A house jam

Written: June 19, 2011, in DC

About: Tucson, Spring and Summer 2005

On a cool spring evening, I’m walking half a block to a friend’s house. It’s dark. No good party starts until at least eleven anyway. I’m practically bounding down the street and up the stairs. There is a bottle of Jack in my hand. A cloud of tobacco smoke already occupies the porch. Someone, swimming in the cloud, is talking loudly and drinking cheap beer.

This isn’t a regular college party. Some of the city’s best improvisers are gathering under this roof, along with their fortunate friends. It’s a night for a house jam. A few hours ago the word had gone out over texts, and now we are converging. With all the right people, the right time and energy and place the event runs itself. Somewhere there’s a hat with people’s names. We are supposed to be picking teams and setting the show order. None of it matters – everyone brought booze, and everyone knows what’s supposed to happen. No need for rules. Too many people here are practically anarchists anyway.

There is no subtlety in the night’s acceleration. Cigarettes out front, weed in the back, alcohol everywhere. These are the nights when I would drink close to a bottle of whiskey, and others wouldn’t be far behind. But everyone is riding such a powerful wave of spiritual intoxication that all these psychoactives barely touch anyone.

The crowd is around. People standing at the ready, waiting for the moment when everything starts. Eventually, someone gets things rolling, but it’s hardly that person’s decision. The night simply reaches the right point. Some critical mass is found, and everyone collapses into the large living room. There is a pile of chairs and couches. Everything is quickly lined with bottles and cups. Someone leans in through the doorway to watch, holding the cigarette outside.

Improv is feverish and uncompromising. No one merely says “Yes.” We scream it, fling ourselves into agreement. Few teams manage to stick to a structure. Everything slides into montages and freeform. No one stops or interrupts their indulgences. People bring cups of liquor right into the scenes, sometimes shooting straight from the bottles just off-stage. Energy pours out of us like a wildfire. There is no controlling this storm. There is divine focus and precision in this play of wicked abandon.

The house is a deliriously storming sea. Waves of energy crash from wall to wall. Lines and scenes come effortlessly. All is love and brilliance. It goes until the cups run dry, the scenes hit all the buttons, and there is a post-coital smoke on the porch. The night winks out and we glide home.

This was our Woodstock. This was our Paris of the twenties.