Why have pledging? What's the point?

I saw today that Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity is going to ban pledging for new members and require safety education, including alcohol education, after having at least 10 deaths linked to hazing, alcohol or drugs at fraternity events.

"In its statement, SAE lamented recent deaths and injuries and said the 'bad publicity' it has recently received is 'challenging and regretful.'” ...

... "In a statement to members, SAE’s national headquarters said college students will still be attracted to the fraternity once 'we get rid of pledging.' Chapter leaders complained that damage to the fraternity’s 'national reputation' has made it difficult to operate.
'We have experienced a number of incidents and deaths,' according to the statement, which SAE posted on its website. 'We have endured a painful number of chapter closings as a result of hazing. Research shows that hazing, which hides in the dark, causes members to lie.'”

There were a lot of fraternities and sororities where I went to college, especially since it wasn't that big of a school. I had plenty of friends who were Greeks, and fraternity and sorority bar nights provided much of the social life, but I never understood the value of pledging.

To be clear, I don't know of any serious pledging-related injuries while I was in college, and no one died. However, it always seemed odd why anyone would want to subject themselves to weeks of ritual embarrassment and humiliation (and that's the stuff that was out in the open, not even the stuff that was rumored to happen in private) just for the purpose of being part of a group and making friends.

Hell, if someone as uninteresting and socially awkward as I was could make friends ... anyone could. It actually isn't that hard, especially on a college campus with thousands of people. And there are lots of groups you can join without being treated like dirt for weeks before you get to be a member.

But what do I know about the process of vetting new fraternity members?

"Brad Snider, an SAE member at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, opposed the change even though he said it will make chapters safer. Without an 8-to-12 week pledge period, he and his fraternity brothers won’t have enough time to decide whether a recruit is 'worthy' of being admitted, (he) said.
'It only takes one member to bring down the entire organization,' said Snider, 20, a junior, who served as 'pledge educator' and now teaches members SAE rituals. 'For all we know, they may fail at their grades, and we hold grades to a very high standard. They may be socially awkward or extremely rude or disrespectful, and that will come back to us.'”

Seriously, if fraternities and sororities are to continue, I hope more take the step SAE did. I just wish it hadn't taken so long, and for a bunch of kids dying to make it happen.

Buy this! So you can be as ... dumb as these guys???

What do you get when you combine a version of Chuck Norris Facts, video of what appear to be awesome if often implausible activities (frequently involving beautiful women) and a few words from our hero?

You get the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" commercials.




Along from the fact that Jonathan Goldsmith seemingly was placed upon this planet to play The Most Interesting Man in the World, the ads work because they're aspirational. When he drinks beer, he drinks Dos Equis; if you drink it, maybe you'll be like him!

So who exactly does Volkswagen want us to be like ... some idiot who runs over things in his garage to get to 100,000 miles, when he could have done the same thing but with less destruction by backing up farther down the driveway to give himself more room (or as my wife pointed out, driving around the block).



And by all means, Dish Network, sell a product where the characters in your commercial, when they're not leaving the house without pants, don't even pronounce the name of the product correctly.

 

And then there's Chevy. Oh, Chevy ... I know that if I ever did something I didn't want my wife to know about, the first thing I would do is check my messages so that she could hear each and every one of them.



The way I see it, there are only two possibilities.

One, based on an assumption that women make the buying decisions, dumb guys make them feel superior, so they'll buy the products that make them feel that way.

Or two, companies think there's gold in them thar stupid hills!

Come one, come all to the big Oscars party

I'm throwing an Oscar party tonight, but don't show up at my house. I don't have sufficient food or drink, and wouldn't want you to have to drive home afterwards because it's going to be late.

No, this party is at this here website, and anyone who wants to come is invited. Just sign in through Twitter or Facebook or whatever the other options are.

So wear your finest Oscar threads and come play. Cheer for the winners, argue about the snubs and make fun of all the silliness that comes with every awards show.

Over 40 ... what I've learned and what I haven't

I read a New York Times piece by Pamela Druckerman about the things that you learn in your 40s.

Being nearly a couple years into my fifth decade, I clicked the link. I actually wasn't all that impressed, except for her writing, "Among my peers there’s a now-or-never mood: We still have time for a second act, but we’d better get moving on it" (yup) and "By your 40s, you don’t want to be with the cool people; you want to be with your people" (also yup, although this actually dates back to my teens, because I've never been one of the cool people, more on that later).

However, it got me to thinking about the lessons I've learned, not necessarily since I turned 40, but as I've gotten older, and one came to mind almost instantly ... sometimes, it's best to just walk away from an argument.

To the people who know me, this has an outstanding chance of causing convulsion-level laughter, since I am an extraordinarily argumentative person. Several years ago, a co-worker hit me with perhaps the only argument you can't win unless you're trying to make one without the advantage of facts on your side ... "You're argumentative." Don't argue, and you're admitting the other person is right. Argue that you're not, which is what I think I did, and you're proving it.

Yet as time goes by, I try to pick my spots more. I'll argue about sports all day, because it's fun and ultimately harmless, and if there's something that really needs to be said, I'll say it. (I'm basically known among my peers as the "tell us how you really feel" guy.)

I'm learning the wisdom, however, of sometimes just letting stuff go. There's always a better fight to be had somewhere, and a lot of times arguing is just pointless. For example, I have several family members and friends whose political views are the opposite of mine, and the things they sometimes say or write on Facebook make me nuts.

Once upon a time, I argued with them, bringing what I (of course) believed were my superior information and rhetorical skills to the table. And what did it get me? Usually hours of comments and counter-comments that didn't change anyone's mind and just left me more upset. My blood pressure thanks me that I only do that once in a great while now.

