Mark Pepper's Lantern Lights #2

A few weeks ago my father was checking his list of saved websites and stumbled across one called Clubcourtyard.com. I must have showed it to him in its infancy (and my how the baby has grown, soon it will be dating and we’ll all have to meet its potential suitors) and I guess he called Mom in to check out the further developments. So my Mom calls me and says the site was quite cool, but she also noted how all the pictures of me featured a cigarette and beer prominently in my disturbed little artist’s hands. Well first of all this is not true. In one of the pictures you can clearly see that the cigarette is in my feet, and on more than one occasion my hands are far too busy flipping the camera the bird to be holding any of my vices securely. But upon closer inspection I suppose the ‘rents have a point. It’s not like they were upset. I’m twenty-seven years old and have every right to allow children in Budapest to see my likeness drinking and smoking if I want (assuming these children have internet access). And the explanation is easy enough—pictures at the Lantern are usually only taken during times of partying are large scale social interaction, and beer/cigarettes go with those occasions like KY and chocolate bars at a NAMBLA convention (run a Google if you have to).

Delve deeper into the Lantern Website and you’ll see I’m not the only offender. Everyone is pictured with a beer or a shot at some point. Yeungling has its own link. The proper way to drink absinthe may as well have its own instructional flip book. Flash videos instruct you on the definition of a “cool one.” There’s even a guy with such a gigantic shiner that you know alcohol had to be involved somewhere. So with summer firmly rolling on and a number of beers surely to be downed, perhaps it’s a good moment to try and understand the role of alcohol in social interaction. Don’t worry, this is far from a thorough academic analysis—just be glad I don’t post my paper on post-modern dissolution of the grand narrative archetypes in the works of Nabokov and Dostoevsky. You think hundred degree weather makes you wanna die? Try reading that puppy next to a busted air conditioner.

Mandy and I’s first social outing in the lantern involved Tonja, Stephanie, Vanessa and others out drinking in the courtyard. The first lantern ritual I remember was Friday night concerts in the park which involved paying too much money for tickets that get you too little beer. The second most common lantern tenant greeting (after “hello”) is “wanna drink some beer?” (the third and fourth are “Shut the fuck up” and “is so and so home cause I wanna talk some shit on them real quick” in case you were wondering) Rick’s Market must love us, and bottle loving bums from here to Alhambra probably consider our alley to be a must stumble through. Why is this? Is it impossible for people to gather without the presence of alcohol? Booze is there from births to the grave (for the people in attendance at the official designating functions of course—giving booze to a baby is just wrong, and giving booze to a corpse is just wasteful…unless you’re pouring it into the ground in memory of your fallen homies, in which case you’re just demonstrating that you have mad flavor).
We all know booze has certain effects on people. Even in small doses it tends to loosen a person up and allows them to slip out of their monotonous routines and into a more social and loose lipped mode.

In large doses it can cause ladies to have pen fights and expose their boobies. In even larger doses it can lead to puking, and seeing your friends puke is always fun. So alright, booze makes you more social. When you hear a courtyard full of people your first instinct is to grab a few cool ones and start the loosening up process. This is valid.

But anyone who’s been jarred from a dream about trapeze flying monkeys (you know you’ve had it) knows that Lanternites often come stumbling back from the bars at 2 a.m. with so much verbal looseness that time appropriate volume control has escaped them faster than the girls they just spent hours trying to pick up on. Obviously, booze is more than just about getting loose; it is often a catalyst and excuse to get damn shitty. Has anyone ever brought out a bottle of Maker’s Mark with any other intention? The reasons for this are many. For one, it is kind of fun to be stinking drunk sometimes—like a “happy ending” at the massage parlor, it’s a physical sensation you don’t experience every day. And although one can get piss drunk alone, it’s really only appropriate when coupled with Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” album and the knowledge that your girlfriend was just intimate with something that wasn’t you or hard plastic.

The second and more sadder truth is that human beings (even us particularly clever and gabby Lanternites) only have so much they can talk about. This is not a bottom line fact—perhaps I should rephrase and say humans will only allow themselves to interact in so many ways and on so many topics. As people get more comfortable with their ATMs and prerecorded menu choices when ever you call a business, (press one for English, two for Spanish, and do a number one and two in your pants if you think you’re going to get a live operator) we are all slowly losing the ability and desire to actually talk with other humans. Sheesh, it’s so much work! And as everything becomes debatable and subjective in this fractured post-modern world, we all have a lot of opinions on any given issue. The problem is that without any value system or firm foundation upon which to assert why you believe your opinion is correct (it’s all in the Nabokov/Dostevesky paper) arguments and debates have devolved into little more than gum flapping where someone is destined to get their feelings hurt. God forbid someone admit they’re wrong (I’m sorry Tonja, you know I love you, but “eternal” and “beautiful” have absolutely nothing to do with the word “ubiquitous”). And as for the truly deep stuff, the deep conversations about one’s life, happiness, the nature of reality, your hopes and dreams. . . well, how many people actually delve into this stuff in large groups of people? It happens, it even happens here at the Lantern on occasion, but for the most part the message of our popular culture is constantly telling us to keep it light. I’ve flirted with enough almost high brow references, so I’ll use a pop culture reference to make the point. The Matrix Reloaded comes out, and most people I’ve talked to didn’t like it. Now I’m not saying it entirely succeeded, but regardless, it is a movie that offers people a chance to think and interpret the kinds of issues that Freud, Nietzsche, and Skinner have been pondering for decades. But who wants that in a movie right? That sounds like homework. A few weeks later Terminator 3 comes out, which is completely mindless and even blows certain continuities with the first two films, and the public embraces it and rallies around its simplicity. Something is wrong here.

