Weekends like this remind me of how crazy my life is at times. Working in the music and entertainment industry on both a local and national level I constantly find myself in the midst of, well, shit. The holiday weekend started off typical enough, there were no major plans, I figured I would just roam with my crew from place to place, event to event, and things would be pretty normal. What I forget at times is that my crew isn’t normal, by the typical standards of normality. We’re comprised of thugs, b-boys, gang members, Masons, fathers, musicians, students, artists, scholars, each of us coming from different backgrounds and areas of the city, yet somehow we all came together, and became a unit. A unit which because of our vast array of backgrounds fits in pretty much everywhere we go, but given the size of the crew we rarely end up all at the same place. This weekend was an exception.
Friday night I received a phone call from one of my ex-girlfriends now turned co-worker about a Birthday party she was having for her roomate at their loft in Whicker Park. My ex is fine, fine like her identical twin is a Guess model fine, and she along with her sister and cute ass roomate all live under the same roof, which for a guy like me who loves beautiful women, makes their pad the place to be. The plan was for my best friend and I to simply go check it out, have a good time, and then head home, simple enough. We get there and there are a few familiar faces, guys and gals i’ve known from different circles, typically a few years young than me physically, and about a decade behind mentally. You know those cats who never grew out of that “im a hip hop purist backpacker b-boy who rhymes in every cipher, tags everything tagable and will breakdance on anything” highschool mentality. Im all for being comitted to something, but damn, these cats are in their twenties now and when I ask them “what you been up to?” they answer “shit, rhyming.” Word? Ok.
After having a few of those brief exchanges, and suffering through a series of incredibly horrid spontaneous performances through a shitty mic hooked up to an even shittier stereo I looked for a beer, or keg, or some type of distilled poison to take the edge off of reality, but alas there was none, FUCK!
My ex had failed to mention that the party was BYOB, so my best friend and I stepped out to get some. Upon hitting the pavement we realized that the liquor store on Milwaukee that was next to double door had gone out of business, this blew, as the next closest place to get booze was the 7 eleven about 6 blocks away. As we begin to walk I hear the honking of a horn and my name being yelled, I look to the street and its one of our guys, we hop in, head to the 7, and fill him in on the party. He then tells us that 4 of the other members of the crew were in the immediate area, so we called them and filled them in as well. We rolled back into the party 7 deep, 5th of Jack and 2 twelve packs in hand, the night was looking better already.
The party had gotten much doper in the 15 minutes or so we were gone. Some other cute chicks arrived as well as some more worldly people to even out all the hip hop closed mindedness. As the conversations, interacting and partying picked up so did the drinking. Drinking beer lead to drinking Jack, which lead to drinking Jack and chasing it with beer, and around this time things start to get a little hazy. From this point on at the party I remember a lot of laughing, a lot of shit talking, and me doing a lot of flirting with the birthday girl who was in turn flirting back. The next clear memory I have is witnessing to my shock and horror a guy around 6’2″ walk in wearing the shortest, tightest, shorts i’ve ever seen in my life. It seemed like the party came to a screeching hault, at least in my mind. It was at this point that we stopped drinking Jack from cups and started taking long swigs from the bottle.
Next thing I know im kissing female friends of mine on the cheek as I walk out the door and get into my guys new $80,000.00 “toy”. The rest is a collage of random images only brought back memory by the evidence I found on my digital camera the next day: Weed Street, the entertainment district, Slicks Lounge, and more Jack.
To be continued…