Reader discretion is advised.Saturday March 3, Camille’s 21st birthday, the day she would leave her youthful immaturity behind and enter womanhood - well at least that’s what was supposed to happen. (Because the drinking age is 18 in SA, 21st birthdays aren’t as geared towards suicidal intoxication, rather a “separating from your parents” rite of passage). Her special day would unfold with unusual irregularity: Cape Town’s Gay Parade and Pride Festival (with unique orgy sighting), midday margaritas, Pregame Braai (BBQ) tailgate, the Cape Town Stormers Rugby match, and an afterparty that bordered on bestiality. After the absolute human carnage of WWI, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had written “God is Dead” to capture the inexplicable moral disorientation and catastrophic psychological trauma of the post-war European consciousness. And if God died after WWI, then Jesus most definitely bit the dust on March 3, 2012.
I felt really amped to chronicle this one. The pregame tailgate was pretty standard procedure, although it was a bit sporadic and we didn’t exactly have the time to grill. I concocted loads of jungle juice – vodka, white wine, Twist soda (which rivals Mountain Dew), pears, green apples, lemons, and kiwi – and Margaritas, and Giulia made a lovely Sangria. You don’t see the typical 30-rack of Blue Light or PBR that is everywhere at Buffalo Bills games here. They only sell beer in quantities of 12 and it’s tough to transport longer distances, so we stick to mixed drinks and wine here. After getting nice and slippery from the tailgate, we made our way to the Newlands Stadiums to see Cape Town Stormers take on rivals Durban Sharks in front of an a crowd of nearly 50,000 fans. We ended up moving closer to the pitch for the second half in front of a Dad and 5-year old son who got a kick out of American fans who didn’t exactly know what was going on. They even gave me an extra flag to wave at big plays. Some of the people at our tailgate went to the game hoping to find scalpers, instead found free tickets and then were invited to box seats with some guy, where they gorged themselves with endless cocktail shrimp and finger foods and an open bar. Compared to going to a Cuse game (~$30 ticket, $6 beer), Stormers games are dirt-cheap with tickets at $12 and beer about $1.75. Awesome way to kick off the night.
Because we live only a two-minute walk from the stadium it only seemed right that we should throw an afterparty. It may have been an intimate gathering of about 20-25 people, but there was nothing cozy about the savagery that would unfold. Hide ya kids, hide ya wife, and hide ya husband too cuz they rapin’ errrybody! Sebastian, inebriated and expressing uncharacteristic aggressiveness, attempted to get a swig from the Vodka bottle when it slipped from his hands, smashing onto the brick floor and spewing glass and liquid everywhere. In overly misogynistic fashion, Sebastian screamed at Petra to get the broom and clean up his mess, and for fear of her wellbeing, Petra acquiesced.* Meanwhile, Emil and I hop on this perfect Kodak moment, getting down on all fours like two African lions at the drinking hole. Being the Shaggy-like character that he is, Seb clumsily “lost his balance,” falling onto the broom that he so angrily forced onto Petra, snapping it in two. It’s amazing how much glass we have broken in our house, I should really call it “cheap plastic” like the glass swan that Beez so famously juggled and voluntarily let drop to the floor to test its durability. We should really add up a tally of all that has been broken – 5-6 glasses, vodka bottle, broom, plastic bowl – give it three more months and we will definitely be out of our security deposit.
What followed was a montage of epic photo scenes and short movies taken pretty much by everyone, which were hilarious when watched the next morning. The chronology is a bit fuzzy here, and reasonably so. Petra took the opportunity to get her revenge by stabbing the spear, newly fashioned from the broken broom, into Seb’s heart. Ngoni took the same prop, instead using it to shove up Seb’s rear orifice while he was doing a pull-up and getting “personal” with Emil. At some point, someone put on the “Night Man Cometh” song from TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, affording the perfect opportunity for a spontaneous shirtless sing-a-long amidst nightly showers (Nice alliteration, FIFTY POINTS GRYFFINDOR!). Next, Camille, a third-year Yale student, one of the dumbest people I know, literally dumb as rocks, almost Miss Teen South Caroline 2007 stupid (youtube video), would receive the birthday gift of a lifetime. Unlike the vast majority of sixth graders across the nation, Camille had never been invited to join the pen15 club (read #1 from UrbanDictionary). Naturally, for her 21st birthday, her ascent to womanhood would include an invitation to join such a prestigious club as PEN15. Eager to join a new club, she willingly accepted the invitation, and was initiated with writing across her forehead. Congratulations Camille, and welcome to adulthood. To cap off the glorious photo/movie-shoot, a group shot was the only thing that made sense. I took the picture and it reminds me of one of those Real World MTV shots.
From here the party died down and all the visitors left, but the show would go on for all those people who are lucky enough to call themselves residents, also know as the “Albion Road Swaggers”. After hanging at the outside patio in a lightly misting rain for a couple hours, we moved the party inside, and the guys took off their shirts. The next logical step in the night’s sequence was for Emil, Seb, and me to strip down to our skivvies, ambush Giulia in her sleep and make her slap the bag (Google image). With all of us jumping on her bed, she tilted her head back to have a refreshing chug of boxed white wine, and I was in control of the nozzle. My aim was a bit off and the wine trickled over her bed and T-shirt, leaving Giulia helpless and devastated. Like the beast awoken from slumber, Giulia exacted her revenge by showering me with the bag of wine until every last drop was funneled out. Her actions were appalling. Instead of putting a damper on the night, the slap the bag episode gave new life to the drunken camaraderie, drawing now the remaining four of us to play Kings in the living room.
At this point, the selection of alcohol and drinks to mix with was severely limited, so we had to use a bit of creativity in our bartending. Peer pressure unveiled her familiar face, as I was persuaded to take a shot of vodka with olive oil and Emil would down one with Braai marinade. Then we concocted a barbaric drink that may or may not have included random soda, liquor, white wine, and a half eaten chicken wing bone from the post-rugby match grilling. We were all just thankful to be able to live to tell the tale. We woke up the next morning, and what we saw was nothing short of an absolute warzone – dishes everywhere, the remains of food from the grill, spilled drinks everywhere (some on purpose, some accidental), broken glass and other implements. All the brain-cell killing activity that occurred the night before failed to hold us back, however. We all cleaned the place up, and decided to hike Devil’s Peak at 1pm Sunday. We hiked until 9pm, taxied home to Rondebosch with our favorite cab driver Al and his random sidekick, stopped to get SA’s equivalent of a Big Mac at Steers fast food, and finally trekked home to call it a night. Damn it feels good to be a Gangsta…
*Note to the reader: I may have taken a bit of artistic license with the characterizations of my friends.
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