SE 49th and Hawthorne

At first I was fooled by this wild and weird decoy party on the actual intersection stated above where freaky hipsters were jamming to WHAM! wearing crazy costumes and pinned up with name tags. No booze. Questionable cool level. Dubious patrons. But then I saw the friend who had told me about the party walking by outside and went to talk to her. She let me in on the fact that the real party was right next door and so I ditched out of that sham fest. I stepped onto the porch and knew immediately that this would be a strange and anxious pre-party crowd. They had already cliqued off and were having whisper jams while eyeing the other guests who were doing the same thing. Willie, my friend from Oakland, and just come up to visit his brother and so he was down here packing some downers and buying me a forty. Thanks Willie, vicodin always spices up a night. There was black bean dip on the snack table and the house was well carpeted…it was clean which I’ve realized is a regional staple that frankly I’m not completely used to yet. I still sometimes bottle a disturbed urge to spit on floors. Save it for the basement D.C. and so I did. Captured by Porches was serving up the pricey DIY brews and though I didn’t buy one this time due to an extreme state of wallet decadence I’ve come to know as my life I will still wholly recommend the venture because honestly: that’s damn good beer and it’ll get you more drunk than that case of Pabst you’ll be buying regardless. I could hear the music. Eighties jams. Typical, but I suppose not yet out of trend. Though really folks let’s just let the future be now and start getting back to 2 Live Crew and The 69 Boyz because we all know that deep down we really do want to just Scrub Da Ground. The basement was a crazy land of equality where frat-boys, punks, estranged weirdos and predominant hipsters could share the dance floor with glass-shattering freedom. By that I mean people were breaking glasses left and right thus forcing the few hippies who had walked barefoot from their South Eastern adobe castles to the upper domicile where they could stand in peace. Rejoice. All of the sudden however the speakers became propaganda machines for the sad nostalgia held by aging ravers and the incessant trance grooves drove me out and into the night to scout out the next party:

35th and Knott

Fashionable, rude, and fueled by cocaine. The cliques were cordial but generally jittering jaws and beady eyes made aggressive hellos half masking the paranoid sort of tight lipped tantrum just waiting to rage out into the dance floor (which in the mean while was tyrannically besieged by cell phones and laptops permanently set on myspace like an 8 track fused with the last Niel Diamond piece ever released on that medium). The hosts were very nice and one of them even sketched a portrait of me on the dining room wall! Immortalized baby! Hot! Best pass out award goes to that dude laying on the back patio with his head hanging off the edge half slumped over a rusty Old Smoky grill. When questioned on the level of comfort he was experiencing he had this to say: “Yeah…I’m great here.” I then asked him if he had puked before passing out to which he replied no. In actuality however I’d been outside when he toppled through the masses and tripped over the grill while the puke was spewing forth from his lips. The end result was this giant lump of dude that I have just describe. It was cold. I was tired. I went home. But on a separate note Portland. Allow me to make a call. A call for kegs. I don’t know. Maybe there’s some sort of taboo against them that I just haven’t heard of yet. Honestly though if you can get ten people together and they all throw ten bucks down you can get a keg, which brings what I like to call: The Backyard Rage Jam! Better yet, get your ten people and all throw fifteen to twenty then you can get two kegs. One of which is the reserve and the other is out in the open. When the first keg dies you go around and be like we need money for another keg! In my experience people will throw down if you have a pretty lady hassle them enough…or a drunken bro dawg, for that matter has a similar effect, then you just bring out your reserve and it’s like you only bought one! Awesome. Maybe when I get some funds together I’ll throw a nice kegger just to show ya’ll how it’s done. Once we get that did we can work on bringing back “theme” parties which every kid in town seems to be down with but just don’t work when you can’t supply a gross amount of FREE beer. Kisses and love kids. I’m out.