Tales from the Lost Semester - Volume 11

Are You Experienced?

*****

Leave your cares behind
Come with us and find
The pleasures of a journey to the center of the mind

From “Journey to the Center of the Mind” by the Amboy Dukes

*****

College campuses were designed for tripping.

Think about it for a minute. A college campus is essentially a secluded enclave covering a few square miles. Many of these campuses have been around for years and years, which means they come complete with stately old buildings and grounds, windy cobblestone lanes, and gaslight districts seemingly caught in the past, great for the ever important “visuals”. They are extremely pedestrian-friendly, often with a large, uninterrupted area (i.e. the Quad) that is only accessible by foot (where many of the cool, old buildings sit) – great for roaming about in a stupor. Forget about finding cops on a college campus – these communities seem to police themselves, with actual officers only being called in when needed, and even if they were around, what are they really going to do to you? Since college kids are inherently crazy, no one is even going to look cross-eyed at a group of guys walking around acting extremely goofy and speaking nonsensical dribble. If you’re not feeling particularly social, any living quarters outside of the dorms provide a perfect home base, with TV, stereo and Nintendo to boot. Throw in the seemingly never-ending supply of other stimuli – bars, beer gardens, apartment parties, house parties, video arcades, and movie theaters come to mind – and you have yourself a perfect, self-contained psychedelic playground.

What does this have to do with the Lost Semester? Why everything, of course! For outside of pulling bongs in Room 23, experimenting with psychedelics was my very favorite leisure activity in the Spring of ‘93! Given that it was truly a buyers market, you constantly had your choice of the two heavy hitters – LSD or psilocybin mushrooms. However, given the relative brevity of the overall experience (roughly 6-8 hours of fun compared to acid’s 12-14), as well as how ridiculously easy they were to get your hands on, “shrooms” were definitely our preferred method of hallucinogenic mind expansion. I’d estimate that some combination of members of our little group dabbled in hallucinogens roughly 2-4 times a month, with yours truly being one of the more active participants. Bet you never would have figured that.

And what was not to like? More than anything, it was a bonding experience among friends – a chance for all of us to delve deep inside each other’s psyches, listen to some trippy music, have all sorts of grand visuals and have a generally rip-roaring good time. The whole event, from the confirmation of the participants to the loosely-designed plan of attack, was usually established well in advance – at least a week in many cases. This is because it is essential to have plenty of time to clear your schedule and get yourself in the proper mindset if the experience was to be an enjoyable, worthwhile one. Plus it was a good idea to give Stems and Seeds, our friends at the Nevada House, plenty of time to stock up on merchandise if they were not already holding on to some – can’t make an omelet without eggs, so to speak.

On the designated evening of the festivities (for some reason we rarely day-tripped, although those occasions have proven to be just as pleasant), the participants would gather in one of our rooms, more often than not Room 23 (my drug den of a room) or Room 7 (the other MPB house drug den). When you factor in a) the quantities the goods were sold in with b) the quantity required to achieve the overall desired affect (think “Baby Bear” portions from Goldilocks), you almost always had a group ranging from four to eight in number – a perfect party size for such revelry. The goods were then laid out on a nice, flat surface for proper divvying. For those of the nine of you who have never experienced these frantically fun fungi, they can best be described as brownish-gray in color, extremely dry bordering on flaky, their make-up consisting of both stems (ranging from short and thin to long and fat) and caps (ranging from the size of a nail’s head to that of a half dollar) and they smell like…cow shit. And that’s because that’s where they grow – on cow shit. So yes, I’ve willingly eaten a strange fungus that grew on cattle feces – I am a creature of logic. As the proper experience is all about the dosage, a member of the group would meticulously separate the entire batch into evenly-distributed individual piles. We took great care to make this process as fair as possible – if you put a mid-size cap in one pile, you assigned approximately the same proportion of caps to the others; same thing with stems. Keep in mind that the need for such careful rationing held especially true for caps, as it is well known among experienced trippers that between caps and stems, the caps pack the more potent punch of the two.

So, we have four to eight strikingly similar piles of dried out, shit-smelling fungus. Now comes the tricky part – the actual ingesting of these foul-tasting victuals. There are many ways to go about this with minimal anguish. Some put theirs on pizza, some washed theirs down with beer or juice; I was a peanut butter sandwich man, myself. Then there were those brave souls who took the big plunge and ate them sans flavor-masking. I have done this myself, and it only takes about three hours to pick all the bits of mushroom out of your teeth – not a pleasant flavor-saver. Once this unpleasantness is over, it quickly becomes ramp-up time.

