Adventures in Blogosphering

I’ve been networking with multiple bloggers and using their suggestions to find my next interviewee, as some of you may know. In a chat with the hilarious Lady Andrea from Ladies… we got a little sidetracked and started talking about running a blog with multiple people. Then she unleashed these two golden nuggets of information:

POL: What is it like to run a blog with multiple contributors that live in the same place?

Andrea:  We have pillow fights in our underwear.  I share a room with Metschick and we stay up all night long talking about boys and tickling each other over fantasy baseball trades.  J-money and Clare like to play pranks.  Holly and TSW are always trying to get us to shape up, but we just won’t.  Texy and SA are usually drunk on bourbon.  It’s a really good time.

POL: Do you have elected officials? A house mother? Who is your brother “blog”/fraternity?

Andrea:  Holly is probably the house mother.  I think it’d be awesome if our brother blog was Kissing Suzy Kolber, but I think our relationship is more like KSK = Omega House and Ladies = Delta House.  If we’re going to continue the metaphor further: 

Andrea = Otter.  Why Otter?  Well, he’s the tallest.  Also, I’d totally be the girl who’d sleep with the Dean’s wife.

Metschick = Boon, because she’s charming and sweet.

J-money = Bluto, because J-money is our resident comedienne.  Also, I can totally picture her smashing the guitar of “I Gave My Love a Chicken” guy.

TSW = D-day, the resident Wise Sage.

Holly = Hoover, duh.  Cause he’s president of the house and Holly is totally in charge.

Clare = Flounder.  Our adorable wide-eyed sister who is totally coming into her own.

SA = Pinto.  The cutie pie youngster.  Also, I hear SA routinely leaves guys in shopping carts on their parents’ doorstep and then ding-dong ditches. 

Texas Gal = Katy.  Texy is our resident sexy-voiced siren.

Captain Caveman = Greg Marmalard.  He’s President Pretty-boy.  Also, can’t you just see him dating Mandy Pepperidge?

Big Daddy Drew = Dean Wormer.  That foot is BDD.

Christmas Ape = Douglas Neidermeyer.  Ape totally spit on us when he was yelling about our pledge pins. 

Unsilent Majority = Chip Diller.  You can tell UM just really wants to yell, “THANK YOU, SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!”

MMP = Prof. Jennings.  He would totally try to steal Texy away.  Also, he gives us drugs.

Flubby = “I Gave My Love a Chicken” Guy.  Flubby was so sweet to us during the Ladies takeover of KSK that he would totally serenade the Ladies with that piece of crap song.  And then J-money would take him out. 

Will Leitch= Otis Day. Have you seen his karaoke video?

I knew the Ladies… were busy, but after hearing that I knew I needed to get down there and get an interview. First of all, I call shenanigans on them living in a house together.  In addtion, I couldn’t imagine the Animal House analogy to be true.  This would also be another great opportunity to introduce myself to some of the more established bloggers. When I got down there, this is what I found:

*The names have been uncleverly changed to protect the identities of the creatively uninvolved.*

“Excuse me, where can I find Lady Andrea?”

That was the first question I asked as I arrived to “The Row,” a collection of plantation style mansions that house the blogosphere elite. I probably should have posed the question in a different manner, as that sounded like something out of the Middle Ages. Luckily, I don’t believe the group of passers-by even heard me. It was Thursday night and everybody was muttering about some kind of Pants Party. I had no idea where the Pants Party was or what a Pants Party even is for that matter. I was a stranger in a strange, strange land.

I decided to attempt to find the Lambda Delta Delta Delta House on my own. I was never in a fraternity, but it seemed like interpreting Greek letters couldn’t be that hard… but it was.  Why would a triangle represent “Delta?” However, the Lambda Delta Delta Delta house (or the Delta’s as they preferred to be called) was the only one with four letters, so my keen deductive reasoning skills took over.

Lady Andrea met me on the sidewalk in front of the Delta House and seemed to be anxious to start the interview. She was wearing what appeared to be a Rockford Peaches road uniform, complete with hat and all.

POL: Where’d you get that?

Lady Andrea: Where didn’t we get it? Just kidding, these are our rush uniforms.

Totally confused, as we walked up to the front porch (complete with porch swing and all) she motioned for me to have a seat on the patio furniture.  It sounded like a concert was taking place inside. As we moved to the chairs, I noticed she made sure to stay between me and the door.  It was a bit awkward, so I waited a moment before delving into my questions.

Before I could ask my first question, a brunette they call TSW leans out the front door. She’s wearing a Racine Belles home jersey, autographed by Kit Keller on the skirt.

TSW: It’s time for the main attraction.

Andrea: Gotta run. Later tater.

Before she made it into the front door I was able to catch a glimpse of “the main attraction” and this is what I saw.

Not satisfied with this abrupt ending, I needed to figure out a way into this shindig. Especially considering what I saw on that stage. So, I snuck around the back only to be greeted by a Doorman/Bouncer with a nametag that read Bob or Ira or something, letting people in. Since I wasn’t invited to the party this guy wouldn’t let me in. So I tried to “movie quote” my way in, as it’s a language men understand quite well. This usually works in a long line at a crowded club. At least that’s what I told myself. So in my attempt to impress the Doorman, when I overheard someone was from San Diego I said, “San Diego, isn’t that German f-”

Before I could finish my sentence, the lights went out in my own personal Georgia. Later someone would tell me Rob the Doorman punched me before I could finish the quote. That sure escalated quickly.

