Party Chronicles

So my buddy and I decide to hit up downtown on a fun, exciting, and cold Thursday night. The night goes really well (from what I remember), but I don’t actually remember getting a drink. It was shots the entire night. It sounded like a good plan at the beginning, but I would later end up regretting it. Post downtown, I end up stumbling drunk to my car. Obviously in no state of being able to drive, I pop open my trunk to get an emergency Gatorade and down it. Then I open my backseat car door and decide it’s a good idea to sleep there until the morning. The thought of calling a cab didn’t even cross my mind.

I wake up from my stupor around 5 am shivering. It is incredibly cold outside and in my car. I decide it’s a good time to drive home now that I’m sober albeit hungover. I get a few more hours of sleep and then go to work.

Cliff notes

• Thursday night downtown
• Shots, shots, shots
• Decide it’s a good idea to sleep in my car
• Wake up and realize it was a really bad idea
• Happy Fridays at work the next day

1. Sweet Ass Venue. You think this should go without saying, but it gets overlooked more often than you did at your junior high dance during that one sweet slow song everyone secretly wanted to shuffle feet to. Do you want it on a boat? In a club? At a House? On top of a Mountain? The possibilities are endless and so should your creativity be. Keep in mind what kind of party you are looking to throw here. If its just you and 10 of your friends sitting in a warehouse drinking malt liquor you may as well go ahead and light a trash can fire because just like a homeless person, your party reeks of despair and alcoholism.

2. Party favors, and lots of them. Here is the fork in the road for a lot of good parties. You have a choice to make here, the party can go one route and you undoubtedly have a good time or, you can decide you want more than that. You good sir, want EVERYONE to have a good time. On the one hand you can buy 50 cases of keystone light, wear khaki shorts, a neon shirt, and bro it up. On the other hand you can half that and buy 25 cases of keystone light (hey it’s still a recession) and use the rest to get liquor, JELL-O, and champagne. People will appreciate that the only people drinking keystone are the ones chest bumping and hi-fiving. I know you want to run the table at beerpong but don’t worry, drink selection is all about first impressions. Showing up to a party and grabbing a keystone light out of the fridge by choice is like saying “hey, I’m going to pass out in your ditch later”. Showing up to a party and pouring yourself a scotch & water is like a lion roaring in the jungle saying “hey, I’ll see you at sunrise”.

3. Costumes. Oh what’s that you say? It’s not Halloween? Consider yourself uninvited. There’s no stupid questions, only people who are not invited to my party. If anyone asks you why you would want a costume party simply ask them if they have ever been on a boat with a ghostbuster, a cop wearing little more than a badge, and the entire cast of caddy shack. When they say “no”, tell them they’re going to get the exact same response when they try to attend your party, “no”. Costumes give people a chance to act like they’re 9 years old again hopped up on caffeine and stuck in the ball pit. You no longer feel responsible for any actions (aka mistakes) you make while wearing a costume cause hey, it wasn’t me, it was batman. If you need any more explanation than this or for me to spell it out any clearer for you I’ll be over here, hanging out with wonder woman, not listening.

4. People. Obviously. Start making a list, what kind of people do you want there? What kind of ratio? Hopefully if you’re reading this you’re not thinking to yourself “what does he mean by this ratio he speaks of”. Find your older brother and ask him, I’m not here to pander to the 3rd graders; this is a class for champions. Here is also where you need to take a good hard look in the mirror. Are you the type of person who is going to invite a few people and end up with the fire marshal coming to your house at 5am? Or do you need to over invite and hope that you get a 60% turnout? Be honest with yourself cause hey, even if you are the latter, I still applaud you for trying. Just don’t be mad when you get thrown in the pool.

5. Invitations. This is the 21st century, so act like it. If you put balloons on your mailbox in some sort of quasi “X marks the party spot” fashion I will physically drive over there and pop them. Snail mail is only associated with people asking for money, and the last I heard the IRS doesn’t throw raging parties. You could call or text all of your invites but then you have to be able to respond, and you might not exactly be able to recall who “Frank the Tank” is in your contacts. I recommend email. It’s fast, you only have to write it once, and you get an accurate head count of who’s coming. Programs such as MyNewsletterBuilder and VerticalResponse are great options when it comes to sending out mass invites. Plus, if your party hits that certain legitimacy reserved only for holidays involving fireworks and green rivers, you can send out a monthly newsletter recounting the debauchery and preparing people for next year since you have surely created an annual event. Bonus points if your party leads to me getting a holiday someday.

So it starts out like a bad joke. A Texan, two guys from New York, and a kid from the Virgin Islands walk into a bar in New Orleans. Were gonna Tarantino it and fast forward a year later and say we all became roommates, this story is probably why. After a night out Uptown at Tuck’s ($3 pitcher night) the we are walking back to their dorms. Next thing we know we start hearing some random yelling coming from a window on the second story of the house we were walking past. Turns out the yelling was directed at us. After a slew of derogatory terms thrown our way we finally decided to stop and ask what the problem was since, afterall, we had no idea who this person was or what their issue was with us.