Ah, ramp-up time – 45 of the most exciting, queasy, unsettling, ticklish, giggly, suspenseful and fantastic minutes you’ll ever spend. The minute you down your portion, you know your body is already feeling the effects of the foreign substance you’ve just ingested. More often than not, your stomach instantly sends your brain the message, “What is this shit your boy just dropped in me?” and you may start to feel a bit nauseous. Thankfully, this feeling soon develops into something resembling butterflies in the stomach – a little flitter that tells you your system is digesting the shrooms and unleashing all of the wonderful desired effects. Those first 45 minutes after eating are usually spent glued to your seat, moving only to shift your weight from one butt-cheek to the other. After the butterflies in the stomach fly away, you are experiencing more of a whole-body feeling that falls short of discomfort, but certainly isn’t the most relaxing you’ve ever had. You feel somewhat uneasy in your skin, like you need to get up and move around, stretch, do jumping jacks, whatever – only you have no desire whatsoever to get up. More often than not, you go through a several minute stretch where you are plagued by fits of yawning. You keep in your mind that this is all part of the package, and the payoff is coming soon enough. At this point someone in the group usually recommends ripping a few bongs to “kickstart” the whole process – why the hell not, you ask as you proceed to blow a few ghosts. Maybe you’re sitting around, listening to music, a song you’ve heard a million times before, but somehow you’re hearing it for the first time – the notes don’t quite fall into place the way you remember, but that’s why it seems fun. You start to look around at the rest of your group and you can instantly tell that they are feeling the same things you are. You get flashed a wide-eyed, all-knowing grin that seems to say, “Yeah, I know – holy shit!” You start to glance about the room, and perhaps a poster on the wall catches your eye. So you stare. It never quite looked like that before, you think, as images in the poster seem to become flush with more color, more fluid, more complex. Maybe it’s something you saw on the poster, maybe it’s a noise you heard, maybe it’s a look you got from one of your mates, but you suddenly can’t help thinking “it” is hilarious, so you start to giggle. You’re much more aware of how your throat expands and contracts and the saliva sloshes around in your mouth when you laugh – how weird is that, you think? Suddenly, a feeling comes over you – you just need to stand up, stretch your legs, move around, shake yourself loose…

And then…BAM!

Anyone who’s walked down this path knows what I mean when I say “BAM” – it means ramp-up time is over, and you are now basking in the glory of full-on psychedelia! And I have to admit, it is quite a feeling. It’s an all-out assault on the senses. Sights – the walls breathe, the ground waves, colors explode and vibrate, textures and layers of complexity reveal themselves, items in motion seem to defy the space-time continuum by leaving traces of themselves everywhere they go, and it just all looks so damn GOOD. Sounds – music is richer and fuller, with notes and melodies, nooks and crannies that you’ve never heard before. Echoes and bells and the wind and the rustling leaves and the traffic and people and silence – it all swims inside your head and makes its way into the things you see. And tastes – I’ve never really eaten anything under the influence (hunger is the last thing on your mind), but I can honestly say that beer has NEVER tasted better…

OK, I need to back off just a bit – I’m starting to sound like the reincarnation of Timothy Leary and to be honest, it’s freaking me out a little bit. I don’t want my precious nine readers to get the impression that I’m a fried-out druggie who’d rather swim around in trip-land than be firmly entrenched in reality – quite the contrary. One of the most appealing things about these experiences is that this is exactly what they were – experiences. I would go absolutely crazy if my entire existence was spent in this psychedelic stupor rather than the sane comfort of everyday drudgery. These were certainly times I looked forward to with great anticipation, don’t get me wrong. I’m not even saying that I’d ever completely rule out another go at it. But at the end of the day, it’s a nice world to jump into and leave a few hours later, and surely not somewhere I would want to stay.

Now the pendulum needs to swing back from the cautionary after-school special tone. Let’s just say this – I shroomed quite a few times back in college, and for the most part every single time was a fucking blast. And the Lost Semester certainly saw the “peak” (pun intended) of that activity. I’m sure my cohorts could recall several journeys into the depths of the psyche and they would all say the same thing – great freakin’ times. But that’s because our group had the right attitude, the right approach. As previously mentioned, it is most certainly advisable to ensure the proper state of mind before embarking on such a journey. Just as these foul-smelling little mushrooms could take you to the peaks of enjoyment and whimsy, they could also plunge you into the depths of despair. That’s the thing about these types of drugs – the psychoactive impact is so profound that your mental state becomes amplified to the point where it will most certainly dictate how enjoyable (or intolerable) the next 6-8 hours of your life were going to be. This concept, of course, was of great interest to me considering the ever-expanding fragility of my self-confidence. Looking back, I’d say that there was a chance I may have been teetering on the brink of disaster every time I shroomed– now mind you, I’m not talking about a permanent descent into madness or suicide or anything like that – I was a mess, but I still basically had my shit together. But what I am saying is that it was very likely that I could have been thrust into several hours of some of the most intensely self-conscious, hair-fixing, stammering, lack-of-eye-contact moments of my life. I hated those moments when I was sober or merely stoned. But to have them along with visuals, auditory hallucinations and a constant, swirling mindfuck – let’s just say that would not be the most enjoyable experience.

