Folklore: drinking games: through the generations

Subject: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: beetle cat
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 06:48 PM

Im currently at the age where drinking games are part of regular weekend ritual, and i was thinking, did my parents generation do this? how long has this sort of thing been going on? Have any of the same games survived over the generations? Its a tradition, i think, that each generation grows into, and then grows out of again. we are lead into it by the age group that is just a little older than us, and then go on to teach the innocent youth.

there are severl games that i have run into everywhere i go, weather in canada or the states or the uk. Spoons, i think a dirivitive of what i have heard called forks, is a card game where one less piece of silverwear than the number of players is placed in the center of the table, and as soon as one player completes a specified task with ther cards, they take a spoon, and the rest of the players take the spoons as they catch on, and the last person dosnt get a spoon so they have to drink.

there is another game we play called flip cup. two teams are made, and they line up on opposite sides of the table. each player has a cup full of intoxicating liquid placed in frount of them. the first on each team downs their drink, then places it up side down on the edge of the table. they flick it with their finger so it flips and lands upright. as soon as this is done the next player downs and does the same. the first team to get to the last player wins.
then there is beer pong, where you take turns throwing a ping pong ball across the table and try to get it into cups of beer that are lined up in configuration.
then there is the game asshole; it is a card game. rather complex rules.
Sausage is a drinking game, like horseshoes, that i have only seen in rhode island.
there are more but .. thats enough for my point.

so did you guys do this kind of stuff? are some generations more into this stuff than others? It probly has to do with what other teenage fads are at the time.   do any of these specific games sound farmiliar? folkies are probly the wrong people to ask, this is probly more of a frat thing. but i do think that it is a valid form of folklore, weather you personally approve of drinking games or not.   

i also think its very interesting how loosely they are passed on. due to the nature of it all; while playing drinking games you are not likely to remember the exact rules the next morning, all you remember is that it was fun and you want to do it again. so the rules change. in every houseold there are diferent rules for the same game. house rules.

mary

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:45 PM

There are HOARDS of drinking games most of which I dont really know 'cos I was a VERY sedate drinker in my youth (NO laughter in the cheap seats!) - Games with numbers - every Seven OR multiple of Seven had to be replaced with a Set word and IF missed involved draining the glass and various others . I was too busy playing the back ground music to be involved in the games !!

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: DonMeixner
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:50 PM

Drinking correctly is no game. It is serious business.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:50 PM

There is one part of 'spoons' you missed.

The booze that is put in the centre of the table is the worst booze at the party - someone who bought his booze discovers that it is so bad that even HE can't drink it - so he donates it to the centre.... the dropouts are usually guaranteed hangovers...

Tip: if you can survive the first few rounds you may be OK - if you lose more than a couple of times, you might as well just drop out, as you are gonna be stuffed anyway...


Such games are usually a part of growing up - but please remember that nowadays certain things like trying to drive home after competing are just not on. Also too many competitions severely damage you - and if you can't stop, it may be a sigh that one needs some help with a drinking problem - binge drinking is a serious social problem....

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:53 PM

An older thread on the subject

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 10:04 PM

sorry guys, i was afraid that this would happen. like i said, i think that this is a valad form of lore weather you approve of the practice personally or not. take, for instance, racist jokes. folklore isnt always roses.

another thing about spoons. we used to play it, when we were young and just plain cruel, that the loser had to eat whatever the other players decided to put onto a spoon. it always had to be some form or mixture of food though. and nothing alive. sometimes we were nice, but i can recall eating some horrible concoctions.

i just thougt some of you might be just a tiny bit interested in how your old tricks have changed over the years.
and thanks for the concern, but i prefer to observe as well. and i too would rather sing than drink any day.
thanks for the other thread.
sorry to offend.
mary.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 12:07 AM

Moxie, when you spoke of your "parents' generation," that hurt. I guess you're right, though. My kids are almost too old for drinking games, so I guess I must be in your parents' generation or older. Gee, I didn't think I was THAT far gone...

I'd never play with forks - too much danger of getting my hand impaled. Spoons are much safer.

When I was a college (seminary) student in Milwaukee, we'd drive two counties south to Kenosha, where it was legal to dring beer at age 18. We played a game I think they called "Indian." I never completely figured it out, and that can be dangerous with drinking games. We'd make a din by pounding fast on the tables with the open palms of our hands, punctuated with occasional whoops and such. The person who was "it" would make a hand signal, and then point to another person who would have to duplicate the hand signal and then pass it on with a different hand signal. If the recipient could't copy the signal, he'd have to chug a glass of beer. Does anybody remember that one well enough to clarify the rules?

