Sunday, September 21, 2008

'We Were Just College Students Having Fun and Acting Stupid'

Well, if you're going to act stupid, don't brag about it on MySpace.

Knuckleheads.
A youthful attempt to party their way to popularity and some exaggerated MySpace boasting have turned into a $320,000 tax nightmare for five current and former University of Central Oklahoma students.

“This is crazy,” said Julius Baroi, co-founder of Kegheadz, a loosely organized Edmond-based party business. “The Tax Commission claims we owe more than $300,000. We don't have enough money between us to pay $6,000 to hire an attorney. They won't listen to us.”

Paula Ross, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Tax Commission, said she couldn't comment on an individual taxpayer's case.

Although the Tax Commission wants to tax Kegheadz like a million-dollar business, Kegheadz was really just a group of college guys who got together to throw parties, said Baroi, 29, and co-founder Jordan Glover, 23.

Overall, Baroi estimates Kegheadz only netted about $1,700.

Tax officials got the wrong idea because of embellishments on the Kegheadz MySpace Web site that boasted things like “Over a billion served,” “Biggest party in the state,” and “Biggest party in the country,” Glover said.

But that was just “exaggerated hype” designed to create a buzz and attract people to the parties, Glover said.

The group threw 22 parties in Edmond and Oklahoma City in 2006 and the first half of 2007, Baroi said.

The goal was to meet college women and hopefully make enough money to pay their personal bar tabs, Glover said.

“It wasn't a career choice,” he said. “The goal was to have fun in college. Being a cool guy was the main objective.... You'd think they could tell we weren't masterminds. We were just college students having fun and acting stupid.”
Meeting women and drinking for free are certainly worthy endeavors, and I must admit both were pursuits during my college years. Thanks goodness we didn't have the Internet back then to boast about it.

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