Drunken Alter Egos...
So last night I attended a very funny function- a Karoake party as hosted by my best friend in honor of her upcoming birthday. Needless to say, I used our friendship of over two decades as a lame excuse to make an unadulterated and complete fucking ass of myself.
I awoke with a sinking feeling today, and it wasn't just the yeast settling in my eroded stomach. I had to wake up early this morning in order to catch a train. I went to my cousin's bridal shower in Queens. Absolute fucking torture. Not that I mind seeing my family or going to these sort of events, it's just... I wish I wasn't still drunk when I arrived.
As I watched my cousin open one registered piece of kitchenware after another to the soothing sound of fifty something housewives cooing her on... the post mortem drunkards withdrawl kicked in and I suddenly got really depressed. I think I purged every ounce of confidence I had in my being into my "performance" at Erica's karaoke party. I left my dignity in the bottom of a beer pitcher I didn't even help pay for. And today I had nothing left- no spare change worth of self-esteem to compensate for flashbacks of all the stupid shit I had said and done in the duration of a melody shitstorm.
I try to justify that my behavior was based on all that I had to drink... about a fish tanks worth of beer swill, chased with a few whiskeys. I actually convinced myself that every single person at that party must have had at least one moment where they
seriously thought to themselves "Hey... is that Rosie girl mildly retarded?.. Poor thing."
No, really. And I can back it up.
You see, I really beleive that in real life, my "sober life" I'm actually quite quiet and shy and sweet and altogether well mannered. And there's an obvious drink-for-courage factor that comes into play if I'm going to sing in front of strangers. So with that, my excessive drinking inevitably opens a channel for my alter ego to appear- heightened and repulsive. I call her "McCunty". (We'll revist her later).
Depression really set in when I started comparing my drunken alter ego to that of my friends- most notably, the people who were at Erica's party, they being my first point of reference.
First let's look at the Birthday girl. I love Erica's drunken alter ego. When Erica drinks she becomes like an adoarble daytime version of Liza Minelli. She's charming, witty, really just the the life of the party as the following video depicts.
Towards the end of the evening, Erica sort of devolves into a rampant little monster. Compare the following videos and see if can figure out which one is Erica. Even after twenty some odd years of friendship its hard for me to tell the difference.
Then there's Bobster (Erica's main man). Bobster usually gets old with his drink. His drunken alter ego is comparable to the great Peter O'Toole; saucey articulation, just as charming, ever the gentleman, and of course very very British. For the sake of this blog though, and in my poor attempt at illuminating details of last nights karaoke party... I'm going to nominate Bobster's character as a sort of Dean Martin during his Rat Pack years. When in the company of good friends he can be especially suave and quite the funny man. Enjoy.
It's occured to me it'd take me too long to examine/compare every person at the party and I certainly don't want to leave people out. Most everyone else was really in top form performance-wise and behaved with decent manners. I however, was a total fucking choad. If you'd like to see my pictures of these characters from last night you can view them on my
Facebook page. (I have this album set as private, so you'll need to register as my friend- but its well worth it).
Finally we've come back to this evil McCunty character I've mentioned. When I drink as much as I did last night (especially when karaoke's involved) I become this weird, crazy sort of domineering shrew. It's beyond embarassing when I realize she's showed up. My drunken slur sometimes takes on an accent or 'brogue' I don't normally have. People like to assume I'm Irish, maybe Canadian and sometimes I'll even hail from the Bronx. But regarding last night I'm going to pretend that I was as Italian as Maya Rudolph's Donatella Versace. Here's a quick snid-bit which shows how much fun it is to party with Miss McCunty.
At the very very trail of the evening Erica and I seem to transcend each other. Liza! and McCunty trade places and Hell no doubt breaks loose. Erica is far less intimidating than I am, so when she takes over it's usually laughable. In the following video, you can imagine what Erica sees as she prepares to fall into the arms of Morpheous or rather,
lies down on the bathroom floor. (Bobster, myself or any other innocent by stander in her company would be played by one of the cats).
We're I not to wrap this post up by mentioning how insanely fucking fun this party was would be extremely inconsiderate. Despite the matter of offending or just annoying some people (which I may or may not have done- I haven't pieced it all together yet) I think it was one of the best nights out I've had in a long time. The only record I have of Erica's party is a few snapshots and some distorted footage from my digital camera. Although, nothing will ever make me forget when Erica took down the house during our duet over "Cabaret!". She was a real show stopper. Liza indeed!
I'll offer readers one last comparison to summarize it all. Here I take what positive memories I have of last night and pit them against reality. Even with this video evidence I still can't completely gage the truth.
I prefer to think it's just a matter of time after all...
Happy Birthday Erica. I love you. You are the fucking best.
Labels: birthday, drunk, erica, karaoke
