The Death of Partying in the U.S.A. or the American Time Use Survey
Hedi Boys or Haute Indie Sleaze
WOMBO or Entertainment AI
"Men’s Health" or Sperm Racing
As a rule of thumb, the worse things are going, the better the parties get. The triple whammy of September 11th, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Great Recession powered the booze-and-cocaine party era nostalgically repackaged as indie sleaze. As a bikini-clad pool party attendee recently reminded me between sips of Modelo: "PBR invented the hipster."
Per usual though our current moment is less of a repeat and more of a rhyme.
The Fourth of July hits different on the West Coast, lacking the clear seasonality of the humid Northeast. Memorial Day and Labor Day book-end summer, peaking with Independence Day. Summers houses are open, beaches packed, white allowed if you follow the increasingly ignored taboo. I find myself jonesing for a Zweigle’s white hot (growing up every baseball concession stand sold hot dogs in red hot and white hot varieties) and cold summer salads (I find every family’s is different—my mother adds tuna fish and pickle juice to hers and I’ll defend that recipe to the grave.)
No one owns a pontoon boat in Southern California and despite its coastal location, very few people own boats at all in LA. It is predominantly an inland city. Fireworks don’t shimmer off the water. They pop-off haphazard between overpasses and out of canyons. ASMR oooohs and ahhhhs emanating from a crowd of blankets and beach chairs does not cap off the night.
Maybe something different is happening at the Santa Monica Pier or down in Long Beach, but I’m not there. I’m in Van Nuys, former porn capital of the world, a plain of bungalows, pools, and palm trees, watching twenty-somethings skateboard off a roof, splashing down among groups of girls in bikinis like something out of Project X, the 2012 movie that pairs well with the DJ mostly playing songs from the first half of our millennium. No oooohs and ahhhhs, just woooo! The Cobra Snake is there.
A friend-of-a-friend in town from Milan and stranded meets me there wearing tailored linen pants and loafers. "I’m sorry. I don't think I'm following the dress code." Along with American flag bikinis and board shorts, there are trucker hats and polo shirts. Everyone is tatted-up. "Lots of Chipotle bags here," someone had whispered earlier, grinning deviously, knowing he had said something rude, but supremely funny.
The sun begins to set so we leave the day party for the night party, the temperate dropping 25 degrees as we zip down the 405, leaving the sunbaked San Fernando Valley, heading towards Mar Vista in misty West LA. The marine layer is coming in thick and black and for a moment we worry it might rain before even one firework has gone off.
There are people clamoring around the suburban streets who must be heading toward the party. They’re too young, too loud, carrying cases of White Claw and cheap vodka, Smirnoff, maybe Titos. They’re too young to credibly live here and are heading towards the distant throbbing music.
The house is big and square, clad in wood and surrounded by an empty moat of drought-resistant plants. There’s a bouncer outside who I walk past as he tells some people the party is at capacity, which for whatever reason almost always works. The house is owned by a Canadian AI company called WOMBO that makes entertainment tech. Their claim to fame is creating the pregnant Travis Kelce meme.
The atmosphere is hazy even though I can’t see smoke machine nearby and the party is being live streamed. There are e-girls in rainbow trucker hats that say "r-slur" and people swimming in the pool, lounging in the hot tub, and the person who invented "sperm racing" is wearing red, white, and blue, introducing himself to everyone as Dick Gay, even though that is obviously not his name. It's channelling the Vice 2000s with its conspicuous vice-signaling. The Cobra Snake is here, too.
People are eating mushroom chocolates and huffing Galaxy Gas, which someone tells me to make sure to do out of a balloon lest I "burn my lungs." I decline. A host hands me a bottle of Casamigos, George Clooney’s premium "white girl wasted" tequila brand, instead. Which I’m thankful for, because like all California parties, this one is already running out of alcohol.
I see my former Angeleno friend Dagsen across the crowd and cross to say, "Hi." He’s visiting from San Francisco. Chuckling about the party, he says:
"This is gooner sleaze."