Underwater World (March 17, 2012)

Bass. Pounded. Alcohol. Ocean.
Well my dear, dear, chrontastic friends, underwater world was a GIGANTIC success. Over the course of the night, we had over 50 people in the place at some points (a record for our place, and probably comes close to defining our capacity), and it was in constant riot mode. Some of my favourite highlights of the night would be near the end, when the floor was completely soaked in bubbles and some people (CELINE. GUILLAUME. And others I'm sure) were biffing hard. No. Like, hard. Picture feet- to ASS in fast motion. Funny as hell. There was a point in the night where I was approached by my hilarious friends Spence, Pat, Ben and Evan and they demanded that when they played a certain daft punk song, I had to lose my shirt with them. I was already half way there anyways with my bathing suit. I was down. We ended up soaked by the end. There was also a topless emma swimming around too hahaha. What a rockstar. Another moment, which I wish I got a video of, but was rocking out FAR TOO HARD to do so, was when everyone was screaming at the TOP OF THEIR LUNGS to "Do you love me" by the contours. AMAZING.

On a sad side note, we must part with our beloved sound system, Chronmaster 10000. Please, I request a moment of silence.
...
...
Chronmaster 10000 rocked out worlds for this entire year, and rocked mine and my brothers for several before. It hath represented, and represented hard. I will always remember its thundering bass that shook the walls of our poor, helpless, suffering neighbours, and commenced earthquakes on our street for night, after night, after night... I will never forget how it tested the downstairs restaurant's patience by creating a scene for their workers as if there were a herd of elephants dancing around upstairs screaming and singing nonsense at the top of their lungs. Or how it would bounce off the adjacent apartment buildings if the windows were open, and if left open too long, would shatter windows violently as we put on a burlesque show for those passing by our stylin apartment on the street. The memory of Chronmaster 10000 will live on in our hearts for years to come. It shall never be forgotten. I, was always. Down.

My goal with these parties has always been one, to rock everyone's worlds with something new, exciting and unique. Two, get as many of my friends who I love in one room at the same time. Three,  to top the preceding party. And I am positive that with Underwater World, I've managed to top the last one once again...But it wouldn't have happened without the help of all my friends. Thanks you so much to those of you (you know you are) who pitched money to my cause simply because you love these parties. It's really amazing. And thank you so much to all of you who paid the cover. I broke open the box today, and combined with the contributions that came before the party, you all managed to cover the costs of the party entirely. I could DEFINATELY not have done it without you. I have literally been living cent to cent for the last 3 weeks, and barely staying alive while making this thing because of you guys. All forms of credit were maxed before the party. I LOVE YOU ALL. Also, thanks to my baby gurl crack moo moo (john), I had a really hot wooden box for cover and those funny signs for the tsunami relief fund above the box with the whirlpool down into it. Wickedy WACK.

Now, I haven't hunted down those with party pictures yet, but I have some goodies for you guys that give a pretty solid image of what the atmosphere was like. Again, like all of these, you really had to be here to experience what it was like to be swimming on a dance floor all night long. The first video is a walk through of the party room with everything going 100 percent. The second video is of everyone rocking out to "tubthumping" by chumbawumba. The third, is a walk through of the video the following day after cleanup, when our apartment resurfaced to ground level and reentered earth's dimension. The wreckage has been removed for the video, thanks to Becky's Waywut Cleanup crew. There are also some pictures that john took on his iPhone. I will be posting party pictures in the future and let you guys know.

Couchsurfer Gerias' Morning After Photo. Floor = Obliterated.

Play Night Deux (Jan 28, 2012)

This is the second of two play nights that we have had at our place. Since the pillar party, I started wanting to up the level of parties... I decided to plaster the walls with newspaper and abstract construction paper designs and then fill the room with charcoal and paint so that people could go nuts. Naturally, this ended up creating quite the mess, but it was worth it. I also put up giant black curtains in stage-like fashion, and draped black curtains over the doors as well to completely contain the experience within the room. Here's a video I took while people were painting/arriving.

The actual play night consisted of many different acts, ranging from people singing and playing guitar, to reenactments of Kids in the Hall skits, to choreographed dance, to poems, to just plain funny skits. There was everything. There were many amazing acts. My friend Robbie performed the "Great Dictator Speech" by Charlie Chaplin to Hans Zimmer's "Time." That was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. Amazing talent. My brother, Zack and I created a dance routine to Queen's "Don't Stop me Now" and Ty dressed up in drag and was the centerpiece for our dance. I was in my Bernhab character outfit for the night, and zack was just his babe self. We rocked it hard. Then, Zack, John an I recreated the "Beej (BJ) Fairy" skit from the kids in the hall but did our own spin on it...Basically it's about this fairy who flies around at night and blows husbands who can't get it from their wives. "It's part of a mans sense of pride." I had fairy wings, was topless and had a really funny brown wig that was messy with a part in the middle and shoulder length...so cheese. John was rocking the Becky character's wig from the first play night and Zack was rocking a fro. There were tons of acts and they were all amazing and well received. Everyone had an amazing time. My character for the night's name was Bernhab. He was a raging alcoholic/drug fiend who had just fled his home country and arrived at this party to rob it, but upon showing up, he decided to rock the party instead. My entrance consisted of me and my friends Crack Moo Moo (John), Roberto (Robbie) and Guillermo (Guillaume) strutting on stage with a gym bag full of coke (plastic bags filled with flour) to Knife Party's 15 minute "All Tracks Mix." The 3 of them were dressed in suits and were my ballin crew and basically just looked awesome and pretended to snort coke from the bag while I performed a 64 bar rap I had created about my adventure to Canada. The camera effed up at the actual performance but I heard that Bernhab's popularity has recently exploded and he's huge in the states right now....See for yourself. 

