Author Archives: Cole Garrett

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Nationality: Yugoslavian, croatian, spanish
Age: 53
Occupation: real estate
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is my mother. She is 53 years old and is Spanish, Croatian, and Yugoslavian. She was born and raised in Florida, but keeps up many of her ancestors’ traditions from these countries.

I asked my mom to tell me any story that her dad had told her. Her dad was a very clever man and seemed to always bend the rules and switch things around to make them humorous. I asked her if he told any stories that had some moral context in the end. She told me “The Story of the Ant and the Grasshopper”, as told by her father.

Informant: “The ant was very hardworking. He spent all year collecting food so that when winter came around he had enough supplies to live. The grasshopper on the other hand was always messing around. The ant would warn the grasshopper that he was going to be in danger when the winter came. Well, winter came and the ant was ready for the harsh weather but the grasshopper was screwed. The ant looked at the grasshopper and told him, “I told you so”. So the grasshopper ate the ant and took all his food. My dad did stuff like this all the time, he would always twist endings like this and we thought it was hilarious. The real ending is that the grasshopper dies and the ant flourishes because he had worked hard, but this was my dad’s take on the story. I still remember the story because of the element of humor, I don’t think I would remember it if it was told the normal way.”

Analysis: This piece is interesting because it offers a view on the anti-climactic story. Many of these stories are popular in America. The story seems to be leading you somewhere and then it just drops off and takes itself in a whole new direction. It is also interesting to note the presence of work ethic again in these stories told by Americans. It seems as if this is a reoccurring theme in America because of the heavy influence of the “hard worker” ideal. From the vastness of these stories come these variations with anti climactic endings that offer a more humorous ending to these stories that are supposed to give some moral lesson by the end.

Legend of Paddy Murphy

Nationality: irish, dutch, english, italian
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant who is in the SAE fraternity shared another piece of frat folklore with me when I sat down and interviewed him. He explained to me that before you are initiated into the fraternity, you are expected to know many stories about the legends of SAE. He told me one of the most widely known SAE stories, and it is the one that you will most likely hear first if you are rushing this fraternity. He told me it was called, “The Story of Paddy Murphy”.

Informant: “The story is kind of long and there are a lot of details but I will give you the main parts. So Paddy Murphy was an SAE and he ended up being Al Capone’s right hand man in the 1920’s. They did everything together and bootlegged booze all over the place. They became well known and there was this famous detective who was trying to put them in jail. This detective stole evidence from Capone’s office and took it back to his place. Capone knew where this guy lived, so they went to his apartment. Paddy had the man in his sights from across the building at another rooftop. Capone loaded a gun and told him to shoot the detective. Paddy noticed that the detective had an SAE pin on his shirt and decided that he couldn’t kill the man. Capone told him to choose the detective or himself. Paddy said he couldn’t kill a brother, so Capone shot him. The detective heard the gunshot and ran over to them. Capone fled but as Paddy took his last breath, he looked at the detective and said “Phi Alpha”, and then gave him the SAE grip, which is like a handshake. This story is special to anyone in SAE because it is about loyalty to your fraternity. This is one of the things that we hold most important to our fraternity.”

Analysis: I thought this piece was very interesting because it is like a myth of SAE. This story that they have is used to govern the fraternity. Through the actions of Paddy Murphy, the fraternity is given a model of how to be a correct SAE. This means that loyalty goes as far as taking your life in order to save another “brother’s” life. I thought this was a little extreme because I am not in a fraternity, but it seems like they take loyalty very serious. Many stories like this give an outline for people to follow, and although this Paddy Murphy character is a legend and these events are undocumented, the men in SAE hold this to be true and live their lives by this story.

Evil Eye

Nationality: english, irish, dutch, italian
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is an 18-year-old College student who is from San Francisco. His ethnicity is Dutch, Irish, and English, and Italian.

I asked my informant if he knew of any stories about any of the countries of his origins. It was hard for him to think of any, but he tried to think of the country that his family most closely relates to, Italy. He told me there is some significance in a necklace he wears and the reason for it is due to a story that his grandpa told him about “The Evil Eye”.

