Author Archives: Katherine Marchant

“Rage Cage” – Drinking Game

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 28, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: I learned Rage Cage from [older sorority sister], actually! Yeah, she taught it to me at [fraternity]. We were over there one night, and she was like, “[informant], why aren’t you drunk yet? You gotta get on my level!” So she got some of the guys in a circle around the table—the beer pong table—and put a bunch of red cups in the middle of the table, and we filled them all with a little bit of beer. And then she took two empty cups and uh, gave them to two of the guys. And they each had one ping pong ball, and they had to bounce the ping pong balls into their cup. And when the guy on the left of the other guy got his in, he’d pass the cup and the ball clockwise. If the guy on the right got his ball into the cup before the other guy, he got to stack his cup in the other guy’s cup, and then he’d pass the stacked cups to the next person in the circle. The guy who lost—who didn’t get his ball in and got another cup stacked in his—has to drink one of the cups of beer in the middle of the table. Then he can use that empty cup and try to bounce the ping pong ball into that. He passes the cup clockwise when he gets it in.

Me: So you just keep passing the cups clockwise in the circle?

Informant: Yeah. Well, unless someone gets the ball into the “chasing” cup—the cup that isn’t stacked—on their first try. Then they can pass it to whoever they want.

Me: Is there, like, someone you want to pass to in particular?

Informant: You want to pass it to the person to the right of whoever has the stacked cups. It’s easier to get them, then.

Me: How does the game end?

Informant: When all the cups are stacked. But [older sorority sister] plays it so, like, the last person to lose—to get a cup stacked in theirs—has to chug a whole drink.

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

The informant told me she has played Rage Cage at numerous fraternity parties since learning it during her sophomore year at USC. The game is usually played in mixed-gender groups of five or more players (up to as many as can fit around the table, although a group larger than twelve may have trouble keeping the attention of players stuck on the opposite side of the circle from the action) and takes place at fraternity houses or otherwise private location where those who are not yet of the legal drinking age can participate.

This drinking game is typically played early in the evening as a way for men and women to loosen up around one another. Since fraternity party culture at USC revolves around partygoers being intoxicated, Rage Cage is often used as a comfortable and fun way for participants to ease into drinking for the night. The competitive “stacking” element of the game also allows for participants to gang up on certain members of the group who they believe should drink more.

Sorority Drinking Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: Take a shot, take a shot! Take a god-damned shot! If you can’t take a shot like a/an [sorority nickname] can, then you shouldn’t have a shot in your motherfucking hand! Take a shot!

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

The informant first learned this drinking song, or chant, on the night after she received a bid from her sorority. She and her new “sisters” gathered in the largest bedroom of her sorority house, poured shots of Fireball (a popular brand of cinnamon flavored whiskey) and preformed the chant before knocking back their drinks. The informant has since preformed the chant only a handful of times—all occurred with other sorority sisters before a night of partying, and sometimes during. The informant claims she has also heard members of other USC sororities sing the chant with their own sorority’s nickname in place of the informant’s. Nevertheless, the song stands a symbol of initiation into a sorority; only members can preform it.

Sorority Bus Chant

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: It goes—okay, don’t laugh—it goes: [to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ball Game]

Take me out to your frat house, take me up to your room;

We don’t need pillows or sheets tonight, just a condom that fits you just right;

For it’s fuck, fuck, fuck ‘til the morning;

If I don’t come, you’re to blame;

For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out;

By the way, what’s your name?

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

This piece is one I originally encountered in its intended context—on a bus, bound for a sorority invite (off-campus party to which dates can be invited)—but collected months later in order to catch the full lyrics. While the chant was sung with brazen gusto on the bus, once the informant had sobered up, she admitted that the chant is “definitely not reflective of what we’re about.” Most performers of the chant seemed to feel the same: the chant is a fun sorority tradition, but the lyrics are laughably outlandish and don’t reflect the moral values of modern-day performers. Hence the informant’s little introduction to the piece, letting me know that she doesn’t stand behind the lyrics or take them seriously.

The chant, the informant told me, has been passed down through the years; she isn’t sure when it was started, but she knows that different sororities sing different variations of the song, and the lyrics have changed slightly over the years (sorority members are not allowed to write down the lyrics in any form because, as a national organization, the sorority does not want to be attached to such a scandalous chant).