When I came to, I was on a couch in a very pristine living room next to a foreign exchange student and a guy that appeared to be blind. The room was filled with preppy guys wearing sweaters and polo shirts and girls that looked like they came from the National Sundress Convention. Before I could properly adjust to the situation, a gentleman everyone called Hannukah Chimpanzee craned his head uncomfortably close to my face and began yelling:

HC: Do you think you deserve to wear this PL-edge P-in!?!?

POL: Huh…

HC: This is Kappa Sigma Kappa, the finest collection of human beings in the blogosphere! You don’t belong here.

I was more than inclined to agree with him and shuffled towards the door. There was a huge crowd of people in the house trying to interject themselves into the conversations of the fraternity members, who relished the attention and treated it like a soapbox. Before I could make it out, I was cut off again by two men wearing tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows but no shirts.

HC: Show some respect for the Dean Daddy and Professor MMK, maggot!

DD: Put a sock in it, boy, or else you’ll be outta here like shit through a goose.

POL: I haven’t even said anything yet.

DD: What makes you think you’re Kappa material?

POL: Nothing. I got knocked out and ended up here. Look, I’ll just show myself out.

Professor MMK: Chill out, man. Just relax and have a little fun. I got something that’ll take the edge off.

Out of the corner of my eye I see that Dean Daddy just polished off a bottle of Jack during the last two sentences. This put me on alert.

DD: Look, stop being a pussy and come down to the basement. We’ve got a wolverine fighting a legless duck and a rabid squirrel fighting two piranhas in a gelatinous mold, taintlester.

POL: What?

DD: It makes it a level playing field: part liquid, part solid.

DD: Don’t look all longingly and s**t at me like Brady Quinn. Look either go to the basement and watch some death and destruction or you can come upstairs…

HC: (background) You said “come”…

DD: and check out the new NFL cheerleader calendar. You’re choice, tardjam.

POL: I think I’ll pass.

DD: Why wouldn’t you want to come upstairs and masturbate with us.  What are you f***in’ gay or something?

Dean Daddy and Professor MMK muttered about excellent pissing or something like that on my way out the front door and then sat down again.

BB: We’re so damn brilliant we deserve a week off.

Prof. MMK: Hell yeah!

Rarely do I feel that relieved just by exiting a building.  But in the front yard I made another discovery. A man buried neck deep in the ground with a stained bath towel duct taped in his mouth, tried to catch my attention.  He had UM written on his head in permanent marker. From across the lawn, the resident pretty boy (AKA the Captain) spoke to several ladies admiring his Ted McGinley-esque good looks and brand new bottle of Seattle Seahawks champagne. (How did I know he was a Captain of some kind? His sash said so.) When he saw the man buried up to his neck attempting to get my attention, he began to shout at him.

C: Have you learned your lesson yet? Serpentine order! Serpentine!

C: (turning his attention toward me)What are you looking at douche? Are you some kind of masshole or something?

Having finally escaped that situation I made my way back to the Lambda Delta Delta Delta house to finish my interview.

Standing in the middle of the street was a man in a black v-neck shirt,  St. Louis Cardinals baseball pants, with a wireless microphone in his hand and flanked by a massive posse chanting D-U!-A-N.  (It’s important to note they didn’t actually say “exclamation point,” they simply said the “U” with a heightened enthusiasm.) I immediately recognized him as the man performing in the Delta house before the door was shut in my face.

Doorman Bob: Nobody talks to The Man or even anyone within his posse without my permission.

I flinched assuming he was going to punch me in the face again.

The Man: And a lil’ bit softer now, and lil’ bit softer now….

He continued to repeat that phrase over and over, slightly lowering the volume of his voice with each refrain and twisting toward the ground. By the time he’d made it to the end of the block, he and his throng of followers were practically crawling on the ground. Perhaps that is what they mean by a Pants Party.

I finally made it back to the Delta House only to find what appeared to be Opening Day for the 1944 All American Girls Professional Baseball League.  You had the Rockford Peaches and Racine Belles, who appeared to be the women in charge. Then there were the pledges dressed as the Kenosha Comets and the South Bend Blue Sox. They milled around on the make-shift stage for a bit but once Lady Andrea blew the pitch pipe, they darted into choir position.  Lady Andrea stepped up to address the crowd.

Lady Andrea: Please enjoy the official Lambda Delta Delta Delta anthem.  (I later found out she wrote the song AND arranged the performance)

Blogger up!  Hey there pals!
The time has come for all the gals
To joooooin in.

Oh we’re the members of Ladies dot dot dot
We come from cities near and far
We’ve got a Volunteer, some Domers and a Deac
We’re all for one, we’re one for all
We’re Ladies dot dot dot

Each girl posts the hotties that she craves
The players are our slaves
We love the Mets, the Sox, the Phils, the Cardinals and the Braves

Our critiques are not too soft, they’re not too tough
Our snark is on the ball
We’re a bunch of girls who really know their stuff
We’re all for one, we’re one for all
We’re Ladies Dot Dot Dot

Before the Deltas’ in training could completely exit the stage, a man with a guitar took to the stage attempting to impress the Ladies…

Slubby: I gave my love a….

As the echoes from the guitar ascended into the night, Lady Andrea finally was able to sit down for our interview.

Check back for the interview with Lady Andrea, coming tomorrow.