But the good thing for me is that your state of mind in these situations depends greatly on the company you keep – and I for one was very selective about who I would and would NOT shroom with (and you know who you are). Sure we were all good friends and we all got along, but I can assure you that there were people and situations that put me at ease and those that would have blown my mind beyond repair, and if there’s one thing I did well during the Lost Semester, it was to be very selective about the company I kept, especially during a psychedelic drug episode. Now if you asked my parents, they’d probably wish the one thing I did well was schoolwork, but you can’t please everyone all of the time (and if they’re reading this, I hope you’re enjoying my fictional writing, Mom and Dad!)

Mushroom trips are like snowflakes – no two are exactly alike. Sure, the basic concepts – eat shrooms, giggle, hallucinate, solve the world’s problems, drink lots of beer, have a great time – were consistent, but the scenery and situations often varied greatly. While the various stories and situations are too numerous to fully recount here, I do recall one particular trip that was quite entertaining. One of the sororities on campus was having an annual “crush” party, which involved each girl inviting four guys to a bar they had rented out in order to socialize and drink ridiculously cheap booze. Yes, it’s always fun to willingly attend a party where you know going in that the guy-to-girl ratio will be 4:1, especially when under the influence of hallucinogens. Plus, as I was friends with many of these sorority girls through Emma, who of course was dating Pops at the time, the MPB house in turn had good relations with this sorority, and a large group of us were invited to the party. The shindig was on a Saturday late afternoon, so of course by the Tuesday prior we had made the decision to shroom, selected our group and ensured that the goods would be in our possession in ample time for us to enjoy them to their fullest. I mean, why go there to meet girls when you can trip your balls off instead?

When Saturday afternoon rolled around, we stood around six individual piles of psychedelic mushrooms in Room 7 and proceeded to munch away. Upon eating, we immediately set out for the festivities – for me, the ramp-up process was always much more enjoyable when I had a healthy dose of fresh winter air pumping through my lungs to help me keep my bearings. We soon arrived at the bar, carved out a sizeable hang out area and began drinking. That’s one other thing about shrooms – your resistance to alcohol seems to increase tenfold, with the booze having a leveling effect that kept the whole experience under just the slightest bit of control (plus it helped you sleep once the effects wore off later at night). There we all were, drinking, ramping-up, chatting with the gals and having a good old time…BAM! As the full effects kicked in, I began to get fully into the groove and notice all sorts of cool things swirling around me. For one, neon signs were a wonderful addition to any experience – not only were they great to look at in their own right, but the way they played off of people’s faces gave you the impression their faces were melting – but not in a creepy, scary, Indiana Jones sort of way. However, the other things I noticed were not so pleasant. While enjoyable music is supremely enhanced during a trip, conversely the irritating qualities of bad music become all the more grating. The bar this party was held in (C.O. Daniel’s) was notorious for its horrid music selection (as evidenced by its “Time Warp Tuesdays” that featured all the 80’s music you love to hate). For instance, I can say with great conviction that EVERY time I went in C.O. Daniel’s, I inevitably heard the wretched excuse for a song “Play Guitar” by John “Cougar” Mellencamp, who always has and always will rank on my Top Five list of most hated musical artists of all time. I can also tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that this horrific song becomes downright painful when you are three hours into a mushroom trip. It was all I could do to focus solely on the visuals as I blocked out the music; of course this intense concentration on my hallucinations occurred as I blatantly ignored a girl who was trying to flirt and strike up a conversation with me; I’m guessing she didn’t realize that my pupils were probably as big as frying pans at that point, but what can you do.

The other strange phenomenon (aside from hallucinations, of course) that I always encountered during my trips that occurred inside one of our fine campus bars – I always found people who have been drinking to be fiercely unattractive, almost to the point where I couldn’t bear to look at them without becoming visibly disturbed. I have no idea how it happened, but if one part of my perception was sharpened beyond all others during these experiences, it was my innate tendency to observe drunken people and make careful note of just how unsightly they appeared. It seemed as everyone’s bleary, bloodshot eyes were glazed and half-open, that they all wobbled back and forth as they tried to stand in one spot, and that not one of them could hold a drink without spilling at least a quarter of it on the filthy floor. It was also as if I could look through their eyes into their minds, see their inhibitions lay down their defenses, and watch the slurred words roll out of their mouths along with an inordinate amount of spittle and bad breath squarely into a conversation with another ugly person that they would no doubt either forget or regret by daybreak. It was to the point where the only other people in the bar who looked normal to me (aside from the sober and visibly annoyed employees) were my partners in crime. No matter what the situation, no matter what bad conversation you were trapped in, all it took to regain your sanity was a knowing glance and a shit-eating grin from one of the other trippers. Needless to say, we stuck together in a pretty tight pack in this situation, especially given the aforementioned male-to-female ratio (because as we all know, drunken guys are immensely uglier than drunken girls).