We were't aware of "designated drivers" back then, but I don't remember riding back to Milwaukee with anyone whose driving frightened me. Maybe I was dumb - or maybe I was lucky. I never drank much - but I sure ate a lot of pizza on those outings.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Eye Lander
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 02:06 AM

oooo I remember my friends playing Jacksin the early 70's. A pack of cards was dealt round the participants, the first jack ordered the drink (no holds bard) second Jack sipped it, third drank the rest down in ONE! and the fourth Jack paid for it. So so glad I never took part. I just picked up the pieces usually and drove them home.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:36 AM

"binge drinking is a serious social problem"

Didn't your father tell you not to drink binge? And where did you get it from, not only binge but illicit binge I'll wager.

You'd never find me participating in drinking games. I've never played Cardinal Puff or been Dwile Flonking - recently.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generat
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:12 AM

"Names Of, Types Of" and Boat Race are the ones I recall. But don'y ask me precisely how to play them.
Studying the variation of drinking games over time is like using fruitflies to study genetics. People's inability to remember the rules the next day parallels the fruitflies' very fast breeding cycle, you dont have to spend hundreds and thousands of years waiting for a significant change.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 11:20 AM

I cringe about my youthful binge drinking - now I'm a cringe drinker.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:13 PM

I had forgotten about spoons!
My current favorite is "I never" where a group of folks sit around, and someone says "I never (something that they never)" and everybody at the table who has, drinks. I drank a lot the last time I played that. It starts off pretty generic, like I never flew a helicopter, and immediately (like, the next person) gets sexual. It's a howl seeing what people have done!
Then there is beer pong, or since I don't like beer, liquor pong (no chugs): place your beer/liquor glass in the center of your end of the ping pong table; if your ball hits the opponents' glass/cup, they have to drink; if you dunk it and it stays in, they have to drink it all (chug). If playing liquor pong with ice in the drink you can still chug if you want to as it's so hard to sink a ping pong ball that is bouncing off the ice, but if you say No chugs, then you just drink twice. This is also fun as naked liquor pong, which I haven't played since, oh, 1987 I think. Man! Time for another game!
THEN there are all the TV-watching games where any time a character says something stereotypical, can't think of an example offhand, the watchers drink. The issue I have with that kind of game is that it isn't competitive - everybody drinks at the same time.
Then, remember Bong 98? What about bong yahtzee (best with sno-cones)?
My parents, unfortunately or not, were both allergic to alcohol as adults, and my Dad whose allergy came upon him later in life through being a guinea pig for medical experiments as a conscientious objector in WWII (thanks, C. Everett Koop, and No, they didn't figure out a cure for the hepatitis they gave him) was nonetheless raised a Quaker and while he tended bar, he didn't drink, so I can't ask them about drinking games. I can try with Mom, she was a refugee in Paris after the war where even if SHE didn't drink, I bet every one else did, but I think this is a very American thing, as Europeans don't seem to need an excuse to drink heavily, having no Protestant bareness ethic to overcome. Is that a fair take, do you all think?

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: GUEST,Blackcatter
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:22 PM

We used to play "Hi Bob"

Simple game - we'd watch the Bob Newhart Show and whenever someone on the show said "Hi Bob" we all drank.

Then ther is quarters. Where you had to bounce a quarter into a shot glass. I think everyone else had to drink if you did it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:57 PM

A couple of years ago I was playing music with some friends in the Wapiti Bar (Indian name for Elk) in the little town of Gardiner just outside Yellowstone Park.

I looked over and noticed a comely young girl trying to stuff something up her ass. As it turned out, on more careful observation, she was clinching a quarter (coin) in her buttocks. She then stood over a guy laying on the floor with a beer mug balanced on his forehead. She unclinched her butt and let the coin drop, trying to get it in the mug. Several people took turns doing this, and I can only assume the loser/s had to buy drinks. Oh yeah, all the women I saw participating had trousers/jeans on - I don't think any woman with a skirt would want to take part. But it could happen...!

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Uke
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 05:10 PM

We used to have an elaborate one where you threw dice called "Mexis", then there was called "Fluffy Duck" which worked extremely well - maybe it's just making getting drunk fast fun when you're young and not into liquor for the taste etc.

