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beholding normal people while on ecstasy
Saturday, February 17 2001
I don't remember what I did all day. I guess it doesn't matter too much. In the evening John told me that our friend Fernando was organizing a little party to take place at our house tonight. There would be girls and everything, though, according to Fernando, "they're not that hot."
But Fernando is not particularly good with logistics. He'd invited our hapless friend Farley over, but Farley, coming from Orange, soon became hopelessly lost on the distant 5 freeway (he should have been on the 405). And Fernando was late as usual, leaving just John, Chun and me to deal with the guests he'd invited, none of whom we knew.
But somehow it all worked out. Farley finally made it, as did Fernando. They went briefly to In 'n' Out in Westwood for burgers and returned just as the three girls were arriving. For whatever reason, Fernando was wearing a ridiculous garish maroon and yellow high school letter jacket (complete with an enormous yellow "A"). It made him look completely out of place in my living room. None of his three lady friends were remarkable in any way, other than the fact that they weren't, you know, gentlemen. Being Fernando's friends, of course, they were absolutely conventional in all respects and I'm sure they were a little overwhelmed by the weirdness of the circumstances: all the exceptionally odd art on the walls (by John and myself) and the music coming in on an as-needed basis via Napster. "This party is Napster-enabled," I declared at one point.
Farley has toured with all sorts of alternative bands as a teeshirt salesman and knows a lot about sub-popular music. When given the opportunity, he had sense enough to put on a Stereolab CD that Julian had burned for us. Of course none of the girls had actually ever heard of Stereolab. Later on Farley proved to be an astoundingly bad DJ, constantly playing the same three songs over and over again on Napster, dedicating them to "all the people out there who ____" and it would always be a description that only applied to himself.
Most of the "party" conversation centered around Farley's continued inability to break up with his thoroughly parasitic girlfriend. Evidently she continues to hold out the hope that she can bear Farley some children and stand to benefit down the line from Farley's anticipated multi-billion-dollar inheritance.
Farley is an odd duck, no two ways about it. Later he was talking about how he sometimes listens to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and "some of what she says makes a lot of sense to me." "Wow, Farley, you really are Orange County now!" I exclaimed.
Meanwhile, John and I had each taken hits of ecstasy and Chun was drinking Knob Creek whiskey like it was going out of fashion. John warned her, but she didn't listen, and before long she was in bad shape and he had to go upstairs and take care of her. And that's how John and Chun came to leave the "party." The rest of the people, if they drank at all, drank shots of expensive Patron tequila that Chun had bought for us a few weeks ago.
The ecstasy made me feel pretty good for a few hours, but it didn't really affect my interactions with anyone very much. I was somewhat more attentive than normal, but I didn't experience the usual overwhelming feeling of empathy I get for people.
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