Yamstein 7

If you're reading this, then you most likely know what Yamstein is. You're also probably saying "jesus christ mike, about goddamned time you posted this. THIS HAPPENED IN JULY!!!" 

Well jerks, the benefit is that it will make you already start getting pumped for Yamstein 8. I'll try not to babble too much- the gold of this post is the pictures. Especially of Rich, The Yamstein Champion. 

For those who don't know, Yamstein is the summer BBQ party to end all summer BBQ parties. It came from Matt, and at one point involved winning a stein for carving a Yam into something... or something. My first was probably Yamstein 2, when it was pretty tame and I was XSTRAIGHTXEDGEX. Then I think I couldn't go to 3 cuz of stupid work (but didn't care too much cuz it was kind of blah the year before). Apparently that year was the one where this changed from "a cool summer party" to "that party where everyone gets insanely drunk" or "that party where a ton of people who don't drink all year do all of their drinking in a few hours." Yamstein 4 was fun, but again, mostly quiet. It was a big night for Rich though, even though he blacked out for most of it. Yamstein 5 was the first one I had a lot of fun at. It was the one with Al couch and the year of Pukestein and Sadlivingroomstein. It was a mess- so much puke, so many passed out people. It was also the first I blogged about. Yamstein 6 was the first I drank at (and smoked at) (I broke edge a week after Yamstein 5) and I got fairly wasted, but not too far. It was a rainy ugly Yamstein, and also the one where Al tried to kill everyone with fireworks. I looked like a piece of shit and Ralph tried to kill me with a tiki torch. Good year. 

And Yamstein 7 certainly didn't disappoint. 

We got there earlier than normal for once, checked out some snacks, had a Shot o'clock, and pretty much stood around doing nothing. 

The cooler collection was certainly impressive. BYOB/bring a bottle for the shot table.

Soon enough, even though it was a small crowd, it was also Shot o'clock. 

fuck you al

We had basketball this year too- and it was a huge part of what made it so fun. We played a few epic games of HORSE. This was cool too, since it made us basically the greeters for everyone as they showed up. 

ain't no shoes fancy enough to help you with that shot buote!

Soon, the party officially started with Al's ceremonial unleashing of the Kraken. 

Ok Al, your passion for the Kraken redeems you

As the crowd grew, so did the amount of booze in our stomachs. 

And the guy with the microphone set up shop at P Matty's Burger Tent. I just made that up.

hope you washed your hands!

As everything got going, so did beer pong. 

how gross is that drink dude?

As well as.... sword fighting?

I played a bunch of beer pong, but I have a love/hate relationship with peer pong. I love playing it, but I hate that I suck at it. I've had my moments where I'm on, but they're few and far between. And that fucking guy named lazer or whatever NEVER FUCKING MISSES.

I did my standard circulate/wander all night, drinking a beer on the side of doing at least 5 shot o'clocks. Things started to get rowdy.

hi seth

It was starting to become a party.

Dan got there and immediately set up a chair in our basketball court. 

lazy POS

The next pictures I took are all dark, so I definitely hit a world where I wasn't interested in taking pictures. I know there was lots of basketball, some beer pong, lots of talking with random people, at least 1 burger and lots of chips, a solid amount of alcohol and a few trips to the woods to smoke some trees. I saw the night as a slow build from quiet and calm to buzzy and talkative to super drunk and high fiving everyone, having an absolute blast all the way to when I started getting tired and hammered, then leaving. This is where the post starts getting good. You're my hero, Rich. 

When the camera got back into the picture, the party had officially kicked into high gear.

Then Pat Lane did the robot while Rich practiced his metal air guitar routine.

And Josh shut his eyes and ate imaginary cheeseburgers with his mouth shut.

The fireworks were beautiful, but I caught myself in a picture daze, stuck behind Waugh's brother and some other dude.

Here's Buote with his best friend for the night. Check out the ball in mid air!

Matt got really into cooking.

This guy is real psyched about his hot dog

Then this happened.

At this point, I was in full high five, Frank the tank mode, and in my daze, saw Dan sitting in a chair, and thought it would be funny to lean on him and joke that I was gonna knock him out of his chair. What happened instead is that Dan was sitting there comfortably, and a drunk caveman stumbled over to him and started pushing him until the chair back broke and he collapsed through a broken chair. Then the caveman laughed his ass off. The next morning, I woke up to a text from Dan with a picture of the cutbruise in his back from the metal back of the chair. Sorry Dan. But hey, I was right- it was funny.

John started getting into John mode, collapsing in his favorite wood pile (the one he slept in a few years back).

Then Gingerbread Man finally showed up to attempt to fulfill the dream Rich told him he had to complete- the Edward 40-Hands challenge, having to drink 2 40s before he can take the tape off his hands. I think I was the jerk who wrapped his hands so terribly. Sorry dude. Drunk.

oh look, Rich is excited

VERY excited.

In fact, he even popped a 40 open himself. 

Reinert having a blast in the background

Then he bent his finger in weird angles to entertain Tom, who was amazed.

WOW LOOK AT THAT!

I actually have no idea what is happening in this picture. I'm certain Rich wasn't really bending his finger like that to entertain Tom, but I don't know what else it could be. Josh said that this was taken right after rich threw a pretzel at some girl and made her cry and leave? I certainly wish I'd seen that.

The party continued on, and some great conversations were had while John slept on the lawn.

And soon enough, Rich had found his favorite spot in the world. And this time he brought a pal. 

For some reason, when Rich hits that special level of drunk, if you can't find him, just go to the truck bed cover thing. That's where he'll be. 

I said I'd climb in there and stay inside for awhile. Nobody believed I'd do it, so I said fuck it, I'll absolutely do it and hopped in. Truthfully, it wasn't that bad. Shawn even joined me.

I mean, sure, there were probably worms and nightcrawlers and slugs- well, there were lots of slugs, but I thought it would be way worse under there. I pictured a jungle, but it was mostly dead grass. Not bad. 

This was when these shorts said goodbye. 

I've had those shorts for a long time and really loved them cuz they were real thin. They were perfect summer shorts. But Yamstein 7 was their demise. I just ripped right through them. No, I'm not wearing spandex- I'm wearing technology underwear from Exoficio. 

When I emerged, Tom had died.

I heard that he did finish the challenge, but I'm still not sure he didn't have help. But he certainly drank enough, since he was pretty much out cold and there had clearly been some puking incidences. And I feel like it had been an hour, if that.

But supposedly, Tom won. But he died.

And then I found Rich.

Rich had sat down in a circle of chairs by himself to relax a little- he had had a lot to drink. And apparently his stomach decided he should stop. So when I found Rich after not seeing him for awhile, there was a puddle next to him with barely chewed pieces of chicken and a shit load of blueberries. And a look of "come on man" when I took the picture. Later, Rich would learn that when Matt had given him a piece of chicken, he warned him that it was real hot, to which Rich replied by rubbing the chicken on his face to prove it didn't bother him, then eating it. Then he immediately forgot he had had any chicken, going so far as to say some puke wasn't his because he hadn't had any chicken- it couldn't be his puke. The blueberries were from hours before, when he found a huge blueberry bush next to a cat skeleton. Apparently Rich doesn't chew his food. 

I wandered though, and Zari and a bunch of dressed up people showed up late and asked where Al was. So we went to see him and wandered around his apartment while he, Ahadi and a few other people I'll probably never see again were sleeping. This ended with Al throwing a guy off him and saying he would kill him because he was taking pictures with Al while he was trying to sleep. 

It was pretty shitty to wander around his place, but hey- it's Yamstein. Don't go to bed at 9pm in an unlocked house during the biggest party of the year, and you won't get messed with.

At this point, the party was quieting down and I was wasted. We lost Rich, and eventually found him sleeping in the back seat of his car. He later said he went down there to get something, but lay down for a second cuz he was wasted and it felt good. Then he slept for maybe an hour with his feet hanging out of the back door of his car. We started to pack up and say our goodbyes. I remember being wasted but not really in trouble, then Sarah gave me the "wait, you're leaving? Do a shot first!" thing.

Apparently I needed Sarah's respect that night, because even though I said I wouldn't do any more shots, it quickly became "ok, I'll do one," which quickly became "ok, I'll do 3." They were my choice though, so one of them was soda! Suck it Sarah!

But yea, one was also a mixture of like 10 kinds of booze. By the time we got to the car, I was HAMMERED. I don't remember most of the drive home other than forgetting my frisbee and I think my crocs, which fell of the roof. So we drove back to get these after only driving a half mile, then I spent the rest of the drive home with my eyes shut, trying to talk to Josh, but, according to him, babbling on and on about absolutely nothing. Having smoked and eaten a brownie earlier, Josh was pretty uncomfortable driving, and my slurring babblefest didn't help at all. I would later learn that the drive home was a complete nightmare for him. Sorry dude. 

When we got back to the house, Rich got out of the car and pretty much immediately puked. I guess he had puked some when he went down to the car earlier too. I laughed and headed in, drinking as much fruit punch gatorade as I could in a small attempt to not have a horrific hangover the next day. I learned a few years back that going to sleep hammered is a large reason why people wake up and puke, then spend the rest of the day in a horrible hangover. So as dead as I was, I wanted to stay up and drink water, maybe take a shower, and try to go to sleep while the whole world wasn't quite so much of a dark, spinning mess.

Rich sat in our little reading corner for some reason, while Josh took Irwin out. I think It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia was on TV, or maybe nothing was. I just remember sitting on the couch trying not to fall asleep, just completely fucked- way more wasted than I'd ever been. I took a picture:

I drifted in and out of sleep I think. I remember at some point, I just suddenly was awake, and completely on autopilot, stood up and started going outside. I literally hadn't puked in 20 years, but I knew what was happening like it had happened that morning. I remember the last time, when I was 11 or 12, at the cabin my Grandmother stayed in when she visited Maine. My parents went out somewhere, and she had to babysit my brother and I. I ate yogurt, something else normal, and a bunch of super old easter candy for lunch. And I puked at the house and her cabin. And in the 20 years since, save for the few burps when my mouth tasted like puke, I haven't puked. People are always shocked by this, but since I have a strong stomach and I didn't drink, it wasn't hard. When I stood up and Rich worriedly asked me what I was doing, I wish I had been with it enough to say "20 years down the drain!" in reference to when Seinfeld ended his no-puke streak on the greatest sitcom in history, but nope. I think I managed "pukin!" and I went outside to our front porch. In 3 short bursts, I barfed up at least some of those shots, and a lot of Gatorade, making my drunk mind briefly terrified when I cleaned off my beard and the paper towel I used was completely red. 

I was instantly a little better, but I was still destroyed. I remember watching some Sunny, then going up to bed when everyone else did, at least I think. I don't really remember Rich and Josh going to bed. I decided a shower would help me be less drunk. I was also filthy. I remember accidentally kicking the heater in our bathroom, which completely demolished my toenail and made my toe hurt for days, I remember going to bed, but not much else. I think I called it a night at like 4 in the morning. Luckily, that was it for puke for the night. 

I woke up the next day and was surprisingly not as hungover as I expected, but I was still just an exhausted zombie with zero energy. We all shared what we remembered, laughed about what we didn't, texted with people at the Nerd Compound, and just tried to recover. Another successful Yamstein.

Yamstein 8 in just a few months!

currently listening to: Weezer- B-sides