Kinda makes you grateful (and stunned) that you survived college life, doesn't it?

I have probably backspaced this comment at least a half-dozen times....I'm not sure which is worse: the teenagers who engage in this behaviour or the adults who observe and allow it. This is why some college freshman have died from alcohol poisening while participating in their fraternity's events.

Your description of the weekend is the perfect definition of a party weekend that is "outta hand". If, from lack of experience and judgement, these young adults lost the ability to control themselves, why did none of the adults nearby step in and put an end to it? Their behaviour was not only dangerous, it was illegal.

Yeah....I sound like a prude. I don't really fucking care. Better to be any fill-in-the-blank adjective than to have overgrown children inflict permanent damage to themselves and/or others.

whoa easy there sweetheart, we're all adults here

oh yah, theres a big difference between not agreeing with an administration (especially one that was voted for by you) and "hating the US government". Unfortunately people that cant make that distinction are ubiquitious in our war mongering society.

I agree with Lucy in the sense that adults do play a role in allowing this to happen. The bar that allowed beer to be thrown all over it by kids that are at best 21 for $10 a head knows the score in a big way. It doesn't take a genius to know how many people are in a fraternity, what percentage are typically 21 and whether you're way over the limit. Even easier to spot the pledges, who are never 21.

I also asked a deli owner across the street from the fraternity how much of his business is derived from cigarettes and alcohol. He laughed and said, "a lot," but claimed less than my estimation of 90 percent.

But now that I have called a spade a spade, I fully admit that the bar scene at Syracuse University — which I enjoyed for four years but only two months legally — was a huge part of my college exerience.

Except for the fighting and aggression, I was a drunken mess in college and, at times, continue to be. I was disappointed not with the drinking so much as the confrontations. And that wasn't limited to the fraternity, who weren't all meatheads. I mean the whole scene, in the bars and on the streets. It resembled nothing of the good-time country bars I go to. And another great thing I like about New York is that people go out in ones, two and threes, not packs of animals.

i will never in my lifetime ASK someone to hit me over the head with a beer bottle!

sending green kisses your way babeee
*mwah*

(young men + alcohol) - pussy = Fuck or Fight

Happens every damn time...

Oh and the pukey frat toilet still looks cleaner than Yogi's.

Ah, the memories. I joined a fraternity in college and even though I dropped out after the first semester I was still active in the fraternity. I'll never forget my brothers, the drunk times and the women.

paul, i wouldnt be so quick to say those people never lived alone, never had a real job, never fell in love, etc... i myself being a 25-year-old alumni (26 shortly) who was in attendance can tell you that i have done all three, and since you're either younger than me, or my age (at best), i dont think you're in a position to judge. Additionally, there were many, many albany alumni in attendance who are a few years out of school as well. As for the homoerotic part, I dont know about you, but i know i sure got laid after. So while you were busy watching the shirtless guys slap each other, i was on the dance floor meeting girls... and YES the one i took home was 21, the girl i went there with.

Also, the alleged lack of "independence, individuality and intelligence"... who are you exactly, to judge people youve never met, based on when you see them out at a bar, on a weekend? I've been out with people way older, with far more prestigious jobs, who get even more ridiculous. Let us not forget the occasional incident at an "older bar" of guys in their 30s, 40s, etc, growing beer muscles and getting rowdy... it happens. maybe if your "life experience" wasnt so condescending and limited, you would realize the bulk of the kids there are just going through a phase, and some of the older guys were coming back to grab a brief taste of their college memories, before heading back to their "real" jobs.

ah, i see by the captions of one of the pics, u are 30. well, i stand corrected.
but i hope you get the point i am trying to make. try not to summarize someones worth based on one incident. and dont judge their life experience either, i grew up in a neighborhood so shitty that by the time i got to college (which i paid for myself) my frat house was nicer than anywhere i had lived to that point. but you woudnt know it by looking at me. some of us jsut had to grow up faster than others. just dont pass judgment on people. i thought when i met you that you were an alright guy, and i think that deep down you are. theres just no need to put yourself on a pedestal and judge others to make yourself look good. thanks.

