Thanks to Wayland for the Phat Christmas 2 photos.

Saturday, December 10th, 2005, 1278 N. Milwaukee Ave, above Diana's Shoes

"Steve. Steve! Pay attention damnit. I need to go spin. Keep doing wristbands, but take cash, too. Here's some fives and singles for change. Let's see... thirty five total. That should be enough. Keep large bills out of your change wad so nobody thinks about robbing you. I gotta go do my set. Be back later." My former roomie, now a promoter, patted me on the shoulder and fled. It was 1:00 A.M.

I'd been working the front door all night. At the host's request, it had to be kept shut and locked. The bright red door had a fisheye peephole, so every few seconds I leaned up to it and peered into the bright hallway. Listening for knocking wouldn't work. The DJs were aggressive. The music volume was ear-splitting.

I got dizzy from the metronomic tilting to the door. Check the hole. Stand back. Count to ten, check the hole again, stand back. Repeat, repeat, repeat. One time when I leaned in and peered through the peep, florescent fish swam into my pupil. I had a gangbang fish frolic in my eyeball. Upon pawing at my face and shreiking in panic, I realized everything was normal. I snuck glances around me. Nobody'd seen my episode. Good.

I smelled paint. Why? I learned the answer later, about a half hour after the former roomie finished his old school house set. The second floor hallway was tagged with purple paint. Gang scrawl, all loops and swirls, indecipherable to eyes untrained in the iconography of latino spaghetti letters. I thought it was pretty, but the renter of the loft certainly didn't. He was even more upset upon noticing several bannister posts were kicked out, shattered, fancy dowel rods lying in splinters in the halls of all three floors below. He started to twitch.

I already throught our host was a moonie little fuckshit. He had huge unblinking poo brown eyes. He charged my former roomie $800 to rent the place from 9pm to 4am. (the former roomie grossly overpaid) When we arrived at 6pm to set up, there was trash, furniture, workout equipment, a pool table, and art projects set up everywhere. We had to clean the whole damn place before our decorating girls could even begin attacking the place with their thousands of Christmas lights.

Hostboy was dribbling gummi worms out his ass into his tighty whiteys, surveying the minor damage. My former roomie, the super promoter, was freaking out on him. I smelled disaster. I interceded.

"Patrick, relax, I got this. Let me talk to him. Go check on the party. Nobody is watching the door. Go!"

I turned to face the passive aggressive afterbirth. I spoke to him.

"Let me start this over. Forgive my friend, he's under a lot of stress. This is his first really big event. So let me be his representative here. Looks like we have some minor damage here."

"Minor? That's major! What am I gonna do? My landlord's gonna kill me!"

I wanted to say: "Use some of that eight fucking hundred you got paid for this party to fix it up. Dumbshit. You're our landlord tonight. Grow some fucking testicles and don't you dare start crying, you whimpering little trust fund cuntface. Buy some paint. Now go sit down and shut the fuck up before I beat you senseless."

Instead, I lied: "I'll square it man. Let me give you my phone number and we'll work something out."

It was 2:30 am. There was no way I was going to gratify myself by being honest. That would result in Joey Fuckface Jr shutting our party down, calling the cops on his own address, and ruining my friend's reputation as a mighty promoter of magical parties.

No way. This show must go on. I had to placate this person, and I couldn't allow one iota of my disdain to seep through. I had to kiss ass. I had to be nice. My stoniest gameface was needed. So I treated him with the utmost respect. Deep inside me, that hurt.

Despite my spectacular performance, he doubted my sincerity. The gall. He didn't even want my phone number. I took his down, despite his reluctance, and followed him around for a while, whispering sweet nothings in his ear. I kept him off the ledge, and the party kept on going. It was a close thing. Eventually I felt like he was resigned to whatever fate befell his beloved loft, and when he stopped fidgeting and sat down depressed in a corner, I quickly abandoned him.

"Pat! Patrick! I calmed that little runt down. We're safe. Remember how I said we should skip the sweeping and mopping after the party and leave this place wrecked?"

"Yeah..."

"You said we wouldn't get the venue again if we did that. Look. We already cleaned when we got here, and you paid way way too much for this joint as it is. Now that the there's graffiti everywhere and the bannisters are horribly damaged, we might as well say fuck it anyways and skip the Mr. Clean bullshit. Let them hire a maid service. Fuck em."

"I don't fucking care. I just wanna leave when this is over. So much bullshit."

"Jesus! Fucking relax man! You're standing in the middle of a kickass party, people are having a great time, and it's all yours! Yours! Smile! Enjoy it!"

We did clean after the party. We'd have remodelled the joint too if I hadn't eventually told Shitboy enough.

"Mike. Yoo-hoo, earth to Mikey, pay attention. We swept, we mopped, and we reorganized your furniture. This place looks ten times better than when we arrived, barring the unfortunate damage to the entryways, which I'm sorry about. We're leaving. Thanks and good morning."

11:16 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm