Binge Drinking at its Best

RANDOM WIZARD STAFF PHOTO

I try to keep posts on this site of a professional nature and focused on my “career,” or at least somewhat related to action sports and/or journalism. But I am currently inspired by something much more frat-tastic and feel I must discuss.

This weekend I went to my first Wizard Staff party at the Dudeplex in Portland. I was feeling under the weather so I brought orange juice to add to my beer and failed miserably at making much of a staff (I switched to straight juice after three beers.) But Nate managed to top out his height and a good time was had by all. This is not the point though.

When I signed onto iChat i started talking to Brandon in LA, who told me he also attended such a party this weekend and one of their attendees made it to the ceiling. Then during my daily blog reading I came across this, tales of another Wizard Party this weekend in NYC. Apparently these parties are all the rage right now.

Being journalistic, I decided to investigateĀ  a little about the history of them, because back in my college days I’d never heard of such a thing (maybe we were just out of touch in Bellingham.) Well, I didn’t try very hard, but I did find a blog that had an article written by the Canadian Press that had some amazing information. As it turns out, skateboarder seem to take the credit for bringing this one to the public via epiclylater’d. Look at that– this post just became related to journalism and action sports!

Now just for fun, here are some of my favorite tid bits from the aforementioned article.

…a beer company that advertises on an online skateboarding show he hosts became excited by the idea and wanted to somehow use it in promotions. However, laws forbid alcohol companies from promoting excessive drinking.

“They were like ‘Why didn’t we think of that? That’s the best idea,’ until it dawned on them that it’s against the rules,” he said. “You can’t be like ‘Binge drink! Become a wizard!”‘

and

Richard Smith from Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication said these type of themed-parties are about creating an identity, which is generally important to young people even if it means engaging in dangerous activities.

“There’s a visual element that’s not present in many drinking games,” he said. “There’s something you can have your picture taken with and post on the Internet.”

Because in the end, isn’t everything about putting your picture on the internet?

  1. Well if we were on it, we would have provided an epic picture to go along with your story. Many were taken, none were supplied to you for posting purposes. Sorry. Maybe for the next wizard staff party your brass monkey wannabes will be real brass monkeys and your staff will be utterly amazing by level alots wizard staffers.

  2. i might just have to do this tonight – the taping of beer cans together

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