condoms

You are cordially invited to my 1960s “Les Baxter” party. Yeah I know, I know — just work with me here…

When I was a kid this is what adulthood looked like to me. I’m prompted by Twinkly Sparkles’ post on what it was like to be a kid in the 1960s imagining what being a grown up was like. My mom is light with long hair that she wore in the style of a lot of the white women on TV back then. My dad and mom went to parties of my dad’s artist friends and there would be pictures.

My party is slightly based on that but mostly based on media images and a few of the dirty magazines I “happened” on back then.

So guys put on your smoking jackets. Cigars and pipes welcome! We won’t protest in self-righteous health-awareness. You’ll get none of that “Oh my God that stinks!” at my party. Girls – yeah I said it – GIRLS – this is pre “women’s liberation” era – bring your cigarette holders and pink-filtered cigarettes, but no lighters. The boys at the party will eagerly light your cigarettes on the terrace overlooking the Hudson. Black women, wear your newly liberating afros, but you have to wear head bands, mini–skirts and Nancy Sinatra go-go boots. Wear your grooviest bouffants and pale peach-colored lipsticks – re-apply after eating the fondue.

Martinis abound, the plain ones with no fruit, chocolate, peppermint or marshmallows– blech! Drink up, smoke, swap wives and have an orgy in the blue room – no condoms. Next week you’re all invited to the Cheetah Club on 53^rd and Broadway!

This wasn’t the sixties but I’m going to play it at my party:

We actually had this album at home:

I walked to an ad on the train platform — a picture of an old woman with smeared lipstick, spiky drunk hair, holding a glass of liquor and a cigarette. She wore flashy clothes too young for her wrinkled personage, and she was dancing. The caption: Crazy Old Aunties Deserve to Die. Why I’m of this ilk. I’ve written about it mmm hmm, in this blog. Crazy ‘ol Auntie Sandee, the middle-aged death metalist, alcoholic. Me and the poor old woman in this poster — people just don’t understand! The ad was an off beat anti-smoking campaign. Generally they were saying people make excuses when it comes to smoking. But I quit smoking — quit the same time I quit drinking. Considering the circumstances it was a wise decision.

A long time ago Crazy ‘ol Auntie Sandee went to the bar and met a boy quite a few years younger. From the Canary Islands. We talked and talked and talked. He leaned over and in his Spanish accent said, “I want to kiss you.” Yeah, yeah, so I made out with him in the bar loosey goosey, whatever. All I remember is waking up alone to discover that I had apparently had safe sex with someone. Twice. I threw the condom wrappers away and went to work, recalling vaguely saying the night before, ‘Oooo, that’s niiice.”

A day later I get a call. “Hello Sandee.” It was the Spaniard! “I have no idea what happened here the night before. Why don’t we meet at the diner so you can tell me what happened and then I can see what you look like too.” I recalled a handsome young devil but I was drunk. I needed to know.

He was a handsome young devil on some kind of a work visa. He would be leaving in a month. He was studying to become a lawyer — I had sex with him. In a blackout. I wasn’t present, wasn’t there, didn’t get to experience this because I was in a blackout. This made no sense. I stopped drinking immediately. Crazy ‘ol Aunties do indeed deserve to die when they deprive themselves of being present to experience having sex with handsome young men with European accents.