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Week at Yale '04 PAGE 2
Skull and Bones is not a fraternity. It is Yale's oldest, most elite and most secretive secret society. The Order of Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 by William Huntington Russell, a Connecticut Yalie with strong ties to Germany and Great Britain whose family business was America’s largest in opium smuggling. Yes, opium smuggling. No wonder the Skulls have a reputation for wielding covert and insidious influences upon American politics. Considering Skull & Bones only selects 15 Yale juniors each year to join its rarified ranks, it's uncanny how many American statesmen, as well as Old Line families and their descendants have been members, including well-known names like Whitney, Perkins, Stimson, Taft, Wadsworth, Gilman, Payne, Davidson, Pillsbury, Sloane, Weyerhaeuser, Harriman, Rockefeller, Lord, Brown, Phelps, Bundy and, of course, Bush. The ones from old Yale families are the "legacy picks." But just to keep in step with the times, the Skulls also choose a few members, such as the captain of the football team and the editori-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, based on "merit."
Like many Yalies, I’ve long been fascinated, repelled and aroused by the sinister (opiated?) mystique of Skull & Bones, headquartered in its notorious “Tomb,” an almost windowless, mausoleum-like Greco-Egyptian edifice on High Street less than a block away from Saybrook. Now, with both 2004 U.S. Presidential candidates, Bush ’68 (obviously a "legacy pick") and Kerry ’66 (probably a "merit pick"), being Skull & Boners, a lot of people outside Yale are intrigued and perturbed by this secret society of the high (opiated?) and mighty.
But it’s just not the same as a U.S. MP forcing hooded naked prisoners to masturbate while threatening to put them into real coffins. After all, the Skull and Bones initiates can always say, “Hey, fellahs, thanks but this is not for me. I’m outa this coffin. I think I’ll just go back and relax with my homeboys at Porn 'N Chicken.” Why, the Skulls even “let” Kingman Brewster ’41--who actually turned down his invitation to become a Bonesman--become President of Yale. Moreover, unlike CIA interrogations, no Skull and Bones initiation rites have ever killed anybody. Moreover, Skull & Boners are said to get a $15,000 gift after their masturbatory confessions. War-on-Terror POWs are lucky to get out with their lives after theirs.
On the other hand, the fact that the Skulls' founder was from a family that made millions in the opium biz, that their symbol is a skull and crossbones (hovering over the number 322, the date of the Orator Demosthenes' death) means they're not boy scouts. Also, the Tomb is said to be filled with real bones, including the skull of Apache Chief Geronimo (rumored to have been swiped from its grave by Prescott Bush '17) and the gravestone of Elihu Yale (a wealthy merchant benefactor who helped rescue the University from poverty in its early, struggling days, and thus got his name on the whole academic enterprise). Furthermore, according to Yale Professor of History, Gaddis Smith, "Yale has influenced the Central Intelligence Agency more than any other university, giving the CIA the atmosphere of a class reunion." And Skull and Bones is said to have penetrated the CIA more deeply than any other group at Yale. So maybe Rush is onto something, after all…
Sex Week at Yale & Mory’s Temple Bar
The next day, I met up with Devinn again on a panel on "Sex, Entertainment and the Media," at Linsey-Chittenden Hall, talking to about 100 students, about 75% of whom were male. Our moderator was genial DJ Joey Reynolds who pumped up the class with mild sex jokes, while we waited for our third panel member, “Girls Gone Wild.” Mastermind Joe Francis who had just flown into class on his private jet.
Devinn continued to wow the Yalies with her lucid pronouncements on porn, sex, love, and other aspects of life. Joe wowed ‘em with tales of making millions just by getting women to lift up their tops for his cameras. I was there as the token Yalie, and found myself spinning Foucaltian expositions of Janet Jackson’s nipple. There wasn't much controversy amongst us. We all agreed that sex was good, and lots of sex was even better. We also agreed that everyone should be careful and practice safer sex. Not surprisingly, none of us wanted to be censored. The highlight of the panel was hearing how Joe expertly fends off the multiple sexual harassment suits that come his way. The eeriest thing for me was that we were talking about all this in the same hall (Linsey-Chittenden, right across the street from Skull & Bones!) where I’d attended dozens of English Lit lectures. Some things at Yale have changed. We might have seen "The Devil in Miss Jones" when I was a student, but we never had a porn star as a visiting lecturer.
