Belling Man 2017

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Our weekend was spent lounging poolside just north of San Francisco, at the first ever Belling Man gathering. It’s a place where people can go if they can’t make it to Burning Man but want to cram a week’s worth of drinking and partying into two days with a motley, international crew of burner friends; there was a man who looked like Pablo Escobar’s mustache had a lovechild with Frank Zappa; another man, with a semi-gangrenous leg, a keen eye for swimming pools, and a relentless hatred for the mechanical robots that clean them; a blue-eyed, bald bard from County Clare; and a towering chimney of a man - an Arizonian - who professed to possess a small-batch scrotum, just to name a few. We were there, at a house that looked like the set of a 1970’s, LSD-infused pool party; it was even decorated that way. Before long someone was bound to declare themselves, by divine right, a golden god and leap from the roof into the pool below. Having arranged for us all to stay at the house, it quickly became clear to me that this may have been the wrong choice, that certainly things would spin out of control, and I, the one solely responsible for the safety of the guests and the house itself, would invariably be brought up on criminal charges. To secure the house took much negotiation with the owner, who, having made it clear that there were to be no parties, no pets, no large groups, and no music or noise outside by the pool after 10PM, had finally conceded to waive the 3-night minimum and let us stay for two. In writing, and verbally, over the phone, I had promised her this. 

So, naturally, when we arrived I was stricken with anxiety over the rate at which alcohol was being consumed. Cases of beer started to vanish and empty beer cans were cropping up in all corners of the estate like dead insects after a fumigation. Slowly my heart began to palpitate when the number of guests multiplied and swelled beyond count or control. Entire families of people had appeared. Kids were laughing and launching themselves like cannonballs into the pool, splashing water out and flooding the perimeter. A 4-wheeled, electronic pool cleaner lay sideways on the deck, spraying out streams of chlorine water into a lush garden of tomatoes and basil. In horror I watched as three different people, one after the other, walked at full speed into the screen door, nearly tearing right through it. The other door, which was to remain shut, was constantly left open, allowing a swarm of bees and enormous, biting flies to take up residence inside the home. Suddenly, two giant dogs, owned by a woman named after a child’s pacifier, darted into the house through the open door and sought to attack the property owner’s cat. Then, for a reason I could not comprehend, a giant, expensive-looking wooden dining table was being carried outside. Orange paper plates and bright yellow napkins which had been ransacked from a closet were being thrown haphazardly onto the table as placemats and blowing away into the pool and the neighboring yards. Music was blasting from a speaker while people talked loudly and laughed, chain-smoking and flicking cigarette butts into glasses and cups, beer cans and open bags of potato chips. 

“Are you okay,” a female friend had asked me. I wasn’t. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that when someone is asking you if you’re okay, you can generally assume you’re not. I was single-handedly waging a war against entropy, and I was losing. Don’t panic. It will be okay. This is fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. These are your friends, they have your back. Wait, these are my friends. They’re savages! Holy fuck, I’m doomed! The clock said it was 9:59, so, sheepishly, I went outside to ask that the party be moved inside. “Hey, everyone, I umm, just want to let you know that it’s 10:00 and, so, umm, it’s time to go inside now.” Just as soon as I stopped speaking, someone had pelted me in the neck with an egg. Someone else screamed, shut the fuck up, faggot! A small child waddled up to me and shot me, at point blank range, in the testicles with a Nerf gun. And while I lay on the floor, with a yellow-colored, half-wet napkin stuck to my face while a group of men pissed like fountain angels into the pool, I heard the man with the semi-gangrenous shin coughing and laughing maniacally from inside the house. Looking over my shoulder through the tattered screen door, I saw that he was microwaving an aluminum pan of oven-top popcorn which had now grown malignant, metastasizing inside the microwave and sparking dangerously, shooting off flames and noxious black smoke that engulfed him in a demonic, sulfurous haze. Smiling a wry kind of smile, and not breaking eye contact, he extracted a cigarette from his pack and lit it against the now flaming microwave. He took a long pull before saying, “I’m running this show now.”

Luckily the sprinklers started going off inside the house. The cat came tearing out through the door to avoid the water and leapt over a cliff, falling cartoonishly to its death. “That’s it!” I yelled, “Everyone get the fuck out!” I grabbed the portable stereo off the wall and threw it into the pool, extinguishing the music. This guy’s a fucking dick, I heard someone mumble, gathering their belongings, let’s get out of here. Before long all of the extra guests had exited, and it was just the few of us. Around me was the aftermath of a needless calamity. In the distance I could hear the firetrucks. I realized I hadn’t even had a beer yet, that all of my wildest fears had come true and it literally couldn’t get any worse. I took off my clothes, grabbed a cold one and climbed into the pool, onto one of those giant inflatable flamingoes. Even though the pool was full of soggy hotdog buns and cigarettes, dead insects and dirty paper plates, I couldn’t help but smile as I floated there and sipped my beer. I finally felt free. 

None of that happened, of course. Well, some of it may have. We did go to Belling Man. Except, Belling Man isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind, man. When all was said and done, we had a lovely weekend. We drank and talked and laughed and ate good food and took good drugs. We even got souvenir T-shirts. If there’s a better way to say I love you, I don’t know what it is.