Weege why waste time with this guy. Not worth it. He was just the only guy there that didn't get laid maybe because he was TOO OLD! What kind of pervert goes to a fraternity party at 30! It's too bad this guy has to relive his college years 8 years out of college. Maybe you should just grow up. I mean you're bragging about going to a party where the girls there were just being born when he was in High School. (yeah you're that old buddy). SO Grow up stopping reliving the college years that you never got laid and didn't go out and leave the partying to us FRAT BOYS! Cause I know I am. And you're boy Omar can stay home next time too if he's going to bring a so called "friend" like you.

I railed against violence and thuggery and admitted I did all of those other things when I was in school. I heard too much talk about fights, and other than, that -- dirty living conditions, drinking too much, drinking too young -- I did it, and admitted it not only in my post but in my comments.

The reason you may have thought I was an all right dude is because I am honest. I did see a girl cling to her boyfriend while he whizzed in a corner. I did see a kid throw a bottle through a bar's window (not your house member). I did see an alumnus get hit in the head with a bottle, whether he asked for it or not. I did see your pledge puke in front of me.

I drank a lot in school. I drink a lot now. I wonder what goes through the mind of bar owners and deli managers who sell alcohol to obviously underage kids. I'm not saying they are bad people, but I wonder what goes through their minds. I did not get into fights, and if you look through the nearly three years of archives on this site, you will see I have had my drunken episodes, and no fights and no recounts of fights past. I heard a lot about fights at SUNY Albany.

Unfortunately and obviously Paul did not get the whole story at Albany. Maybe it was do, in part, that he came up on the wildest weekend possible. I will never say he is not entitled to speak about his experience. His experience in Albany was very short and very limited to the Kegs and Eggs weekend. He wasnt included in our brotherhood that only we know and love. I take the full blame for this. Only a brother can get the humor and fun out of the sight of Kyle's bare ass. A brother knows that the best time to be had at Albany was our time pledging. An outsider like Paul cannot understand that. But what miffed me the most is that he didn't make an effort to get a sense of it and he went forth and reported solely on the "socially correct" negative aspects of it. I was surprised to see him preach like a bible thumper talking about abortions. And as for the 'bottle meet head' trick, the resounding bell-like sound signaled an end to my immature college hijinks and a dedication to living my life in the real world (which kinda sucks). Think of it like a champagne bottle bursting on the bow of ship headed on its maiden voyage. I know it sounds like bullshit, but that what I got out of the whole episode. And if there was one thing to be learned on that weekend, it is this: Don't take Paul Katcher on your field trips, its hard for him to adapt to a world that is not his.

I agree with Omar. Don't take Paul on field trips, because he cannot adapt to this: pissing in the corner of the bar, walking around a crowded bar woth one's ass exposed (so that people hit into it accidentally), breaking a puke-stained futon, seeing a near-brawl erupt outside a pizza joint, and hearing about how another guy busted another's face open with his knee.

No one seems to be refuting that these things happened, only suggesting that I am out of touch. Well, thanks. I am out of touch with why that behavior is defensible.

So let me see if I understand correctly: According to weege, "the kids there are just going through a phase" and so that explains and justifies their excessive behaviours? Since when is youth a defense for a lack of manners and morality?

heres an idea, how about everyone over the age of 25 just stays out of college bars and parties, especially if all thier going to do is bitch and moan. This is just a gross example of what it is to be jealous of something you don't have anymore, or in some cases, never did.

Another nonsensical, anonymous comment above. You see, I will stay out of college bars, which I attended out of mere curiosity 10 years later (I graduated from Syracuse, not Albany) if vandalism, fighting, public urination and hazing -- which are what I found disgusting, not the drinking and chasing women and goofing -- is deemed to be something that would cause jealousy in anyone, let alone someone who lives and works in Manhattan, as if we walk the streets here wishing it was as fun as stepping into some college kid's vomit.

Again, I am referring to the scene, not just the frat house I visited. No one is indicting every person I met, including Weege.

-But kids, here's you're argument. Just say, "Paul, the stuff you mentioned — fighting and pissing in corners of bars and throwing bottles through windows — it's dumb. But not everyone here is like that. I thinking you painted with too-broad strokes."

Instead I'm getting a lot of "old man" shit like there's no action in NYC, like every dime I have goes into the bank, like we didn't have beer at Syracuse University. It doesn't make sense.

hollaaaaaaaaaaa