After the panel, a few of us strolled over to York Street to sup and quaff at another kind of Yale club, Mory’s Temple Bar. Though not secret at all, Mory's is another exclusive Anglophilic institution that goes almost as far back as Skull & Bones. Established in 1861 in an edifice built during the War of 1812, Mory’s began when Frank Moriarty, a British-born railway mechanic, and his wife Jane opened an alehouse near Yale. One day, so the legend goes, a team of thirsty Yale oarsmen returning from crew practice in New Haven Harbor happened upon the place. They devoured Jane’s rarebit, drank Frank’s ale, sang Yale songs, and another Yale tradition was born. Mory’s is divided into several public and private dining areas on two floors. The walls are covered with sepia photos of Yale sports teams and varsity captains, historic documents and mementos of campus life. A roomful of photos of U.S. Presidents who went to Yale reigns in the back. Worn tables are covered with carved initials of other famous Elis, including Cole Porter, Rudy Vallee, Monte Wooley, Vincent Price, Calvin Trillin, Benjamin Spock, William Wrigley and Paul Mellon. Some of the carved old table tops have been retired from service and mounted on the walls. From the ceiling of one dining room hang oars once pulled by victorious Yale crewmen.
Mory’s is a “jacket and tie” club, though Eric wore a turtleneck and Joe and Frankie just wore T-shirts under their jackets. So either Mory’s is loosening up, or Eric has some pull. We ate in the private Library Room with Sig Ep President Will Garneau ‘06, as well as Jay Blount ’05 and Michelle Shaprow ‘04. The latter two are part of another very special Yale elite: According to Rumpus Magazine (which coincidentally sponsored my first alumna lecture at Yale on The 10 Commandments of Pleasure in 1996), Jay and Michelle are two of “the most beautiful people at Yale.” Michelle is already an accomplished singer/songwriter who I'm sure will some day be some sort of star. Jay is also a musician with a kickass band. Moreover, he is reportedly dating Barbara Bush ’04 (though no one would confirm the reports, at least not for attribution). Yes, that Barbara Bush. But more on the President’s daughter later…
We enjoyed a few Nude Beers (one of several fine sponsors of SWAY). But the big bacchanalian tradition at Mory’s is for everyone to pass around and sip from a large silver tureen called a Cup, bubbling with different colored alcoholic concoctions. When you finish a Mory's Cup, one of Yale’s famed a capella singing groups (the oldest and best known being the Whiffenpoofs whose “Whiffenpoof Song” sings of “the tables down at Mory’s”) gathers ‘round your table to serenade you. Or they might serenade you mid-Cup. Yes, things are loosening up a bit at Mory's, but all in all, it’s a genteel throwback with punch.
Friday, I did a little alumni-style shopping at the Yale Co-Op where the teller recognized me from the photo of Joe, Devinn and me that appeared that day in the New Haven Register. Actually, he looked a little scared. The headline was “Sex Panel at Yale says U.S. is too uptight,” so maybe he was afraid I might do something that would bring on the Campus Cops. Then I went to my favorite Yale souvenir shop, the Boola Boola Shop, because it’s got the best prices, and where else can you get a big blue and white “FOR GOD, FOR COUNTRY AND FOR YALE” banner, plus hot G-strings emblazoned with the bulldog in five different colors?
Friday evening, Eric took me to the Chai Society for Shabbat dinner, presided over by the erudite and imaginative Rabbi Shmully Hecht. Honored guests were a famous Israeli archeologist and me(!), plus assorted, mostly Jewish Yalies, Devinn's friend Amy (also an archeologist), some of Shmully's small children and his luminous wife Toby. After many blessings, glasses of good kosher wine and a marvelous meal, Rabbi Shmully asked me to say a few words. Though jovial, this was a rather religious group, so I couldn’t very well do one of my Pussy Talks. Nor was this quite the right moment to criticize Ariel Sharon. Since it was Valentine’s Eve, Sex Week at Yale, and almost Purim, I chose to speak about Esther, the teenage beauty queen who used her powers of seduction to save the Jewish people from genocide. A Jewish girl in a Babylonian world (kind of like a poor person at Yale), Esther managed to get tapped to join the Babylonian version of a secret society for women: the King's Harem. The King was Ahasuerus, Babylonian ruler over all the land from India to Ethiopia. Goaded by a prince named Hamen (his version of Dick Cheney), King Ahasuerus agreed to declare War on the Jews. Since the Jews of Babylonian were in roughly the same position as the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, this was as good as ordering their genocide. Esther, through her extraordinary charm and cleverness (plus, probably, a few really great blow jobs) seduced King Ahasuerus to the point where he got down on his knees before her, begging her to allow him to give her whatever she wanted. Esther didn’t tell him what she wanted right away. She played her potentate like a lyre, teasing him until she went in for the "kill," demanding that he revoke the genocidal edict. And, miraculously, he did! The Story of Esther tells us how sex can win over war, and how love (even in the form of a boorish king's lust) can save the world. Sounds overblown, I know, but hey, it’s in the Bible! It's also the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure. But that's another story. And we didn't have time for any more stories! We were off to party with Barbara Bush '04! SeX
Week at Yale '04 |
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