In "Fluffy Duck", everyone sat in a circle and you went round as fast as possible saying "Fluffy Duck", then when someone said "Does he?" it reversed and you had to say "Ducky Fuzz", then "Does he?" etc. If you stuffed up - easy to do - you had to scull. Very simple but effective.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:48 PM

In my student house at Caltech, mid 1950s, there was a trophy that circulated among the alleys (hallways) as a result of contests that arose out of imaginative challenges, some of them involving drinking. In one, a plank was set on two concrete blocks, and contestants had to drink a measured amount of vodka, walk to the other end, drink the same amount, walk back, etc., until they fell off. There was also one that involved pissing a brick of ice in two against time, for which drinking, tho not required by the rules, was essential preparation.

There was also a trophy that circulated among the houses for victory in beer-drinking relay races. A competent drinker, using his belly muscles to expand his stomach & thereby assist gravity, could (IIRC) empty the standard 16-oz mug in 1.2 seconds. Another trophy was for "flamers", who competed in pouring elaborate cascades of burning whiskey into their mouths. The contests were scored according to perfection of execution & degree of difficulty, like diving.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:22 PM

My friends and i invented a variaton on the concrete blocks game. It involved walking along the supports on the underside of a steel bridge going out of the village we lived in... No, i don't need to be told how stupid, irresponsible and downright dangerous this was; I found out the hard way when i fell in and had to swim, or more accuratley flail, to the bank and climb out only to be greeted by the derisory laughter of my companions! Don't try this at home, kids!:)

Another, less risky, one was a variation on the alphabet game( where you name a subject, like bands, animals, countries, or something and then have to come up with one beginning with A, then B, etc). If someone failed to come up with an appropriate word, they had to take a shot of whatever alchohol we had to hand, usually something cheap an effective. Which was all rather redundant, as everyone was drinking the whole time anyway, whether they lost or not.

So while here in scotland we certainly don't need an excuse, it's just fun to play sillybuggers once in a while! And the 15-year-old imagination is boundless (Please, no lectures - until you've been to the Scottish rural hellhole that is Ochiltree, you have no right to comment on underage illicit binge drinking :). Most of us turned out all right, and anyway, i don't drink now... it encourages me do incredibly stupid things!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:05 PM

At St Andrews University (Scotland), where I was in 1958-9, the Friday-evening gaudies (drinking & singing parties in the Student Union) always ended with a walk out on the old pier. It had a fairly broad walkway flanked on one side by a wall only a couple of feet thick. If you were male, after pissing off the end of the pier you were supposed to climb up & walk back on top of the wall. (I never did that myself.) There was a variety song composed by one of the students of which one stanza went

At St Andrews by the sea,
We love our evening walk out on the pier.
At St Andrews by the sea,
When drunks fall off, we give a mighty cheer.
The bejantines are bashful when the kilts fly overhead --
In fact, we've seen some pretty faces turn from pink to red --
But God help man the day they turn their heads away instead,
At St Andrews by the sea.

Bejantine = female freshman, who might see something if you were wearing a kilt & it was windy while you were walking up there. I never actually saw anyone fall off, either.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: EBarnacle
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 11:21 PM

What!!! No one has mentioned Whale's Tale? We did that one in the Blue and Gold House at Drexel in Fall of '63. It was another good way to get drunk. Once was enough. There was a major verbal ritual involving exchanges of responsive words. Another was "Who Stole the cookies from the cookie jar?" If you lost track of where you were in the ritual, you got to drink. Both of these were done while playing poker.
Any wonder that I lost that night? That was when $20 meant something.

Subject: RE: Folklore: drinking games: through the generations
From: Deckman
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 07:49 AM

A hundred years ago when I was younger, and I was once, I learned a real neat "Basque" drinking song. The words I can sing phoetically. The Translation is something like this:

"pass the shoe, from me to you, to you, to you, etc."

The game is played with full beers. A small group sits at a table with a full mug in each hand. As the song is sung, the mugs are passed to the person on your left. At one point of the song, the mugs reverse direction. It starts slow, but steadily picks up speed. As the mugs go faster, slamming on the table, the first one to spill a beer, loses. His penality is to drink all the beer and buy the next round.

I've actually enjoyed playing this game with children on the floor, using anything other than mugs of beer. It's a great ice breaker and the kids love to learn a song in another language and then sing (yell) at the top of their little lungs. They especially enjoy it when the parents all come running into the kitchen floor to see what the noise in and I tell them to be quiet as we're doing a serious game here!!! CHEERS, Bob