College students nationwide worry about whether or not they are partying hard enough (at least college students who aren’t losers) and are always convinced that, with each passing year, the administration is cracking down on partying more and more.  My experience was no different. 

During college, I used to write for the student newspaper, The Hamilton College Spectator.  By “write for the student newspaper,” I mean that every so often I’d have a brain fart, form it into a semi-coherent rant about an inane topic (why I love that Eddie Vedder’s acceptance speeches at awards shows can usually be summarized as, “thanks, I guess, even though it’s impossible to have a ‘winner’ in art”) and submit it to the article-strapped student newspaper. 

My senior year I hit my stride, writing about pressing issues including my theory that the lack of partying on campus was an administration conspiracy enacted by manipulating the apathy of college students, and the fact that freshmen (or as we called them at Hamilton, “first years”) are idiots who should be seen and not heard, at least until they learn how to party properly. 

One article that I wrote will always stick with me: my tribute to North Court.  On the Hamilton campus, groups (Greek, a cappella, goth, and otherwise) don’t have houses, but can reserve social spaces (indestructible cafeteria-like rooms) in which to host parties and gatherings.  North Court was one such space and it has become the stuff of legend.  I had the pleasure of partying in North Court during my freshman and sophomore year and it was a horrifically disgusting delight.  In the shanty that was North Court there was a CD player with speakers, a stage for dancing, an area for kegs, and ample space for milling around, flirting, making out, and the like.  The toilets were always clogged, the floors sloped so that spilled beer would pool in one corner, and the windows were barred (as if there was anything worthwhile to steal inside North Court, save a V Card). 

When I returned to Hamilton’s campus fall of my junior year, our beloved North Court had been turned into an office.  An office with residual beer coating every nook and cranny, but an office nonetheless.  Hamilton students were crestfallen.  I was angry and saw the closing of North Court as an example of the administration cracking down on partying more and more (OF COURSE!), a worrisome phenomenon that is happening on all college campuses all the time, according to college students. 

So I crafted a North Court tribute article and submitted it to The Spectator.  My article centered on the simile that Hamilton was like a mullet: business up front, party in the back.  But by closing down infamous party house North Court, the administration had effectively eliminated the “party in the back,” giving Hamilton a modern haircut that wasn’t associated with 1980s hockey players and somehow, this shearing was a bad thing. (Please note: I was a junior in college and was known to connect any conversation to either mullets, the Samples, or Guns ‘n Roses—just go with me as we skate on this thin metaphor.)  All that remained was the “business up front,” of academics and students had no social outlets.  

I submitted this piece to The Spectator and waited a few days to see it in print.  In a situation that can only be termed bizarrely synchronous, a fellow student happened to submit an article entirely about mullets that same week.  The editor didn’t want mullet overkill, so he decided to go with zero mullet mentions by not publishing the other article and rewriting my article (horribly).  Allegedly, the editor called my room to warm me of his edits, but I was out partying (like a NON-LOSER! zing!) and never got the news. 

So when The Spectator came out on Friday and I read the article to which my name was attached, I was shocked and outraged.  I immediately thought of the aforementioned mullet metaphor and convinced myself that it was all a big conspiracy.  A double conspiracy, really.  The closure of North Court was an attempt to eliminate the “party in the back” segment of “business up front, party in the back” AND The Spectator’s refusal to publish my article about said metaphor was yet another scheme to highlight the “business up front” WITHOUT the proper party in the back!  You must have the party to have the business, you see?  It’s a yin/yang balance.  I got into a loop in which my attempts to expose the injustice of North Court’s closing (using a mullet metaphor) were squelched in the exact same manner as the original “party in the back” elimination. 

Yes, such things concerned me greatly in college.  Those were the days, man.