The woozy ins and outs of drinking at Yale

Grab your notebooks: Blecher's rules of alcohol

First rule: if it has a handi-grip, it can't be that good.

Of course, after six shots of Popov vodka, you'll need one to hold on to the bottle. And the folks at Popov, always thinking practically (a big help when you're practically not thinking), deliver.

My freshman year roommates knew how to take advantage of those plastic handles. On Friday and Saturday nights, the Popov flowed and tasted, suspiciously, like water. If you're like them, you'll probably want to do a lot of drinking next year. So what's the appeal of it?

1. Social intercourse: Networking--hobnobbing with the rich and famous--is the main reason to come to Yale. You will become the envy of your friends at austere universities like Ohio State. Parties offer a rare opportunity to see America's next generation of leaders at their most vulnerable moments. This will help you later in life. For example, simply witnessing the future president holding an intense argument about Aristotle with your sofa is probably enough to land you a cabinet position (just ask Madeleine Albright). On top of that, as some of you learned in high school, there are more kinds of intercourse than just social--see Rule No. 5.

2. Health: Many people don't know this, but drinking a lot is beneficial to your health. Students who drink get an inside peek at University Health Services and receive special attention from physicians. Studies show that drinking greatly reduces the risk of dying of a heart attack (though it increases the risk of dying by running in a tiny circle by a factor of 629). You can think of a swig of Stolichnaya as a trip to the gym for your liver. My roommate's liver could bench press more than 120 tons by the end of February, and I doubt he would have made it all the way through finals week without that inner strength.

3. Honor: Of course, you'll want to be ready for the Tang Cup, Delta Kappa Epsilon's annual intramural drink-off. Morse men and Calhoun women won the 1999 championships. Coincidentally, those colleges also received saunas and Olympic pools this year. Plus, students on the winning teams receive preferential dining hall treatment. You may wonder why the person sitting next to you is dining on lobster and duck while you're picking at fried scrod. At least, you think that it's fried scrod.

4. Fun: Duh!

5. Attracting the opposite (or same, depending on preference) sex: Even the least attractive person can become an object of desire after a few shots of Jack Daniel's. Few people actually know this, but model and celebrated poet Naomi Campbell has a triple rum and Coke before every photo shoot--like she told Cosmopolitan, "Pantene Pro-V for my hair, Bacardi for the rest." "Aha!" you say, "but what about Brigham Young? He had 16 wives, and he didn't touch a drop of the hard stuff! Therefore, it seems that I ought not to drink in order to attract lots and lots of members of the opposite sex." The Herald admits that this would be true, were this Brigham Young University. But at Yale, virility and beer are all over each other just like Slick Willie and his summer interns.

6. Money: Drinking is an economical endeavor. "But you have to spend money to buy alcohol," my critics object. Not true! You can steal it from a secret society. This is relatively easy to do. Just knock on the secret society door. If no one answers, push the button in the middle of the quadrafoil located above the lintel on the right, thereby releasing the secret switch in the eye of the glowing skull. Shout the name of the latest book by William F. Buckley, Jr., DC '46, three times, and out comes a diminutive man with a French accent who will paint your fingernails blue. This won't help you get anything to drink, but if you push the homunculus out of the way, you can grab the large stash of Chateauneuf du Pâpe 1988 (a tangy, delicious red from the Côte du Rhone). How will this help you make money? It helped William F. Buckley, didn't it? That's the secret to riches, my friend.

7. Football: What could possibly be better than three beers and the Bears on a Sunday afternoon? (Answer: four beers and the Packers.)

8. Tradition: Yale is full of tradition. What do you think we meant by that? Books? Wrong. We meant getting plastered! That's why Harkness Tower is shaped like a bottle of Chivas Regal, and Morse College is designed to look like a hangover. Even
this university's name betrays its ancient
legacy (Y? ALE!).

Some of you say, "I want to get straight A's." Listen--the guy who's throwing up next to me got straight A's. You won't get straight A's. So hit the bottle. College is easy and fun--especially if you're drunk.

Forget hitting the sauce - sit and watch the soused

"Hey kids! Did you just graduate sixth grade or something?"

The witticism pierces through the long halloos and screams of the party. You know, I get tired so quickly of serious and sober remarks that words like these seem as refreshing as a cold drink. The speaker, legs wide open and ready for docking, sprawls crucified on a nearby bench. His right hand clutches a mysterious plastic cup; his left is poised in a pointing gesture. My eyes follow the index finger to its imaginary end, alighting at last on a boy and a girl who indeed look rather young. As a matter of fact, they have come to Yale to visit their older sister; I met them just a few hours earlier. But the young gentleman on the bench could hardly know that, for I have never seen him on this side of Old Campus before. What keen powers of observation he must then possess, it occurs to me, what a ready wit! By golly, I sure wish I had said that myself!

Forgive me if I sound a touch bitter or seem to exaggerate my disgust. Of course, I do exaggerate it. Who has no desire to seem more uptight than they really are? In any case, I do, and to fulfill it I say again that, in my noble condition, I find big Yale parties filthy and vulgar. And, crucially, I claim that watching and enjoying the spectacle they present leaves my own virtue wholly unsoiled. With that said, let me take you on an observer's tour of local nightlife.

It's now 10:00 on a typical Friday night at Yale. A short, skinny guy with black hair pulls open the door of his suite and steps out into the entryway. That's me. I make my way down the entryway stairs and out the front door, deftly avoiding the gleam of drying beer patches. Molson Ice--what a disgrace! Our landing deserves to smell of better beer. The sickly-sour smell lingers a little but soon drifts away, replaced by other familiar smells: a few varieties of smoke, a whiff of strong perfume, and perhaps a subtle hint of outside air. On my left, the moon rises above the crosses of Battell Chapel; on my right, a few people lean on the wooden fence, slurring their mumbles as they chat. I know one of them, but I doubt he remembers me. We've only been introduced twice, you see. No matter: he's far more fascinating to watch than to talk to. I sit down on the steps and fumble for a light. Might as well have a smoke, since I have to wait either way. Good things take time.

Five minutes later, the merrymakers begin to drift outside, dressed to the nines, ablutions performed. They shuffle about, impatient for their slower friends to come out. The Yale meat market is fiercely competitive, and few can afford to be sloppy in presenting their goods. Mind you, I differ little in this respect: I don my shiny black pants, refill my sleek Zippo, and occasionally even shave before going out. As an audience member, I too feel the duty to follow decorum.

Soon enough, the intricately structured, dynamic processes of favor, social hierarchy, and even genuine attachment instigate the colony's slow ooze away from the mother entryways and toward the entertainment pods. My own glorious group of one strolls over to Bingham, thrilled to hear the rising hum of tribal ritual.

"I'm gonna get smashed tonight, yeah!"

"We're gonna get play!"

My soul stirs at the sense of something majestically primitive in these cries: the unrestrained expression of natural desire, the eternal human striving for empathy and understanding, among other good things.

Why say any more? I trust that any of you can imagine the rest fairly accurately using my opening example as a guide. The crowd tumbles in and out and over itself, the cacophony of slurred talk fills the tobacco air, he makes a pass, she gives the eye, and the whole of it goes round and round, round and round. Meanwhile, I sit on my bench--like you yourself might sit one day--and let time turn the kaleidoscopic wheel.

Graphic by Sara Edward-Corbett.

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