Last night was my first night out djing in a long time. Actually, it'd been about two weeks since I'd last played. I also hadn't gone out partying in what feels like a month, so it was a great opportunity to also get hammered. I stopped by a beer store and picked up a sixer of some blueberry beer (9.5% abv), some really hoppy beer that's brewed in Baltimore (7.2%abv), a deuce of Rogue Irish Style Lager, and a deuce of Stone Arrogant Bastard, which is also pretty strong. From there, I went over to my boy Manny's place and along with our buddy Calen we put a couple beers away and then cabbed it over to Ibiza where I was opening up for Saeed Younan.
I'm not really going to get into that part of the night because the crowd was kind of whack until about 12:15, and during that time the floor would fill up, empty out, and then fill up again. I was playing some older house tracks during that time..but really solid records that I've always thought of as being great for getting a big room moving. At about 12:15 though, the club had filled up and people were getting into it. It's about this time that I was playing more techno and then switched back to groovy, funky and techy house to set Saeed up so he could do his thing. Saeed is a really fucking cool guy by the way and a solid, solid dj and producer. I must also stress that I was very, very hammered pretty much from the moment I got to Ibiza and it only got worse as the night went on.
At some point during the night, some kid had made his way into the booth while I was playing, and we talked for about a half hour. He kept talking about how The Park (this new place that's opened up) is totally beat and they wouldn't let him in because he had on white shoes. A bunch of mutual friends of ours were there for my boy Johnny's birthday party (we'll get to that later), and it was at this time that I realized this "kid" was actually a friend of mine named Navid that I'd met a few times through my buddy Babak.
The rest of my night at Ibiza is kind of a blur, but I remember Saeed playing a killer set and the crowd really, really loving it.
I have great friends. They decided to leave me at the club! Navid and I walked out together along with his sister and some guy with dreads who plays with Thievery Corporation. At this time, another buddy of mine named Hagana gave me a call. The circumstances under which Hagana and I met and eventually became friends are...kind of fucked up, but he's one of my favorite people. Hagana was with Babak and they were both looking for something to do because their night had gone apparently gone down like the Titanic. I put Hagana on the phone with Navid because I had no idea what was going on at this point, and apparently a meet up point was given. We went back to a this girl Suzy's apartment where I was asked to play music. "There's no dj equipment," I replied. Then they said I just should just start playing my cd's in through the computer, and I had to explain that "it doesn't really work like that." It was about 3:30 at this time...maybe a bit later, when Hagana and Babak called back and said they were downstairs. I can't stress enough how overly excited I was that these guys were showing up. I have no reservations about openly stating that Babak and I have man-crushes on each other (think like...how the Chief feels about R.P. McMurphy in Kesey's most famous novel), and I want to stress again how much I fucking love hanging out with Hagana.
We went back upstairs were I had the strongest Gin/Tonic of my entire life. I guess I should describe the scene here. Basically, we were in a really nice single bedroom apartment that had zero furniture except for a few bar stools and two speakers connected to a 17 inch mac book pro which was sitting on top of what looked like a massive antique radio box. I mean this thing was like, five and a half feet tall. There was a beautiful persian rug in the middle of the floor, and a blur of people talking about everything from music to the Iranian revolution were partying and boozing around the kitchen area. At some point, one of Hagana and Babak's friends from out of town was reported drunk and trying to get into Babak's building, and a cab transport needed to be orchestrated because in the last week, three people have been violently mugged down the street from Babak's building. I don't really know how exactly the rescue was conceived or put into effect, and apparently it also failed because the person being rescued didn't even make it to his destination. Anyway....at this point (it's not maybe four or four thirty), I was told we were all going to a late night party and that I'd be djing. Obviously I was down. I was drunk and having one of the best nights I've had in a really long time.
The party was in a huge townhouse in Adam's Morgan. We walked in and bodies were just strewn throughout the living room and there were a few people wandering around. Propaganda flyers were all over the place and every piece of art in the place was very "pro-revolution." The people wandering around were hippies, hipsters and "artsy." They were the kind of people who would come up to you at a dead show and tell you how much they like your "aura." The dj set up was very legit for a house inhabited by hippies. There was a guy playing some old jazzy sounding stuff, and he said he'd be really happy if I came on to play a bit.