Informant: “So, the evil eye is just what it sounds like. It’s just an evil looking eye or a bad way that someone looks at you. I think it’s a really old story. I also think it is told in many parts of the world, but my grandpa would just talk about how some people have the evil eye and you never want to be looked at by the evil eye. He would also squint one of his eyes and look at us to try to scare us. So, I have this necklace, it’s a horn, I can’t remember the exact name of the horn but it is supposed to ward off the evil eye if anyone looks at you with it you are protected. I know this story has been told for years, but I honestly don’t know if I will tell my kids, just because it used to scare the shit out of me”.

Analysis: I have heard of some variations of an evil eye or the eye of illuminati. It seems like this idea of some evil glare is very prominent in many cultures. One thing that I found really interesting about this story that he told me was that although he says he will not tell his kids this story, he still continues to wear the necklace. It is perhaps nothing more than a fashion statement, but he says he has been wearing it for years. Things like this necklace and the story, although we are old enough to know that they are ridiculous, the fact that we grow up with these things takes a toll on us. Regardless of whether he believes in it or not, he still keeps the necklace around his neck and still contains some superstition about the story.

SAE Yell

Nationality: dutch, english, italian, irish
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is an 18-year-old College student who is from San Francisco. His ethnicity is Dutch, Irish, and English, and Italian.

This informant is the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon and had a hard time cornering one song that he wanted to share with me. Many of the songs that they song are sacred to the fraternity and sharing them with any outsiders can be seen as a betrayal to the rest of the fraternity so he was very careful with the one that he shared with me. He chose to share with me the “SAE Yell”.

SAE Yell:
Phi Alpha Alcazee
Phi Alpha Alcazon
Sigma Alpha, Sigma Alpha, Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Rah Rah Bon Ton Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Rah Rah Bob Ton Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Ruh Rah Ruh Rah Ruh Rah Ree
Ruh Rah Ruh Rah S-A-E!

Informant: “The SAE yell is something that every SAE knows. You learn it from like day one because you have your “older bros” yelling it at you like every day so it sticks in your head. It is one of those songs you have to learn quickly or else you like get in a lot of trouble. It is definitely special to me because it is something that unites us all together, since every SAE knows it we all chant it at chapter meetings or leadership seminars with other SAE’s from different schools. It also gets us fired up when we are partying or basically whatever we are doing, its kind of cool to hear everyone chanting it loudly together.”

Analysis: I thought this piece was fairly interesting. I know he has other songs that are more compelling and have deeper roots, but he is not allowed to share them with me and I respect that. I can respect the fact that they want to protect a private part of their culture and I think a lot of different cultures around the world have this same sentiment. If everyone knows every part of your culture than nothing is really held sacred anymore and anyone can be considered inside the group’s circle once they know all the secrets.

Chin, Elbow, Knee

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 23
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: My informant is a close friend who I have known for many years. He is a 23-year-old college student and has lived his whole life in Orange County, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he attends the University of Southern California and comes from a prominently Scottish heritage.

I asked my informant if he could tell me about any Scottish games that he knew about as a kid. I asked him if he learned any while at family events or any gatherings with other Scottish people. He told me that he learned a game, but it had nothing to do with his Scottish heritage. He had only learned the game from his uncle and his uncle never specified where he had learned it.

Informant: “The game is called chin, elbow, knee. It is basically just rock, paper scissors but with different rule. Knee beats elbow, elbow beats chin, and chin beats knee. If knee beats elbow or elbow beats chin it is one point. But, for some reason if chin beats knee it is two points. It adds an extra element to the game because you want the two point play so people will go for chin a lot, making it easy to guess to play elbow, and win on point. It is kind of weird cuz if you play a lot I swear you can almost start guessing what people will do. You play to 11 and there are over times if you play the same thing, like if both people do knee, it goes to over time, then if it happens again, double over time, then triple over time, but triple is the highest and when you win you get triple the usual points. We always play this game at family events now so in a way it is kind of special for me. I will probably show my kids how to play in the future.”

Analysis: The first thing that stands out to me is the variation of rock, paper, scissors. I have come across a lot of different variations of this game but this was the first time I heard about chin, elbow, knee. I have seen ridiculous stuff like t-rex, laser, and grenade, or other ridiculous variations that people have made up. I think this style of game is a really good example of variants of games. In the same way that a popular song’s tune creates an outline for other lyrics to be replaced, the outline of rock, paper, scissors is simple enough to allow other elements of the game to be replaced so that theoretically anything can be put into these three spots and you can make up whatever rules you like as to which element beats the other.