Grease Pole thieves send Festivus email to students

U of T’s Brute Force Committee sends mass email to Queen’s students with “Hotline Bling” parody video and postcard featuring the Grease Pole

Image supplied by: The Brute Force Committee
The Brute Force Committee parodies Drake's Hotline Bling music video.

Queen’s engineering students received a taunting mass email from U of T’s Brute Force Committee (BFC) early this week.

As previously reported, the Grease Pole was stolen by BFC less than two days after it was climbed by first-year students on Sept. 13. BFC has released a list of demands in exchange for the Grease Pole’s return. Throughout the fall semester, BFC has been releasing images of the Grease Pole via press releases on their website.

With the subject line titled “A Festivus for the Rest of Us”, the message read as follows:

Hello fellow engineers,

We hope you enjoyed some time off with your family and friends. We here at U of T wanted wish you all a belated Happy Festivus. In return for generously letting us keep your mascot for so long, we wanted to pass along this message from our good friend Slippery Pete:

 

Here is a little holiday jingle to get you in the spirit. By the way, we still need to find a good time to have our gift exchange. We’re SO excited to give you your gift: it’s a big one. You can find our wish list here to give you an idea of what we’re looking for this year.

Hoe hoe hoe,

Mario Baker

Newark, New Jersey

BFC attached a Youtube link in the email to a “Hotline Bling” parody video created by the group. In the video, members of BFC mimic Drake’s dance moves while a disguised, deep voice sings about having the Queen’s Grease Pole to the tune of “Hotline Bling”.

BFC also attached a link to the list of “ransom” demands on their website in exchange for the Grease Pole. The list remains unchanged, still asking for the 22 demands set out from the previous press release by BFC.

The outlined demands include “a filmed re-enactment of “The Strike” episode of Seinfeld (the Festivus episode)”, “a notarized, legally binding agreement to refer to the Grease Pole as “Slippery Pete” in all future communications and publications” and a “recording of Queen’s Frosh singing the Pole-ish national anthem”.

Alex Wood, Sci ’16, vice president of Student Affairs for the Engineering Society (EngSoc), told The Journal via email that EngSoc does not negotiate with prankers.

Though Wood says EngSoc hasn’t forgotten about their “large yellow friend”, he couldn’t reveal any plans to retrieve the Grease Pole.

“Unfortunately, I cannot divulge the Society’s current efforts to retrieve our stolen friend, as I am sure agents of the Brute Force Committee (BFC) will be reading this very article,” he wrote.

Wood added that he has confidence that the Grease Pole will be back in Engineering Society hands by next Orientation Week.

“I have no doubt that our engineering students would find an inventive way to instill the same values of comradery [sic] between all engineers, and the importance of teamwork that the Grease Pole event provides the incoming class.”

When asked about the “Hotline Bling” parody video, Wood said he thought it was an “impressive audio-visual experience”.

“I imagine it took a lot of time and effort by the Brute Force Committee during what must have been a busy time of year,” he wrote.

“Guess it goes to show that U of T engineers make a lot more time to pursue non-academic passions during finals than Queen’s engineers who spent the time studying.”

Tags

Brute Force Committee, EngSoc, Grease Pole, U of T

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