The aftermath of my last party. Good times!
As for last second? Well, I had no plans on hosting a party, but a friend came in from Germany, and she asked if I would host a party for her since she'll be headed back to the land of Bratwurst and Beer in a week. We decided on it on Tuesday. It's now Thursday. So far, only about five people know about it. But more will informed as we get to Friday and Saturday.
I love and I hate hosting parties. I love hosting parties because, well, they're parties, and I DO love my parties. I hate hosting parties because I have to worry about noise violations, making sure nothing really terrible happens and, of course, the clean up, both pre and post party.
Thankfully, I did a pretty solid clean up job on my apartment a few weeks ago and it's stayed pretty "clean" in that time. Yes, I probably should dust and mop again and I have to find a place for all my dirty laundry since there's no way I'm going to plow through 10 loads of dirty clothes in a day. So in that respect, I don't have too much to do to make my apartment party-ready. Which is nice, because that's really the primary factor for my lack of party hosting.
The after-clean up also isn't awful, generally. Yes, sometimes, there are some nasty little surprises in the bathroom I have to deal with and the bottle and can count is always very high. But usually it's not something that a good hour of picking up can't handle.
Planning? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Planning!
I think I'm like most bachelors in that I don't generally do a lot of planning for my parties. I decide on a date for a party, sometimes a reason, and I let people know they should come on by for a celebration. As I said, I don't send out invitations. You know the ones you get in the email nowadays. Sometimes they have a little singing kitten wearing a party hat and balloons floating past. There's an address and a reason for the party and the time almost always says, 7pm until ???.
I've always been a fan of the question marks. It's a party hosts' wet dream, really. The question marks mean that the party could start at 7pm, but end at 9pm when the babysitter has to go home. Or it could mean it starts at 7pm on Friday night and ends when the last straggler has to pull their alcohol-soaked body out of the bathtub and get ready to go to work Monday morning. It's a mystery. And who doesn't love a mystery, right?
I prefer, when I DO send out little email invites, to say something like, "Party starts at 8-ish and ends when the sun comes up." This way, the party is limited to a single day. Plus, if everyone leaves at midnight, I have an excuse for sitting alone in the dark killing off the last of the Black Label. Hey, I said the party goes until sunrise, I might as well enjoy it.
Actually, I have a bit of a problem with deciding on party start times. In a perfect world, I'd start my parties around 8 oclock. But when I do that, I end up sitting around by myself until around 10 when my friends actually show up. Now, if I still have last minute cleaning to do, that's great. But if my place is all ready to go, then waiting until ten can seem like forever.
And I guess 10pm isn't very late to start a party. Most of the time when I go out on the weekends, I don't head out until 10pm, so starting a party that late isn't an issue, particularly for bachelors who plan for late nights when party's are the topic.
But what makes for a good bachelor party (and just to make sure you understand, I'm not talking about a party for a man destined for the executioner's axe that is marriage. I'm just talking about a party hosted by a bachelor). Well, first off, to be a good bachelor's party, there don't have to be animals, strippers or drugs involved. I mean, you can have them if you want, but they're not necessary.
This isn't to say I haven't been to some amazing parties involving animals, stripper and heavy drug use, sometimes all at the same time. To be fair, I've never been to a party with animals in the room inside the borders of the U.S. German and Mexico don't count because, let's face it, how many times do we all party in those two locations?
I've also been to parties with strippers, and, in all honesty, they're no more special than parties without strippers. In fact, they're more of a distraction because of all the rules you have to follow. No touching, no hanky panky, time limits and various other restrictions.
Debauchery Abounds:
Now, when it comes to drug use...well, let's just say I went to CU-Boulder and leave it at that. I remember once when I was working as a photographer in college, you know the guys. They went to the frat and sorority parties to take photos and then the company would come back and sell the photos to the partiers at highly increased prices. I went to a fraternity I had partied at several times before. It as was a well-known party house. There's a little moat in front and a volleyball court in the back. Every weekend you just KNEW there would be a great party going on in that place.
I walked in and was greeted by a couple of guys I knew and proceeded to wander around snapping photos that, if the parents ever saw them, would pull their kids out of school immediately. I took pics of students playing Beer slip n slide. Naked Mexicali, turbo quarters, beer olympics, which is just too complicated to explain, just know that debauchery ran wild.
