Lonely Existential Blender Blues, 1982

I usually don’t go back this far, but I thought why not? I have a written record of the event. A patchy record, but I’m glad I have it, because I wouldn’t remember most of these details without it. Later we referred to this party—our semester opener in the fall of ’82 at our house at 207 31st Ave. in Nashville—as the Lonely Existential Blender Blues Party. I don’t know how we came up with that, but it’s sufficiently collegiate. Anyway, I’ve taken my diary entry from the time and reorganized and polished it a bit.

September 18, 1982

A lot happens at a party if it’s any good, and it’s beyond any single person to see it all, even one of the hosts, as I was. People scattered out across the house. To the living room, with its beat-up couch, odd table, empty fireplace. To Mark’s room, which is really a living room, and sports an enormous TV. To the kitchen, where people tend to congregate (we got it as clean as we could). To Dan’s room (formerly Steve’s), an interior space between the kitchen and the bathroom, and so the site of a lot of traffic. To the tiny hall between the tank room and the bathroom, where we installed a black light. My room, and Rich’s, both tips of the U shape of the house, didn’t receive so many visitors, but both were open.

The porch was also a focus of action, since we’d placed the keg of Hamm’s beer there. [Hamm’s! Gee, that takes me back.] So was the tank room, which is unlike any other, since most of it is occupied by the isolation tank we built in the spring. People stopped by to look at the tank and ask questions. It was the tank’s debut as much as anything, since many of the guests hadn’t been to the house over the summer.

The party reached critical mass at about 11. Besides the five hosts, Dan, Steve, Rich, Mark and me, the following showed up at one time or another: Layne, Jim L, Corby, Audrey, Cathy F, Steve F, Joan S, Patty Y, Howard, Gigi (whom we call Igig), Neal, Donna, Tanya, the three J brothers, Mac B, Susan B, Kathleen W, Brian R, and a dozen or so whose names I’ve forgotten, because I didn’t know them in the first place, or know them well, such as the Italian graduate student and the Indian soccer player.

Rich was the Master Mixer. The King of all Daiquiris, the Autocrat of the Blender. He got his hands on some rum and an assortment of juices—blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, others. Usually a crowd watched as he made daiquiris; sometimes, I did. Once, he put soap into the mix and made a soap daiquiri for an unsuspecting sap; that was me. Through the evening Rich had an amazing amount of energy at this job, and as the night went on, he sampled more and more of his own wares (except for the soap special).

So did Steve. Never seen him so far out of his regular consciousness. I missed him attempting a cartwheel in the living room, after Rich did one. I heard about it, though. I wonder if it really happened.

Neal and Layne and I had a good chat on the floor near the porch door. Donna came by periodically, like a goldfish coming in and out of view in a dark bowl. She was wearing a black blouse and jeans, with a round black Sunday hat. She was more fidgety than usual, for unknown reasons. I spent part of the early hours of the party with Audrey, but later lost track of her. Cathy F. got very loud very quickly, as per usual when intoxicated.

Mac B, a man always worth adding to a party mix, was in rare form that evening, reciting from memory at one point, “Be drunk! On Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.” [Baudelaire] Later, Mac tore the front pocket from Rich’s shirt with one quick grab. Everyone thought it was hilarious. No one was sure why he did it.

The party lasted until 3 or 4 or I don’t remember. Toward the end there was a fair amount of coupling up. I was very tired the next day, though not hungover. I think the soap daiquiri had put me off more alcohol for the rest of the evening.