There comes a time in every man’s life when he must throw caution to the wind and make a questionable decision strictly for the purposes of luxury and gratification. In my case, this means spending above and beyond my income to land a new apartment.

A good friend of mine was exploring classified newspapers looking for gigantic lofts to host raves. As an up and coming promoter, he’s always in need of large spaces to cram hundreds of crank addled dancing freaks clad in feather boas, platform shoes, and hideously ugly oversized sunglasses. Surprisingly enough, there’s a surplus of such people in Chicago. These partygoing chuckleheads enjoy lots of spare time and a desperate need to wiggle amongst others. This is where my friend comes in. He rents massive speakers and psychedelic lights and invites these people of questionable enthusiasm to revel in his artificially created environment of overstimulation. He then gladly takes their money.

In short, he’s like a nightclub owner, but without all those pesky alcohol licenses, property taxes, or steady street addresses. It’s all very covert and paranoid.

He found a spectacular loft on the south side going for dirt cheap. He called me.

“Dude.”

“Yeah.”

“Duuuuuuude.”

“Um, yeah.”

“You have got to see this place. We’re moving in together. You’re gonna love it.”

He was right. Let’s see here. Would I like a former dance studio that has a ballroom with two story windows? Sure, why not? Add an orchestra balcony overlooking it, where cellos, violas and so forth used to play for the dancers? Absolutely. How about a kitchen five times the size of my current one? Yessir.

The three smaller bedrooms all line a hallway that overlooks the ballroom. Wow. Toss in a wooden lounge, a massive den, and the master bedroom, for me, complete with my own private bathroom and a personal stairwell to the kitchen? Count me in. I’ll eat shoplifted Payday bars and moldy pizza crusts for a while. I can handle that.


So he threw a party the night he moved in, last Saturday. (I move in next month.) I helped out by taping over the windows with garbage bags and collecting money at the door. Why the bags on the windows? Well, he’s more concerned with light escaping and notifying the authorities of our presence than he is by the gut rumbling bass terrorizing the entire neighborhood until five A.M. Okay, sure. I’m not in charge here.

We drew about 125 people. It was small by his standards, and only because he took the directions down at eleven. Had he left them available, our attendance may have doubled. (We don’t tell people where to go until an hour or two before the party. Safer that way.)

We had neighborhood gangbangers negotiate their way into the party by paying with marijuana. We hired a seven foot tall four hundred pound black cop to bounce the downstairs door. We introduced ourselves to our few neighbors and warned them. We did everything except tell the landlord.

The gangbangers snuck out while our doorman was emptying his gargantuan bladder. They spraypainted bullshit in our hallways and outside our door. Our landlord called and heard the directions before we took them down. All did not go smoothly.

The landlord was furious the next day. When he showed up, we’d already painted over the graffiti with perfectly matched paint. Still, he made horrible threats and scared me shitless. No more parties.

Until we move out in a year.

In the meantime, I am a king.

2:13 PM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm