Party like it's 1987

Went to a housewarming party for my friends Robert and Charlotte yesterday. It was a 4:00 pm start time, which is a little odd but I just figured Charlotte, who's about 7 months pregnant, wanted to be able to go to bed at a decent hour. Plus, it seems to be a regular thing these days for people to double book plans on the weekend, so they can hit two parties or a party and then drinks at someone else's house or whatever. There was a couple at this party who left about 7:00 to attend an auction! I volunteered a while back to provide the music, as Charlotte told me she wanted to play '80s stuff and hey, that was the era I first got into music in a big way, as a teenager. It turned out that making an iPod playlist for a party is pretty tough. What I thought of when I thought of the '80s wasn't quite what a party demanded, I started to realize last week, when Charlotte asked me if I was playing this or that artist or song. Basically, I was too stuck on alternative and Britpop stuff and needed more Pop and Rock with capital letters. So, on Friday my friend Katie burned me a Madonna Best Of, and I downloaded a few choice hits from The Cars, Van Halen, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Men Without Hats, Guns 'N Roses, Dead or Alive, Robert Palmer, and so on, mixing in stuff like the Axel F theme and Hey Mickey as novelties between more enduring pop and rock and new wave hits. It turned out really good, actually. It was a good instruction for me. I mean, I love Squeeze, and Echo & The Bunnymen, and The Cure, and on and on, but a lot of their best songs aren't going to work well as party music, so you end up choosing some of their lightest or goofiest efforts. Also, when possible, work in naughty stuff like "Erotic City," Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," Oingo Boingo's "Little Girls," etc. I even threw in Weird Al's "Eat It" but I don't think anyone noticed.

The party itself was good, too. Very nice house with a good view and the weather was nice, so people were spread out nicely. I had several good conversations and I think I was reasonably amusing. I made one mildly inappropriate comment but the woman I was talking to, a friend, didn't really have a problem with it and we talked quite a bit about serious things, as she's going through a divorce and so we have some common ground. The realtor, Asaf, who's Brazilian, brought some good Mediterranean food and made this Brazilian drink I couldn't pronounce that had lots of muddled limes, sugar and a Brazilian rumlike liquor called cachaca in it (kuh-shah-sa). Good but very strong and thick near the bottom. Although plied with a couple of these and lots of light beer, I avoided a hangover by eating a lot of the rice and some Costco cookies. They told me right at the start I could crash in the guest room, otherwise I wouldn't have had so much. I never felt really drunk, though looking back I can see two relatively minor examples of typical drunken behavior for me. The first is being a little too open, or maybe insecure--talking to the woman above about workplace relationships, as she knew about my last one, I mentioned a prior Xmas party hookup with a coworker's daughter. Sober, I would never bring that up to another woman, and to very few men. If there's a funny story, okay, but that wasn't the case here so it's not much more than bragging, and it really wasn't much to brag about, just a lucky circumstance. The second is that I sometimes get a bit competitive with other guys, usually with some sort of putdown, though it's never the kind that's going to lead to fighting, just, you know, busting balls. I told a coworker I'm friendly with but not friends with that his expensive, chrome-and-black sunglasses made him look like an Israeli pimp. He's a tall, blond whitebread guy, so I didn't mean anything anti-Semitic at all; in fact I have no idea what an Israeli pimp might look like. I just know that the two words together are funny, and indeed I got some laughs. But in the light of the next day, I'm like, why did I say that? It wasn't a big scene or anything at all, but who knows if he thinks I'm an asshole now. Good thing I only get drunk once or twice a year now.

After everyone left, we flipped around cable and saw nothing but terrible movies. Blade: Trinity is stupid and slow, though I did actually have a vampire-related dream later. Not a nightmare; in fact it was kind of a cool take on vampires I could possibly use at some point. And if you remember Patrick Swayze's Road House fondly--you need to watch it again so you don't tell anyone at parties it was cool ever again. It's absolute shit. Hilariously bad, and though he's in great shape, the pursed-lipped, vacant, moussed and heavily made-up Swayze is a million miles away from being a tough guy. He really looks like he's about to do ballet all the time. And what bouncer wears these expensive, unconstructed suits around? Sam Elliott doesn't exactly look tough as his bouncer buddy, but he's much closer to the part than Swayze. Oh, and Kelly Lynch is too thin and her skin looks orange from over-tanning. Terribly inept movie.