Spitzer's Song - the quest for life's 80,000 dollar party

When they took down Eliot Spitzer all the world's pointing fingers came out of hiding to focus themselves on a very visible target. With popular morality on their side it was easy for the holier than thou types to decry Spitzer and his life outside of office as being distasteful. These people no longer saw a firebrand politician hell-bent on bringing justice to the white collar world of Wall St., that image had been replaced with the generically constructed prejudgment of adulterer.
From the moment the scandal hit the evening news Spitzer would forever thereafter be a villain whose evils in the eyes of the world were so heinous the weight of all the good he might do in his remaining days could never change that fact.

Parsing through the dogmatic rhetoric of the black and white world that was judging upon Spitzer, my friend Steve and I saw something completely different in the wake of the scandal, something that wasn't ugly or in need of reckoning. What we saw was a beautiful song that uplifted our spirit and provided our lives with a clarity of focus that we felt had always been missing.

To summarize: if our lives up to that point had been a question, then Spitzer was showing us the answer.

The entirety of what our lives had been, the risks and long nights, the glorious highs and self-loathing low's, all of it was really just a search. For the first time we realized completely that we were searching. But for what? We were never sure until one tarnished hero's fall from grace made it clear to us...

We were then, and always had been, searching for life's 80,000 dollar party.

While those who viewed themselves as morally superior to Spitzer looked at him as something otherworldly, totally different from who they were, Steve and I were honest enough to admit that we understood Spitzer and that there was even a lot of his spirit in who we were. He was a man who just wanted what all other men wanted in life: an 80,000 dollar party. Unlike us though, Spitzer was brave enough to chase his dream to its all-too-real conclusion like a brash Icarus ignoring the brilliant heat of the sun. Perhaps this is secretly why so many were quick to admonish Spitzer. Maybe they saw in him the willingness to live a dream they could only imagine, so entrapped were they in the fear of moral judgement.

Spitzer was nailed to the cross and forced to resign.

The universal dream of the 80,000 dollar party survived however, through Steve and I.

From the time of the scandal forward any party we'd hit would be judged according to a dollar value. I would call Steve on Saturday morning if he had been to a party without me to ask him how it was and all I needed as an explanation was a dollar amount

“It was a 2,000 dollar party, at best”

If he felt like elaborating he'd follow that up with a more detailed account of his reasoning

“Chicks were ugly yet somehow wouldn't put out and the coke was pure speed. Instead of having a DJ they just threw on some shitty megamix. Venue was dirty and overcrowded.”

One of the better parties we've had recently happened in Montreal. We were ripped on MDMA as pure as a Jonas Brother , flying the friendly skies at Circus afterhours in the company of some of our best friends. Yet the night was still nowhere near an 80,000 dollar party. For as high as we had been there were still new heights laying in wait.

Whenever the party would end and we would stop to think about why we should keep going at all the answer was always right there in front of us: it was still out there.

In our downtime, in the late hours of a lazy night, Steve and I have often had cloudbursting sessions during which we'd describe what our 80,000 dollar party would look like.

He'd say he would hire a couple top name DJ's and I'd say that I'd get my favourite band to play live. Then we'd conclude that we would do both, because with 80,000 dollars, why not?

He'd say 5, 6, 7 or more $1,000/hr high end whores and I'd retort by pointing out that its hard enough satisfying one woman let alone a half dozen simultaneously.
Then we'd conclude that whether or not we decided to fuck them we should have a lot of whores around anyway, like living conversation pieces evidencing our blatant excess, because with 80,000 dollars, why not?

We'd both agree that we'd rent out the top floor of a five star somewhere downtown but he'd take the Four Seasons while I'd want the Royal York. Then we'd conclude that we'd take both and webcast the party to each venue like a huge cyber tribute to orgiastic liberty. Because with 80,000 dollars...well you probably get the point by now.


After a particularly discouraging moment on our quest last week Steve asked me a question that had crossed my mind many times before, but that I never cared to voice

“Do you think we'll ever find it? Will we ever have our 80,000 dollar party?”

After a long moment of considerate reflection I answered as follows:

In some strange way I hope that we never do, because if we did, then what? Knowing that its still out there, knowing that it exists though I haven't yet tasted it, gives me all the reason I need to get out of bed when I wake up in the morning and ask myself 'what does it all mean?'. If we do ever find our 80,000 dollar party I hope its a long time from now. Not so long that I won't be able to appreciate it to the fullest but far enough from today that the remainder of my life won't seem like a slow denouement towards death.

Taking a drag from his cigarette I could see a faint smile cross Steve's face. My answer had pacified his fears. We were sharing a curb outside of the club eating some street meat and enjoying a peaceful silence until Steve piped up with a follow up question

“What do you think it's gonna take? I mean we've been at this for a good minute now...what's it gonna take for us to get there?”

I finished chewing the piece of overcooked mystery meat smeared with ketchup that I had in my mouth and answered him as honestly as I could

“I don't know man...80,000 dollars?”