MURMAIDER - an Angry Fish

I’m completely unappreciated in my time

I wrote a nice parody article for the Beloit College newspaper. It was rejected. Like most of my work here. Here’s the article in full.

Greek Life Doubles Overnight
Seven New Greek Houses in the Fall of 2009.
Beloit College has always maintained a steady fascination with all things greek life going back to the latter half of the 19th century and the establishment of Beta Theta Pi. At one point, every house on college street was a greek house and more than ninety percent of this campus was paying dues, wasting their time in chapter, and fucking each other over in mad power grabs. Well, it’s back! While previously Beloit has been hunting down and exterminating Greek houses for a plethora of highly illegal drug production and trafficking operations, this has all changed due to an influx of rich, suburban freshmen. Next fall, a record-setting seven new chapters will open their doors on college street replacing many clubs you’ve already forgotten ever existed (Au revoir, motherfuckers!) These seven new clubs are just as varied and diverse as the current greek houses we’ve come to suffer constant harassment from and most of them have the same  fundamentalist Christian values you’ve already come to associate with large national organizations full of rich anglos, so we should probably introduce you to each club, one at a time, to keep things simple:

Beta Lambda Tau - This new sorority promises to focus on academics and service exclusively and to the detriment of all other activities. Thus far, nothing is known about this sorority, as we were unable to reach any representatives for comment, and even when we sent a team of trained investigative reporters to their house, we couldn’t find anyone. We looked behind the doors and in the closets, but not under the beds, so they may have remained hidden. The badge for this organization might be a paper sack or lampshade worn over the head, so they could be anywhere. Be ever vigilant in the search for the BLT.

Zeta Phi Gamma - Conflicting reports on what this new sorority is about. We’ve thus far identified four different sub-greek houses inside this new greek house, and all of the girls from each of the sub-houses hate the other girls of the sub-houses, unless they happen to be in the same room, and then they’re all “sisters”. Depending on what time you ask the Zetas about their organization, be it when they’re all pounding boxed wine (Service, academics, socializing) to when they’re drinking fruity flavored vodka (Parties, booze and fellatio). Thus far little is known about the ritual of Zeta apart from the fact that it probably is designed to destroy your self-esteem and make you a mindless follower in an organization that resembles an amalgamation of the worst parts of the Girl Scouts of America and the best parts of the Schutzstaffel.

Stigma Die - This is easily the most focused of all of the new greek houses, and it focuses solely on recruiting members that you’re positive won’t date rape or otherwise sexually assault you. This is the only Greek house that is not only certified to be substance free, but also the only one where that substance-free certification isn’t a bunch of bullshit. The house is drawing heavily from 609 and the substance free floors, and promises to be taken over readily by a sad, anti-social misanthrope who takes out his sexual frustrations with draconian rules and policies. While this house certainly will challenge the stigma that non-greeks constantly see when you get drunk and stick your hand up their skirt, but will likely confirm the stigma that greeks are constantly exposed to when they realize that everyone in their greek house is an assface and they have nothing in common.

The Delta Iota Sigma Nu Epsilon Psi House - This is perhaps the simplest of all the new sororities and the only one that secretly has the backing of a multi-billion dollar media empire. This is the sorority for girls living with the delusion that their middle school idea of what college would be like is absolutely reality and a children’s cable television network has confirmed this for them. They now listen to bands that were created by a group of executives, buy clothing because the talking truth box said to, and all of them drive soccer mommy cars, vans and SUVs because they’re cute. All are looking for a muscly, but non-threatening good guy whose smile can resurrect a puppy to lose the v-card to, but by senior year, they’ll be disillusioned to the point of contentment with a frozen bratwurst.

Tau Kappa Upsilon - I went to their new house, they made me drink a forty, half a fifth of Jack, smoke a full eighth out of a bong in one sitting, informed me that their name was really Tau Kappa Up-Until-Dawn, told me I was already a member and that this was chapter. I blacked out in between the seventh and eighth cases of “natty-ice” and woke up the next day chained to a toilet with a balloon full of cocaine up my ass. I already had hepatitis B, but now I have A and C too. Also, thanks to a lucky hand in the game “asshole”, I’m now the chapter president.

Chi Kappa Who Gives a Shit - A fraternity for people who didn’t get into the other greek houses, or could have, but had a friend named Ross who was a fucking liar. This fraternity has made big strides recently, going from six members who hate each other to twelve members who hate each other. It thrives on diversity in the sense that diversity breeds intolerance and loathing and if you sell yourself as diverse, you can get even more totally incompatible people living together. In order to create this diversity, it will frequently lump together an out-spoken and fundamentalist member of the Ba’hai faith who thinks drugs are evil with a loud-mouthed drunken atheist who crushes and snorts other people’s prescription medication because he likes to throw up bile and tell the two that they need to form a committee and come up with a plan for next year’s recruitment strategy, particularly how the club should attract members and what those member should be like which only leads to argument and hatred nine times out of nine. Fortunately, this fraternity has been given a house that is to the east of Strong Stadium so you’ll never have to see these people again, although occasionally they’ll send you a creepy party invitation through campus mail. At least they stopped biting the heads off of chickens.

Lambda Sigma Delta - This is a totally new attempt at a “fra-ority” which is a stupid way of saying that it is a non-gender biased greek house. The organization sells itself as being about community and cultural tolerance , which is only on paper. In actuality, it works the same way we all hoped it would: a non-stop drug orgy where the “brothers and sisters” engage in hardcore substance abuse and promiscuous fucking. With each other. So it’s incestuous. Potentially, this will be the coolest greek organization ever, if it weren’t for the fact that another organization already fulfills all of this and without the need to pay oppressive insurance premiums and we call it Peet.

And there you have it, the seven new greek houses coming to Beloit. Which will you join? If you’re smart, you’d go for the full greek experience and pick the house that charges the most for dues, has the most ineffective leadership, experiences full on factionalism, has a reputation that will prevent you from getting laid, and has the shittiest house in both location and quality of the building itself. Be sure to join the organization that has the largest percentage of people you don’t like and people who don’t like you, bearing in mind that these are the only clubs on campus that rat out and kick out their own members out for smoking marijuana in addition to being full of people who want nothing more than an office and a title, no matter what the cost. That’s more or less exactly what I got out of my greek experience, and now I’m the happiest independent on campus.

I’d feel frustrated, and I kind of do, but I’ve come to expect this by now. This institution has never tolerated my creativity and has largely attempted to crush and destroy it. Sure I’m deliberately offensive, but that’s sort of the point, right?

Am I the only fucking one that understands subversion anymore?