Famous People #30: orange Jell-O, Leo season
Kaitlyn: For months, Frankie had been planning a Channel Orange birthday party without really planning a Channel Orange birthday party. It was hard to watch. The idea was something like this: he loves Frank Ocean, and Seiya — whose birthday is five days before his — also loves Frank Ocean. As a party theme, it would require only three things: John Mayer in attendance, a potato to tie to a ceiling fan, and something orange to eat. I didn’t watch him every single minute of the planning process but I’d say he put about 10 minutes of work into the John Mayer part and completely forgot about the potato part. He spent a long time on the party playlist though, talked about it for a full day, and scolded me for suggesting a Kacey Musgraves song and not understanding the vibe.
All this to say the party started from behind. John didn’t respond to any of the Instagram DMs. and Vine is dead. But there is an enormous Polish bar in Greenpoint that serves Jell-O shots and some of them are orange.
I wore orange nails and a two-piece fake Adidas outfit I bought at Mandee’s at the Barclays mall. Frankie wore Adidas sneakers he borrowed from his brother. It was so embarrassing, I could tell everyone at the party was like… do those two know Frank at all? I’m just kidding, they were very drunk.
Some of them took some molly in Seiya’s bedroom while I sat in the kitchen trying to get the JetBlue app to download on my phone. It’s crazy that I’m the one who got treated like a narc when literally Seiya’s roommate said, “Am I supposed to rub this on my gums?” He had the super veiny arms of an absolutely insane person and I hope he doesn’t read this because I felt intuitively that I hate him. Ashley felt intuitively that she loved Seiya’s brother’s girlfriend, who was somehow pulling off low-waisted jeans and also dancing better than Ariana Grande could ever hope to in her life, immediately after eating chicken and broccoli from a Chinese takeout place in Bed-Stuy. So it evens out.
Tamar brought her very tall new boyfriend Alex and a can of blood orange soda. Katie brought herself, and I loved it. Turner waited for my friend Rachel to show up and she didn’t, but frankly it’s his fault he never texted her. They met in February!
Ashley didn’t believe there was any alcohol in the Jell-O shots so she just kept eating them for the taste. Matt did an impression of Lizzie screaming at him not to buy books her mom owns and would be perfectly willing to lend him. (Lizzie says “I don’t think I was screaming,” but you know, we all understood he was exaggerating for effect.) Seiya tried to explain to me a recent romantic imbroglio in which he made out with a girl on the ground while The xx played “On Hold” and then she told him either that she’s a lesbian or that she’s had a boyfriend for over a year. It got too confusing and we never came back to it. He said he was in love with her, which felt, to me, like an overreaction.
I had a plane to catch at 7:30 AM, so I decided it made sense to stay up all night. (It didn’t, but I only know that now.) We went to Enid’s, which has prosecco on tap, and Ashley danced to a lightly offensive Drake song. I can picture it still — she has just the best face and talent with ASOS filters. The prosecco was $8. I have no memory at all of the cab ride home, except of saying to Katie, “Are you on Twitter right now?”
I don’t think Frank Ocean would have loved the Channel Orange party, but I don’t think he would have hated it. I know one of the first things I internet researched about Frankie was his Instagram, on which there is a picture of him standing near a beach, underneath which there’s the caption “Frank, Ocean.” Haha, I remember thinking. Not super funny but pretty funny.
Party Review Metrics:
Did anyone bring a dog?
Um, has anyone ever seen Frank Ocean with a dog?*
Did we hear any good secrets?
As usual, we were too busy talking about ourselves and the people in our immediate vicinity, which restricts how candid things can get.
Did anyone get engaged?
No, but as I said, Tamar debuted a new boyfriend. He was so nice! He is a bookseller, which is noble even! I feel bad that when she showed us his photo I initially thought, “Why would someone with such a strong connection to their Jewish heritage want to date a person who looks like a German cannibal?” In my defense, she literally said her “type” is the guy who plays Pennywise in the new It. It’s not like I was having this reaction out of nowhere.**
Did anyone get famous?
Well, all of the music was being played through an iPhone plugged into the bar’s sound system, so among the elderly Polish regulars of one “social club” in Greenpoint, the marimba ringtone got a lot better known than it was the day before.
Party Score:
*Okay, I Googled it, and it turns out that they have, but I don’t think it’s a major part of his brand. Certainly it would have been a reference that not many people would have understood, which isn’t a polite way to welcome guests to a celebration. It would have been like if the party playlist was exclusively the soundtrack for The Bling Ring.
**Actually, the only time I’ve feared for my life in a serious way was in the company of a bookseller, so you should disregard everything I’m saying. Call me Taylor Swift in a Nashville courthouse, I’m disqualified from the jury on this one.***
***I’m also not a rapper, so that’s the best I can do with that joke format!!!!