Domino Mothertrucker
When was the last time you were at a house party? Not a party where house music was playing, but a bona fide push the couches to the walls, set up a table for the DJ, and pile beers into a cooler house party? It’s probably been a while. Now throw in a pajama jammy jam theme and see if you can’t almost literally blow the roof off the apartment.
That happened to me not too long ago. A friend was having a birthday party and was soon vacating a house that was the site of some epic parties over the years. This was the last one.
For no other reason than to make the point that we all get along, I will mention that the party was a mixed crowd, but a predominately African American crowd. I also mention the point because I was in the minority, a situation I find myself in often and have no issues with.
My buddy was the DJ and had the task of keeping the party going, but also adhering to the desires of the birthday girl and host. I was hanging out in the yard where a game of dominoes was in constant motion. I don’t know the game, I knocked over dominoes as a kid, but never learned the rules. As I tried to perpetrate an urban attitude in my 20’s I wanted to learn the game that is a fixture in black films and black culture, kind of like gin rummy for white people during hurricanes, blackouts, and vacation cottages with no cable TV.
I had tired of trying to figure out the rules on the fly and went inside where the music was bumping. The DJ had a steady group of people moving to mostly hip hop and R & B, the hostess had a wireless microphone and was hyping the crowd and rhyming over the music. As per her request the DJ worked in some 80’s songs, and I was taken aback when Cyndi Lauper’s “Girl’s Just Wanna Have Fun” rocked the crowd, it got even more heated when he transitioned into Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” and the mostly black crowd was feeling it.
I took it upon myself to rant and rave about how cool it was to see this cultural overlap. I ran out to the yard and started shouting, “This story is never told, there’s Bon Jovi inside, and dominoes on the outside, we’ve been sold a bill a goods, this is what really goes on, but people say it doesn’t.” I heard a few people saying I was crazy and others laughed, but as the music cut back and forth from genres the domino game shut down and the whole living room was bugging out to Nirvana and Lunix, and Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth and Metallica, and it was a Top 10 party of my life.
Free your mind and your ass will follow.