I made my way downstairs to where a live band was playing. They sucked, but no one cared. People were dancing and lounging and drinking. Suddenly I was grabbed by the arm by this cute little blonde who I could barely hear over the music. She smiled and started dragging me into a room just off the main basement. She was slurring her words, but seemed very perky. I quickly found out why.
In the room stood, sat or knelt about five men and women, all gathered around a coffee table lined with cocaine. Urgently, one of the girls popped up from the table and said, "Goody, the photographer's here". I wasn't shocked by the drugs. I'd seen them, I'd used them, at parties from Boulder, to Fort Collins to Greeley. What shocked me was the fact that these people wanted me to take photos of them sniffing lines of coke off a crappy coffee table.
I asked them if they were sure, warned them against it and, eventually, just snapped a bunch of photos of them snorting lines in the basement of a fraternity house.
Oh, The Things I've Seen/And Done:
I've been to parties where people jumped off of rooftops into trees. I've been to parties where we did coke off the ass of a hot naked blonde. I've been to parties where people hung from the ceiling and somebody was doing welding in a corner. I've seen and done some crazy, stupid things at parties such as hitch a ride on the back of a firetruck (note to the kids, don't try this at home), I've seen a woman do things to a donkey I never, EVER want to see again (think Mexico), and I've started a party in one city and woken up, literally in the street in an entirely different city.
I once "borrowed" a pizza hut delivery sign off a car, stood on the rafters in an outdoor theater while drinking Jack Daniels, woken up in a swimming pool, under a bed and swung like Tarzan from one building to another full of beer and tequila. Those were all wonderful bachelor's parties.
Needless to say, my party this Saturday probably won't meet or exceed those experiences. But that's okay. I've done some amazingly stupid and dangerous things at parties. I'm feeling my mortality more and more lately and I probably won't be parking my car on the sidewalk against a stop sign like I did several years ago after a birthday party.
So what DOES pass as quality bachelor's party these days? Let me offer a humble list for your amusement.
1. Alcohol - You need lots of alcohol, preferably not all cheap beer, but fine tequila, whiskey, scotch, rum and vodka. You can bring the gin, but I won't be drinking it.
2. Women - Every good party has plenty of women. There are parties where it's acceptable to have only men at. Think a spiritual drum circle complete with Kivas and smoke cleansing. I don't go to those parties. While it's nice if the women present are all single and attractive, that's not a pre-requisite. Just having women in the room makes it a better party.
3. Music - Now this gets tricky. You don't want music that's too old, or too new or too weird. I put on my iTunes and try to keep it to a mix of new and old. But rest assured the old music isn't Pat Boone, it's generally classic rock that will always be considered party music. Whatever you play, make sure it has a good beat and doesn't get in the way of conversations. I once went to a party where they played nothing but South American tribal music. It was horrible. Although on a positive note, it did help me figure out who I didn't want to talk to. Anyone pretentious enough to actually extoll the virtues of how "worldly" the music was, was someone I knew I didn't want to talk to.
4. A big kitchen - I have a small kitchen. That sucks. Every kitchen becomes the gathering point for every party. Because my kitchen is so small it makes it hard to get to the alchol. I want a bigger kitchen.
5. A limited invitation list - I know this sounds contrary to a kick-ass party, but it's not. Stay with me. This is an instance of quality over quantity. I've had parties where too many people showed up. When that happens, things can get out of control pretty quickly. Plus, when there are than many people there, you don't have the time to spend with the people you really want to spend time with. Also, if that many people show up, the chances that someone you don't like shows up gets higher. I don't want people I don't like at my parties. I'd rather have fewer, but more fun people at my party.
There you have it. A list to commit to memory. The best parties, the most memorable ones are the ones that become an adventure, the ones where longtime memories are made.
A Different Beast:
The last party I hosted was my Halloween party last October. It was a smallish affiar but I enjoyed it immensely. It didn't last as long as some of my other parties, but we tore it up anyway. You can always tell how good a party was by counting the number of people passed out on the floor, or by the hotness of the women waking up on your couch or in your bed. Just saying.
Theme nights are fine, I enjoy them, but don't go overboard on them. I went to a Mad Men party for New Years Eve and it was great because it was mellow, but some of the costumes were fantastic. Listen, parties today aren't your father's party. You don't sit around mixing martini's and listening to pop records on the hi-fi. Good parties can get messy. Good parties are loud. Good parties create memories.
Now get out there and create some memories. I'll update you on the party next week.
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