Naturally, the night descended into madness with everyone ending up covered in paint and dancing all night long. It was awesome. I took pictures of myself in the morning because I looked like the guy in the guy in the "Somebody I used to know" video....Here's the only surfaced video from the party of Ty, Zack and I performing our synchronized dance routine to "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, and a few pics from the night and Bernhab's promotional picture that was taken prior to the party.

Guillaume holding the fort as things get organized...kinda

Syd and Ram rocking some Opeth covers

Some painty babes...who ended up much paintier

The Beej Fairy

Jordan rocking some inspirational poetry

Robbie and Kellie rocking some covers

Crack Moo Moo and Guillermo snorting some BLOW

Dreamboat Robbie Hatch's Storytime

Allister the drunk scottsman

Zack's Mirror: "I...love you. I...love you. I...love you."

Bernhab rocks the set with a 64 bar rap

Celine reads "Green Eggs and Ham" while rocking countless shots

Pre-party promo

The Pillar Party (Dec 17, 2011)

Wicky! Wicky! IT WAS ALL A DREAM. I USED TO READ WORD-UP MAGAZINE!! No but seriously, this party started as a dream. Near the end of November, I dreamt that me and an old friend from elementary school were building a pillar in the basement of my parent’s house in Ancaster. This pillar was made out of concert ads for bandfests and coffeehouses, and about 2.5 by 2.5 square feet around, 9 feet tall. I put a spherical laser light in the middle but it kept being too bright so Colin and I had to keep patching up all the cracks on the outside. My friend Dave had given me two little electronic bears that when you pressed “on” and faced them towards each other, they would look like they were having a rap battle. I decided to make a little glass enclosure section near the bottom quarter of the pillar and place these two bears inside so they could battle it out during the party that this pillar was being made for. So awesome. The day following this dream, I was walking to school and I had the INTENSE realization that this pillar was actually doable. I could actually MAKE this thing. Thus, I started fantasizing about what it would look like and immediately informed my roommates and the world that I would be having a party on Saturday December 17^th and it would be the most intense party ever. But, this plan was far too epic to not keep a surprise.

            The dance floor surrounding the pillar took portions of Wednesday and Thursday to make, all the while running in and out to write exams that I don’t give a crap about and didn’t study much for. With the help of my friends Joceebear and Roberto Hatch, we danced around the floor with red and blue paint on our feet to the band Goldfish. After they left, it was time to begin work on the pillar.

            I won’t bore you with the details of my millions of trips to dollerama and curry’s, the hours of painting, cutting and gluing. But I will tell you that building a 9-foot pillar that is 3.5-4 by 3.5-4 square feet around can be quite intense at times. There was one moment where I was piecing the final 2 feet onto the 7-foot pillar on the ground. Crawling through this small dark tunnel, I had to put pressure on each side of the octagon, and then gently roll the entire big-ass pillar across the floor, with me inside, to do each separate section, hoping that the glue for the other 48 or so sections behind me wouldn’t come undone. Upon gluing the final section, I was almost ready to flip out with excitement. But, I turned around slowly to see that the entire mid section of the pillar had COLLAPSED. F$^%!!!  I sketchily turned my body around in this way-too-tiny space and crawled back to the middle part and began to reglue these 5 sections that had come undone and roll back and forth across the floor in this giant tube… If there was anyone watching from the outside, this probably would have looked hilarious. Like….What the %&^* is going on? Slash-- IS THERE SOMEONE IN THERE?!? HELLO?? Hahaha…Anyways, I completed the gluing and emerged from the dark abyss. I raised the 9-foot pillar as best I could while trying to distribute as little pressure while lifting as possible, so that nothing would come undone. And there it was. GIGANTIC. Just the way I wanted it. I began to jump up and down with excitement, giggling to myself. “So sick!”

            Flash forward 2 days, and the pillar was completed. I won’t describe what it looks like because you’re about to see. The dance floor, pillar, lights, and room were ready. Now it was just time to rock the party. No one had any idea what they were in for and that’s part of why it was so fun… After the majority of people had arrived, it was time to introduce the pillar….

Here are some pictures of the pillar in the lighting of the room before the dance party erupted...I also like to make outfits for these parties. I'm the guy hopping around the pillar in the first pic. I got my friend Jocelyn to put her painty hands all over my BOD so that it looked like girls were crawling up me. When it was time to get my pants off to dry them, we went outside to the fire escape. I did a chin up on the bar outside and Jocelyn began to rip my pants off. We looked over and the entire art studio next to our building was crowded around the window laughing at us and pointing. We waved and started laughing. HILARIOUS. So glad that happened.

At one point during the night, 3 friends climbed inside the pillar and started rocking it back and forth. Their descriptions of what it was like inside were absolutely hilarious. Just try and imagine an intense strobe light and fog consuming your entire body as hands reach in and out from the outside, grabbing at you as the music pounds around you. It was like a breathing entity. Then, when you look outside through the wholes, you see crazy green and red lasers, and various colored circles dancing around the room to the beat of the music. Here's an external view of life inside the pillar...

The following night, I took some videos of me and ma babes dancing. This video doesn't show off the fog machine, and therefore doesn't show off the laser light that well either. But, you can see the pillar and the Revo Burst light.... This is the best I can do for videos to show the atmosphere (it doesn't do it justice AT ALL...especially lighting). When people are drunk and the room is full of fog, it makes it pretty impossible to get a solid video to show the level of outrageousness.