My aversion to Jay's proposal was underscored by what I anticipated would be the collection of colorful characters who would also attend. Jay was studying at NYU at the time, and according to him the portion of students there who are NOT either outrageously spoiled brats from Long Island or psychotic vegan communists is under 1% (and it is amazing to note how much overlap there is between those two groups). Jay's college friends all came from this tiny minority, so the thought of Jay throwing a college party made Maddox's Nerd Social Structure article (linked here) come to mind. Eventually I relented and decided that as Jay's best friend I should be there to support him.

After I agreed to attend Jay's "Iron Chef" Festival, my sister invited me to a different party. This party was being thrown by her friends, who are all gorgeous and love to drink and dance to reggae music. I was seriously considering ditching Jay for this party, but guilt got the better of me and I decided to keep my promise to him. I remember wanting to kick myself in the ass after dropping my sister off and seeing her Covergirl friends run out to greet her with bottles of booze in their hands. It was tough, but I continued on with my original plan.

I parked the then Tozzimobile (the Taurus, I was still at the Academy) in Jay's parents' driveway and noticed immediately that there was no loud music coming from inside the house. There was not even a sign of life in the windows. I walked in and was not surprised to find Jay with a handful of people sitting around the dining room table chatting. They were playing "Magic: The Gathering" or "Dungeons & Dragons" or some other uber-nerd game. I don't mean to say that I don't like those games, I just feel that there's a time and a place for everything, and a New Year's party is supposed to be reserved for drinking and loud music. On the plus side, Rob, our other maniac friend from Bronx Science, was also there. I could tell that he was just as disappointed with how the party was going as I was. I sat down next to him and tried to join the game as best I could. After about ten minutes' time, I couldn't take it any more. I asked Jay where the booze was, and he explained that he had a cooler full in the basement. At this point I stood up and announced,

Rob stood up.

It should be noted that Rob, Jay and I had been drinking buddies since senior year in High School. However, Rob himself would never drink. He would stay stone sober while the rest of us would transform into the cast of characters from "Animal House." The crazy thing was, he was just as much of a maniac sober as we were drunk, which made him our drinking buddy. This is how it had been since we were all in High School. It then follows logically that Rob would find it more interesting to watch me get drunk than to watch Jay and five computer nerds toss a 12 sided die and shout at eachother. Besides, after I had had a few beers, we could always come back up and tease the nerds.

Jay's friends were not phased by what Rob and I had proposed, but Jay apparently had an epiphany at this point. He stood up and said,

Jay's other friends grumbled, but they stood up as well, and we all proceeded down to the basement.

At this point I should explain that Jay's parents' basement is one of the best places I've ever seen for throwing a party. It actually has a speakeasy built into the wall which probably dates back to Prohibition. At some point in the 70's or 80's Jay's father installed a surround sound system into the cieling and a big screen TV (for the time) into the wall. His father also added a sound visualizer for the TV which dates back to the golden age of Atari. Jay started turning on all the equipment while I broke open a few beers. It rapidly became the kind of New Year's party I had been hoping for: drinking beer and listening to Black Sabbath on Jay's parents' awesome entertainment system, while the visualizer added the psychedellic effects the artists must have had in mind when they first recorded the music.

It is at this point in the story that my memory begins to fail me. I drank a lot of beer in a short period of time. Only one more event from that night sticks out in my mind:

At the stroke of midnight, Jay broke out a champagne bottle for all of us to celebrate. He undid the wire mesh, and tried to pop the cork, but it wouldn't come off. He yanked and yanked, but it wouldn't budge.

Shocked, he responded,

Jay and I then went up to the kitchen. I looked through his parents' utensils and grabbed a steak knife and a wing-type corkscrew. I used the knife to cut off the bulbous top of the cork, and the corkscrew to pull out the flared bottom section. Jay looked on in amazement and made the following remark:

We then resumed drinking.

I awoke the next morning to the opening sequence of "Iron Chef." My mood was not fouled because I didn't have a hangover; I was still way too drunk for that to happen yet. Of Jay's Nerd Herd, only myself, Rob, Jay, and a couple (see category #2 in Maddox's Nerd file) remained. As I stirred and sat upright, Rob asked me,

"What do you remember from last night?"

I told him that I remembered drinking and listening to Black Sabbath.

"Do you know how many times you listened to that one song, 'Nativity in Black?'"

"No." I confessed.

"I lost count around the 20th time." Rob replied.

"Well, it is a good song, though." I retorted.

"It was hilarious watching you figure out how to use an iPOD. You kept saying 'How can they build an electronic device with no buttons?' Jay had passed out by that point, and everyone else had already left, expcept for the couple in the back room fucking. When you finally got tired of that song, you decided to lay down on the couch and go to sleep. At that point you said the funniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. With almost a British accent, you said,

"'Would you mind terribly if I removed my trousers?'"

I explained that sleeping in my jeans is uncomfortable, especially with my enormous skull shaped belt buckle.

"'Knock yourself out!' I said. You got the couch all to yourself. I'm taking the recliner. Then you got all paranoid about someone coming in and trying to steal your wallet. I told you that was ridiculous, and then you layed down on the couch and passed out too."

Jay's mother, Janet, came in around lunch time and brought us tortilla wrap sandwiches. She noticed that we were all sitting in front of the TV watching the "Iron Chef" marathon.

"Tozzi," She said, "You said there wasn't enough liquor in the universe to get you to watch the 'Iron Chef' marathon. Apparently there was enough liquor in this basement alone, wasn't there?"

I laughed and took a bite of one of the sandwiches. I was still so drunk I couldn't identify the contents from the taste. I then looked at the cut cross section. In my blurred vision, I saw something dark pink in the middle. I turned to Janet and said,

"These salmon sandwiches are awesome!"

Everyone laughed. Janet explained,

"They're not salmon, they're turkey."

"Then what's this pink stuff in the middle?" I asked.

"Tomato."

To this day, whenever Jay and I are eating something we can't identify, we call it a salmon sandwich.

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Article originally posted 09 September 2007

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*Quote from a Lewis Black stand-up comedy routine.

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