recall having to be constantly “reminded” that I had “agreed” to participate), my first indication that this was going to suck was surveying the participants on the Alpha Gam side – all of them were juniors and seniors, and all of them knew the older guys in our house who were participating. Translation: being a freshman, the only potential benefit of this whole debacle (meeting a girl) was quickly squashed. So just to recap, I was obligated to perform in a song and dance routine (I can’t sing or dance) with several girls, none of whom I had any chance of hooking up with (the Curse of the Freshman), and that obligation became a non-inebriating way for me to neglect my studies (not a bong to be found). Way to speak up for yourself, big guy.

Now my experience has shown me that nearly every fraternity, by virtue of sheer volume of members, had a couple of guys who were aspiring musicians, and invariably these guys found each other and formed something resembling a band – our house was no exception. Granted we had some decent musicians, but the Beatles they were not (hell, they weren’t even the Rutles). But the group we had thrown together was by all accounts halfway-decent, and they were to serve as the musical backing for our little routine. Oh, I guess I should talk about that, shouldn’t I, seeing as it’s the point of this little tale? As we’ve established, Attius consists of co-eds preparing and performing a song-and-dance routine, and my foggy memory informs me that the routine the lead culprit within the Alpha Gam and MPB houses constructed told the tale of a girl on a Midwestern college campus (a real stretch, I know) who must decide whether to stay true to her roots and date townies or be wooed by a city slicker who promises her the glitz and glamour of bustling city life. So our musical grouping played background to this fascinating story, including covers of “Hard to Handle”, “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys”, and Alabama’s “Mountain Music” as we all struggled to learn the rudimentary “dance” steps that had been painstakingly choreographed for us. For example, during the “Mountain Music” scene (the title of the song was changed, quite cleverly, to “Country Music”, at the point in the doctored song where the lyrics said (I’m sick knowing I remember this):

Tip some cows, and toss their patties
Climb aboard my monster truck
Hit the woods and do some hunting
We’ll go out and shoot a buck

Our dance routine involved tipping invisible cows, tossing invisible patties, making a “steering the car” motion, and pretending to shoot a gun. Simplistic and embarrassing all at once!

On and on our routine went – lyrics of songs doctored to include lines like “He’ll probably get in his Z28 and probably just drive away” and “Hey pretty thing, pack your bags and come with me to the city now” coupled with crude, unrefined dance maneuvers – we practiced like dogs in the hopes of getting selected to perform so that we could humiliate ourselves in front of not just our own mothers, but the mothers of people we didn’t even know and most likely wouldn’t have liked had we known them. Seriously, if my father knew I was spending my valuable time in such a dismal, useless manner, this more than the drinking or pot smoking would have given him great cause for alarm regarding the appropriate use of his hard-earned dollars for tuition and the like. Participating in this exercise in ridiculousness was definitely not my proudest college moment.

“In the hopes of being selected…” Yes, you read correctly in that last paragraph. To add insult to injury, simply making the effort to throw together a laughable attempt at stage entertainment did not in and of itself guarantee you a spot in the Mom’s Weekend Entertainment Guide – no, each troupe of budding performers had to put on their show before the ever-intimidating Attius Council to see whether or not their routine was worthy of the grand stage that is Mom’s Day Weekend. This tryout process involved assembling the group at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning (I think we had to meet at 8:30 and “perform” at 9:00) and schlepping ourselves to one of the lecture halls on campus where we would tell the story of a young girl torn between the lusty lure of the Chicagoland area and the down home goodness of remaining a “townie” – it was like “A Tale of Two Cities” without drama, insight or dignity. Also, just so the judges would not be swayed by our fanciful costumes (of which we had none), all participants were required to wear white shirts and black pants during the tryout. This at least provided me with an opportunity to remain somewhat anonymous, lest I should run across anyone I knew on the way there (of course at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, this was highly unlikely).

Speaking of “highly” unlikely, myself, Ox and Miser plainly saw the writing on the wall – there was no way in hell we were getting selected to do this stupid show, so we took heart that the Saturday morning event would be the final humiliation in this whole process. So to celebrate, we came together at 8:00 that morning and each proceeded to rip about 10 bong hits – no reason why we shouldn’t be oblivious to the fact that we were a bunch of wieners, right? As we stumbled over to the designated meeting place, we couldn’t help but giggle ourselves silly, partly because we were elated that this misery would soon be over, partly because we were stoned to the bejeezus.

We arrived at the designated tryout spot with minutes to spare. As those around me struggled to remember their lines and worked to brush up on their dance moves, I stared out over the seats to see the Attius Council – it was just like in the movies where there’s a tryout in a huge auditorium where four or five people sit 20 rows back in silent judgment. My mind wandered to thoughts of whether or not the lectures I regularly skipped actually occurred in this building. “Next up is the Alpha Gam/MPB squad” a voice called out. “OK guys, places!” our bubbly Alpha Gam leader called out. Maybe it was the pot, maybe it was the fact that I was about to participate in a painfully embarrassing song-and-dance routine, but I suddenly couldn’t remember one single thing about the routine, and I was hit with a wave of overwhelming self-consciousness, complete with my requisite stammering and a bout of the cold sweats. “I’m going to fall on my face and bloody my nose,” I thought. “I’m going to fall off the goddamned stage.” The music started…

And shockingly enough, our routine went off with barely a hitch, just like we practiced it over and over in the MPB basement during those nights I really should have been studying (or at least playing Tecmo Bowl). I think I did pretty well – I only butchered about three dance steps, and I used my trusty serenade trick of lip-synching instead of singing. In a flash the whole thing was over. “Thank you, we’ll let you know” bellowed one of the obscured faces from the back of the auditorium. I quickly found Ox and Miser and we proceeded to have quite the good laugh. We headed off to McDonald’s to satisfy our munchies and thank our lucky stars that we had all fucked up just enough to not qualify but not quite enough for any theories of sabotage to surface.

You might be thinking that this is the part of the story where I shock you and reveal that, oh my God, we made the final cut! Not even close. If memory serves correct, approximately 15 groups tried out, 10 were selected, and mercifully we were in the minority. That Saturday morning represented the last time I have ever had to participate in such a farce. Sure, there were plenty more standard serenades in my future – however, I quickly figured out that by offering to “take care of the music”, I would simply be required to carry a boom box, hit “play” on a CD player, and crouch behind the group as they made asses out of themselves. A few weeks later, my Mom came down for a visit and strangely enough we never quite got around to seeing that Attius show. And all was right with the world.

Until next time…