Seeing as we’ve established that I wasn’t a huge fan of our campus bars to begin with, my feelings of dislike and discomfort were grossly magnified when under the influence of psychedelics – if it were up to me, our tripping activities would have primarily consisted of roaming around outside, looking at trees and buildings and holding nonsensical conversations, followed by drinks and pinball at one of the more low-key bars on campus. But here we were, in the middle of the muck and mire that comprised the worst in alcohol abusing fun our campus had to offer. About four hours into the trip, I had certainly had enough. While my friends and I certainly preferred remaining completely in tact as a unit, we also understood that at a certain point it was inevitable for some people to want a change of scenery. I polled my cohorts, and Mayo was quick to agree that it was indeed time to get the fuck out of Dodge. So off we went.

Our first order of business was to get as far away from that bar scene as humanly possible. So we began to walk. And walk. And walk. Pretty soon we were clear on the south end of campus, neither of us with a clue of how much time had just passed or how far we had just walked. As we strolled down one of the campus’s busier thoroughfares, we saw car after car after car driving toward us. It was quite dark at this time, and we were quite fucked up and all we could really see were set after set of headlights flashing upon us and fading away, flashing upon us and fading away. It was as if these headlights were being pointed squarely on us, much like the lights of an interrogation. I wasn’t scared, but my mind started to move in the direction of wondering just how obvious it was to everyone else that I was walking around under the influence of mushrooms. “My goodness,” I thought to myself, “everyone keeps shining these lights right on us. They must have some clue what’s going on here. They must…”

At that point Mayo turned to me, flashed a giant grin and said, “They know.”

I nearly fell on the ground I was laughing so hard – how the hell did he know that I knew that they knew what we knew they knew? “Yes!” I snorted. “They know! They know exactly what we’re up to right now! Holy shit, that’s funny!” I guess in more dire circumstances, the concept of everyone all around us knowing exactly what we were up to would have been great cause for paranoia. But I didn’t really give a shit, nor did Mayo. In fact, we reveled in the fact and as strange as it sounds it made that particular experience all that much more enjoyable (it probably didn’t hurt that we had been drinking, but still). I don’t remember exactly how we wound down from that trip, but something tells me it provided the perfect ending to a perfect time.

And that’s really what it comes back to – the experience, the company, the state of mind. I neither condone nor apologize for those experiences. I do know that I wouldn’t trade them for the world. And if, just if, all of these factors – friends, scenery, attitude – aligned in just the right manner, in just the right way, at just the right time, you had the recipe for the greatest experience you could ever possibly have. Just if…

Until next time…

On Parenthood

Everything changed that day.

November 13, 2005 – a day that will always hold a very dear place in my heart. Not only would it have been Michelle’s Grandfather’s 92nd birthday, but it also happens to be the day that she impressed me like I have never been impressed before – the day she gave birth to our son. There’s no feasible way I can describe in writing the feeling I had that day – and continue to have – but I will tell you that it really makes you adopt a new way of looking at things. My brother Greg put it best: “It gives you a reason to not be so eager to put yourself in life-threatening peril.” Well said.

Given my upbringing as a TV Casualty, parenthood has given me great cause to re-examine things I have observed on television, if only to make sense of bearing this great responsibility Michelle and I have chosen to shoulder. As I look back over my life as a television viewer, I am given great reason to reflect on the life lessons I have gathered from all of the great programs that have molded and shaped my approach as a father.

• One thing has always bothered me about The Brady Bunch – in the pilot episode where Mike and Carol partake in their nuptials, I am disturbed by the scene where Mike visits Bobby in his room, only to take notice that Bobby has removed the picture of his deceased mother he keeps by his bed. Mike and Bobby proceed to share a tender moment whereby Mike urges Bobby to always carry the memory of his mother deep within his heart and to never forget her. By the time the next few episodes roll around, Tiger is stealing everyone’s shit, there’s a goddamned payphone in the TV room and Bobby’s calling his brand-spanking-new stepmother “Mom” like she had squeezed him out of her own womb. And none of this seems to bother Mike in the least. It’s almost as if he’s adopted the attitude of “hey, the sooner he forgets my dead wife, the sooner I have to stop dealing with his night terrors and bedwetting.” Am I the only one who finds Bobby’s eagerness to forget his mother absolutely chilling in its sheer indifference?

• Growing up, I was an avid viewer of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father – don’t ask why, because to be quite honest I have no clue myself (note to self: ask Mom why the hell I watched that show). Perhaps I saw Bill Bixby and figured if I waited long enough he would turn into Lou Ferrigno with green body paint and purple pants. Now if memory serves correct, aside from the haunting theme song, the most memorable thing about this show, aside from the fact that Brandon Cruz went on to be in a punk band (Greg, which one?), was the presence of Mrs. Livingston, the Japanese maid. What was her story? Does her surname suggest a life of isolation resulting from her interracial relationship with her unidentified husband? How was she compensated? Does she approve of Tom Corbett’s promiscuity? Have they ever had relations? These are things that shouldn’t just be left to twist in the wind.

