Saturday, January 21, 2006

SO THIS IS A PARTY SCHOOL?!?
Trying to Find Depth in Shallow People is a Lost Cause

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- So, having had a wonderful meal courtesy of a student and her roommate, I decided to take them up on their offer to attend a few parties Thursday night.

Why not? Miami has been rated, in the past, as one of the biggest party schools in the country by several publications. I forgot that I don't usually believe what I read in trendy men's magazines, the ones full of more overpriced cologne samples than anything remotely intelligent.

Overall Analysis:
Based on the three parties I visited, I'm convinced that the majority of students who attend these things believe that students at universities party just like they do. Even if I'd never lived in another college town, I think I'd have to disagree with the trendy men's magazines. Based on my field observations, I'd have to give the scene a D, as in Damn, I wish I Could Learn to Pretend I'm Having Fun.

Party Numero Uno:
If there is one thing I mastered in my nearly eight years' as a professional student, it was the ability to party hard and at full force. Somehow, I made it through two full years at the University of Northern Colorado, where I decided to skip the whole "college rebellion" phase and went full-on badass.

While some guys satisfied themselves with this silly female-to-male ratio of 2.2:1 offered by Colorado's party school, I went for the women with teardrop tattoos, unstable strippers with personality disorders, and girls more interested in leading me down to the local drug dealer's apartment.

I've survived parties at University of California-Santa Barbara's notorious Isla Vista neighborhood, where whole genres of porn have been invented. At my supposedly mild alma mater, I learned that the tired, old method of taking shots out of a sorority girl's bellybutton was nowhere near as fun as simply dowsing an overworked computer science major in tequila and...well...you get the idea.

I must say, however, that watching a bunch of undergrads, packed into an overpriced tenament, wrecklessly drinking from a communal liquored punchbowl, playing some game called "Beer Pong," is a unique experience.

Um...yeah. A girl asked me if I was in her microbiology class and told me she had just serviced some guy in closet. Why? Because he said she looked like Natalie Portman (she looked nothing like Natalie Portman.)

Please call me when you move the beer pong to a beach bonfire, where at least I can get drunk and skinnydip in Pacific to re-prove my theory that brief hypothermia makes boredom less damned tedious.

Party No. 2 - The Wrath of Pong:
Another party. Same packed slum of a house. Same game of beer pong with different players. Like I said, back in the days when Dinosaur Jr. still roamed the earth and it was still cool to get drunk and have a little fun at a party, we had games like this. But they tended to get boring after the first...hour.

So...um...what's the deal with college females wearing pants with word Juicy written across the ass? I'd never noticed before, until a colleague pointed it out to me earlier that day. I assume it's meant to convey some message that your ass is somehow like a can of V8. But for some reason, my mind translates the word into Ask Me about Effective Chlamydia Treatments.

I made the mistake of striking up a conversation with a woman on a porch while having a cigarette. She was wearing a Ramones tee-shirt; I thought it was pretty bad ass for a girl to wear a plaid skirt and such a shirt in a community known for its Reaganomics-efficient sense of conformity.

I spent twenty minutes listening as she explained she had just broken up with her boyfriend back home and she wasn't looking to meet someone and how it was too soon for her to start seeing anyone and how he was the first boy she kissed and she didn't think she'd ever fall in love again and how she thought I seemed like a nice guy and she'd seen me around town but she wasn't ready for a commitment because she just got out of a two-week relationship and...

Twenty minutes of my life. Gone.

I will never compliment a girl for wearing a Ramones tee shirt again.

Party No. 3 - Abandonment Issues

My escorts abandoned me at about midnight, apparently, I was less of a party guy than they imagined.

Either that, or they figured this extremely intoxicated blonde "grad student" who insisted on showing me a Kentucky driver's lisense that looked nothing like her had somehow cast a spell over me.

Oh yeah. Nothing like a gal who stinks of Coors Light, vomit, and perfume, in a room full of spoiled WASPs who think they'd survive an hour in East St. Louis because they can butcher a Ludacris tune, to get the ol' ZenFo Pro in the mood.

Somehow, she talked me into going into her room. Actually, she simply hung on me until I gave in. It wasn't the weight that pushed me up a flight of stairs; it was the threat of accidental impalement on the protruding pelvic bone of a woman intent, apparently, on earning a "master's degree" in severe eating disorders and early death.

