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Who is TED and Why Does He Rule?
Or
Late Night Discussions at KWAR
Or
There May Have Been Alcohol Involved

by Eldritch Gaiman, Lord Lorenzo Gorla and Don Ian of Tadcaster

Known World Academy of the Rapier
October 13th, AS XL

So, the story of TED.

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Saturday night last KWAR, Lorenzo, Ian, and I were sitting in one of the hotel's downstairs meeting rooms among lots of the other fencers. (There may have been alcohol involved, but not in my system. It was past midnight by this point, though.) The subject of our conversation wandered enthusiastically and meandered at one point across our college days.

Lorenzo began a tale with "There were three prominent black fraternities at my school..." Ian made some comment about there being only one at his school, which I misheard as there being only one fraternity of any kind at his school, which I further mutated by amusingly imagining what it would be like if there was just one fraternity member at a college. I found the initial idea entertaining enough to share, and something of a brainstorming session ensued, gradually attracting more and more fencers from the conversations around us as each idea resulted in even more convulsions of inspired laughter and imagery.

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The concept ended up being one mulleted guy at this college who was in this fraternity, Tau Epsilon Delta, and whose name was Ted. Late at night (and sometimes during the day) students would hear the distant triumphantly bellowing sound of the all-too-familiar, "TED RULEZ!!!1", inevitably followed by, "Woooooooo!". He's sometimes also spotted on the rooftops of university buildings and in random bushes and trees around campus.

Not without school spirit, TED often appears at football games with T-E-D painted across their chests... well, it's usually Ted with the Epsilon on his chest, with shirtless male blow-up dolls on either side of him marked with the Tau and Delta. The fact that the blow-up dolls are always saying "Wooooo!" is perfect. One of them will also have on a giant foam #1 hand, the other will have a beer duct taped to one hand.

TED would set up a table in the cafeteria during rush week to try to get recruits. He would also participate in the homecoming parade, which was TED walking down the middle of the university's main avenue with a balloon and maybe some ribbons or something. His hazing was left slightly obscure, as each of us imagined practices far worse than we could voice, but one practice included blindfolding himself, taking himself somewhere out into the woods, and leaving himself there overnight.

Ted lived in the TED house (naturally), which was an abandoned house near campus that he had found his freshman year (assuming he's actually enrolled). TED keeps a fridge in there stocked with beer and old pizza, but his real prize in the house is the inflatable kiddy-pool in the front living room. He spends most of his time sitting in that pool drinking beer and screaming how much TED rulez. In the entry foyer are the pictures of past TEDs of note, including several of the same picture of Ted from the last several years, and ending with an old picture from the turn of the century of a guy with a handlebar mustache, straw boater and a Harvard sweater, badly Paintshopped to now bear the letter Tau.

We even imagined many interactions with Ted, such as his pleas to keep the chapter open despite being on academic probation:

"Dude, we were like one guy away from getting our grades back in line"

"Yeah, we had some attendance problems earlier in the semester, but we've talked to Ted and he's straigtened out")

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Occasionally there's a party at the TED house. This usually entails TED getting a keg, putting on some loud music, and ... sitting in the kiddy-pool drinking beer and screaming about how much TED rulez. An amusing side note involded the flyers for such a party - they would say "Party at TED house" or something, but not include any info as to the date or address. About a half-hour or so after the party starts, sometimes Beth (from Beta-Epsilon-Theta, a local sorority) wanders in the front door, makes her way over to the keg (ignoring Ted), and pumps herself a beer. She'll nurse that beer for about twenty minutes, leave the half-full plastic cup on some random surface, and cut out early. Alone. Often, Ted will get so drunk at one of these flings that he'll pass out, and need to drag himself over to the phone to call his own ambulance. It was agreed that the local ambulance company always gave that call to the newest dispatcher.

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It's not all mindless screaming though. Sometimes the TED house gets quiet and contemplative. Imagine Ted sitting on one of the plain wooden chairs that came with the TED house, sipping his beer in an alcohol-induced state of contemplation. This frozen stupor of intense contemplation is interrupted only when Ted announces as he takes another drink, "Dude, Beth is hot".

Oh, and I forgot the horns. Ted's always throwing up the horns.

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Put down for posterity by Eldritch Gaiman
with additional recollections by Don Ian of Tadcaster
December AS XL (2005)