Mongrel Knowledge Drunk Dial: with Heina Dadabhoy on Intersectionality

I Went to a Ratchet Party

I asked my guides for a definition of “ratchet” several times, but never understood it until I experienced it. I was told there would be drink, smoke, loud music, and lovely ladies dancing dirty, all in a location unknown until a few hours before everything kicked off. Intriguing I know, but to me it sounded like some sort of sting operation. I decided to beat traffic to Los Angeles and spend the afternoon awkwardly playing with my phone for a few hours to mentally prepare.

I did not imbibe. After all, this was my introduction to what cool people do and I didn’t want to fuck it up. Some of the ladies in our expedition stopped at the corner store to buy small cans of sake to smuggle in. As the sun went down, we finally got an email with the address. It was a known hangout: a disused warehouse in an industrial part of town. Armed with $10 each and the most modest of fanny packs, we departed.

Security had set up on the sidewalk and were doing a good job of keeping the front of the warehouse looking dark and unremarkable. The females of the expedition did not pay their entry or stop at the door, but the males were pat down before being ushered down a twisting, crowded bottleneck of an entryway. My inner self, speaking in the voice of a gruff fire marshall, wondered how many partiers would get trampled in an emergency. Most of the debris was kicked into the corners, and most of the wires and pipes were out of reach, but this didn’t appear to be intentional.

But the beats were loud enough to shake the exposed rafters. A rotating cast of women danced on a shoddy plywood stage surrounded by imitators and admirers.  Two or three DJs stood behind, spinning 2 Chainz and other possibly-satirical rap mingled with textural EDM. The crowd was largely college-aged, attractive, and very reflective of LA’s ethnic and stylistic diversity. Even auptight blogger in running shoes didn’t look out of place. It felt like the only thing we all had in common was our willingness to show up to a poorly-planned party in this part of town.

The security was thick, but they all had a Rottweiler-esque fixation on watching for confrontation. Indeed, the sake was passed around openly, and there was enough smoke for the flashing lasers to get trapped in sticky clouds floating over our heads. We had to step over a tangle of unrestrained cables (safety first!) and navigate past hastily-constructed barriers to get behind the main event, where the crowd jostled directly with the DJs and girls. A conservatively-dressed man concentrating on a tangle of audio equipment ignored the beamingly proud woman who began to grind on him.

My girlfriends were invited on-stage to briefly twerk to the music. I stood in my corner with some guys who looked like landscapers and thought about the definition of “ratchet”, which at this point seemed more of a superlative than anything. A metaphor did come to mind, but it had something to do with socket wrenches, so I pushed it aside.

The mood evolved with the beat. The dancing became less spastic and more sensual, though it still took place on all elevated plywood surfaces in the place. Twitter-length conversations were shouted into ears. I lost all concept of time, and then when the house lights came on, people obediently began to filter out. We were some of the last of them, and even the sidewalk crowd had thinned as people stepped over broken pallets and trash to their cars, packed in tight LA fashion for a few blocks.

By the time we were waited in the car for our driver, deafly reflecting on the night, it was well after last call. My metaphor returned: ratchet. Turn it one way, it noisily gives way, turn it the other, it locks. The shaking asses, dilapidated structure, and skunky smell seemed completely unrestrained, but a Californian serenity accompanied it. Ratchet felt like unidirectional, focused craziness, and tightening nuts and bolts never felt so good.

I Went to a Juggalo Party

I went to a Juggalo Party. On purpose actually.

What I was certain of was that I'd be uncomfortable. What I wasn't certain of was what I would see. I expected a lot of creepy facepaint, ICP/Kottonmouth Kings/Twiztid shirts. Hatchetmen as far as the eye could see. Kind of went into it with a dickish, judging mentality. Admittedly so.

The reason I went WAS all the uncertainty. My in was that my friends' band was playing there.

I figured if any crowd of folks could handle my MS Paint created self made iron on SKULL FUCKER shirt it would have to be a bunch of wicked clowns, so I dressed accordingly.

On arrival we were carded at the door which was already a bit weird. Some loud hip hop was blaring from the basement. So I went down there and a guy I can only say perfectly fits the description of Lil Kev from the episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia "Dee is Dating a Retarded Person" is tearing shit up. He's wearing a lime green jersey of a sort, football if my memory serves me, and a backwards visor. Dead ringer for Lil Kev.

Mere minutes passed when I decided I wanted to hit up the wop that was promised...and they fucking delivered. Grab a cup, start boozing. I didn't drive so I figured to booze hard.

At one point when I took my hoodie off an acquaintance said I may wanna be careful with my T-shirt, displaying a guy shoving his cartoon dick into the eye socket of a skull in his hands--there was a girl with one eye at the party. My first thought was that he was fucking with me and my second thought was...even if there IS a fucking one eyed girl the odds of her having lost her eye in a dick related incident had to be extremely low. When I went upstairs to see if the pizza also promised in the event description was there I not only saw the girl with one eye, I saw that there was no pizza. Bummer, I guess. One eyed chick. Righteous.

So we spent the night parting with these folks who were all pretty rad. A guy with a cleaver hanging on his chain wallet may have been the weirdest thing about these folks besides one eyed girl. In any event the show went off without a hitch. A few of us sat behind the bar reaching into a giant box of gumballs there to fill the many gumball machines the host had in his basement, throwing them over the drummer's head into the middle of the room. As they fell to the floor they'd roll until they were crushed or hit something.

By nights end the wop was gone and I was plowed but it wasn't enough. Filling a cup with fruit from the wop jug I went to down on really boozy, not so tasty fruit.

The show promised much female nudity. While it was largely a sausage fest, something the event description explicitly stated was unfavorable, it did actually deliver female nudity. My friends did shots off a larger set Juggalette's tits...and best of all...designated "Titty Commander" brought all the females out for quite possibly the sleaziest most ridiculous Titty Competition ever. Cyclops and about 5 other women all bared their breasts to a small crowd of cheering retards (let's be honest--in this moment we were all being absolutely retarded) and some even got Faygo showered.

By the end of the night people were lazing about and I grabbed the mic for a freestyle sesh with some friends taking up drums and it went downhill and I stupidly decided to run jokes on the 10 people left in the basement. I got a few laughs but it was mostly a horrendous idea. I spent the last 15 minutes in the house trying to get one girl to share in some c-c-c-co-caaaaaiiiiiiine to no avail.

We left, all a little shocked at what a great time we had at the Juggalo Party.

--Gumby