What does this have to do with getting drunk? Well, the state of drunkenness and social interaction ultimately allows people to go a bit beyond the two ends of the spectrum and reach new and interesting grounds. A group of drunks may choose to keep it light, but instead of your garden variety fluff conversation, you get people adopting their alter egos (who can forget Dr. Jimmy?) and spewing comedic skits into Jeff’s answering machine (some of which have been funnier than anything, say, Eddie Murphy has done for about ten years). Instead of hearing the same story for the fifth time, you get shoe golf. At the other end is booze’s less than graceful way of making people open up about their deepest secrets and lest not forget, “how much I really love you, man. No, I mean it. I love you, man!” Those slightly deeper conversations also come flying out, even if it’s only because you’re so sauced that it’s become irrelevant if you’ve made your point or not. As long as there’s another bottle in the cooler life is good. The point is, I don’t consider these outbursts false just because they happened while drunk. If anything, they’ve always wanted to come out, we’re just weird little fucked up creatures, us human beings, and sometimes we need a little help to be real with each other.

And last but not least…beer tastes good.

Till next time.

Lantern Lights #1

Lantern Lights #3

Lantern Lights #4

Lantern Lights #5

A few weeks ago my father was checking his list of saved websites and stumbled across one called Clubcourtyard.com. I must have showed it to him in its infancy (and my how the baby has grown, soon it will be dating and we’ll all have to meet its potential suitors) and I guess he called Mom in to check out the further developments. So my Mom calls me and says the site was quite cool, but she also noted how all the pictures of me featured a cigarette and beer prominently in my disturbed little artist’s hands. Well first of all this is not true. In one of the pictures you can clearly see that the cigarette is in my feet, and on more than one occasion my hands are far too busy flipping the camera the bird to be holding any of my vices securely. But upon closer inspection I suppose the ‘rents have a point. It’s not like they were upset. I’m twenty-seven years old and have every right to allow children in Budapest to see my likeness drinking and smoking if I want (assuming these children have internet access). And the explanation is easy enough—pictures at the Lantern are usually only taken during times of partying are large scale social interaction, and beer/cigarettes go with those occasions like KY and chocolate bars at a NAMBLA convention (run a Google if you have to).

Delve deeper into the Lantern Website and you’ll see I’m not the only offender. Everyone is pictured with a beer or a shot at some point. Yeungling has its own link. The proper way to drink absinthe may as well have its own instructional flip book. Flash videos instruct you on the definition of a “cool one.” There’s even a guy with such a gigantic shiner that you know alcohol had to be involved somewhere. So with summer firmly rolling on and a number of beers surely to be downed, perhaps it’s a good moment to try and understand the role of alcohol in social interaction. Don’t worry, this is far from a thorough academic analysis—just be glad I don’t post my paper on post-modern dissolution of the grand narrative archetypes in the works of Nabokov and Dostoevsky. You think hundred degree weather makes you wanna die? Try reading that puppy next to a busted air conditioner.

Mandy and I’s first social outing in the lantern involved Tonja, Stephanie, Vanessa and others out drinking in the courtyard. The first lantern ritual I remember was Friday night concerts in the park which involved paying too much money for tickets that get you too little beer. The second most common lantern tenant greeting (after “hello”) is “wanna drink some beer?” (the third and fourth are “Shut the fuck up” and “is so and so home cause I wanna talk some shit on them real quick” in case you were wondering) Rick’s Market must love us, and bottle loving bums from here to Alhambra probably consider our alley to be a must stumble through. Why is this? Is it impossible for people to gather without the presence of alcohol? Booze is there from births to the grave (for the people in attendance at the official designating functions of course—giving booze to a baby is just wrong, and giving booze to a corpse is just wasteful…unless you’re pouring it into the ground in memory of your fallen homies, in which case you’re just demonstrating that you have mad flavor).
We all know booze has certain effects on people. Even in small doses it tends to loosen a person up and allows them to slip out of their monotonous routines and into a more social and loose lipped mode.