The gimlet eye - 'party' as a verb; humor - Column

WHAT you been doing?"

"Partying."

"What you gonna do this week?"

"I don't know. Party."

"Wanna go to the movies?"

"Naw, I think I'll just party."

You got friends like this? People whose whole life revolves around the word "party?"

But if you were ever to say, "Great. Let's party. Where's the party?" then they would have to say, "There's not any party, man. We're just gonna, you know, party."

So there's a whole lotta partying going on, but no actual parties. But when did the word "party" start meaning "I think I'll sit around and get drunk and watch TV, and maybe later some other people will come over and sit around, and I can bum cigarettes off em"?

In the Sixties they had this phrase they'd use, "wild party." It was hip. It meant drugs, booze, and those ladies in the silver mini-skirts who got wasted and danced nekkid in the moonlight on Fifth Avenue terraces. Every Sixties comedy has a "wild party" scene.

Then party became a verb: "Let's party."

Then party became a word used by hookers: "Would you like to party with me?"

Then it became a sorta kinda sometimes sexual invitation, as used in singles bars: "We were thinking of partying later."

Then, in the Eighties, it became a different word for guys and gals. Girls say, "Let's party," and they mean, "Let's dance." Music is necessary. There is no party without music. But when guys say it, they mean, "Let's get drunk and/or stoned and watch the girls dance." So music isn't absolutely necessary, but it helps.

And now, in the Nineties, it means "I don't have anything to do. I'm bored."

"What are you doing tonight?"

"Party."

"Oh, we did that last night."

"I can't think of anything else."

"Okay, we'll party. But tomorrow night let's do something."

In other words, "party" now means, "I'll get a six-pack. Anybody want pizza?"

So I guess my question is: How did we end up with a country that thinks about parties all the time but is too lazy to actually put on a plastic hat or spin a noisemaker?

Partly it's the popularity of social dope consumption. I mean, they didn't start calling it dope for nothing, did they? There's something different about a party full of dope consumers and a party full of, say, hard-core Scotch drinkers. The two groups can be equally obnoxious, equally out of control, but I prefer my drunks to remain awake and lively, not dead-eyed and drooling.

And while we're on the subject of the decline of parties, I have to ask:

Why can't anybody make a martini any more?

What's happening to the world?

When did we lose our old values?

More important, is a world where nobody knows how to make a martini worth living in?

I would say that only about one in eight professional bartenders can actually make a decent martini. Ninety per cent of martinis --including those poured in some of America's finest hotels -- are either bitter, or watered-down, or hot. I know this because I keep ordering them, no matter how many disgusting, sloppy martinis I'm served.

Twenty years ago there were people who took such care in making martinis that they would throw out a whole pitcher if they accidentally "bruised the gin." Today you've got bartenders that'll do the rumba with that reinforced-steel martini shaker and then pour the thing before it's chilled.

And why do they always pour it right up to the brim of the glass, so that you have to do this balancing act when you pick it up and try to slurp some of it into your mouth before it dribbles all over your tie?

Listen up. A martini glass is an architecturally unstable structure. It will wobble. That's why you have to leave at least one-fourth of an inch of space between the surface of the martini and the brim of the glass.

Why do I have to explain these things?

ABOUT two weeks ago my friend Andy mixed me a tremendous martini. A world-class martini. The kind of martini that inspires epic poetry. And after he served it to me, he said, "I don't get much request for those any more."

I said, "You can make that level of martini, and you don't get requests for it? If martinis were an Olympic event, you'd have a medal every four years."

And Andy proceeds to tell me that he's been using the same bottle of gin for over a year. When he entertains, nobody ever asks for a martini.

Do you know what they do ask for?

Perrier.

Lite beer.

White wine.

Presumably so that whatever they just consumed in the bathroom won't be too much affected by actual spirits.

I looked at Andy. He looked at me. We exchanged a look that said, "Civilization has passed away, has it not?" A few nights ago I watched that great Robert Wise horror movie, The Haunting, from 1963. And there's one scene that's stayed with me ever since. When the supernatural researchers all assemble in the haunted house, Russ Tamblyn asks them if they want a drink. And then he brings them four perfectly poured martinis. He doesn't even ask whether they want a martini or not. He knows they want a martini.

Because they lived, you see, in the Golden Age. They lived in the age when "party" did not have the secondary meaning of "coma."

COPYRIGHT 1996 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group