Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Insanity at the beach-themed summer party. Somebody has parked a particularly sweet El Camino outside and once inside the loft I can’t help but start looking for Richard Prior. Because clearly someone’s dedication to summer fun has outdone my own: there is actually sand in a corner and a makeshift bar, with a bartender, who is not Richard Prior, sadly, but just some guy from my vantage point. A band has set up in the meticulously-created sand zone, and immediately they begin playing songs from an album I had been listening to earlier at a friend’s apartment, an album which I suggested we bring along with us, as we take over the stereo to play monotonous DJ. Every wish granted, clearly, Brewster’s Millions-style.

Through the throngs and over to the inebriation station, to where there is a small que of rowdy revelers assembled, waiting for a refill. I see an acquaintance in line who has heard a rumor that I’m recruiting for a non-existent, but very well should, bicycle gang (would be titled, BUI Gang, with the headline, “You won’t be needing a bottle-holder”). I play dumb and go along with it. “I’ll definitely get you on the list,” I tell him, before heading in the direction of the dance floor, sand in my shoes and a beach ball bouncing above my head. Dancing in an alcohol-induced fervor, with anyone and everyone. The winter is long and pulverizing, these people would relate, and now it was over. It seemed like as good of an excuse as any to whoop it. Not that anyone was asking.

The crowd finally thins and my dance moves whirr to a stop. I see some guy sitting down on the edge of the sand pit and try to direct him to a couch which doesn’t exist. “Are you OK?” I ask him, as he stumbles off, away.

Outside of doors and into the night with some girl who has agreed to drive me home. I cross my fingers that she is the owner of the El Camino, but once outside I remember that Richard Prior was probably still upstairs on the dance floor, white-suited and afroed, dolling out the fruits of summer fun and virtue.

I still have my Hawaiian lei on and zinc on my nose, I realize, and am amazed that anyone would actually find me acceptable material to drive home right at the moment. But then you never can underestimate the awesomeness of your own dance moves.

Inside the car, the girl is looking for a CD. She fingers through a case before settling on her jam and puts it on the stereo. It is invariably something from the dark metal genre but nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s probably not the couth thing to do, but for some reason I can’t help but laugh at her bad taste right at the moment. Nordic dark metal is probably the antithesis of summer fun and jubilation, and I just can’t get into that variety of seasonal opposition at the moment. She gets uncomfortable and I try and stop, but it has already gotten the best of me. The uncomfortable soon turns to anger, which makes me laugh even more. It’s the whole cut-up-in-the-back-of-the-class syndrome. This girl has clearly suffused this music as the locus of her persona, and she thinks I’m laughing at her, which from one point of view I objectively am. She turns it up louder, as I tell her I’ll just get out here, thanks. But she has taken to ignoring me and blazes way past where I want her to stop. Oh, man, I think: see what happens when you accept a ride with strangers. One minute you’re en route to somewhere potentially more stimulating, and the next thing you know you’re afraid for your life. Clearly she is going to drive me to the tracks and carry out obscure acts of torture to the soundtrack of Norwegian dark metal.

Finally, after creating a near-Homeric odyssey for me to complete in this state of inebriation, she skids off the side of the road and instructs me to depart. “Get out,” I believe, may have been the parting sentiment, before peeling out, and leaving me a haggard but still giggling mess on the side of the road. Oh, well that’s just great, I say to the fading car, raising my fist in the air for effect—really first rate! And if all that wasn’t bad enough, I was a little under half way home when I realized I had lost my lei.