The End of the Line
Friday night I went out to dinner in the Marina with with my old college roommate, his lovely fiancee (they just moved here from Manhattan a month ago) and two buddies from Santa Barbara, both of whom I hadn't seen in nine years (one is married, and his wife was really cool, too). The great thing about the evening was, no matter how long it had been, and no matter how badly I would have preferred to rest for the following day (which I'll get to in a minute), as soon as we saw each other it was like no time had passed. Of course, my memory is impeccable, I mean I remember every last detail of every night we ever went out, so once we had a few drinks and sat down for Tapas, the stories flowed, and each one got funnier. Man, it was nice.
The next morning I was up early for another friend's bachelor party, this one in the Delta, about an hour outside of Sacramento. My boys had rented a compound in the middle of nowhere, on an island no less, and since Thursday had been going full throttle. The scene that I encountered Saturday afternoon was nothing short of surreal, with 30 guys in various states of inebriation, a giant pig spinning on the barbecue (his tongue twirled to one side), a game of intense tackle football going on at one end, others out water-skiing, there were dudes crawling on the bathroom floor and vomiting in the bushes and every once in a while a figure I hadn't seen in 15 years emerged from nowhere and then disappeared again. It was insane.
Just before dinner they started firing shotguns across the levee at clay pigeons, only there were houses on the other side of the river and they had been warned about it the day before. What I'm trying to say is, about 9:00 pm our base got raided by the Solano County SWAT team - one moment I'm munching on some brownies and drinking a Stella and the next a bunch of cops with armor-piercing rifles turn the corner, looking for trouble. The absurd thing is, for a few minutes nobody even noticed, and the cops just blended in with the party. I wanted to say, hey fellas, stop, the cops are here, but for some reason the words never came. Then it was anarchy. The owner of the property was pretty hammered and started arguing with one of the officers. A few were cool, a few wanted things to go down. Luckily, calmer heads prevailed, so after checking gun permits and hunting licenses and making sure we got the message, they left without incident.
Next weekend is another friend's wedding, so I'm taking a few days off to drive down to Santa Barbara. Once that is over I'm shutting it down for the summer. That's it. No more. It's been great but all these activities are too much.
Give me a quiet weekend alone in my studio any day.
The next morning I was up early for another friend's bachelor party, this one in the Delta, about an hour outside of Sacramento. My boys had rented a compound in the middle of nowhere, on an island no less, and since Thursday had been going full throttle. The scene that I encountered Saturday afternoon was nothing short of surreal, with 30 guys in various states of inebriation, a giant pig spinning on the barbecue (his tongue twirled to one side), a game of intense tackle football going on at one end, others out water-skiing, there were dudes crawling on the bathroom floor and vomiting in the bushes and every once in a while a figure I hadn't seen in 15 years emerged from nowhere and then disappeared again. It was insane.
Just before dinner they started firing shotguns across the levee at clay pigeons, only there were houses on the other side of the river and they had been warned about it the day before. What I'm trying to say is, about 9:00 pm our base got raided by the Solano County SWAT team - one moment I'm munching on some brownies and drinking a Stella and the next a bunch of cops with armor-piercing rifles turn the corner, looking for trouble. The absurd thing is, for a few minutes nobody even noticed, and the cops just blended in with the party. I wanted to say, hey fellas, stop, the cops are here, but for some reason the words never came. Then it was anarchy. The owner of the property was pretty hammered and started arguing with one of the officers. A few were cool, a few wanted things to go down. Luckily, calmer heads prevailed, so after checking gun permits and hunting licenses and making sure we got the message, they left without incident.
Next weekend is another friend's wedding, so I'm taking a few days off to drive down to Santa Barbara. Once that is over I'm shutting it down for the summer. That's it. No more. It's been great but all these activities are too much.
Give me a quiet weekend alone in my studio any day.
posted by Rob Simons at 7:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home