Partying in Boston: the game within The Game

To freshmen, who have yet to be infected by the stupefying mania of the Harvard-Yale virus—that which enters your bloodstream Friday afternoon and leaves it Saturday evening, satisfied with the debasement it hath wrought: the effects upon body and soul include no sleep, violent intoxication, and a pervasive, jingoistic arrogance that would embarrass you 363 days of the year. But on this glorious November weekend, that arrogance grows so fat and satisfied that you find yourself asking the question, "Am I in heaven?" The painful answer, of course, is no, you're in Cambridge.

COURTESY CRIMSON SPORTS GRILLE Yalies will invade bars all over Cambridge this Friday night.

But you're here to conquer. Remember that of late, Yale has dominated Harvard in The Game (see 1998 and '99) and in the White House (see the last two or, gulp, three presidents). And while we're on Washington, let me be frank: I voted for Al Gore. I wish I could vote for him again, perhaps two or three more times, and in Florida. But if I had the choice of spending Harvard-Yale Weekend reading flash cards to Gore in his Harvard dorm room or putting a few down with George W. Bush, DC '68, I'd be [[Delta]]KEing it up like a cow-branded pledge in a tub of feces. And so you, Yale student, owe it to yourself and your school to party 'til you're involuntarily relieving yourself in Harvard Yard. Be strong of body, sound of mind, and never forget that you have a whole week to rebuild, while your counterparts from Cambridge will spend Monday and Tuesday comatose and drooling in class.

Fortunately, in case your friend from Harvard is, as many apparently are, an unhip and objectionable pedant, there are a few officially sanctioned social events that everyone will know how to get to, for which you can thank the Student Activities Committee (SAC). Friday night, the popular Boston club Avalon (15 Landsdown St.) plays host to a Harvard vs. Yale clubbing collegiate challenge, at which boisterous Yalies and Cantabs will souse each other silly and start Internet companies to the pulsating beats of special guest DJ Micro and resident DJ Ali Ajama. Tickets are $15—cheap for a club, steep for a college party— but you can get in for $10 by signing your name to the guest list at clubinboston.com, where you may also put yourself down for transportation to and from Avalon for the low price of $5. An area of the club will be roped off specially for Yale and Harvard undergrads, so that any regretful cohabitation on the part of a Yalie will at least come packaged with a stuttering, awkward ride to The Game.

For the mature of age, Cambridge offers an array of watering holes that puts New Haven's to shame, at least in quantity. There's the Crimson Sports Grille, which is pretty much what it sounds like, and House of Blues, which exists in about 400 odd cities across the country. Seniors are invited to enjoy a pub crawl beginning at 8 p.m. at TGI Fridays and ending at 3 a.m at Pinnochio's Pizza.

Friday night may also feature a party in Harvard's large freshman dining hall, Annenberg, but anyone who went to The Game in '98 will tell you where the real action is: on the streets and sidewalks of Cambridge. There, students and alumni from America's most hallowed institutions of learning abandon all pretensions of civility and snarl like rabid pit bulls at each other. You do not understand your university until you have seen a gray-haired man in a white, cable-knit sweater with an embroidered blue "Y" flinging fossilized obscenities at a crimson-scarfed grandfather across the avenue. And the great thing is, you might be just like them some day.

Saturday morning, rain or shine, you must wash away the previous night's excitement, slip into something warm, woolly, and blue, and head over to Harvard Stadium, where you will pick up where you left off. Not to worry—finding a drink outside the Stadium will be easier than finding the entrance. Tailgates are fairly self-explanatory, and once you've sapped them dry, you can always go to, uh, The Game, which starts at 12:30.

For many, the fun will end here—but it doesn't have to, thanks to the Harvard-Yale Battle of the Bands. In England, they knight rock stars. In America, we make them play concerts in 40-degree weather after nonscholarship college football games. Such is the adversity faced by the talent performing in the Battle, which kicks off at 5 p.m. in the tailgate area. Yale's Skin the Goat, the Milk Tradition, and Full Service go up against three bands from Harvard in a rock 'n' roll hoedown, the likes of which has not been seen since Mötley Crüe's Vince Neil challenged Guns n' Roses' Axl Rose to a boxing match. If you can still stand up by this point—and really, what are you saving your energy for?—there's no better way to spend the pre-dinner hours.

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