What happened next is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, and words can't accurately describe what took place, but it was really something incredible. I started playing really minimal and techy music at 126 bpms, and almost immediately, hippies started growing out onto the dance floor from the cracks in the wall and from underneath the furniture. It was like the wood nymphs emerging for a summer festival in something like A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was like when you're watching the nature channel, and they speed up the development of a plant growing buds and the buds blossoming, except that it was hippies that were sprouting up left and right. And the dancing was....I don't know...looking back it felt like everything was in slow motion and that people were floating across the room, bobbing up and down like a bottle floating on the ocean. There were all different dance styles going on...two people were engaged in a "Simon Says do Tai Chi in slow motion kind of thing...a sixty five year old hippie with long white hair and a long white beard was just kind of grooving. I don't think he'd ever heard music like that before. Of course there were some people just grinding, but over all, the room had become a living thing all of a sudden. I felt like I was on LSD or something. Not that I've ever done that, but I imagine it'd be something like what I was seeing.....people just growing out of furniture and dancing like smoke rising from a stick of incense. I played for about an hour I guess..and it was maybe 6:15 when I said that I was finished playing. I walked through the room to use the bathroom and people surrounded me to tell me they loved the set and that I had the spirit of a true "activist" in my style. I don't know what that meant. As a group, I kind of hate hippies. Well maybe not, I don't know. Maybe it's just cliche to hate them, because they're all so nice and peaceful. Anyway, Babak, Hagana and I dipped out and went to Babak's, where he thought it'd be a great idea to make us a five egg omelette with garlic, tomatoes, milk, jalapenos and crispy prosciutto and all I can say is...it really, really hit the spot. The sun was completey up now and the last thing I remember is chugging some water (Hagana opted for a glass of vodka on the rocks)) and Babak literally tucking me in to the spare bed in the extra room of his apartment. It was probably seven thirty at this point.
To say that I woke up doesn't really seem appropriate because I wasn't actually awake. It's more appropriate to say that I opened my eyes at eleven thirty am, rolled over on to my side, and could only think of wanting to kill myself because the physical anguish that I was suffering was completely overwhelming. In fact, I didn't even want to exert the effort it would take to kill myself..I just wanted to die. The most overbearing and possessive girlfriend I ever had doesn't compare to how miserable I was feeling that morning. My head was pounding. It felt like being in the ring with Mike Tyson and he'd been preparing for the fight by smoking pcp, so he was extra crazy and violent. My entire body was aching, and I felt as though my stomach was a cooking pot churning with corrosive bile that was being pumped up my esophagus and I was going to vomit at any moment. I really wanted to just start crying, and the only comfort was that everything I remembered from last night COULD have been real. I actually wasn't sure anymore because it was so bizarre and fun.
I stayed in bed for about ten more minutes, and then made my way into the kitchen. Hagana was passed out face down on the floor, still wearing his jeans and t-shirt. Sunlight was coming through the window and hitting his entire body except for his face, which was shielded behind the side of the couch. I wanted so badly for him to wake up so that I had someone else to feel miserable with, but he kept sleeping soundly. I pounded some more water and looked for some tylenol. Apparently Babak is a Christian Scientist because there's no medicine in his entire fucking apartment. Hagana finally woke up at about noon, and he probably felt worse than I did. He kept groaning and and yelling, "Ahhhhhhhh FUCK," and "DAMN IT." I found this extremely funny and kept repeating "damn it" in my head, just the way that Hagana was saying it. I want to stress again how awful and terrible I felt. I thought I was going to start throwing up at any moment to be honest, and my eyes were throbbing violently. I started reading a history book by Howard Zinn which is titled "A People's History of the United States." Its first chapter stresses how the founding of America was based on the violent extermination and brutal murder of the native americans. Way to go Christopher Columbus...you Spanish fuck. You phony hero. You are the embodiment of blasphemy.
There was some stirring from Babak's room, so I walked in and got in his bed, spooned him and said good morning. He was so pale that his skin was a faint green, and he was croaking more than he was speaking actual words. I went back to the living room and Babak eventually crawled (literally) out of the room to join Hagana and me. The funniest thing was that he was carring a pillow in one hand and just as he started to fall forward he tossed the pillow in a sloth-like manner so that he'd have something soft to land on. This all happened in slow motion. We discussed morning wood. I learned that whenever Hagana has morning wood, he sits down to urinate because it's apparently bad for a guy to push down on his erection. I asked him how, if he's sitting down with a boner, he doesn't end up pissing all over himself and he said that he leans really far forward.
At this point we tried to figure out how we all ended up hanging out together. Babak told me that basically he'd been having the worst night of his life, and that he wants to go back to the Park, shake the owners hand and then burn the place down. He was there for our boy Johnny's birthday, and people were apparently completely hammered early on. There was a girl there....I don't know her name but we'll just call her Pandora. Pandora became disgustingly drunk...to the point that she was throwing herself on dudes but they just looked at her in disgust because she was so hammered. Babak explained that she was bound to get kicked out..and sure enough she did. For some reason, Johnny was taking care of her..it was only about 12:30...when she was put in his car, ( a brand new six series) and she just vomited all over the inside. Fucking amateurs...I mean come on...TWELVE THIRTY??!?! Anyway, I wasn't there for all of it, but that's what was relayed to me from Babak. Somehow, Hagana and Babak ended up going back to Babak's and it was about three that Hagana said, "Hey...George is probably finishing up djing now...give hime a call." So that's how we all ended up meeting up at that girl Suzy's place....but I still don't really know how we ended up at the hippie hang out. Later I found out that it was a going away party for this guy named Shahid Buttar, who is a poet, political activist, musician and a lawyer. You can check out his work at www.shahidbuttar.com
Anyway, by about one fifteen, the three of us were at about 12% brain capacity, which was enough for Babak to drive us back to my car. We all ate some pho and continued talking about how really amazing the night had been. I don't usually post blogs about how awesome my nights are...but this one had been so bizarre I wanted to put it into words. I know that I failed miserably, but that was it none the less.