The B52's - Love Shack

I am a gypsy. Although I have spent the majority of my life living inside the Beltline, I have moved every year for the past oh…. 6 or 7 years to a new apartment. A break back to my folks’ house once after a break-in at a house I once lived in off of Gorman Street.

This Gorman street house, although I didn’t make it there a full year, holds some of the deepest, darkest, most insane memories for me. Mostly these memories are centered on parties that reached epic proportions. This song, while played to death on most pop radio stations and holds a special place in the heart of everyone on earth for some reason or the other, makes me think of drag queens and Goths raging at 4 in the morning in that little green house.

What had happened was: I was living in Cary with my ex. We split up a year or two after we probably should have, and I decided to purge myself out of that apartment. (I basically pulled a Peaches.) I put out some feelers and much like every random hook-up I’ve ever received in my life; my mom’s mastery of word-of-mouth at her hair salon came through. I cannot tell you how many jobs, piano teachers, boys, apartments, cars, etc. I have gotten through my mom’s shop. A client of my mom’s, Ms. Hazel, had a house for rent. It was 3 bedrooms, old and busted, and only $500 a month. It took my dad and I a few Saturdays to paint, clean and fix it up to a livable condition (leveling the toilet, lying carpet, lining cabinets, you name it.) We finally got it move-in ready and filled that house with a bunch of adopted furniture and salvage from the NCSU lot.

I wasn’t there long before I realized I needed to have a housewarming party. I did. Not much longer, in the midst of a horrific depression, I realized I was broke, so I got a part time job. I wasn’t working the part time job long before I realized I needed to have yet another party, a New Year’s Eve party. Yes friends it’s THAT New Year’s Eve party. There are some people who have been in the scene long enough that *still* talk about this party. I used every connection in every scene and clique, getting the word spread, even handing out flyers at the store. 3 bands played. Every scrap of furniture or anything that wasn’t nailed down got shoved into a locked back room. I got a keg. I even bought chips and a veggie tray.
This is an excerpt from my long-lived and still kicking livejournal (began in 2000! Keepin’ it oldschool!) about the evening:

“…so alot of sh*t got f*cked up. one of my nicest turtles got broken. my coat rack got ripped off the wall. tons and tons and tons of beer spilt on the floor. assholes outside kept dropping their cigs on the ground on my front porch so theres like a million scorch marks in the outdoor carpet. im still not done cleaning up... not anywhere near done. im too tired.”

So many things happened that night. I met my first drag queen. Liquid acid was rampant, people still come up and tell me new stories about that night involving acid that I didn’t know anything about. (Talking to azalea bushes?) Lots of sexual deviances. Troops of hippies, Goths, punks, rock stars, frat guys, supermodels and pre-hipster-hipsters came through there. I managed to stay sober the entire night and the cops only came once to tell people to move their cars to the other side of the road. It went on until dawn and at one point there was a count of about 300 people inside and around the house.

My crowning achievement… my glory and hopefully my legacy in Raleigh will be this party and what happened after the bands played and the CD player got turned over to the PAs set up in the living room. The microphones were still on and ready for the loudest most ridiculous 3am karaoke jam in existence. After much Olive, Vengaboys and the like, the real “party” music started. I very vividly remember a goth friend of mine, one of what I would have at the time considered queen of the Über-goths, took the mic and sang this song at top volume while Babs, the S&M drag queen, danced with the hippies.

When I hear this song I think of New Year’s 2001.


Then I think about what happened after on Jan 21, 2001. (Made public for posterity. Please note I was 23 at the time. My head is hung in shame.) Needless to say, it wasn’t very much longer after that I moved out of that house.

(note: livejournal is now basically hidden to anyone not on my flist, so all you'll get to stalk of me there is a bunch of random youtube videos and other vague such things. enjoy!)