The details of the alleged Duke lacrosse team improprieties conjure up startlingly similar, dangerous, repressed visions in my foggy mind: college party, drinking, strippers, sexually charged environment, things getting out of hand. I don't know what actually happened at Duke, but I hope the truth comes out.
In the '80s I owned one of the larger DJ companies in the Los Angeles area and I DJ'd a whole lot of college parties that had all or some of the volatile elements listed above in plentiful supply. I am unaware of any sexual assault charges filed in conjunction with parties I worked, but we all know how much that means.
One of the reasons I sold the company in 1990 was that I just couldn't pretend that the craziest shit didn't bother me anymore; that, and I was bone tired of hauling that damned equipment around.
The following took place on a warm spring night in 1988:
There are nuclear missile sites more accessible but all of the amenities of a modern debauch are there: a portable stage, generator, Bedouin tents for private consultation, two heavily fortified bars, and a wooden parquet dance floor. These relics of party sacrament have been hauled two hours northwest of LA, over four freeways, three highways, two gravel roads, a dirt path and across 50 yards of loose, pebbly sand and tumblin' tumbleweeds.
The DJ maneuvers his stouthearted little red truck, burdened with equipment and records, from the second gravel road onto the dirt path. He curses the obviously faulty map that was hastily scribbled upon a torn record sleeve the night before by the extravagantly drunken social chairman, Dirk, a tall, athletic and square-jawed junior patrician who squints and expectorates under the influence of alcohol.
The ink of the impromptu map is smeared at more than one critical juncture. The DJ can't tell if he is headed toward the promised party land, or toward a dead end of dried drool.
The disgruntled DJ is on the verge of throwing his truck into reverse and backing his way toward civilization when he rounds a bend and beholds what appears to be a major archeological site, replete with dozens of hyperkinetic nomads in flowing regalia. He then notices the stage and the dance floor and begins to recognize some of the Arabians waving floppy scimitars at him.
There is the elongated Dwarf towering above the rabble, and Mush and Beak and John ("no nicknames, please"), the house president, and all of the other deranged but essentially benevolent frat lads. These archeologists seek not the treasures of antiquity, but an Arabian Night of revelry unattainable within the shadow of the Great Concrete Campus by the Freeway.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Was that the last time the DJ ever set foot in Caricatureville?
Seriously, this post was a riot.
2 - Eric Olsen
an all-true, cautionary riot, I hope! thanks
3 - Dawn
Ahh, yet another resurrection.
4 - Eric Olsen
stunning parallels, no?
5 - Dawn
No doubt! Other than the rape allegations. It seems everyone in your story engaged consensually.
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
Everything's consensual with Booze™
7 - Eric Olsen
I don't think the strippers at this party were feeling all that consensual - they just had a huge-ass bodyguard along with them, having had some experience with these kinds of scenes.
8 - MCH
Great post, Eric. Did Mickey Spillane ever write porn?
9 - larry
what the hell was that??
10 - Eric Olsen
my life in the bush of ghosts
11 - Jet in Columbus
"George's shaved head and devil's goatee swivel through the gloaming in an effort to survey his audience. His interior lineman's bulk slumps against the improbability of his surroundings."
Sound suspiciously like Dave Nalle was there!
12 - Eric Olsen
was that you Dave? I don't think Dave is old enough
13 - Jet in Columbus
Hmmmm let me go back and look at his picture again...
On second thought, never mind!
14 - Eric Olsen
I didn't have the sense this guy was particularly intellectually inclined
15 - Eric Berlin
Great tale, EO, amazing that I'm sure a great many of us have, at the least, been witness to a semi-similar scene. Reminds me morosely that we're all not that far away from our more primal forebears -- and perhaps we've never moved at all. Then you have to back away and laugh for what else is there!
16 - Eric Olsen
ritualized chaos, I always called it
17 - Andy Marsh
sounds like I missed all the good parties when I lived in LA! Great story EO!
18 - Eric Olsen
thanks Andy - it WAS fun, but got old after six years or so
19 - Andy Marsh
that would have worked out great for me Eric. I was only in the LA area for 4.
20 - Eric Olsen
if you want to go to a shitload of parties, if you want to be the CENTER of a shitload of parties, then be a mobile DJ; although I hear things have changed an awful lot and frats/sororities/college organizations aren't having either the frequency nor the intensity of parties like they used to due to crackdowns, costs, etc. And when there are parties they more often do their own music now in the age of mp3s, etc.