The party year in review
Joe Muto
Muto Time
I love the last two weeks of school in South Bend. It's like God's apology for the other 35 weeks. It's sunny and warm; off-campus parties move outside; and the administration imports girls from UCLA and pays them to rollerblade around campus in sports bras and smile at all the prospects. Oh yeah, and the fountains get turned back on. That makes me happy.
And we could definitely use cheering up after this year. The 2002-2003 school year will go down in Notre Dame history as the year when the balance shifted. The students who study on weekends; the students who go to
Mass every week; the students who attend Flipside events; the students who actually like parietals: this year was an outright victory for them. This year, their side won, and our side may never recover.
The year started out with mixed results. There were a few cops ticketing people at Rally in the Alley, but about 300 yards to the west, at an event staged to promote sobriety, the biggest drug band in the country rocked the Joyce Center and hot-boxed their dressing room. I had somewhat high hopes for the year, hopes that were soon dashed.
A week later, the Lafayette apartments hosted or at least attempted to host the Kickoff Classic. South Bend Police raided the joint before 10 p.m. They were responding to complaints of public urination. This was surreally ludicrous, as anyone who has attempted to walk around in the neighborhood immediately surrounding Lafayette knows, public display of undergrad genitalia is the least of the problems in that neck of the woods.
Later in the year, Lafayette residents were chased out of their own backyards by management, which was having problems of its own, facing a lawsuit from the city. The lawsuit was later dropped, as the city realized that the fence-peeing wasn't so much of a problem and that the crack houses were.
In the meantime, the lack of organized tailgating was playing havoc on football game drunkenness. Some people were actually going to the games sober, which constitutes a cardinal sin in my bible. Everyone else gamely attempted off-campus locations, but it just wasn't the same. Freshman year, the thrill of tailgating came from not just meeting up with your friends to party, but also from wandering the parking lots, talking to random townies and snagging free beers, brats and shots whenever possible. The beauty of tailgating 2000 was in the spontaneity. Tailgating 2002 was too pre-meditated.
The single best party of the year had to have been Halloween. Dressed as Richie from the Royal Tenenbaums, I rubbed elbows with at least 600 of my fellow Domers. Beer was plentiful, the weather was decent and my friend Amie dressed as Li'l Kim and let one boob with a pastie on the end hang out of her top. The party was an unmitigated success, with the cops showing up literally minutes after the last keg was cashed anyway.
The biggest story of second semester was the Boat Club bust. For two and a half years at Notre Dame, Boat Club has been my haven, my refuge, my rock, if you will. Excise police ruined all of that in one evening's work. Personally, I was willing to support Boat until the bitter end, but Boat Club, with their reprehensible lawsuit, is literally biting the hand that feeds them. I may go back to Boat one day, but the love affair is over. We'll always have Paris.
Anyway, a new love affair is in order. My 21st birthday introduced me to a marvelous new world, one where cover is less than five dollars and tickets are given for free drinks. Good bye Boat Club, hello 'Backer.
But, just last Thursday, as if to punctuate that the Boat Club bust was not the end of the ordeal, The Library, a.k.a. Finnegan's, a.k.a. The Locker Room, a.k.a. Jock-Sniffs' Paradise, a.k.a. The Basketball Team's Personal Brothel, a.k.a. Aykayay, was busted. I for one am not sad to see the place go down. Again. Cover was too much, drinks were too expensive and the atmosphere was just wrong for some reason. I am, however, sad to see that our underage havens are being systematically eliminated.
A Viewpoint letter writer pointed out that we're not kids anymore. This, however, should not preclude us from acting like kids, and like it or not, lying, cheating and stealing to gain access to a bar is a time-tested rite of passage. I feel bad for those who never do it.
I for one will be doing my part to help out the poor zombies who actually agree with the Campus Life Council's decision to keep parietals the way they are – I'm inviting them to a party. Or several parties because my off-campus residence next year is henceforth known as the Party Mecca. Next year will be better than this one, I promise. See you at the Rally tonight.
Joe Muto is a junior FTT and English double major who is happy to be having the final word. He'd like to dedicate this year's columns to Ralph Chifari, who taught him that being funny can be a way of life.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, May 7, 2003
