What to Expect on Gone Greek Night

Sorostitutes:

Part 1: Singing.  You know your songs. YOUR CHAPTER HAS THE BEST DAMN SONGS IN THE ENTIRE QUAD. Even if the lyrics seem like they were written by Tommy Wiseau, sing them with pride. If you sound stupid, you’ll sound stupid in solidarity. And let’s face it, stupidity in numbers is almost never shameful.

Those songs are the closest to hazing NU sororities will ever come. So if you’re uncomfortable, go chill with a sister elsewhere. Seriously. Nobody’s going to judge you because you don’t want to sing songs about how whorish you are. And it’s likely nobody’s going to notice your absence because you’re new and no one knows to ask where you are yet. So if you’re weirded out by weird lines or choreography, pretend you need to leave temporarily to go get special hypoallergenic tampons from Elder. Or something.

If you're presented with roses arranged like this, you may want to avoid the fratstar responsible for it.

If you’re awkward about receiving roses (like me), don’t put them down on a chair and pretend like you don’t have any (like me), because boys will think you actually don’t have any and they will give you more and you will have an awkward bouquet at the end of the night, and you will realize very slowly that it’s not because they find you attractive but rather because they see you have none in your hand and are either taking pity or priming you for a later hookup, and only you will know this, and you can’t/don’t explain that to any of your new sisters giving you the stinkeye because they will not understand and also because you kinda want them to think you looked especially hot and deserved the roses (no seriously I don’t know anyone who that happened to). If you’re kind of person who brags about receiving roses…don’t. In fact, drop now, you’re clearly obnoxious.

Part 2: Dancing.  We’ll be saying this again on Dillo, but pace yourself if you’re drinking. Clearly the class of 2015 has issues with this (how many hospitalizations did you have fall quarter?) Don’t get super-trashed on the bus and be vomming on the dance floor the rest of the night, because you will probably get sent home, the Sober Sister sharing your cab will probably resent you, and the likeliness that you will hook up is literally nil. Also, treat your location with respect. You really don’t want to be That Guy.* Don’t make people hate you before you even finish pledging yet.

Gone Greek Night?

As I said earlier, you’re new and no one knows to check up on you yet. So find a buddy if you don’t want to hook up. That said, HAVE FUN. Remember those nights where you have to try to find someone who wants to hook up? Not tonight. Everyone’s single on GGN. Unless you’re not, in which case, don’t be a cheating bitch. Otherwise, go crazy, hon. If there was ever a night where you wanted to know how it feels to wake up in some random fratty’s dorm trying to remember whether the bra you were wearing matched your panties, and are they in the same location, and where that location may  be – go for it. You’ll be sharing stories later. Have a good one.

Or you could pull the Classy Ellie K move, which involves sleeping (no actually, just sleeping) in your awesome superchill super-cozy guy friend’s dingle, waking up sans hangover and going to the house because they have the best granola (which, unless you’re in my sorority, your house doesn’t have the best granola. Sorry).

So in short, don’t expect anything. Have a fun and safe time, represent your chapter- and most importantly, don’t get caught.

Pledges: Get ready to stumble! This is your chance to impress the ladies, sing your heart out and binge drink on a Friday afternoon. You’ll probably start your night pregaming with some brothers or just with your pledge class. Make sure to get absolutely crunk but not so bad that you can’t find the DG house. Once you’re done taking handle pulls in the daylight, you go sing to them fine sorority chicks. Usually, you’ll put their name in a song to make them all feel just so special and unique! Try “We found love in a __(sorority name)__-less place,” that should make them all love you.

NO SEX ON THE DANCE FLOOR, REGARDLESS OF THE LEVEL OF CONSENT

Throughout the night you’ll have roses to bestow onto all the bitchez you wish to make intercourse at. Try to give them out to your friends so that no one knows about your plan to make intercourse at the other ones. At some point in the night you’ll go to the house of the sorority you’re paired with for a nice meal. Eat dat shit. It’ll sober you up and allow you to remember the night (pro tip: Don’t shovel the food into your mouth as fast as you can and demand seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sixty-ninths. You’ll look like a pig).  Once the singing part is over, you can let loose and have some fun. Buses generally leave for the bar from the sorority quad near the house of the sorority you’re paired with between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Go to the bar. Take some awesome shooters with some awesome friends. Soak up each other’s awesomeness. Get kicked out of the bar. Hook up with some hawt girlz . BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T HAVE SEX ON THE DANCEFLOOR. PEOPLE REMEMBER THAT SHIT. That’s all I have to say.

