It takes a village to throw a party

It takes a village to throw a party

Hosting can be . . . terrifying. 

I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but I still feel the pangs of dread: What if I don’t have enough food? What about the lighting, and the seating, and my place is such a mess, where’s that weird smell coming from, and what if nobody comes???  There’s not much worse than the awkward humiliation of an empty party.  

Here’s the bad news: hosting gatherings never stops feeling scary.  But the more you do it, the better you get at feeling the terror and just doing it anyway.  Plus, even if your event is a disaster, it’s never as bad as you think it is.  Or, I mean, yea sometimes it can be pretty bad . . . but it’s still worth it.

I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but I still feel the pangs of dread: What if I don’t have enough food? What about the lighting, and the seating, and my place is such a mess, where’s that weird smell coming from, and what if nobody comes???  There’s not much worse than the awkward humiliation of an empty party.  

Here’s the bad news: hosting gatherings never stops feeling scary.  But the more you do it, the better you get at feeling the terror and just doing it anyway.  Plus, even if your event is a disaster, it’s never as bad as you think it is.  Or, I mean, yea sometimes it can be pretty bad . . . but it’s still worth it.

Takeaway #1: Hosting can be stressful, but it's worth it in the end.

Take this past weekend, for example.  I was so excited to celebrate the launch of Micasa that I decided to do something I’d never done in all my years of hosting:  throw two parties on two consecutive nights.  It all made perfect sense in my head:  “Friday night will be a full-on house party, with an outdoor stage and three different musical acts and catered food and a keg of beer, the whole nine.  Then, Saturday night will be on the other end of the spectrum:  an intimate living room concert featuring two jazz vocalists, a small guest list, wine and cheese and food I cook myself, nice and cozy.”  What could possibly go wrong?

As I woke up on Friday, there was still a lot to do and I felt plenty of that familiar dread, but I also felt confident, because I had the one thing that every good host needs: plenty of help.  My friend Michael had been cooking since the night before, my buddy Loki agreed to go pick up the keg, my friend Jed had agreed to work the door, and my friend Olivier (“Oy”) had agreed to come early and help set up. 

Takeaway #2: Don't go it alone. The more the merrier when it comes to hosting an event.

Cut to 24 hours later – I woke up on Saturday after about four hours of sleep.  My house was a mess – a good mess, the kind of mess that means you had a great party the night before – but still a mess.  The next event was starting at 6pm, which gave me about 10 hours to get ready, plenty of time, right??  Not if I’d also agreed to provide the staging and sound system at someone’s outdoor concert that same afternoon [this is where the story gets absurd]. *Note to Self: Never agree to provide the staging and sound system for someone else’s concert the day after you’ve hosted a huge party and are hosting another party that same night.

Takeaway #3: Give yourself plenty of time to relax on The Day of your event.

Instead of taking my sweet time to wake up and relaxedly get ready for the next party, I jumped straight out of bed into “go mode,” gathering all the speakers and generators and cables and microphones to load into the van along with three 4’/8 stage platforms.  In my head I was still clinging to the thought, “it’ll be fine, I asked Michael last night if he could cook some more food for tonight, and he said ‘yea that should be doable.’ I’ll just race home later this afternoon to clean and set up the living room performance space.  No problem.  It’ll be fine”  *Note to Self:  never plan to do all the cooking when you’re also planning to do all the everything else.  Also, never book your caterer with less than 24 hours notice after abandoning your overambitious plan to do all the cooking yourself.

Takeaway #4: Book caterers well in advance.

Cut to around 1pm.  I was out in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, all the stages and sound system were set up for the Parkside Plaza concert, but I hadn’t heard back from Michael about food for that night, and I was starting to feel that familiar party-day dread growing into potential party-day freak-out.  I finally reached Michael, and he told me that his partner had an overnight emergency, which meant that they couldn’t get started cooking for today.   No way to cater my party that night.  Uh oh.

I ran over to Peppas, my favorite Jamaican food spot nearby, but they said that it’s just too busy on Saturdays to process a same-day catering order.  I called a few other places back in Bed Stuy, they said the same.  So, in a moment of underslept and overstretched ambition, I decided: “No problem, I’ll just pick up some groceries, hop in an Uber back to Bed Stuy, and go get cooking.  Note To Self:  Never get started preparing a menu of squash soup, roasted root vegetables, Indian peanut curry, marinated chicken wings, and basmati rice when your party starts in three-and-a-half hours and you have to clean and set up a performance space.

Takeaway #5: have easy plan b’s in place.

Cut to 5:30 PM, 30 minutes before the party officially starts.  My kitchen looked like some manic chef had just lost his mind in a frenzy of rinsing, chopping, grinding, blending, spicing, frying, boiling, and roasting.  There were vegetable scraps and open containers everywhere.  One of my favorite singers of all time, Sami Stevens, was about to show up to sound check for her performance and I was still upstairs in my living room struggling with the tangled knot of speaker cables that my crew had hurriedly packed up back at Parkside Plaza and dropped off in a convoluted clump.

me in my head:

me in real life:

She showed up at the door.  I looked frazzled, I sounded raspy, and I probably smelled like a blend of curry paste and angsty armpits.  Note to Self:  Next time, just order pizza.  Also, next time, leave enough time to bathe.

Takeaway #6: your space should smell good and you probably should too.

Cut to 9:30 PM.  I was headspun and exhausted.   The last of my guests had just filed out, each one with a big smile on their face, but all I can think is:  “what a disaster.”   Sami Stevens and Tammy Scheffer have both given amazing performances from my improvised living room stage, but all I can think is “the chicken wings weren’t crispy, the peanut sauce was too minty, the veggies were undercooked, the seltzer wasn’t cold, the kitchen looked like an embarrassment . . .”

Takeaway #7: if your guests had a good time, you had a successful event.

It wasn’t that bad. It’s never as bad as you think it is.  But it didn’t feel good!  And that’s the point: hosting will always feel scary, but it doesn’t need to feel lonely and overwhelming.  Friday’s party felt like a team effort; I knew that I could relax and enjoy the moment, chat with my guests, and even get behind the drums to rock out for a bit!  Saturday was cool too, but in my recollection it’s mostly a whirlwind of stress, and now that I’ve had some time to process it all, I can see clearly that boils down to one crucial difference:  help.  I’m still cringing as I recall that moment when Sami showed up to find me in a mess of tangled speaker cables, but the cringiest part is not the way I looked or the way I smelled.  It was that there was no one there but me, struggling to do three things at once. (See Takeaway #2.)

Takeaway #8: you don't have to be perfect.

The whole point of Micasa is to help make local intimate gatherings happen, and I can’t help but feel like my back-to-back party story is an important one to share, because feeling overwhelmed is what holds most people back from giving hosting a try.  As we spend the next few months organizing events and beta-testing Micasa, we’ll also be building a community of skilled and talented people.   We want to empower people to offer their skills through the platform so that hosts can find them, and we want our hosts to feel they have access to a network of amazing local talent of all kinds –  this is our vision for Micasa. Hosting is hard, but it’s worth it.  Just don’t try to do it alone. It takes a village!  

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