a cool California winter in Portland Oregon...

Last night was such a tilt-o-whirl blur of drunken decisions and DJ driven dance precision that even the strongest of double mary brunches still leaves me reaching for a solid string of events to latch on to. So allow me a moment or two to finish this drink and take in the foreign surroundings in which I find myself this morning and then join me friends: An odyssey of soul.
MMMMMMM. For only fifty extra cents why take anything but Peppar? For those who know. Alright I remember now. Which only proves my theory that there's no sleeping demon or blackout dwelling "oops" that a good two Bloody Marys can't knock loose. Which is why I'm getting a third, cause now that I know I can't wait to forget. Based on my notes and the strange taste in my mouth I've started to deduce just exactly what Past Uptown was up to. We'll start from the bottle of cheap wine and work our way slowly to a crisp morning in SE Portland with a pocket full of garlic. The rest of my crew was headed to a Sexy Pants B-Day sit down soiree. I on the other hand was feeling the need to groove so gullet tucked with wine I headed off to the first party: 9th AND prescott.
Ahhhh crustiez. On entering this party I thought of my cohort and comrade Chips Down(presently on sabbatical) as he speaks fluent crust and I, at most, am only a promising beginner in the dialect. Luckily they had an interpreter on hand so I enlisted it's international skills of providing familiarity to the unfamiliar; fluency to the affluent. After the beer bong I went forth into the mingle. A strange breed these Portland crustiez. Much less intimidating than those with which I have dealt in the past. I suppose in all honesty that they are actually anarchopunx or rather post-apocalyptic bike heathens.
Vanilla Ice was playing and I didn't see a single mad dog stare in the place. There was the one dude, large and bulky; his beard and bald combo startled me from afar-but I quickly realized that he had merely passed out while standing and was in the process of falling onto the couch. The entire time I was there these three girls were chanting what at first I took to be belligerent nonsense but later realized was a belligerent rendition of a song, as follows: "I'm fucked up in my brain; I'm gonna fucking kill you." I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure that's what they were screaming. Every room they'd enter soon cleared with awkward "Who the fuck are these girls" glances. Which brings me to my next observation. There was an alarming amount of questionably clean college girls hanging on the crust punks. This proves my long standing it's cool to be poor theory in which I'm akin to Miles Davis walking a harem of white girls into the green room full of high grade primo while Sinatra's puking in the gutter outside.
I was outside standing around with a few friends checking out a gay BDSM catalogue when the cops rolled up. Immediately the guests were up in arms yapping about such nonsense as "private residence" and "it's only ten thirty" and "do they really need two cop cars?" The answer to all of these is no. Shut up.

Cop Etiquette in the party-sphere: Minors! Go inside and don't be stupider! Now that that's taken care of...Hello officer. Oh? Too loud? Yeah. I'll tell the guys to turn it down. Hunh? Oh it's a birthday/going away/who cares just lie party. Yeah? Well we like to throw a lot of [party type] here since most of our friends go to college and live in dorms. I don't know...I guess they just like being able to focus on school. Yeah. Well we'll keep it down. Thanks for relaying our neighbor's passive aggression in a calm and utterly professional manner. Yes sir. Thank you very much, you have a good night too.

Alright! That's it. Simple enough. Now nothing actually went down but I thought I might throw that in for anybody who lives in a land of illusion where cops can't just come into a house and arrest everybody in there. Because they can, will, and ultimately: yes. They want to. So don't give them any more reason to do so by lipping off to them. Thanks. So the free beer ended and the Franzia was hitting my gut wrong. I called up Party Steve(yeah that guy) and checked on the status. For those of you who don't know, Party Steve is like the friendly Quaker that helps run away slaves, or rather drunken misfits in this instance, get to the free north/a more hopping party. So here we go. Alone...Here I go.
The bus is the sort of switch between realities where Nike shoes and Columbia Sports Wear jackets mean 'broke' and 'dead-up' instead of 'cool' and 'employed'. I prefer the MAX on all accounts but when inconvenient the bus will just have to do, as it did. A man wearing some old Jordans and a Nike fleece hoodie tied tight around the waist with a fanny pack tried to strike up a nervous and awkward conversation with the lady sitting next to me by informing her that she had dropped something: a gooey snot rag to be specific. Gross. They seemed to hit it off.
12 AND madison. At this point I've had to shit for quite some time and decide that I'd just do it at the party and when the ladies that've been knocking on the door are all "What took you so long?" I'll just use the golden oldie of "Sorry. I was doing coke." and of course I'll throw in a "That...Wasn't me" just for good measure. This party was what we in the industry like to call: Bumping. At first it was all Lewis and Clark kids but the masses were soon to follow and then the free for all broke loose. The pantry was raided, old dudes were saucing young ladies, the DJ was playing Spankrock(!!!!), and some girl actually grabbed my crotch while we were dancing! Can you believe the nerve? Now we've all had our fair share of ass taps and maybe the occasional nipple tugs, but this was just plain uncalled for. However flattering she may have thought it would be.
This DJ was good; playing everything from Of Montreal to Prince. Though while standing in the bathroom line staring out onto the dance floor I started thinking about these frumpy and strange moves everybody was doing. Now I'm no Timberlake or anything but when 2 live crew comes on I feel confident that I can shake it down with the decent amongst them. What is an acceptable dance these days? Somebody? Any body? To the best of my reasoning I can only guess that this jumping arm swinging hip jamming is at best contrived and at worst...post modern. I just can't help but romantically fantasize sometimes about somebody making a real dance again. Like the mash potato or the twist even. That seems in good taste.
At around four the inevitable trance started in and my spirits waned. I started remembering key bits of my life like the fact that I live in the NE and I don't have a car. I could always wait and catch the first bus but I drank all of my currency much earlier in the evening and thus had no bus fare and no more barter worthy goods for the cab goers. One dude offered me some trunk space which I heartily accepted but his posse ended up going to another party. I just couldn't. I was done. I checked in and met the tenant of the house before scoring prime real estate on the couch and holding fast throughout the drunken goodbyes and heavy blaring Van Halen till finally I felt it was safe to remove my shoes and get comfy with the down blanket that had been generously left to one side of the couch.
Ahhh yes. This crunchy morning reminds me of my old summer home in hobodum. Waking up. Man versus wild hangover. Snag somebody else's apple from the snackery/fruit bowl in their kitchen and head off into the bright in search of bloody marys and a side of eggs. How did I get the money you ask? Karma. I decided against stabbing kittens so the cash fairy looked kindly down upon me and dumped some funds into my account. Rejoice. Uptown!