Frat bros: Okay, we remember freshman year, right? Don’t do that shit. Keep it in control, bro. Just take a few shots, dance your ass off and DON’T HAVE SEX ON THE DANCEFLOOR. WHY HAS NO ONE FORGOTTEN THAT SHIT.  Other than that, your night has a lot less pressure. You just dress up, pregame and head to the buses. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll pregame at Cozy or some other fine BYOB establishment in Evanston. This is a great way to cover up your alcohol dependency but be warned: everyone else had the same idea and crowds are more than likely.  One final note: GGN isn’t really about you. It’s a chance for the new pledge classes to scope each other out, feel uncomfortable and try not to vomit. So have fun and get wild, but you should probably avoid bursting in during the middle of a song for a solo. I’m sure you sound great singing “Someone Like Gamma Phi” but everyone will be weirded out.

Other rule: Drink every time Chewbacca and Han Solo "have a moment"

GDI’s: This is not the most fun weekend for a non-Greek but that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to make it interesting. True, there are generally no open frat parties Friday night (and few on Saturday) but that hardly means you can’t get schwastey. Try a drinking game! There are plenty of fun one, like battleshots or Mean Girls. I would advise STRONGLY against the Star Wars Drinking Game, in which the only rule is that you have to chug a handle every time there’s a surprising paternity result. Literally everyone will puke and/or die. So please don’t do it.
If you don’t want to sit with two friends in your dark dorm room (Green Cup, ya dig?), see if you can find a hoppin’ apartment party. Or maybe scope out some other bars for us and report back on which one should be the new Monday night destination. If you’re doing this, aim for a bar within walking distance of everywhere on campus that serves free booze and doesn’t card. Stripper poles are a must.

*That Guy behaviors include: vomiting in unsavory places, being a Motherfucker, destroying shit, vomiting in unsavory places, singing Nickelback songs

Authors That Would Make Bad Writing Infinitely Better

As a manipulator of the English language myself, I hold several beliefs dear to my heart. They are as follows:

1) If you are over the age of 12 and still cannot successfully distinguish when words should have apostrophes (confusing “it’s” and “its,” “your” and “you’re”), I cannot respect your education. Why are you stupid?
2) If you can’t write something nice, don’t write anything at all. I’m not talking about pleasant or polite; I’m referring to “nice” writing as the opposite of writing that is bad, boring, poorly written, wrong, pointless, confused, frustrating, or Rick Perry.

Yeah, I know. It’s radical. Of course, not as radical as Rick Perry. But let’s face it: there is some literature/film/music that simply should have been penned by someone other than the original author. In some cases, aforementioned art is a slice of brilliance that got tarnished in the current writer’s incapable hands; in other cases it is an unsalvageable failure whose only option is to get worse so as to become presentably heinous.

In fact, may I make a few suggestions?

Twilight
by Terry Pratchett*
We’d all like this series so much better if Ms. Meyer’s attempt at a love story about a girl next door (translation: exposition on How To Have A Dysfunctional Relationship) had relatable and quirky characters with different fonts for every time they spoke. P-rad knows exactly how to make a totally impossible instance (Death playing Santa Claus? Criminals becoming post-men? Women in the army and not in the kitchen?) plausible, insightful, and funny — qualities which are all completely lacking in the hands of its current author.

Miley Cyrus’s memoir, Miles to Go
by Lemony Snicket
I haven’t read the original, but here is what I imagine it will read like, “My daddy is the only reason I’m famous. My brother croakmoans uncomfortably horny music to an audience that hasn’t got boobies yet. My boyfriend is way too old for me. I like drugs.” Are you attached to any of these characters? Do you care if the melancholy wit of Lemony Snicket creatively kills them off? Me neither. Just add a narrator who regularly urges you to stop reading, a meaninglessly depressing end,** and illustrations by Brett Helquist, and we’ve got ourselves acceptable piece of literature. It might even be appropriate for children, unlike everything else about Miley. Which brings us to:

“Party in the USA”
by Adele
Face it. She’d sing it better. Adele’s been so angsty lately (trying to set fire to the rain and all. She must be so frustrated) I’d like to see her getting down and shaking those God-given gifts. We know that when a Jay-Z song is on in Adele’s taxicabs, you better believe she puts her hands up.

Freud’s Early Theories
by Tara Gillespie
If you think about it, it wouldn’t be too different: My Immortal (the world’s worst fanfiction) and Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams are both mostly about sex/mostly wrong about sex. But if our favorite “goff” wrote it, we’d have the added pleasure of trying to decipher what words were behind the awful spelling in addition to laughing at his concept of penis envy and her concept of orgasm. Maybe she’d throw in some Harry Potter references*** along with her My Chemical Romance worship, extensive description of fishnets, and use of the phrase “passively frenching.” On the negative side, there will undoubtedly be a morbid amount of it’s/its confusion, but on the plus side, as far as we can tell, Tara wasn’t on cocaine, unlike Freud.

