2005-11-22 - 4:08 p.m.
On Saturday, I went to New Haven, CT, for the Second Annual Fourth Annual Tenth Annual Wild Turkey Breakfast. This event starts at 9AM before the Harvard-Yale football game and so alternates locations every year, depending on if the Game is played in Cambridge (actually the Harvard football stadium is across the river in Allston) or New Haven. Not that most of the people involved actually care much about Ivy League football, but the laws say you have to party on that day. The motto became: ��Drink like a champion, today.��
Wild Turkey Breakfast started as some students I didn��t know at the time getting an early start on drinking by having bourbon in their dorm room the morning of the Game. People rented a bus to go to Yale when the match was played there. It��s continued annually for all these years, drawing an ever-increasing number of attendees. Nowadays, friends of friends of friends will show up and decide they like it enough to come back in subsequent years. I realize that drinking hard liquor first thing in the morning for no apparent reason may just seem like overgrown fraternity behavior, but really it��s a lot of fun.
In our early post-graduation years, the party took place in someone local��s apartment or house. Party-goers would often end up passed out on the floor. Sometimes on someone else��s floor. A favorite memory is from 1997. After the party, about a dozen of us went over to the apartment of someone one of us knew. He told the guy he knew that he was heading out the door in a minute for the rest of the weekend and couldn��t really entertain us. My friend asked if he minded whether we stayed in his place for a bit while we all waited for cabs. He said that was fine and bustled out the door, leaving us all behind in his apartment.
Two days later, we were all still there. We had quickly called everyone we knew and invited them over. As we figured this was a free place to stay for the weekend, people staked out various couches, chairs, and corners to sleep in, with and without partners. But sleeping was quite secondary to continuing to carouse. We absolutely decimated the apartment over the next few days. There were cigarette butts and empty beer cans strewn everywhere. As long as someone stayed inside to let others back in, we were fine. We all left before the actual tenant of the apartment came back to find his place so trashed. I have no idea whether the guy who knew him remained to offer an explanation or if they��re still friends.
Uhm. Sorry about that. I feel bad in retrospect, as if that helps. Nya pointed out that by that point I was simply too old (like past age 14) to be acting so bratty. I really have no excuse. If it��s any comfort, we��ve moved on to renting bars to host the actual party (Bar in New Haven and Grendel��s Den in Cambridge) and hotels to sleep in. This year Nya and I came out from Chicago (I had to be with my family in New York for Thanksgiving later anyway) and stayed at a Days Inn. I'm afraid I'm a little too old to drink like a champion, but I had my morning bourbon. I also tried to interest inebriated and overpaid attendees in my business in the hopes of future investment. We��ll see.
For a time we got musical guests who were more famous and had more indie cred than you��d expect. And we had a different genre of band every year. In 2000 we got art-noise post-punk group the Rapture, in 2001 we had indie rock powerhouse Ted Leo, in 2002 we got the awesome indie-pop band Palomar (for whom Bishop Allen opened), and in 2003 Boston mod group the Fly Seville. Last year, the Fly Seville played again (I didn��t go; I was having a fateful lunch with Alithea) and this year, we just had our friends�� country band (Sweet Jeebus) play. Not that they didn��t put on a good show, but I do hope we��ll get back into hiring ��name�� bands.
It was great to see people I hadn��t seen in a long time. A lot of them hadn��t seen me in a wheelchair before, but most apparently read this journal (hi!) and knew what was up. Afterwards, Nya and I went across the street for burgers at Louis�� Lunch (which claims to have invented the hamburger or something, although I��m dubious) and she even broke her current vegetarian status to eat a burger. It was historic, after all. Then everyone met up at a Mexican place down the street for lunch and/or more drinks. We even watched the end of the Harvard-Yale game on TV (although some were more drawn to the Notre Dame-Ohio State game). Harvard won. Oh joy.
Nya and I actually had a good time the rest of the weekend in New Haven (who would have thought that fun could be had there?). Maybe I��ll write more about it later. In the meantime, I may be a little old for this, but I would urge you to drink like a champion today.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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