Also, when people are younger, they believe every hill is the one worth dying on. I probably did the same thing. Now, though, when I do decide to charge up the hill, I'll fight like hell, but when I reach the point where I realize (or someone makes me realize) that I'll be dead if I keep going, I try to have the good sense to back down the hill.

After all, what good is dying on a hill if it means you can't charge up the next, bigger one?

When it comes to letting stuff go in other parts of my life, however, I've realized that I still have a lot of work to do.

As noted above, I was never the cool kid in high school. I was skinny, nerdy, not particularly good in sports and had no clue about girls. I had my group of friends, and they were awesome, and steeled myself against the kids who didn't like me by saying I didn't care what they thought about me. Defense mechanism? Ummm ... yeah!

A few years ago, my high school class and the two before it held a joint reunion. It was fun, and I reconnected with a lot of people I hadn't seen in years. However, there were a few people who I took pains to avoid when I saw them. Not only did I not want to talk to them, I didn't want to go near them in case they decided they wanted to talk to me.

It happened again a few weeks ago. I was on Facebook and decided to scroll through the "people you may know" list. I did know most of them, and didn't have much desire to be friends with them not because of anything they did to me, but just because we were never that close to start with. But some of them took me back to that reunion, where the thought of dealing with them left me cold.

Is it wrong of me to think that? Of course. I'm not the same person I was more than 20 years ago, so why am I assuming they are? But while I don't let my high school memories consume me -- after all, a lot has happened, much of it good, since then -- I realize I haven't yet learned to let all of it go.

God, country and Alan Jackson

The other day, after I dropped my wife off at the train station, I got behind an SUV with a bumper sticker that read, "Alan Jackson: Country Music the Way God Intended." (Apparently, it also comes in T-shirts.)

I'm no Biblical scholar, so maybe someone can tell me if this verse exists anywhere:

"And so a man will come from Georgia, a lanky man with blond hair and a mustache. He will wear a cowboy hat and jeans, and he is the one chosen by God to sing country music, and his followers will buy his albums and fill arenas far and wide. He will be hailed for his prowess with many awards."

I'm obviously kidding. I'm not an Alan Jackson expert, but apparently, he's still going strong. I don't know a lot of his music, but I remember "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" as a touching, moving song after Sept. 11, 2001.




The point of the bumper sticker and the T-shirt, obviously, is a way for Jackson's fans to stand up for traditional country music against what they see as the infringement of more pop-oriented acts like ... I don't know ... young woman ... tall blonde ... known for singing a lot about boys ...

Yes, Taylor Swift is not a favorite of the traditionalists. Fine, she's not everyone's cup of tea, but for some reason, country stations keep playing her songs, and the various organizations keep giving her awards.

And millions of people enjoy her songs.

Artists like Jackson and George Strait (who could probably sell out stadiums until he was 90) still have a lot of fans, but country music is changing, and no one gets to say what that is. Nelly rapped with Florida Georgia Line on "Cruise," and the band knows what it did for them.

"Not only did the song steam up the charts in both country and pop, but it also brought new fans to the duo’s shows, something that really gets them excited.
‘Cruise’ has earned the spot of No. 1 country digital single of all time, and it has streamed its way into the ear buds of fans of both country and mainstream sounds.
'The fans, you see a lot of different ages and a lot of different colors even,' FGL’s Brian Kelley says. 'You’ve got tons of different people coming to our shows. That’s what it’s all about man. We want everybody. Come party with us. Seriously.'”

They're not the only ones. Jennifer Nettles covers Bob Seger's "Like A Rock," and in her regular job as lead singer of Sugarland, they do a cover of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" that I prefer to the original.


I could go on and on. But if country music is sounding a lot more like pop, then pop music doesn't sound like it used to, either, certainly not like it was when I was growing up. That stuff is practically oldies now, or on one of the "Mix something-or-other" channels playing "the best of the '80s, '90s and today" that exist in every single market.

As a matter of fact, I don't like a lot of today's pop music, which has me turning a lot more to ... country ... which I hated when I was a kid.

However, just as it's pointless to pigeonhole artists, it makes no sense to limit fans to liking one type of artist or one type of music, especially since iTunes now lets you sample bits and pieces of everything. My playlist isn't eclectic in the sense that most of the people on it are mainstream, whatever the genre, but depending on my mood I can listen to Adele, Carrie Underwood, Eminem, Jason Aldean, Metallica, Pitbull, Tim McGraw or Train.

As a matter of fact, the best music I heard all of last year was by the London cast of "The Commitments," with Killian Donnelly singing soul classics as Deco. Seriously, the dude brings it.



Like or don't like whomever you want, but just enjoy the music and don't worry about what box they fit into.

Greetings

Silly ... big dude, blog namesake, as cool a kitty as you'll ever meet

Hello. Thanks for reading.

Last week, an old high school friend of mine welcomed his fifth grandchild to what he called "life's rich pageant," which I thought was a pretty clever turn of phrase. If you think about it, you experience so much in even the most humdrum day that you probably don't even notice most of it.

But for whatever reason, some of that stuff sticks with you. Sometimes it's obvious ... the birth of my friend's grandchild, for example. Sometimes less so ... like the peaceful quiet of an early morning drive I made after a high school reunion, even though it was a route I had covered dozens of times before.

And sometimes stuff sticks with you because it strikes you funny.

If there is a theme to this blog, I guess that's going to be it ... stuff that sticks with me ... especially if it strikes me funny.

And jokes about awards shows. I love to make jokes about awards shows. There will be a lot of those, and I hope to recruit some friends to join me.

Life's pageant is rich with the good, the bad and sometimes the goofy.

I hope to bring some of it to you.