The context of the chant is essential to know: sorority members sing it on a crowded bus while their dates watch and listen. The goal of the chant is, most likely, to convince the dates that sorority members are fun and ready to party that evening. The chant also has fairly overt sexual suggestions, and therefore might be a way for sorority members to approach the topic of what will happen after invite.

El Mono

Nationality: American
Age: 49
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Oakland, CA
Performance Date: March 18, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: I spent the first five years of my life in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Venezuela, and we were—you know, fortunate enough to have some of the locals provide my mom with household help. Our housekeeper, she sort of functioned as my babysitter, and in order to keep me in line, she’d tell me about “El Mono.” El Mono, in the stories she told me, was this monkey who lived on the rooftops of houses where children lived, and if you misbehaved as a child—so the legend went—El Mono would come into your house in the middle of the night and steal you away. Our housekeeper clearly never shared this with my mother, so she didn’t know about the stories until one night I woke up in screaming about “El Mono” after a horrible nightmare. So, after firing the housekeeper—my mother was distraught over how upset the story made me, so she shared the story with her sister, who then took it upon herself to draw these beautiful pictures for me of “El Mono” every week, which she would mail to me from the US along with letters in Spanish from El Mono to me, telling me what a good girl I was, how proud he was of me, and how much he loved and cared for me. So, needless to say, I never had nightmares about El Mono again. And to this day, I still have my aunt’s drawings and letters.

The informant (my mom) was born in Texas but spent most of her childhood travelling from country to country, specifically in South America and regions of southeast Asia, due to her father’s work as a banker. Her first language was Spanish, and today she is fluent in both Spanish and English.

El Mono’s purpose as a legend seems quite obvious, especially given the context the informant shared with me; parents and guardians can use tales about the monster to scare children into behaving. When I began researching El Mono to see if the creature was widespread in Latin America, I found a very legend that seems more common. “El Cuco,” derived from a Portuguese monster with a pumpkin for a head, is a “dark, shapeless monster” (Bastidas) who kidnaps and consumes children who aren’t obedient. I think it’s safe to say that El Mono is a variation of El Cuco.

Citation: Bastidas, Grace. “Scary Latino Myths: Read This or El Cuco Will Get You.”Latina 26 Oct. 2011: n. pag. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Matamoros Fire Department

Nationality: American
Age: 49
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Oakland, CA
Performance Date: March 16, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: The Catholic church in the small, South-Texas town of Brownsville went up in flames late one evening, after mass had finished. It was a 5-alarm fire, and all local fire stations were called on to help save the little church. The Brownsville fire department arrived first at the scene, but the flames were too intense for them to do anything other than stand by and watch the—the devastation. No more than two minutes later, the Matamoros, Mexico fire department arrived, engine going full, top-speed and lights blaring. The Brownsville firefighters stood back and watched in awe while the Mexican fire department drove their truck right into the flames and managed to put out the fire, saving this historic church. As a token of appreciation, the citizens of Brownsville collected $5,000 and, in a ceremony, the Brownsville Fire Chief handed the Mexican Fire Chief the check and asked him, asked the Mexican Fire Chief, to say a few words to the crowd. Well, he didn’t speak much English of course, but The Chief—in his best English—thanked the crowd for the money and said, thank you, but really, they had just been doing their job. When someone in the crowd shouted out, asked what the plans were for the money, the Chief said, “Well, de furs’ ting we gonna do… we gonna buy new brakes for de fire truck.”

The informant (my mom) was born in Texas but spent most of her childhood traveling from country to country, specifically in South America and regions of southeast Asia, due to her father’s work as a banker. Her first language was Spanish, and today she is fluent in both Spanish and English.

This joke was told to the informant by her mother, who was born and raised in Texas. Brownsville is located on the southern tip of Texas, directly across the boarder from Matamoros, Mexico. The joke plays on economic disparity between the towns, as well as some of the racial bias Texans may have towards Mexicans (this racial bias seems especially prevalent in the punchline, when the performer uses an over-the-top Mexican accent to imitate the Chief of the Matamoros Fire Department).