• Regarding Family Ties – just how in the hell is it that two peace-loving, nuclear war-hating, pot-smoking hippie freaks like Steven and Elyse Keaton raise such a fascist little shit like Alex P. Keaton? Is this a commentary on the dangers of pushing your child to conform to your viewpoints? Was Michael J. Fox’s character serving as a symbol that even well meaning intentions could inadvertently give birth to sinister tidings? Or did the creators of the show simply think it would be funny to have a child ridicule his parents for pissing away a vote on the Mondale-Ferraro ticket? I guess we’ll never know.

• OK, let me get this straight – first Jim Walsh can’t stand Dylan, the bad seed that happens to be diddling his precious daughter. Later, after Dylan has dumped his daughter for her best friend, Jim takes him and his millions of precious dollars on as a preferred client. What kind of message are you sending, Mr. Walsh? Well, I guess Casa De Walsh isn’t going to pay for itself. The Almighty Dollar wins again.

• I’ve always found it fascinating just how quickly sitcom parents can address their kids drug problems. These issues rarely, if ever, carry over from one half-hour episode to the next. Mr. Drummond flushes Willis’ weed down the toilet. Problem solved! Jason Seaver worriedly locked the door after taking his teenage son’s word that he didn’t try coke at a coke party. No worries! Steven and Elyse Keaton shake their fingers at Alex in his crazed speed-induced state, and he sees the light. Nary a concern! At least that loser son on Blossom (no, the loser NOT named Joey Lawrence) constantly reminded us of his former addict ways in an increasingly unfunny manner from week to week.

• Not to digress, but my God – I was just doing research for that last paragraph (I Googled “A very special episode and went to Wilkpedia.com), and I came across the following descriptions for two very special episodes of Facts of Life, which made me wish I actually watched the show more often:

o A pimp almost strong-arms Tootie into prostitution.

o Natalie is almost raped by a clown on Halloween.

Thank goodness they stopped at “almost”! Of course I’ve seen the one where Blair is ashamed of her cerebral palsy-afflicted comedienne cousin Geri, but I ask you – how in the name of all that is holy have I never seen these other two episodes? The quest begins…

• I am appalled that America was not more outspoken about Mabel Thomas’ blatant use of physical violence to reprimand her son Raja. I mean, she only outweighed him by 350 pounds – not a fair fight if you ask me. Mabel, give me YOUR belt and we’ll see how you like it (this reminds me of my favorite fat joke where Rerun gives her his belt and she bellows, “Good LAWD, Rerun – I want to whip him, not hang him!” Man, I miss that show).

• Hey, did you know that the dad from Alf was featured in the Enquirer smoking crack and making out with homeless men? Once again, life imitates art.

• Given his short fuse, gruff demeanor, protective attitude towards his daughters and overall flair for the dramatic, I was thrown for quite the loop when Gimmie a Break’s Chief Kanisky took the fact that his daughter Katie had implanted an inter-uterine device in her reproductive organs in order to avoid pregnancy virtually in stride. I guess it pays to have an overweight black woman who acts as housemaid and caregiver to your children to help put these things into their proper perspective.

• OK, like any red-blooded American male adolescent would, I had my fair share of crushes on TV Moms/Mother Figures. Maggie Seaver, even with her horrid perm, was quite the looker. Elyse Keaton had that homely-yet-pretty down home quality to her. Hell, even Claire Huxtible kept herself in pretty damn good shape, right? But to me, none of these ladies holds a candle to Kate from Silver Spoons. She could ride my train through the house any day of the week! ROWR!

• I find the whole concept of My Two Dads extremely insulting. Here you have two men (“lifelong friends” as they are described on www.tv.com) who can each lay claim to screwing the same woman at the same time. OK, I’m sure it wasn’t the exact same time, but it was within the same menstrual cycle at the very least, because said woman became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter (played by Staci Keanan, who I had a huge crush on when she was on Step by Step, a delicious pun as it involved step-families). Apparently the woman dies shortly after giving birth, and both men are appointed the baby girl’s legal guardians. I want to know what sick, activist judge handed down such a ruling. “OK, we have a dead woman and an infant girl. In my opinion, the best situation for her is to be raised by two guys who happened to be fornicating with her slut of a mother. Never mind that they have no legal obligation to remain friends, nor would they given the betrayal they both must be feeling, but what the hell? Custody granted to these two dudes. Next case!” That this abomination lasted 60 episodes is a true testament to the entertainment value demanded by the ever-fastidious American TV viewing public.

Until next time…

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…

Le Célibataire

Bon jour, mon ami! Champagne, cheese, baguette, Perrier, souffl'ee, beret, Cochon américain, and c'est la vie to all of you! I am reporting to you LIVE from Paris, the city where everyone surrenders themselves to both the powers of love and the marching of occupying Germans. OK, I'm not really in Paris, but I felt as if I was whisked to this magical city while watching the premiere of what has become a seemingly neverending stream of installments of ABC's The Bachelor - the newest prize is Travis, a seemingly likeable, tall, dark, handsome emergency room doctor in whose chin dimple one could serve spinach dip. Yes, I know it's hard to imagine any woman being interested in a man possessing these qualities, but let's try and live the fantasy, shall we?

