Party Pooper

I confess - I am a party pooper. It must be part of the ageing process. I wasn’t exactly Fun Time Bobby, but my catchphrase throughout my late teens was ‘Where’s the party?’. It was a sincere expression, I truly wanted to party every weekend. I know that means screwing in the USA, but I just meant house parties. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t like your Fresh Prince kinda house party, all I needed was a house, booze, attractive girls and music. That constituted a house party. I loved it, just when the whole concept went tits up.

I had a house party once, it was awful, my family returned home early, everyone was bored to tears, the music was, shall we say limited to a bunch of miserable records I’d stumbled across in 2nd hand vinylshops, and yes they were all badly scratched. It made me realize that no one who has regular house parties has a home. My place was trashed like everyone else’s. It was just nice for a while to be somewhere more personal than the dingy pubs and clubs around at the time.

These days there’s more atmosphere at a supermarket or an airport than some clubs I could mention. Super clubs are the worst. Vast warehouses, that unless you’re on some kind of mind altering substance, you soon notice just how ugly the whole place is, the girders, the rafters, the pidgeons in the eaves. I’ve worked in a few factories in my time, and to tell the truth, they were friendlier places.

These days it’s almost impossible to find a real good quality party run by amateurs, out of the goodness of their hearts, just for the kicks. Nope. There’s always some agenda, networking usually. I’ve been drawn into conversations on all sorts of crap, but costume jewellery and health products, that really is the pits. You can get Ann Summers parties, now they could be more interesting if they actually invited the blokes along too, but they know that business would be pushed aside and everyone would end up drunk as usual. Shame that.

There are swingers parties (god forbid), I’ve seen a Channel 4 doc on that whole scene, and if you are over fifty, sex mad, sport thongs, and enjoy rolling around in a dark room full of oily bodies, then good luck to you. S&M parties, why on earth anyone can enjoy pain, I don’t know, I was caned at school (corporal punishment incase you are a confused stoner). I didn’t enjoy it. Being punished doesn’t sound like a fun night out to me.

I suppose I must resign myself to the prospect of dinner parties (now they are not parties) and restaurants, theatre, film, art, the usual haunts of the reserved. I miss the party people, but unless you’re off your face you don’t want to bump into them anymore. Most of them are far uglier than I remember, but their hearts are as good as gold, as long as the drugs don’t wear off.

The people who scare me the most say they are ‘High on Life’, that sounds absurd to me, then again I am a miserable git. Who knows - perhaps they have a enjoyably toxic reaction to breathing air, or smiling makes them orgasm, their brains must be wired in a completely different way, an alien way, perhaps they are the future. I am certainly not. You can’t get me excited anymore, I’ve had my share, I’m a party pooper now, if you do invite me I am guaranteed to stand in the corner of your kitchen for ten minutes before making my excuses.