'Kick @$$ Party' Sputters, Fizzles, Sinks

By James Judah | Monday, February 4, 2002

I saw the following text on a flyer outside of Food Court:

It going to be
KICK @$$
01-25-02

I studied the flyer, reading the words in my head very slowly. Something was not right, and it wasn't just the questionable syntax and use of non-Roman characters.

I spotted a friend by the blitz computers, and I pulled her quickly aside. I pointed to the flyer. 'What going to be kick ass?'

'Oh, it's for the 'Kick Ass Party,'' she said with disdain in her voice. 'It's one of those non-alcoholic, College-sponsored events. I went my freshman year—lame-fest.'

Of course: the Kick @$$ Party. Some giant carnival over in Leverone Field House—cotton candy, clowns, door prizes, that sort of thing. I dimly remember the event from my sophomore year, when I had lived in East Wheelock—there had been some excitement on my floor for it. I hadn't taken too much interest back then, I'll admit, but times have changed. For some, a College-planned social event like the Kick @$$ Party is nothing more than a 'lame-fest.' But for those interested in the administration's relentless assault on the Greek system, it takes on a whole new significance.

Every student other than President Wright's intern realizes that the ultimate goal of the College's siege on fraternities is their complete elimination. There is no end in sight to the increasing regulation and financial strangulation, and Office of Residential Life's trigger-happy derecognition policy betrays their irresistible impulse to eliminate a house no matter how flimsy the evidence or unwarranted the decision.

Some of us, therefore, look at the Kick @$$ Party and see the future of social life at Dartmouth. What rural Hanover's post-Greek social scene would look like is anyone's guess, but the SLI-driven, community-worshipping administration clearly wants to control as much of it as possible. After the mess we students made when they let us run our own social lives, with elitist, anti-intellectual fraternities and the misogynistic beer parties, it's understandable that the college would feel obligated to take over. The Kick @$$ Party is a glimpse of the Trustees' vision of a Dartmouth Friday night, as programmed by mid-level administrators.

I turned back to the flyer. Whatever the College's plans for the future of social life at Dartmouth, one thing was certain: grammar was optional.

A second flyer posted the next week offered more details. A small fortune in door prizes were advertised; the grand prize was 'THE COMPLETE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM with 25' TV, DVD PLAYER, and SONY 60 CD CHANGER STEREO;' other prizes included a Playstation 2, Nintendo 64, 2-way radios, and an expensive sleeping bag. The flyer also contained a list of attractions at the party—basically a who's who list of monstrous inflatable rubber jungle-gyms, the kind where you have to take off your shoes to participate: 'Moon Bounce,' 'The Screamer Slide,' and 'Adrenaline Obstacle Course.'

The overarching tenet of the Kick @$$ Party's planning could be summed up in one word: excess. Unlike student-run social events, in which finances are a consideration, college-sponsored parties exercise an out-of-control 'If we spend it, they will come' philosophy, like a UGA study-break on Chinese Olympic team steroids. Although the administration is cagey about the actual price tag of the Kick @$$ Party (and repeated inquiries to the 'Student Activities' office were stonewalled), estimates place it somewhere in the forty to fifty thousand dollar range. Renting air-filled Lazer Tag arenas and Trampoline Extremes ('Propels you 30 feet in the air!') for the day isn't cheap—they run somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four thousand dollars each. Throw in enough EBA's catered food for an expected turnout of over a thousand students and all those door prizes, and pretty soon you're talking about the cost of a Dartmouth tuition—or several.

The reasoning behind this largess is simple. The Kick @$$ Party is the brainchild of Bigger Better and Later (BBL in Dartmouth newspeak), an organization consisting entirely of one administrator in the Student Activities office, Ruth Morgan. Ms. Morgan has an obvious disadvantage in programming a party for 18-22 year-olds—being a Collis bureaucrat, she hasn't any idea what a Dartmouth student wants to do on a Friday night. And it goes without saying that successful, existing models (say, those abominable fraternities and sororities) aren't appropriate. So in the uphill battle to dictate Parkhurst-friendly social activities, Ms. Morgan has no recourse but to overcompensate with obscenely large heaps of cash.

But in all fairness to BBL and 'It Going to Be Kick @$$', one does not judge a party solely on the host's reputation and publicity. Chi Gam's monumentally uninspired 'DJ and Kegs' has been the setting for some of the best ragers I've ever seen. A party is judged by the experience. And with this in mind, I braved the frigid evening of January 25 and set out for Leverone Field House.

The party started at 9 PM; not wanting to miss any of the action, I arrived at a quarter after 9. My date and I were stopped by someone demanding our Dartmouth IDs. Guests were permitted, but only one per Dartmouth student. Satisfied by our identification, the bouncer let us pass and pushed us in the direction of the door prize registration table. Knowing that the big-money door prizes wouldn't be distributed until 1 AM (the first set at 10 PM featured the sleeping bag) and that I wouldn't be staying that late, I tried to explain that I didn't want to enter any of the raffles. The girl at the door was persistent, however, and, never moderating her enormous smile made one last entreaty. I mumbled something vague about doing it later and briskly shuffled my date away.

We were in! The Kick @$$ Party.

For those fortunate who have visited the Jersey shore, imagine the Seaside Heights boardwalk crammed into Leverone Field House, with techno music blaring in the background. That was the scene.

I took a quick count of the attendance in the enormous fieldhouse, filled with its inflatable rubber leviathans and post-industrial noise. At 9:15, fewer than fifty people were there. Over half were Party personnel.

Obviously it was too early to begin drawing conclusions about attendance. On the other hand, it was not a promising start.

I scanned the room, assessing the attractions. The Rodeo Bull was vacant (save for its carnie attendant) and would remain so for the entire evening. The Pedestal Joust was just like in American Gladiators, only the contestants were both portly freshmen. Their feeble thrusts and effete parries were not exactly what I recalled Nitro doing on TV. Lazer Tag looked promising, but I remembered having a bad experience with the same attraction at some event in Alumni Gym in my Junior year—unlike real Lazer Tag, there was no scoring system and one merely runs around dark and narrow rubber tunnels shooting people for no ultimate reason.

Far in the back of Leverone, partially obstructed by the Adrenaline Obstacle Course and Screamer Slide, I could see a station of carnival games, some football game involving fat suits, and the imposing, obelisk-like Rockwall. Like everything else, it was giant and rubber.

After an adventure on the Rockwall, and an epic game of 'Football Fatties' (journalistic disclosure compels me to admit that I scored the winning touchdown by plowing over a five foot tall DOC girl), my date and I decided to take a breather and avail ourselves of some of the well-advertised free food. I undertook another census—9:41 PM, 86 people. The fraction of personnel to party-goers was now a not quite respectable 1:3.

The refreshments were segregated in a roped off area near the bathrooms. Huge signs blared 'NO FOOD OR DRINK BEYOND THIS POINT.' Something about having recently refinished the floors, I was told.

As I stood picking my way through the EBA's catered broccoli cheddar bits, fried mushrooms, and buffalo chicken egg rolls (bread sticks and pizza just aren't kick @$$ enough), I was able to get a view of the entire fieldhouse. The Safety & Security presence had increased from five to seven officers over the past forty-five minutes. A couple of very bored student volunteers staffed the EMT station. The freshmen-skewed crowd of students meandering around the amusement park attractions was oddly funny—it was like someone constructed the ultimate funhouse for children and then only let their too-cool-for-this older brothers play there. The students enjoyed the events in a self-mocking, indulgent way; the attitude wasn't the child's ecstatic 'Could we do that!' but the jaded college student's cynical 'Could we do that?'

One undeniable sentiment was shared by all: The administration thinks we're children. It was simply unavoidable—the jungle-gym activities, the omniscient Safety & Security officers, watching like the third grade teacher at recess making sure everyone plays fairly and no one pushes anyone off the swings. Party attendance was over 130 by now, and so there was only one supervising official for every five students. Still, the whole scene looked comically over-structured and regulated—we were college students, adults, after all. We really didn't need two people at the Extreme Slide to explain its workings, or multiple supervisors on the Adrenaline Obstacle Course, or the seven Safety and Security officers.

It was the third grade all over again. When I wanted a drink my selection was limited to Hi-C. I had to decide between Flashin' Fruit Punch, Boppin' Strawberry, and another flavor with an ad for Harry Potter on the box. The carnival game prizes were stuffed animals and Captain America dolls, with the occasional Betty Boop thrown in for good measure. Even the door prizes, the jewels in the crown of the Kick @$$ Party, were for kids. Nintendos, Playstations, 2-way radios—this is our solution to the anti-intellectual Greek system, a 10 year-old boy's Christmas list?

As I lingered over my juice, I spotted my date, chatting with a friend in a Sigma Delt shirt. I realized that the Kick @$$ Party, for all its over-the-top efforts to avoid the failings of the Greek system, suffered from most of them nonetheless. The Greek system is accused of being exclusive, but the Kick @$$ Party was fairly exclusive itself. I saw dejected Hanover High kids students couldn't sneak in pass by the window—certainly they didn't feel included. Sure,the party was open to anyone with a Dartmouth ID, but so are Greek parties.

But what about diversity? The Greek system is always being criticized for its relative dearth of minorities. But how many were at the Kick @$$ Party? Even with one black student in an Alpha Phi Alpha jacket and an Asian guy in a Hawaiian shirt playing volleyball, 'There were a lot of white faces,' as Greek detractors often put it.

One thing for which the party couldn't be faulted was binge-drinking. But in spite of the huge 'NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED INSIDE' sign at the door, substance abuse was rampant. There were the people who suspiciously drank all the bottled water whom even I could tell were on Ecstasy, and the guy on the Pedestal Joust who was definitely feeling no pain. I ran into a fraternity friend whom I didn't expect to see at the party. 'I figured I'd get stoned and come hang out,' he explained. He wasn't the only one, if all the students stumbling around were any indication.

We decided to leave the Kick @$$ Party at 10:59, just before the second round of door prizes would be announced. I approached the door, and a large black woman moved to block me.

'You're not leaving so soon, are you?' She was smiling, as everyone working at the party was, but she was concerned about our early departure.

I lied, 'Um ... I've gotta wake up really early tomorrow: Big midterm on Monday.'

She seemed placated by this excuse. She good-naturedly pointed us to the registration table. 'Before you leave, help yourself to a free CD travel case.'

I accepted mine, but my date put up resistance; for a moment, it looked like things might turn ugly. I offered to take a second case, which satisfied the lady, who wished us a good night as we scurried out.

The concluding question, of course, is: Did the Kick @$$ Party kick ass? Certainly the party didn't kick ass compared to the Sigma Delt 'Wild Wild West' party the following night.

The college's ploy to avoid using the word 'ass' reminds me of one of those Disney movie trailers that cuts away right as a character is about to say a swear word. For example, a baseball is about to hit someone in the groin; Kid: 'Holy ...' —cut to movie title and voiceover: 'In theaters September 26!' That is how the college wants to engage with students: fully programmed, fully scripted social events that treat students like we're seven years old. Lots of adult supervision, lots of Safety and Security officers, juice boxes and Moon Bounces for everyone. But no food on the field house floor.

The Sigma Delt party, on the other hand, was themed 'Wild Wild West' —and that's exactly what it was: unsupervised students partying for away from the watchful eyes of the sheriff in Parkhurst and their deputies in the Student Activities Office. I saw the occasional beer spilled on the floor, and no one seemed to care.

And the cost. The Sigma Delt party cost several hundred dollars: some beer, a few decorations, a DJ. The Kick @$$ Party costs tens of thousands of dollars, with enormous festival attractions and door prizes galore. The only door prize available at Sigma Delt was the chance to hook up, but that didn't seem to hurt attendance. The official estimate of attendance at the Kick @$$ Party is rumored to be 750 people; if it cost $50,000, that averages out to $65 dollars per student. And thus the name: @ this party, a lot of $$ is going to be spent.

If this is the future of social life at Dartmouth, thank God I'm graduating.

'Kick @$$ Party' Sputters, Fizzles, Sinks

Article Tools

Related Articles