Glee
by Tommy Wiseau
Oh hai: it’s another artist who lacks command of the English language. Be honest with yourself — you don’t watch Glee for its**** gripping storyline. Having America’s most multi-untalented artist write/direct/produce/star/fornicate in the musical TV show can only make it more interesting. You know you want more of the writing that made Tommy’s masterpiece, The Room, so fantastic — what better way than to sit down with a bowl of popcorn to a fusion of pop culture featuring quotable magnificence such as, “You ah tearing me apaht, Wachel!” and “I did NAHT hit on Kurt. I did NAHT.” Best of all, we get to hear more of his wonderfully attractive accent/speech impediment as applied to music. Which, of course, he’ll arrange and sing entirely by himself.

Unfortunately for you, I have no suggestions on how to improve your terrible English paper. And so, I leave you with the immortal words of Dr. Seuss:
You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes,
You have heinously read all Sir Twattingworth spews.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose
(Just as long as it sounds like Erman Shmavenues).

——————————————————————————————————————————
*Another soul who understands the beauty in a footnote. All I want for Christmas is his semen in a petri dish with the reproductive cells of Bristol Bacchus. Bristol, dibs on being godmother.
**I’m all for realistic children’s literature, but I was really attached to Uncle Monty. And did anyone else develop a phobia of Lachrymose Leeches in Lake Michigan?
***Godwin’s law of NU: the longer a conversation continues between two NU students, the more likely a Harry Potter reference becomes.
****Did you see that apostrophe? No, you didn’t, because it does not belong there. It belongs in the first sentence of that paragraph.

7 Movies That (sadly) Never Came to Fruition

As everybody knows, Hollywood is a restless hotbed of individual creativity. Unfortunately, some of the works of genius created by screenwriters never get turned into movies, a tragedy of the highest proportions. After extensive research, we have recently unearthed seven different scripts for movies that never quite made it to the box office, even though they totally should have.

7. Soul Patch

"That's the last flavor your chin will ever savor"

Apache Indian Harry Smoothface, tormented by the hair-owing realities of the modern world, finally has had enough. In order to wreak his revenge on American society (specifically targeting jazz musicians and TAs), Smoothface brutally scalps the soul patches from every victim he encounters. Starring Will Sampson (Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), this movie would totally have grabbed you by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin. Screenplay written by Dan Wonk and Calvin Streit, the same creative masterminds behind the thriller Death Perception, an action movie about the adventures of a one-eyed hitman for the mafia. Also keep a look out for Soul Patch‘s sequel, Soul Patch 2: Back on the Patch.

6. Casablumpkin

"I'll make it easier for you. Go ahead and shoot. You'll be doing me a favor."

1 man. 1 consenting woman. 1 toilet. What better way to start the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Set for filming in the early 50s, the thriller Casablumpkin combined action and romance to have you on the edge of your seat all night.

5. PROFESSOR BAILEY or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fucksaw
Kubrick’s dark comedy exploring the absurd circumstances leading up to that catastrophic event. Set in black and white, the film would star comedic icon Peter Sellers, who would play the roles of Professor Bailey, President Schapiro, Faith Kroll, appalled student #2, Sean Lavery, and the drilldo. Unfortunately, Kubrick decided at the last minute that Professor Bailey wasn’t nearly twisted enough, and proceeded to make the lighthearted romp A Clockwork Orange instead.

"Hell is other people."

4. Crime and Punishment
Production for this Michael Bay film, starring Mark Wahlberg as an impoverished BU student and Matt Damon as a corrupt Boston Cop, had nearly began until Bay found out that the script had already been written by some Russian asshole. Unfazed, Bay is reportedly in talks with French screenwriter Sartre for the naming rights to his next blockbuster film, No Exit, a film starring Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis as three wrongfully convicted felons trying to escape the Louisiana prison “L’enfer.”

Don't fuck with this suffragist

3. Breaking Baaaaaaaad
Smart and sexy international spy Frances Willard must infiltrate the stronghold of the evil Shepard Residential College and foil their nefarious plot for campus-wide domination. Guest starring Master Morson, Eleanor, CSOs Patrick and Joel, Katia Bowers, Taiyo Sogawa, Gabe Bergado, and Katie Chilton as Willard’s hearty gang of affable misfits who transform into one cohesive unit over the course of the film.

2. The Room II: Revenge of Johnny
Johnny’s ghost returns to San Francisco to torment all those who wronged him during his lifetime. Lisa is attacked with animated spoons, that one random drug dealer is brought to justice, and Mark learns football. The sequel died in pre-production due to concerns voiced by writer, director, producer, and main actor Tommy Wiseau that the plot was “too straightforward and logical.”

This flag means so much to so many people

1. Alpha Delta
Acclaimed director Alexander Waldman’s planned documentary delves into the layers of mystery surrounding the world’s most prestigious frority, in an attempt to determine how it evolved from a loose coalition of Northwestern friends into a social group that places its members in some of the most high-profile positions around the world. Learn more about its shadowy founders and leaders, and be shocked by the revelation of which contemporary figures belong to this badass institution (including a Congressman caught in the throes of a sex scandal, 3 New York Knicks cheerleaders, a professor at Harvard, 2 convicted art thiefs, and one People’s Sexiest Man 3 times running).