Early on in the whole Bachelor phenomenon, the whole concept was thought to be new and fresh and wholesome, and one could fool oneself into believing that people could actually find love on television if one really tried. Of course a skeptic like myself wasn't having any of it - the minute I saw what's-his-name choose what's-her-face over Trista the Attention Whore, I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that it would last. However, Michelle, ever the romantic that she is, was fascinated by the concept, and thought that these good folks wanted to find their true love, even if it meant having directions barked at them by ABC producers.

However, with each subsequent installment of this program, as the pool of borderline-respectable participants continued to thin, as the level of dignity decreased in the half-life manner of a radioactive element - you know, barely a shred of dignity left, but just enough where you had to feel some embarrassment for these people, as opposed to say, participants on The Real World, where everyone is simply insane - Michelle slowly adopted the same jaded views as mine, and the results of this deterioration of respect came through in the most entertaining manner during the recent season premiere. One by one, the desparate women unable to meet a man by conventional means poured out of limousines driven by French men who bore such a look of contempt it was almost frightening, and over and over, Michelle and I competed to see who could be more cruel and belittling, with predictably hilarious results.

The first episode of each Bachelor/ette installment usually breaks down like this:

8:00-8:05 - Meet the person who will cause 25 people to act like unstable, petty, emotional freaks.
8:05-8:25 - Limos pull up and prospective mates get out to awkwardly introduce themselves to the alpha male/female; several then go inside the house/mansion/chateau and begin drinking heavily, which greatly enhances my viewing entertainment
8:25-8:42 - Alpha male/female makes the rounds to enjoy several nervous, uncomfortable conversations, prays producers are keeping track of names
8:42-8:54 - Elimination process is shown in excrutiating detail; several potential mates become visibly ill when they are not among the first two people called, even the ones you've pegged as eliminated from the moment you saw them (i.e. delusional is another fine quality of these people)
8:54-8:58 - post-elimination goodbyes, featuring forced hugs, insincere well-wishes, and the obligatory freak-out from one of the more unstable losers
8:58-9:00 - Dude, scenes

I, for one, found it heartwarming that Michelle now shared my contempt for these fools. We first noted that 10 of the girls were 25 or under, and only two were over 30. In what would prove to be a shocking turn of events, the two 30+ girls were sent packing (more on one of those old bags later). Why, in God's name, would anyone at or under the age of 25 feel the need to participate in a process, televised or not, whereby in a scant six weeks they may be receiving a proposal? I realize that people in my parent's generation regularly got married at 22 - oddly enough, they are also key contributors to the current divorce rate that stands at roughly 50%. Conincidence? Of course not. I think about myself at 25 versus now at the ripe old age of 32, and I realize that while I most certainly don't have everything figured out, I'm definitely a hell of a lot better off than I was at 25. Sure, I had a blast at that time of my life - but I was also, in many ways, a complete moron with no basic life skills. So why would I make a decision that only majorly altered the course of my life, but that of at least one other person (and is multiplied when kids are thrown into the mix) and that point of my life? I barely feel mature enough to handle fatherhood at this age - I would have been an absolute train wreck at 25. My point is, I just don't understand the rush these girls are in. They are all at least remotely cute, and seem somewhat personable, but the fact that they've reached this point tells me that they're either a) desparate, b) impossible to deal with, or c) attention-starved - three traits that, while they might contribute to an entertaining and heated short term sexual tryst, are hardly the qualities normal people would hope that their life partner would possess.

What else did Michelle and I learn about this installment's crop of potential mates for our dreamy doctor?

- Well, we learned that women in Sales, Marketing or Advertising must either be the only ones willing to apply for this show in droves or are just plain desperate - approximately 1/3 of these sad, lonely creatures worked in these fields, with Student/Teacher being the next most common category (16%).

- We learned that there are some sets of parents out there who either a) have a cruel sense of humor, or b) simply don't have a clue about naming children to avoid schoolyard ridicule. Observe if you will some of the names: Cole, Jehan (I kept saying Jihad), Kyle, Moana, Princess (yes, you read that right), Shiloh (I think her twin's name is Antietam), and Venus (Parents names: Zeus and Hera). Yes, it's fun to play cruel jokes on your children that will haunt them the rest of their lives, even when they desperately appear on TV in the hopes of landing a husband in front of millions of viewers.

- Many of these ladies lacked basic social skills. Michelle was incredibly cruel in this regard (much to my delight) as she ripped each contestant for her ability to introduce themselves in a somewhat human manner. Our favorite trend was the obligatory butchering of the French language - i.e. the girl from Virginia screeching, "Well BON JEW-OAR! I'm Jaime from Virginny! OK, see you inside, Travis! OAR-REE-VOO-OUR!" The other one was every girl from the South who upon hearing Travis lived in Nashville, naturally asked, "Don't you just love country music?" His response: "Uh, not really"

- Maybe it was their passengers' nationality, maybe their general bubbliness, but once again, the look of pure contempt on each French limo driver's face was truly a sight to behold.

