Dual parties attract diversity of students

By Maryann Dakkak

This weekend featured the alternative party scene. It was more low-key and casual than most other parties I've been to lately. Friday night had The Recipe (sophomores Jake Cunningham, David Cordua, Chris Garber, and Peter Mancina) playing in a basement for a very diverse audience. Saturday was marked by the school's first official "Coming Out Party," as both Noel Fonseca and Pablo Torres independently made that marked step of making their sexual orientation public.

On Friday, the party had the usuals (Greeks and friends) and then a surprising showing of Unity-ers, SCCAPers and GREENers. It seems The Recipe, which is very diversified in each of the band's members (we've got the khaki/clean cut boy: Jake, the Latino sex icon: David, the alternative quirky: Chris, and the au naturel long-haired Savers-dressed: Peter), seems to draw from all the crowds on campus.

The basement where the band played smelled a little funny and was incredibly dirty (broken glass on the floor), but then again, we would not have been in the basement had the police not made a little visit at 8:45 p.m. There were kegs, but surprisingly, those were not the focus of the partiers that night. The band and the ambiance made the party work. Everyone was dancing, mingling, having a ball of a time. And in a way, that shady basement made it nice and intimate.

Saturday's party was another group of diverse people, though not as far reaching as Friday's. The wall, covered in a rainbow poster was marked with names from one end (red=straight) to the other end (purple=gay). And it was all covered.

This party was mostly upperclassmen, and most of the people at least knew each other by sight. To keep the party more intimate and personal, the party was held out of reach of random wanderers at "Grandma's House."

The house was very well set up. There was the radio on in the living room, lolli-pops in the kitchen, a great bathroom facility, a large porch, a good backyard, and a garage in which there was a DJ playing funky techno that everyone was getting down to.

Unlike other parties, this party had a community feel to it. Although we did not all know each other, we knew we were all there in support of diversity of sexual orientation. We were all there to have a good time and to feel comfortable with ourselves and everyone else.

TTFN peoples, I'm off to Tijuana to build houses today. Have a great Thanksgiving and don't study. I don't want to feel guilty. Be good.