...let's party...
“Study hard, but party harder.”
-Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi-
It’s hard to determine when the word party changed over from meaning “a part of”, to becoming a radical gathering of people dressed in Sunday costumes throwing ice cream at each other to celebrate the birth of Tara & Taressa’s human debris. What we know is that in the 1300’s party meant “a part, division, section, portion” and now it means grandma Nana wants to tug on your ear every time a cousin’s kid turns another year old. The part I don’t understand though is why we stay so compliant with this status quo.
Parties are supposed to be filled with strangers doing strange things. The biker gang from Philly brought a pool table to toss in the pool. The New Hampshire twins put dry ice in the bathtub and are snorting lines of raspberry jello. There is a band of steel drummers bonging Captain and Tenille covers in the cabana and a dude in braids and a shark mask introducing himself as Cheezy Chuck.
Parties should surprise you. I’ve made new friends (Greasy Greg from Tulsa), gotten new jobs (Energy Juice Start-Up Promoter, natch), eaten new foods (pickled french fries…not good) and gotten to know new things about myself (I’m socially anti, but not anti social) all by attending parties of which I had no preconception. A chat at a party can teach you things you might never else discover. I went to a party once and walked away four hours later with a semi competent understanding of how magnets worked […miracles…].
You can go to a party to be yourself, or find yourself. The party is ourself. We are potato chips next to half eaten ham rolls. Hummus dip partying with celery sticks. A fridge of half cold vodka and N/A seltzers. If the party was all unsalted popcorn and room temp tap water I would have a hard time getting anyone other than “Phil from next door who never leaves and keeps talking to me about Yanni” to come over. I like Phil, I endure Yanni, but I was really hoping for “Sunny Sam who paints the sexy chickens” to drop by as well. My popcorn needs sea salt, black pepper and nutritional yeast. My tap water needs bitters and absinthe.
“Why is partying and having a good time bad?”
-Tara Reid-
Imagine you went to one party, and only one party for the rest of your life. I don’t give a dump if that party has blade-twirling goat-fellating hypersonic sex dragons, eventually that party is not going to be fun. The groundhog day of watching a ballerina cook shellfish on a bubbling champagne ice table will only rockem sockem your brain so many times before your id’s taint wants something more of this world.
One party is just not gonna cut it. It’s too samey and too lamey to be so samey. So maybe you get to go to a different forever party. This party is even wilder. I’m talking long donged llamas k-popping choreographed kickboxing breakdances with free lobotomy lollipops and a 45 day lazy river with stereo sushi stations. You’re still only going to make it a month before you end up cross legged praying for crossword puzzle practice.
We like to party. The great we [...humanity…humaniweeeeeee…] loves to party. And this is why I cannot fathom how the United States political electorate tolerates the existence of a two party system. Let’s say that best case scenario is that the “republican party” and the “democratic party” are firework farting, rock and roller skating, booty bass popping happiness chambers of transcendent transformative community. I still don’t see how that roll bouncing high five sustains a lifetime interest.
I mean look at the faces on these fucklechucking vampires and explain to me why you would want to party with any of them?
No party, no parties, are enough party for you or me. Variety is not only great in the hot sauces and spice racks of life, but also in the day to day repetitive minutiae of self reflective projection (i see myself in how you see yourself). American’s are caught in a trap of otherdom because we can’t fathom that what our mirror tells us is wrong.
Look at our presidential candidates, two crumbling old baby men in diapers dangling different corruptions against each other like vipers with human hands performing a shell game with a poisoned live mouse. No matter who wins, the rest of us crowding this street spectacle are going to be left with deadly mice and snakes with hands. Whether we shake the vile viper’s mitt or claim our rancid rodent trophy, we will be poisoned if we keep entertaining this theater. Death was not meant to entertain us. It is here to teach us to live. But instead we are propping up corpses on a TV and making memes about how our side won the handsnake’s murder mouse.
Human infinity, humanity, hamsanity, humaniweeeee, are all splatter painted roads to everywhere. Why then should weeeee the people be represented by “them’s the breaks”? 60% of the population voted in the 2020 presidential election. This means that a greater population of people voted for nothing to be president than did for either candidate (40% vs. 30% or 30% for either “party” candidate).
Given a choice of republican, democrat or none of the above I’m in full agreement on that vote of none. We the people have chosen apathy to represent us. At least with none I know I have no options. The two party system is making us crave nothing. It is nihilism crack.
No one, none, and nothing is a closer representation of our full self when compared to 80 year old trash bags who spent their lives chip putting decisions on how to spend the portions of our paychecks we are obligated to share with them. At least I can see my reflection in no one (…am I a vampire?). In the trash bags I see banana peels and empty bags of shrimp chips. Empty tea tree toothpaste, chewed tamale husk, and a couple cans of probiotic prebiotics. And even though the trash itself contains variety, all of it should be headed to a landfill, not the White House.
“When you succeed you party”
-Tony Robbins-
There is an old polish saying that roughly translates to english “Sausage Potato, Potato Sausage”. It means you only have two choices but how you choose them is up to you. It means that you will eat what your Nana made you or she will tug on your ear again. When my Nana used to make me her stuffed sausage potato I accepted it as the only meal I was allowed to eat. Nevermind her cupboard was filled with gingerbreads and Petitki biscuits. It was my childish duty to accept what she gave me as my only option.
It wasn’t until I became an adult that Nana let me in on her truth. She opened the cupboard and revealed to me 4 different fruit flavored vodkas she had been steeping over the summer. We laughed and ate Paluszki dipped in pepper spread and some sugary Sliwka in between tiny pours of ice cold currant booze. I always had the opportunity to eat or drink anything in her house, all I had to do was ask.
As we got drunker she told me that “Sausage Potato, Potato Sausage” wasn’t even a real Polish saying, just something she had made up at some family party one time. I laughed. All this time I thought I was being the best version of myself by just accepting what I was given without question of what I wanted. All to find out I could have had anything if I just asked for it.
I tell this story sometimes at the parties I go to. Tucked back in the corner next to some dad’s unplayed vinyl stack I thumb through the Kenny Loggins back catalog and tell some shaggy haired someone about my Nana and what she taught me. We share stolen top shelf vodka from a living room cupboard cousin Carrie left unlocked. And eventually I let them know I never had a Nana, I’m only 10% Polish, and that I am thinking about getting into politics (with these tall tales how could I not!).
This was all for fun. Fun is the truth and the truth is fun. So find your truth. Live your variety and stop voting for the less stinky of two snake and mouse filled trashbags. In a world of so much and so many we can’t continue to let them tell us that we only have two choices. There are over 8.1 Billion parties (..people…) in the world. Let’s see how many we can make it to before this party’s over.
So... tell me more about pickled fries... Also, would Sliwka make those better or worse?
Voting for the CansaFis party!