Per usual, Travis made his way through the group, had his awkward conversations, identified the girls who pleased him the most when he had mentally undressed them, and pared the field down for easier scorekeeping at home. He keeps 12 girls, meaning 13 are sent right back to Charles DeGaulle for the looooong flight back to the States. Twelve of these ladies leave with some shred of basic human dignity - but not Allie G. Oh no, being dignified is way beyond this 33-year-old Oncologist. After she is cut, she can't seem to fathom how in the hell this guy wasn't interested in her. After all, she's a doctor too, a powerful, successful woman who put everything on hold to focus on HERself and HER career. Hey Allie, figuring it out yet? That whole attitude alone would be enough to send even the steeliest of men running for cover.

But Allie takes it a step further - as she's rambling on to Travis about how awesome she is for having a kick ass career and such, another girl pulls the classic Bachelor move by coming over and requesting that Travis finish this conversation with this obviously psychopathic individual so he can hear about the benefits of others at the party. So Allie is asked to finish her thought, and like any logical woman whose biological clock is ticking with the force of a wrecking ball striking a battleship, she launches into the following: "So basically, I'm at a point in my life where I'm ready to reproduce. My eggs are going to dry up and, well, I'd like to reproduce."

You hear that sound, Allie? It's the sound of your unborn child saying "NOOOOOOOO you fool! Shut up! You're blowing it for both of us!!!" This, of course, brings me back to the shock that Allie expresses after being shown la porte. As she heads out to the limo to return to her lonely, childless existence, possiby to concoct a plan to steal a baby from the nursery at her hospital, she suddenly turns around, storms back in and confronts an obviously frightented Travis. "So...why did you eliminate me, huh? Huh? What, too short? Boobs too small? What? Why?" Before the producers have the opportunity to step in and taser her, Travis smiles calmly and says, "Frankly it was because you said you wanted to 'reproduce' and that's not what I'm here for, not now." This response doesn't satisfy this little badger of a woman, who responds beligerantly, "Then what? What are you here for? Why are you even here?" Again, Travis stays level and says, "not for that," and points toward the door, where Allie is ushered out, not to be seen or hear from again until the MOST ANTICIPATED AFTER THE FINAL ROSE EPISODE...EVER! I for one have already instructed my Tivo to record it. This whole exchange leads me to ignore my own advice to can the hyperbole and declare Travis the BEST BACHELOR EVER. As a final view into Allie's madness, during the closing credits she is shown berating a producer about Travis's intentions, and all the producer can do is respond to every barb nervously, "Hey, I don't know him!" Can I get a psych consult?

Will I continue to keep my eye on this Paris adventure? Absolument! I will keep you updated on the madness, so keep an eye on those biological clocks and make sure you stay fertile...until next time...

Just How Wonderful of a Life Is It?

Well, I’ve had some time to decompress, get back to work, return the presents I pretended to like and take down all the cutesy kid Christmas cards that demonstrate just how quickly my friends and family are multiplying. The eggnog has gone bad, the menorah has been snuffed out eight-fold, and the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event has come and gone (hopefully, with a new Lexus for each and every one of you). Now that the dust has settled, I’d like to take a brief look back at one of the passing phenomena tied to the holiday season just to try and make sense of something that has eaten at me for some time now.

One of my favorite holiday traditions has always been the obligatory viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. Granted I used to watch it about 47 times during December when I was a kid, given that it was just some old movie that PBS could dust off and run ad nauseum in an effort to bump up viewership during one of their 73 annual pledge drives (you know, like Miracle on 34th Street is today). However, savvy businessman extraordinaire Ted Turner quickly realized that this hot piece of advertising-revenue-generating gold was up for grabs, and he snatched in up for 30 silver pieces and held it hostage, only allowing us to view it on Christmas Eve in years past – tossing the proverbial crust of bread to the pee-on masses, if you will. However, this year, Terrible Ted was nice enough to allow us to see this gem of a film not once, but twice! Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! I guess those DVD sales figures looked pretty good this quarter.

Now as hokey, goofy and sappy as this movie is, I admit that my holidays don't feel complete unless I watch George Bailey’s story unfold – from his young, whipper-snapper days as a soda-jerk, to his braggart taunting of his nude bride-to-be, through his days of toil keeping up his father’s wonderful old building and loan (which was closed after the market crash of ‘87 amidst terrible scandal, I’m told), right up to his life-altering encounter with Clarence, the sissy angel with no wings. By now we all know that George was in a financial quandary, and he was considering offing himself as a means to unburden his family from the shame – a noble gesture at its heart, I’m sure. But Clarence is having none of it – and to prove it he decides to show George what his life would be like had he not been born (not the same as him killing himself, but I’m splitting hairs).

