In a way, I guess, one could call it a good night: no one went home mad, no one cried, no one had any sex they don't remember, there was no mess left anywhere, and nothing was broken or lost. I imagine this is how the Squares see it. "We partied an appropriate amount." The Taxman's calculation.
We had one bottle of wine between four women. One refrigerator of bottled beer for seventy-five people that ran out after we each had three. Maybe four people smoking weed and only one guy with a pipe. Not a single person smoking cigarettes. No one drinking jello shots but the groupies because they tasted too much like vodka. The lights were on in the house all night. The house was ninety degrees, and the only two people I knew there (and the only ones not busy grinding with someone they wanted to hook up with) kept stepping outside for relief from the heat. Even during the best songs!
The room was full of private-school music majors who had nothing in mind but who they would fuck that night, where, and when. They weren't used to "outsiders" playing at their house parties, and they gave little energy to the band. The music they talked about amongst themselves was their upcoming end-of-year recitals. This crowd reminded me of a pianist chick who, when asked to step in for the keyboard part during my friends' band practice one time, responded, "I'm classically trained, and I don't want to damage my form." Musicians; but students, not rockstars.
Mistakes were made. I didn't order any drinks at dinner before the show. No one warned us, the "outsiders", that when these kids party they pre-game to shit-faced ahead of time, so the house doesn't supply a keg. Just a few beers to keep everyone going until the hook-up hour. The girls and I went with the practical choice of buying only one bottle of wine, assuming only we would drink it and beer would be abundant; we didn't prepare for the possibility of sharing or having no beer. We stopped drinking early on so we could all drive home, but didn't resume the drinking once we were home, and we ate a bunch of food. We spent a lot of time eating and chatting as the sun started to come up, and by the time we made it to the hot tub it was practically daylight, and we were all practically sober.
We were only in the hot tub for forty-five minutes, not enough time for it to warm up completely, so it was lukewarm the whole time. The band members brought their girlfriends along, so no sexiness in the hot tub at all. Though, when the Taxman had uncharacteristically called for naked hot tub and a late night, sexiness is certainly what he had been hoping for.
"I've never been to the hot tub with the Editor and not the Doctor before. This should be interesting."
Well, Taxman, you have nothing but fantasies. Any hope for achieving those you dashed yourself in your own mind before we could even get started: "We're not EXACTLY rockstars." You need to expect your dreams to come true and make something happen. It was not interesting, not like you imagined. It was far too real; lukewarm water and pale white bodies we could see with sober eyes in the morning sun.
Rockstars are meant to be seen in dim light through a smoky haze. Never after dawn, and never sober. They have groupies on their laps at 3am, not girlfriends-- unless their girlfriends have groupies, too. Rockstars don't take a break for fresh air during the good songs. Rockstars have the ability to see their dreams as possibilities and make them reality. Squares can drink all night, dance to rock and roll, make great music, stay up until 5am, and get naked in their neighbor's hot tub. Without the anger and the crying and the hazy sex and the mess and the broken shit and the extra booze-- without the passion-- they're just... Not exactly rockstars.