I escaped only because she recognized some girl from her dorm and simply staggered off. (Yeah, um, better work on the Kentucky grad student impersonation before using that ID to get into a bar.)

# # #
Time of Lab Test:
2 hrs 20 minutes
In bed by 1:30 a.m.

Alcohol consumed:
O mg. (Not counting inhaled fumes.)

Number of Times Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son Heard:
4

Number of Times the variations of the phrase "She needs to lose weight" was overheard applied of students weighing under 110lbs:
8

Yeah, welcome to lovely Oxford Fucking Ohio.









7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a party school, but no one said they were good parties...

I see not much has changed since 1985 re: 'normal' people parties.

But you know, the music scene parties I went to in the 80's at Ohio State were pretty tame compared to those you went to, Jason. Lots of drugs and drinking, but also lots of semi-intelligent talk and sometimes a small group jamming on the porch, playing Hank Williams. Not a whole lot of obvious sex. Probably because there were a lot of non-students in their 20's and 30's.

But really...do you want to go to those kinds of drink-n-fuck parties anymore, anyway? So who cares if the WASPs have boring parties?

The ZenFo Pro said...

You know, that almost sounded like a crotchety "back in my day..." post...lol.

lol...you know, I probably wouldn't still be alive if I hadn't learned that it's more fun to go to the same kinds of parties you went to. I always loved those types of parties; the wildness was mostly because it was something to do.

I went out, partly, because I wanted to figure out what all the hype was about, frankly. I was expecting old New Orleans kinds of decadence and found possibly the lamest scene I've seen since visiting BYU. Even at parties down at UCSB, there was somebody to talk to, a sense of something unique.

There is nothing unique about the "traditional" Miami wild party, because there really isn't that element you describe from your OSU days. Its the diversity of a college community that makes its party scene wild; the fact that all three parties were exactly the same but in different houses - it was like the Stepford Wives party scene. I've attended a few small parties here where the nonconformist student population gets together, reads their poetry, and has a good time. Why isn't Miami known for this?

Lol...no, not interested in going back to the drink-n-fuck days. But, Jeezus! It'd at least be nice to see students actually doing something more than being herded into a stereotype.

BTW, your OSU days sound a lot like my Cal Poly/KCPR days. We had a lot of fun at this house called Jump Street - where you knew it was a good night when somebody found a broadsword from some RenFest and it ended up stuck in some tree in the neighbor's yard.

Anonymous said...

Jason - Hey see I told ya. Don't go out at night! :)Yea that's the typical MU experience and why my beau now comes up here to columbus. i've driven down there and wow talk about lame.

Monkeythong - We're trying to keep the OSU spirit alive for ya ;)

Anonymous said...

Well, I am going to be 40 this year, so I have to start prepping for the "In MY day..." rants ;-)

Cooper said...

I've heard that as well form several sources, one- a cousin who goes there, two- a friend who goes to a LAC north of Columbus who has traveled down there to party but did not enjoy it all that much. Having been to parties at John Hopkins, Georgetown, William and Mary and Cornell to name the better known I can honestly say that there is gross pathetic vomit and beer pong everywhere. One of my best friends was beer pong champ at his frat at Cornell freshman year and this is a smart guy...Cornell, routinely the week before their finals, puts on a week of parties to rival las vegas and even hires medical personnel to ..hang out under tents like the red cross to handle emergencies...not kidding. The most vomit and obnoxious people award goes to Hopkins though. Here not having a really set campus although you really do sometimes see it; it is much easier to avoid. I can almost smell that party...I feel for you.

Anonymous said...

Dude! What are you doing hanging out with undergrads at your age?

If life in Oxford is that boring, it is time to find a new job.

-- A friend of a friend

The ZenFo Pro said...

Katherine:
Yeah, I know. But its the gonzo spirit. It really is unfair to judge a college scene's social life without giving it a try.

MM:
40's old? who came up with that?

Alice:
Assessment of Georgetown and W&M dead-on. The whole scene reminds me so much of William and Mary, actually.

Anon:
At my age?!? I'm only 27! And in a town where two-thirds of the school-year population ends up being undergrads, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Job's where the job is. I like my job (most days). I thought about moving to Cincy, but I hate commutes.