As he falls under Clarence’s angelic hallucinatory spell, George is shown what the world would be like had he never been born, and he encounters many disturbing situations, none of which he can make sense of. As we are drawn along with George through this hellish alternate universe, we see the terrible fate of George’s friends, family, and beloved home town of Bedford Falls: Ernie the cabdriver is a loser living in a shack without his family; Violet is a whore who cannot ply her trade as she is hassled by the police; his wife Mary is an old maid and possibly a virgin (which would actually make me happy – I figured she’d be shacked up in New York City, the love-slave of rich playboy Sam Wainright, but whatever); his brother died at the age of nine, despite only being alive from 1911 to 1918 (even the laws of mathematics are affected by George’s non-existence – curse you, Pythagoras!); and the quaint, quiet streets of Bedford Falls are now the swinging, wild streets of Pottersville, teeming with riff raff and lined with gambling dens, sex palaces and other houses of ill-refute. Yes, the world is a darker place for everyone without George Bailey. Everyone, that is, except for…

…Nick the Bartender. We were first introduced to Nick when George left home to drown his sorrows over the missing $8,000 that foolish Uncle Billy had stupidly given to Potter. We are instantly taken by the almost catatonic state of the clientele at Martini’s – just George and Mr. Welch pounding shots and a few other people, perhaps having a nightcap prior to retiring for the evening. Dullsville, baby. An annoying, unintelligible Italian song blathers on in the background. The level of activity barely justifies having the fucking doors open at all, and Nick will be lucky to leave with two-bits worth of tips, barely enough to buy his own mother any kind of Christmas gift. Yes, he is sad, but ever the good soldier, Nick labors on, even taking orders barked at him by Mr. Martini in his pidgin English after Mr. Welch punches George in the mouth (rightfully so, I might add): “He no-a-come in-a-here no mo, you unnastan-a-me Nick?”. Nick can only meekly nod in agreement as he helps his immigrant employer’s drunken, unshaven “bess-a-fren” to his feet, secretly wondering what his own life has become.

Flash forward to the alternate George Bailey-less universe. All of a sudden, Martini’s is Nick’s. In one fell swoop, he’s gone from lackey bartender to hotshot nightclub owner – how thrilled he must have been! As George and Clarence step inside, we go along and are immediately whisked into a world the likes of which Bedford Falls had never seen. The place is absolutely packed. A large Negro (bear with me, it’s 1947) bangs out riotous jazz music on a piano. People are laughing, yelling, drinking, burning reefers and having a rowdy good time. As those crazy kids back in ’47 would say, “The joint was jumping!” And in the center of it all is Nick – the man with the plan, the head honcho, the guy no one wants to fuck with. George and Clarence sidle up to the bar (how there were two open seats at the bar in such a packed place, I’ll never understand, but again with the hair-splitting), and George orders his booze – Nick respects pouring a hard drink for a man who wants to get drunk fast – after all, the quicker and drunker they get, the more that cash register dings, the more moolah that makes its way into his pocket. It’s Capitalism at its finest. But Clarence, sissy boy that he is, quickly draws the ire of the tavern’s owner. The sweeter, and frankly more irritating, he acts, the more exasperated Nick gets – it’s like, “Hey man, I’ve got drinks to pour and cash to make, and that Negro piano player ain’t gonna pay himself, so let’s get a move on here!” Rightfully so – again, this is Nick’s livelihood – can you blame him for wanting his customer to get a move on with his order of mull wine, heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves?

As George and Clarence’s conversation begins to delve into Clarence’s unique “situation”, Nick is at his wit’s end. He has an image to uphold and a clientele to keep happy, so who needs two pixies – who have the audacity to address him by name even though he doesn’t know from Madame Zorf’s Ox, no less – sticking around giving the joint atmosphere? Just as he’s at his wit’s end, an elderly derelict makes his way in. This is a man who poisoned a child 30 years prior, mind you – a boozed up druggist who couldn’t hide his grief and killed an innocent as a result. So there goes George, brazenly associating with this vile rummy, calling him by name and treating him like a respected elder no less. Well, our alternate-universe Nick has seen enough – whether through the door or out the window, these two characters are gone! Slowing his liquor sales? Talking about being angels and over two-hundred years old, which is creeping out the regulars? Associating with drunken child-killer? You better believe anyone with any set of values would have these freaks tossed. At the end of this whole debacle, Nick, ever attentive to the well-being of his customers, provides them with some much-needed comic relief after this unsettling incident by pretending to give out wings as he rings up the cash register. The crowd loves it, the Negro beats his 88 keys, and the fun never stops at Nick’s.

Yet poor Nick would get a rude awakening when George Bailey suddenly decided to re-materialize and join the living again. While George was hugging his wife and children, having mounds of cash dumped on a table in order to correct a discrepancy in his company’s accounting records (one that had not yet been resolved, mind you), being reunited with his football hero medal-of-honor-winning brother, drinking Italian wine, and singing fucking Auld Lang Sine, Nick was being transformed back into the nice local boy forced to work for an Italian immigrant (undoubtedly insulting in 1940’s Upstate New York) for nickels and dimes, wondering how in God’s name he was ever going to afford that swank place in Bailey Park. Now I ask you – what the hell is so wonderful about that?

Until next time…