Permanent Cripples, Failed Seekers...

Come summertime this blog declines, because instead of sitting here typing I am out there doing face to face.
That is a terrible lie, but it's true.
This place exists as a conduit for my lightnings, and in the mean time I cram it with obligatory filler - musings, music, miniscule daily things.
In between the lightning.
The one thing I avoid on my blog is retelling a story from my day - My day, not my experiences, but my actions. I've already done them, and during the summer days anything I've done that'd be worth writing about is probably done in the company of the people who would read this damn thing in the end.
But something, god, something has to go here or I just end up working all day and doing nothing all night.
So. Gonzo journalism. Or rather, "narrative non-fiction". I want to try and be the writer I idolize, and if I can fake the personality over to you folks at the same time it'll just be the second bird.
Somewhere between an essay and a diatribe, between journalism and opinion. Part drug-fueled stream of consciousness, part tailored calculated message. Autobiographical, to be sure, but not focused on ME so much.
I don't want to report on the happenings of the night. I want to show you the happenings I saw.

>As soon as we pulled to a stop, I leapt out of the truck and gathered my things. The ride to the party was enough to drive a man to drink, which was good, because it fulfilled its purpose perfectly. It certainly helped set the tone of the night – although, as I was soon to find out, everyone there would have given you a different answer as to what the tone actually was.
In the meanest sense, it was to be Kaitlin Wright’s 20^th birthday party.
Facebook had been whipping us all into a frenzy for a week now, offering tiny thumbnails of the strangers we would be mingling and competing with and for. The guest list set my teeth on edge, as did the merciless enthusiasm. Girls calling each other “gurl” is a warning sign of the highest caliber. There was a definite divide. We knew this going in. I packed accordingly.

We were stationed in Haiku, so I wore a jacket that I immediately took off. The plan was to get terrifically drunk outside near a fire, then retire to our tents. Lacking a tent, I was faced with the only other option: Get so drunk I couldn’t tell the difference. To meet my brain halfway I was armed with a sleeping bag and a pillow from home. To meet the ground halfway, I was armed with a personal bottle of Ketel One supplied by my driver and accidental nemesis. I owe that man sixteen dollars eventually.

Apprehension gripped me as I strode towards the light of an open garage. No recognizable soul was in sight. Was I making a dreadful mistake? I didn’t even like Kaitlin, regardless of how Jesus Lord! large her house was turning out to be. Haiku houses have a disconcerting tendency to stretch into the darkness, and I was fumbling blindly around for several minutes before I located the comforting sounds of people I knew being raucous.

A door I hadn’t seen before blew open and I was greeted by friends lugging a large water cooler. A fleeting wave and empty congratulations went to the birthday girl in her sparkling tiara, - which I instantly planned to and eventually did steal and equip during the course of the night – but my soul needed comforting, so I followed Roland and William. This was the lauded “Jungle Juice”, a perennial college concoction favorite and reason for my personal pure bottle of booze. Designed by students for students, this mixture has the express purpose of removing layers of clothing off of women - by the taste of it, via a chemical process that eats away at fabric. Throughout the night, it was assigned various pet names, usually involving a combination of a name for the ruler of that dark place below and a bodily fluid of choice.
The drinking began immediately following my swift assessment of fellow partygoers. It had been some time since I had gotten truly belligerent, so my enthusiasm was emphatic that night. Having had each test conversation turn belly up within the first few minutes (usually ending with my talking partner running away screaming about “Those eyes! That horrible vacant stare at my jugular!” or something similar), I had no other purpose at that party but to capsize myself and anyone stupid enough to fall into my gravitational field.

People-watching is a sport, and if anyone tells you otherwise it’s a good tip off to sidle away before they start talking to you about Popular Sports Team or Popular Band.
People-watching while drunk is a contact sport, and if anyone tells you otherwise it’s a good chance to grab their shoulders and shout at them about their vile life choices until they pry themselves loose. It’s the only way they’ll learn.


Later in the night, after I had both pissed off of a high altitude location that will remain undisclosed and stolen a priceless plastic tiara, I became entangled in and subsequent god-emperor ruler of the treehouse, which was a dark and shadowed land. I had to, given the circumstances. People kept adding more fire to the fire, which is a terrible strategy when you aren’t drunk enough to forgive people for being so damn ugly all the time.

Thankfully I had comic relief the entire night provided by David, who cradled his atrocious cheap wine bottle to his chest like a newborn, assuring concerned patrons that he was not in fact chronically depressed but merely a merlot aficionado. We smoked taquitos like cigars, and cigarettes like cigarettes, and drank vodka like water and water like vodka and Jungle Juice like it was Uranium which is to say we did not drink very much of that.

Some damn fool had the audacity to bring a vegetable platter, whether as a cruel joke or honest ignorance I do not know. We fed them to the dog and carried on our violent and timid sexual advances. People made moves on people and people were made moves upon and a good time was had by 66% of everyone. Eventually it began to rain and the whores were washed away, leaving equally vacant empty seats in their stead. I broke a chair or two, but that was alright because nobody was using it but me.

The night continued on in perfect blurry vision, as valuable belongings got soaking wet and people got slightly more sober. A desperate round of tricksy shots bought me another half hour of observation time as I took mental notes of my surroundings, eager to overturn any remaining stone in the hopes that someone had hidden something, anything, interesting and new. Everyone assured one another how much they really loved you, man, lets keep doing these damn things. Frantic mental checklists were ticked as people stopped thinking about the moment and began to plan and/or worry and/or remember/suffer about the future again, which was distressingly nearer this side of four in the morning and full of annoying emotion.

Tents were thrown out both metaphorically and literally. The conflagration was put to sleep and we made a mass exodus to the house, sleeping guardians be damned. Like refugees we huddled together, clutching at whatever we had managed to blindly grab. Some of the more forward thinking among us held water bottles and a sound investment in tomorrow. The most optimistic but foolish among us (myself included among these poor souls) held one last stand in the stark fluorescence of the same garage where it had all started. A kindhearted if innocent girl tried to snatch my cigarettes away from me first by force, then by guile.

I had to dodge her well meaning lunges both verbal and physical while defending my cargo. It was during this dance that I finally caught sight of myself in the hood of a well-polished riding mower currently containing two Zaleski twins. Disheveled hair, an almost palpable aura of disbelief and sangfroid, and (I was particularly pleased to note) a broken cigarette hanging out my mouth a la Every Anime Character Ever. So entranced was I by my own countenance it gave my opponent time to close ground and throw a perfectly good vintage pack of American dream Marlboros into the bushes. I drew myself up to my full imperious drunken height of twenty feet, ready to deliver a fierce oration linking artistic merit and all around fantasticness with massive tobacco consumption vis a vis If it was good enough for Vonnegut, it was damn well good enough for me and who are you to take away my basic, nay, sole human right to publicly and noisily destroy my body….

When exhaustion kicked in and I deflated, instantly losing all magic and beauty the night had ever held. A shriveled husk of my former jubilant self crawled quietly to my bedroll, bivouacked between a costly coffee table and a couch meant for no human to ever sit on. I slept like a king.

My driver awoke me three hours later at seven, informing me that he had church to go to. I briefly considered tagging along for comic effect, then stood up and declared that if I did not reach my bed within the time limit, not only would the planet Zebes explode, I was going to Murder. Everyone.

[Crazed laughter all around.]