 | Grown Ass Men and Women
Current mood:  chipper Let me tell you about the party. I'll tell you about the party that ends all parties. Let me tell you about the evening to end all evenings...about jokes and tokes, chicks and blokes, friends and home folks. Let me tell you of the endless vodka, the bottomless platters of food, the joints that would not end and the music that would not stop. This, my friends, is the story of the Grown Ass Man Party.
The evite, titled, "Somehow I became a grown ass man," is for Alan's 25th birthday. As this is a milestone, and as law school graduation is fast approaching, his parents decided to throw a bash for the occasion. And let me tell you something...Alan's family doesn't fuck around. At all. The evite lists 66 yeses, but we're probably talking a bit over 120 when you start counting the family members and family friends that never got the evite.
Hosted at the Fandorin restaurant in Burlingame, the venue is beautiful. One side of the restaurant/club are windows looking onto the water, tables are set up everywhere and there's a bar/dance floor at the front. At about 7:45, Julian, Cella, Sonya, Kelsey, Morty, Christina and myself roll in to find the first event of the night...a red wine social accompanied by the soft sounds of a jazz trio. Everyone's there...we're talking Miller, Masarsky, Avidor, Vic, Charles, Loesche, Fong, Ferrer, Lane, Arturro, Phil, Jordan, Will and Carew, JK, Dawson, Sandra, Derek and Mamie, Sutton, Mona, Vitaly, and really, I can go on, but who wants to read a list? Let's just say it was a reunion of sorts.
The tables are filled with the appetizers and strategically placed bottles of Ketel One. Everywhere. Everyone meets and greets for a bit, and about 8:15 or so we get the call to sit down. People start digging into the food...raw fish, cold meats, shrimp cocktail served in hollowed out pineapples, tomato and mozzarella salads, more vodka. People dig in while speeches are made, Alan's dad who tells of Alan's mom worrying that he had a non-existent social life in middle school, ironic considering the three full tables of friends that grace the event. Vic and Alan's mom give speeches, and then a bunch of people I either didn't know or don't remember.
By the time the main course arrives at the table, I'm 2/8 joints deep (don't ask me how I ended up with 8 rolled joints, it certainly wasn't my intention at the time I was rolling), and several drinks in. As people shoot vodka or mix it with orange juice or cranberry, I've secretly set up a private bar underneath my chair that consists of numerous cans of red bulls to mix with my vodka. I start getting drunker. More drunk. Whatever.
I think it's at this point that an unnamed couple goes outside to have sex. They leave soon after to head back to the city. Derek's looking shifty about this time, and the pictures I have prove it. The food comes out in droves, but everyone is a bit too fucked up to care about eating...in fact at this point, most of the concentration is on drinking, dancing or smoking outside. A moment of hilarity ensues when Sandra introduces herself to Christina as "devil woman," or something along those lines, which is a bit shocking to me considering I hadn't said anything negative to Christina about her...seems a bit overly self-persecuting (pitying?) as well. I think, "I'm Sandra" might have worked just as well. I watch from afar as they have a conversation, which I'm sure has Christina wondering why she wasn't able to avoid it when she was definitely trying to. I'd interrupt, but hey, really not my place!
At this point, the party turns into a haze. There's an amazing couple of moments as Dawson and Alan rip a drum duet to the delight of the entire crowd. They jam for a good ten minutes, ripping it apart. Crowd goes nuts.
More smoking, more drinking. DJ comes on and people start dancing. I remember one point, that sums up the extravagance of the evening well...I'm sitting at the table pouring myself a drink. I'm literally the only one sitting at a table, everyone else is up and about, dancing or outside. As I'm sitting there, I watch as four waiters start bringing out trays of cakes and desserts, placing them strategically throughout the tables. I look at all this food and realize that not only am I the only one sitting down, but no one in the room is gonna even come close to touching those desserts! But they keep bringing them out, putting more food down on already abandoned tables.
The party starts dwindling around 3 am...Derek comes to me and tells me, "Mamie says she's cool to drive." to which I start laughing uncontrollably and ask him just how drunk he is. I'm fucked up, but I know I'm not getting into any car driven by anyone who's been at this party. I tell him to send Mamie over and she tells me, "the pot straightened me out," to which I laugh even harder. The order comes down for a cab, it shows up, we hop in and get home around 3:30.
For all the hype about this party beforehand, I must say, it lived up to all of it. A bottle of vodka would get finished, and a new one would show up. There was so much food people stopped eating and it piled up on plates on empty tables. The DJ was sick and everyone danced, including a very drunk Alan's dad, who when I left was standing in the corner of the club smoking cigarettes. Mass congrats to my boy Alan, who joins the ranks of 25 year olds among us, and to his parents, for throwing one of the most unbelievable parties, both in terms of amenities and crowd, that I've ever had the pleasure of attending. For those of you interested, there's a few pictures of the party up in the profile...I'll be working on uploading more throughout the week, as there's some good ones.
The rest of the weekend is pretty much recovery...Saturday night I fall asleep early, even after trying to nap in the day so I can party again. Sunday, I run the open house. By the way...Sunday nights at Beehan's on Broadway? Check it out...one of the only open bars, they have karaoke, and everytime I've been there, it's been ridiculous. Stop by on a Sunday, you'll probably find me there from now on!
Up next...Part 2 of "I don't like this cat, it reads minds" followed by the USC Alum mixer on Wednesday night. Shit, with a holiday week, that's tomorrow! Awesome. |
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