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.