A Party's Not a Party If You Don't Punch a Fish

Last night was VICE UK's tenth birthday party, it involved Danny Brown and Andrew WK and we hear it was fucking crazy. Our sister site Motherboard also had huge bonanza yesterday evening that culminated with a vodka-soaked performance by the RZA. And did we tell you about that time we threw a doggy fashion show in a human strip club? We think it's safe to say we throw the best parties ever and you've never been to a party that even comes close to a VICE party.

But we thought we'd humor you anyway by asking you for your best party stories, writing them down, and drawing fun pictures to accompany them.

Illustrations by Sam Taylor. Follow him on Twitter @sptsam or visit his website at samtaylorillustrator.com.

HARDCORE FISH PUNCHERS

One year for my birthday I decided to throw a party at my house, because that's what you do when you turn one year older and want to celebrate all the brain cells you've lost since the last time your last birthday. I was in the mood to get my brain cell destruction off to a good start, so some buddies and I did a bunch of acid and called up this guy who'd apparently been synthesizing his own hallucinogens. Taking unknown, untested drugs made by a stranger as a hobby is always a great idea, by the way.

Anyway, the guy finally turns up and sold us what turned out to be 2CE. He looked about 12, so I was kind of skeptical as to what—if any—effect his powder would have on me, until it kicked in and I spent the next hour running from room to room, trying to find a space that was less "buzzy" and sinister.

There was a huge fish bowl in my house that had somehow lost its lid as people partied around it. As I was flitting between rooms, I noticed one of my friends, bent over, covered in water with a manic look in his eyes, while everyone around him screamed, "Punch it! Motherfuckin' punch it!" Turned out he was trying—to no avail—to punch any one of the four fish swimming around in the tank. When he failed, more people tried, and this carried on until the sun came up.

By that point all the other revelers—not destroyed on 2CE—had bounced, leaving us to form a gang called "Hardcore Fish Punchers." It's a scary sounding gang, I know. My friend drew up a plan of a tattoo we could all get (the letters "HCFP" with a cross through it) and we headed over to this guy's house he knew who had agreed to tattoo us with his old tattoo gun at eight in the morning. The guy greeted us on his stoop with no shoes on and a rat on his shoulder and ushered us in.

Without gloves on, and switching to prison-green when he ran out of black ink, the guy started tattooing us, before giving up and letting us tattoo each other instead. My four buddies and I entered my 24th year on this planet with barely legible gang tattoos on the inside of our thighs. We were very proud of ourselves. Someone's offered to cover up my tattoo since then, but I can't bring myself to do it and destroy the reminder of the best party I've ever been to.

BEDDED IN A SHED

I went to high school with low hopes. My school was in a town that epitomized the concept of middle class and had little to offer other than a bowling alley that hadn't been touched since the 70s and a couple of chain bars, complete with guys named Duncan who would hit you if you proved them wrong on a fact about football. Anyway, within the first week, I was invited to a party, which I assumed would be shitty.

A teacher's daughter from a nearby school was throwing the party at her house, which happened to be on school grounds. The friends I brought with me figured there would be two cases of brews and some wine coolers and we'd be out by 11:30. When we turned the corner to the house, however, we were met with what I can only compare to the kind of thing you see in frat movies and call bullshit on because nothing can ever be that out of control without someone dying quickly and painfully.

We spent a good couple of hours shotgunning beers, smoking weed, climbing up on the roof, getting the dog high, and having a swell time, then shit started to turn sinister. A couple of guys threw a sofa through the window and started screaming and pushing people around. In a laughably middle class place like this, that kind of thing doesn't go down particularly well, which is why we heard the screech of sirens maybe 30 seconds after the smash of the window. Police don't have a lot to do there, which might explain the top-notch response time.

Everyone bolted off in different directions and I—lacking any tangible sense of foresight—decided it would be a great idea to hide in the garden shed, because no police would ever think to open the unlocked door and have a look inside. At the time, though, I thought I had it covered. But upon opening the door, I found 15 more people who thought they had it covered, awkwardly standing with their backs to the wall trying not to look at the completely naked couple having sex on the floor. The shouts of the police and eyes and heavy breathing of their close-quarter audience didn't seem to affect their flow, because they carried on until both of them finished (very loudly), got up, got dressed and walked out calmly.

MANDY MARRIAGE

I went to my friends' wedding on a beach at this beautiful Greek island and everything was very classic, tasteful, and romantic. Then the parents and extended family went to bed and the bride and groom rolled out about 300 pills and 1000 bottles of water. This Greek reggae band came on and played for the whole night, while we all went swimming in the sea and kept on partying until the next afternoon. Short and simple, but to this day, that was the most amazing party I've ever been to.

BURNIN' UP

I used to be in this punk band and we got invited to play at some party in middle-of-nowhere suburbia. We played a lot of parties and a lot of them got wild, but I'd never seen anything like this before. People were jumping off the roof into the pool (it was a three story house), fireworks were going off everywhere, everyone was drinking 40s and smoking blunts and one dude was juggling flames, which is normally the lamest thing in the world, but worked kind of well in this context.

Anyway, at one point some guys decided to cut a tree down. Because that's what you do at parties, right? They then cut it up into smaller pieces and set fire to it, leading to a bunch of people leaping over it and throwing aerosol cans in, waiting for them to blow up then erupting in to cheers.

The problem with constant explosions is that they tend to attract the attention of the entire neighborhood, so it wasn't too much of a surprise when someone on the roof screamed "police." That didn't seem to bother anyone whatsoever, though, and they all continued partying exactly as they had been. The guy whose house it was calmly strolled out to talk to the police officer, who just told him someone needed to move their car—completely ignoring all the carnage around him—and left. I guess the police aren't total dicks the whole time.

HIPPIES CAN BE A LOT OF FUN

I was visiting a friend at Falmouth University one year and she decided to take me to a party rather than have us sit in the bar by ourselves all night. We turned up and things didn't look good: The guests were exclusively white people with dreadlocks listening to this really sucky blend of world music and psytrance. The first hour or so mainly consisted of having a conversation about what kind of music would be best to liven things up. You know a party's not going well when that's your go to chit-chat.

While I was having this conversation, things obviously picked up a bit because when I looked up people were actually having a really good time. I got up, walked around a bit, someone gave me some MDMA and I started to have a really good time, too. I had conversations about stuff that would normally make me cringe the next morning, but felt completely OK in that environment and stumbled into the love room, where I ended up getting a blowjob from a girl with lips like a Petunia, or something.

It didn't convince me grow my hair, leave it to knot up into a rat king dreads, and shave off all the other hair around it, but it did make me realize hippies actually aren't the most intolerable people in the world.

Illustrations by Sam Taylor. Follow him on Twitter @sptsam or visit his website at samtaylorillustrator.com.

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Caught in the Act

Holidays Are Better Than Real Life

Drugs Aren't Always That Much Fun