Upon stopping and looking up towards the window the we begin to notice bottles flying down at us. As fast as we could possibly avoid the onslaught of bottles (not very fast, did I metion $3 picthers?) one of the New Yorkers in the group happened to get slashed on his arm. Thoroughly pissed the we start running towards the house. Next thing we know an iron, cord and all, is thrown at us landing just inches from me. The Virgin Islander has had enough at this point and begins to light one of the trashbags outside of the house on fire. Once lit, he grabs the can the trashbag is in and starts racing towards the front door launching the flaming bag into the iron tosser’s house. Obviously pissed the iron tosser and his roommates run out of the house with a fire extinguisher and amongst the white fog begin swinging. After several hundred failed punches from both sides (drunk punching in a cloud of smoke is near impossible) the cops begin to show up. All parties take off running with the iron tossers/fire extinguishers retreating inside.

After failing to evade the cops we are finally detained. Fearing the New Orleans jail the largest member of the group falls to the group and begins rolling around yelling “I’m having and asthma attack! I’m having an asthma attack!”. Unimpressed the officer taps the large drunk with his boot and proclaims “I have asthma, you don’t, get up”. Defeated the young man rises to his feet. After explaining the absurd story, it actually becomes validated when the cops see the remains of what used to be an iron and a fire extinguisher lying on the street next to the house. With a sigh, the cops allow us to return home and sleep off what they claim is “one of the luckier nights you all will have in this city”.

Cliff notes

• Attacked by iron

• Light trash on fire

• Throw trash into house

• Attacked by fire extinguisher

• Discover its difficult to land a punch in extinguisher fumes

• Fake asthma attack

Wake up confused

I was on my way to Panama City when a small portion of our group (8 of us) decided to stop in New Orleans. I actually got this idea from my boss, so thanks WGK. I managed to book a hotel on Bourbon Street for $100 so that was fantastic. As soon as we arrived and unpacked, we went and got frozen daiquiris. We had actually stopped in Baton Rouge to get drive-thru daiquiris but in my excitement I had forgotten that it was Sunday. We got dinner (fried alligator + crawfish pasta = A+) and then got hand grenades afterwards. Besides the loads of sugar every drink in New Orleans contains, they are damn tasty.

We decide to hit up some bars. Then, the DJ at the bar we’re at goes on about how some bars close at 2, some at 4, but in New Orleans this bar NEVER closes….wait what? You mean I can drink at a bar until the sun comes up? FREAKIN SWEET! Anyway, one of my buddies gets brought up on stage and is asked to sing the “white boy” lyric of Play that funky music. He does it in the most unemotional way ever, and the black singer goes: “dude I know you’re white, but we’re brothers man!” Everyone stars busting out laughing and then the singer asks my friend to sag his jeans. This is when the ladies start hollering for him (damn I wish I would’ve gone up there now). He sings some more, and more girls talk about how cute he is. By this time, I’m incredibly drunk and head to bed at midnight. So bars don’t close but I go pass out by midnight. I really need to get my priorities straight…

Cliff Notes

• Boss suggests for me to go to New Orleans

• Frozen daiquiris, purple people eaters, hand grenddes, etc.

• Find out bars never close

• Black man tells my white friend they’re brothers

• Pass out by midnight

So it was a Wednesday night, and I was attending my first Rave party at Karma Lounge in downtown Austin with a couple of friends. My friends and I were standing outside when a girl (let’s call her Callie) walked up to my friend Kevin and said hello. They apparently knew each other. Kevin asked her how her pet ferret was doing, and she replied, “Oh, he’s in the car right now! Wanna see him?” So Kevin, my other friends and I walked over to her car. Callie opens the door and we see a bag that looks about the size of a lunch bag. She opens it and pulls out a small, limp, dead-looking ferret named Paco. I’m pretty sure I gasped…..then tried to hide the fact that I did. Someone asks where she got the ferret from. She says, “Oh, my boyfriend stole him for me from Petland!” Everyone says, “OMG, how did he steal him??” She explains how her boyfriend had pulled the ferret out of a ferret cage, discretely hid him under his jacket and walked out.

Noticing the limpness and closed eyes of the ferret, Kevin asks, “Is the ferret more lively during the day?” She replies, “Oh, yeah, definitely. He’s just stoned right now. That’s why he looks like that.”

Noticing the ferret’s thin body, another friend asks, “What do you usually feed him?” Callie replies, “Usually a lot of lunchmeat. He likes lunchmeat.”

Weirded out, my friends and I say bye to Callie and tell her we’ll see her inside the club. So, we walked into Karma Lounge. The music was sweet, sweet music. There were two awesome girl DJs, both spinning hot house beats. One of them was a friend of one of my friends. The other one was inside a room with shag carpets, lounge couches and crazy jumping raver kids with rave lights and glow sticks. All of a sudden, Callie walks into the shag carpet/raver kids room. One of my friends yells, “Hey, it’s Paco!”

Everyone else says “WHAT??!?!?!” And lo and behold, Callie had on a messenger bag with Paco’s ferret head sticking out of the top of it. She then proceeds to dance provocatively on the dancefloor to the loud music with the stoned ferret bobbing up and down inside the messenger bag. When she’s starts to dance to hard, she hands the bag to one of her friends to take care of.

THIS WAS LITERALLY THE CRAZIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.

Cliff’s Notes:
1. Girl leaves pet ferret in her car while she goes to a club.
2. We find out that ferret was stolen by her boyfriend from Petland and that it supposedly eats lunchmeat.
4. We find out that ferret is also stoned (as is the girl who brought ferret).
5. Girl brings ferret into club inside messenger bag.
6. Girl dances with ferret in messenger bag.
7. We fear for ferret’s life.