IDOT has generously agreed to rouse me awake each morning at 6am to the sounds of some sort of scary super-saw that is slicing and dicing the concrete road 45 feet in front of my bedroom window. Thinking about these roadway noises, as well as my oft-noted basement party fetish, I took a mental vacation to the days of living in a skeezy neighborhood off-off-campus my senior year in college. My best friend and I took over the bottom floor of a two-flat from some friends who were graduating the year ahead of us. Luckily, for our safety and sanity, some good guy friends lived in the apartment above us, so we weren't truly two gals living in the quasi-ghetto.
Ghetto? Well, it wasn't a consistently bad neighborhood. In fact it's tree-lined charm was only marred by the presence of the large old victorian house across the street: none other than a very PROFITABLE (apparently, by the traffic volume) crack house.
Monday through Wednesday it was fairly quiet, but our little street literally turned into a sort of narcotics drive-thru on the weekends. Traffic (and the accompanyment of booming sub-woofers, yelling out of vehicle windows, and other boisterous misbehaving) steadily climbed Thursday evenings, peaking on Saturday night.
Oddly enough, the "players" who ran the "business" were somewhat friendly to us, letting us know that if we ever wanted to "party" they could hook us up.
Oh, but fellas, we KNEW how to "party" - and all without illegal narcotics.
Living on an already-loud corner afforded us the opportunity to host numerous parties that took over the entire flat - upstairs for dancing, restrooms, makeout session in the bedrooms, etc. Downstairs, raucous rockin' tunes provided by some local band or another, and, naturally, The Keg. Our sole disadvantage for attendance was our distance from campus, but there were enough adventurous souls, and devoted friends, who drifted to our flat to soak up the ambiance.
What took the cake was the ultra blowout houseparty we threw one balmy Saturday night during Spring quarter. The guys upstairs booked the band (a quite popular Chicago mod-rock/jazz combo of that era) and hauled a keg or two into the basement.
Since my apartment was on the first floor, my roommate and I set up an "admission" entryway - a buck or two per person, to offset our costs...we made over $300 and stopped collecting money after a few hours...so you can imagine the scope of this insane venture. We also went all out and set up a DJ booth - a vintage red crushed-velvet u-shaped bar on wheels - that we rolled into the corner to collect/protect our stereo system. We plopped an old tv on top of the bar and for weeks ahead of the gig, taped various MTV clips, monster truck races, kitschy 60's movies from late night cable...all to provide a "nightclub" atmosphere for our shindig.
Our friend, Mitch, behind the ultra-fabulous bar-on-wheels
We arranged furniture to reveal a generous dance floor in our dining room, and strung up colored Christmas lights around the ceiling.
My roomate, an art major, put together the most fantastic party fliers, and made it her mission to roam the halls of the library and campus coffeehouses handing out these amusing yet informative papers to friends and otherwise "interesting" characters.
I donned my favorite black minidress and best wig, helped roommate with her false eyelashes, and then prepared for an eventful night. Since neither of us cared for beer, we supplied our own private beverage stash: a
40-ouncer of Olde English 800 for her, a sports-type bottle of diet pepsi and Jim Beam for me. The thought of these now nauseate me, not just for their putrid flavors and effects on the body, but for their utter un-glamness, as contrasted to our fabulous thrift store ensembles.
Me and buddy Phillip @ The Party, April 27, 1991
Every school - high school, college, whatever - has its "cool" clique. In our case, there were two senior guys who, although they didn't know it, were worshipped from afar by the likes of the roommate, "B." and myself. Not that we wanted to DATE them - we just thought they were soooooo COOOOOOOOOL. "Steve" and "J.P." were their names. They were both film (or similarly less-than-employable) majors and both looked as if they had emigrated to Evanston via 1990-grunge-era Seattle. Long hair, torn jeans, the "right" flannel...the works.
B. somehow passed along a party flier to a friend of a friend of one of the above-named "cool" dudes...and so we hoped, against all odds, that these campus grunge-gods would grace our humble home with their presence on that fateful April night.
Once readied in terms of hair, makeup, furniture arrangement, and coctail concocting, B and I tuned our stereo to the now-defunct stylings of WJJD-AM: the premiere easy-listening station in Chicagoland. Think Uptempo = Perry Como; Mellow = Mel Torme. That and the velvet bar made for a swanky lounge vibe in the empty apartment. We planned to crank up the Monster Truck videos and dance music once the crowds assembled.
We expected the doorbell to begin ringing at ten. At 9:30 we still hadn't turned down the lights and were surprised by our first - and quite early - visitors. We went to the door to find none other than "Steve" and "J.P.". I don't even remember saying "hi" or "hey" or anything. I think one of us stunned lasses muttered something about beer in the basement and "welcome to our home."
I recall our upstairs flatmates (thankfully) taking the helm and whisking the dudes toward the keg, giving B and I time to scuttle into my bedroom, grab each others hands and half-screech, half-whisper, "OH MY GOD!" "WE ARE SOOOOOOO
VALIDATED!" You would have thought, at that moment, that Duran Duran (for us 80's chicks) or P. Diddy (for all you kids out there) had shown up.
Even more enthralling was the admiration the the gods of cool bestowed upon our little party setup. They complimented everything ranging from the lounge tunes to the decor. And with that we were on our way to one WILD night.
Guys and gals swilling beer in the basement.
Due to the combination of great weather, downtime in exam schedules, and the existing near-rabid fanbase of the band playing our gig, we had literally hundreds of late-teen/early-20-somethings swarming over the flat, into the basment, and flowing into our backyard.
Sometime around 1 a.m. or so I went into the basement to check on Keg reserves, only to find my neighbors - the Drug Dealers - pumping out some plastic cups worth of Michelob.
"Damn, you girls are CRAZY!" was the hearty compliment offered by Neighbor/Pusherman A.
Meanwhile Pusherman B was preoccupied with the view of the backside of an unknown sorority girl.
Damn, we WERE crazy!
Deb, Gordon & Phil in the backyard
At some point, I was so pleased with the turnout, the awesome dancing in the dining room and the general satisfaction of our guests, that I began hitting that Jim Beam mixture a bit more heavily than was customary for me. Yadda yadda yadda...the next morning we had a handsome and shirtless drummer from a different local band on our couch. After some initial questioning we realized that both B and I had hooked up with him in one capacity or another THAT NIGHT! Luckily she and I laughed our arses off about it, and so he was able to move from sheepish explanation of the evening to nervously chuckling along with us.
After the departure of all guests, the cleanup began...never before has a backyard been littered with more
MD20/20 flasks, empty cups, or fond memories.
