Partay

I went to a birthday party of a friend of mine last night. He was turning 35. He has many circles of friends; artistic, movie making friends; sport friends; he does roller derby!?!; and friends that don't come from those categories. This was the time they all overlapped.

His apartment had been cleared out. The couches were outside in the back yard in front of 3 different TVs all with video games running. The main room in the apartment had a table so he could spin (He's a DJ) with laser lights and smoke machine and room to dance. The theme of the party was 90's. People dressed in costumes from 90s movies and I swear I must have missed that part of the invitation. I looked in my closet and realized in the 90s I wore Levi 501s and t shirts. I still were Levis and t shirts. I looked for flannel but realized I only have a flannel bathrobe and sheets on my bed for winter. The Grunge look is the only fashion thing from the 90s I can remember. No one looked particularly weird like in the 80s. The 80s had all the pastels and Miami Vice inspired stupidity.

The only person I knew there, really, was the birthday boy. In rooms full of strangers I've never had that talent of walking up to complete strangers and starting easy conversations. I was introduced to some people and kind of hung out near them much of the time. I also ran into a DP that I worked with on a movie. I loosened up eventually.

As I was talking with people I kept hearing that  they were teens or 5 years old during the 90s. Or when that song was out. In my head the 90s were not that long ago even though 1999 was 13 years ago. I do admit to losing 2005-2008 a bit. Nothing really colossal made those years stand out.

In the back yard there was a portable fire pit like I have seen at other parties. They didn't have a lot of wood so it just kind of made an unmoving haze of smoke in the backyard. Some one showed up, not with a boom box, but a boom suitcase. It was a hard Samsonite case you would use for travel with three 6" speakers mounted on one side. I was told that inside was a motorcycle battery and an amp like you would have in your car. This thing was hooked into someone's phone and they were playing music. I saw the guy with the suitcase come thru the crowded front room. The birthday boy passed me and said, "I don't know who half the people are at the party. That's a great fucking party!"

The boom suitcase was playing music too loud for midnight outdoors in a residential area. I watched people as they danced to NSync and Britney Spears and other 90s bands. At some point I looked at the bright white light streaming over the alley fence like aliens had landed. There were also red and blue flashes. I pointed it out to someone. "I think the cops are here."

The birthday boy walked by about this time and I pointed it out to him. He walked to the boom suitcase and told them to shut it down. They turned it off for a moment then turned it back on but much lower. Then someone started turning it up a bit. I just kind of marveled at the stupidity of the suitcase owner. It's the cops. There have been complaints. Shut it off, you dickhead. They don't get in trouble. The birthday boy does. i felt like I was the only adult in the room.

The cops were talking to the birthday boy out front. They gave him a written warning for the noise. If they came back a second time, there would be a large fine. He came back into the apartment and got on the DJ mic and told the crowd that there were noise complaints and he would be fined. Some young asshole in the crowd was yelling, "Fuck them! We'll chip in to pay the fine!" I wanted to take a baseball bat to the side of his head. He obviously doesn't know the police don't fuck around. They have no sense of humor because on duty they deal with asshole s like that all the time.

I stayed another 20 minutes or so then left. It was late. The cops showing up put a bit of a damper on the party, but it had been a decade since I been at a party that the cops were called out too.