Damn You Kids and Your Hip-Hop Music

Things went from totally awesome! to way less than rad in mere seconds after cops shut down the Brother Reade keg party in Silver Lake on Saturday night. One minute several hundred hipsters were quite happily getting down to the hip-hop from Echo Park’s own B.R.; next thing you know, flashlights were being shone in faces and make-out sessions abruptly halted as the boys in blue stormed the hillside party pad. Nasty Neighbor, the one responsible for placing the call, was outside yelling at us to leave quietly because “some of us have work tomorrow.” Relax, bitch, tomorrow’s Sunday — and don’t blame us just ’cause you work in retail. But what officially killed the party vibe was the sight of one poor, unconscious party victim being carried out on a stretcher, cause of illness unknown.

After that there were three choices: Frankie Chan’s afterparty, Jason71’s art-show-opening afterparty, or home to play the Most game. The Most game involves putting on Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and drinking a shot every time you hear the word “most.” We chose home.

Party on, dudes!

Delta of Urine

After weeks of buildup — and the best audio and video flier I have ever seen — Daniel Stessen’s More Lonely Than Alone book-release party at the Hear Gallery in Echo Park went off with a bang, attracting a creatively attired hipster/homeless contingent. Bonus points to the random shirtless dude and to the guy wearing antlers and a pink-tassled fanny pack. Then there was the young poet, Stessen himself, wearing a bandanna around his neck and (sadly) looking nothing like his MySpace alter ego Algernon Moncrieff (a bisexual Victorian-era Englishman with a propensity for tight bathing suits).

Stessen’s friends — including the band Something for Rockets and genre-bending indie rapper the Gray Kid — performed sets and, in the case of Something for Rockets, provided backup accompaniment to the young bard’s reading at the end of the evening as Ronald MacElroy tap-danced to the rhythm of the poems.

Like the Gray Kid’s songs, Stessen’s stanzas are hard to categorize — numb and sensitive, sincere yet tongue-in-cheek. “Pretty much everyone that has read the book has said they think it’s really funny, and I do too,” Stessen told me afterward. “’Cause when you’re writing poems you can’t take yourself too seriously.” A charismatic performer, Stessen lyricized about encounters in Brooklyn with midgets, ladies with toes for teeth, and shoe fetishes (he refused to comment on whether his stories were based on true events). My favorite line from the night: “An attractive woman’s voice is easier to drink to.”

Entrance to the event was $5, something that seemed to throw off some of the hipsters, who are, of course, born with “VIP Guest List” tattooed on their wrists. I ended up paying for one particularly snotty man to get in, so embarrassing were his “You want me to pay?” theatrics at the door. I also ended up paying for my friend, the diminutive tattooed stylist Charon Nogues, who was also caught unawares by the cover charge. Along with purchasing their own cigarettes, paying actual money to get into anything is something Eastsiders are clearly unaccustomed to. Inside, I ran into my friend Chris. We talked about Star Wars, which was nice, and then he asked me if I wanted to go home with him and suck his balls. I kid you not. All in good humor, of course. But it did make me wonder if people think I am a slut. As if to answer my question, one of the wristband men grabbed me as I was walking by and pressed his entire sweaty face on mine, kissing me square on the lips and acquainting me with his beery halitosis. In shock, I stepped outside for some air and realized almost immediately that I needed to pee. Rather than face the enormous line for the one and only bathroom inside, I ended up relieving myself alfresco, giving Beverly Boulevard a mighty golden shower — R. Kelly would have been proud. Picture this: A young writer squats, Pink Panther knickers around her slender ankles on a moonlit street in Echo Park, dodging her own splash back and smiling sweetly as passersby skip around the widening delta of urine emanating from her womanhood and staining the cold city ground .?.?. Now that’s poetry.

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