72 Hour Party People
April 11th, 2007 by MikeDavid Holthouse spent 72 hours with a group of people going on a Shabu binge.
On this Thursday afternoon in late summer, Nick is preparing the second-floor recreation room of his fashionably appointed Highland home for what has become a twice-a-month ritual of extreme indulgence for a revolving group of five to ten fellow hip, young and successful citizens of Denver.
“Basically,” he says, “we blast off Thursday night and don’t pull the chute until Sunday.”
During their 72-hour run, he and his friends will eat little solid food save fruit, so Nick’s fridge and freezer are stocked with the makings for smoothies. Along with yogurt, organic apple juice and frozen blackberries, strawberries and mangoes are five bottles of Moët champagne, a dozen bottles of Italian sparkling water, four cases of microbrew, two bottles of chilled New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a discount-warehouse carton of 400 Otter Pops.
Holthouse’s retelling of this weekend is so intense that I felt physically drained after reading the article.
The article is at turns funny. The pack leader, Nick, referring to the Shabu:
This is the shit JFK was getting jacked in his ass during the Cuban missile crisis. I shouldn’t even be calling this shit ’shit,’ because it’s disrespectful.
And at turns sad:
Depleted of lightbulbs [ed. note: they were using broken lightbulbs to snort the Shabu.] and either unwilling or unable to head out to the Strip at dawn to buy more, they resort to snorting lines of crushed Shabu off the metal toilet-paper dispensers in the casinos restrooms. On the plane ride home, Nick, Ike and Bonnie all bleed from the nose.
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April 11th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I like to read your blurbs before I jump into an article, but I don’t always jump on the links. You can imagine how confused I was when thought this was a group of folks eating Shabu-shabu, not rich kids snorting really expensive meth.
This leads me, of course, to my “Igby Goes Down” moment: why do people think we (the general audience of the world) care so much about rich people being stupid? Why are there so many articles (and movies) glamorizing disaffected, adolescent adults and their anti-social habits? Quoting a bunch of kids pretending to be in “hurlyburly” and making their binge sound like an extended bachelor party just feels misleading, even if that’s the experience they’ve convinced themselves they’re having.
Of course, I do like the sturcture of the story - and the eye for detail is good. The general concept just rankles me.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:09 am
hahaha. I had the exact same experience regarding shabu shabu. I was very confused.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Greatest article ever written. “Teeth Killer” has made it’s way east BTW - - big TIME. It’s not just for the people without an ocean view anymore…
April 13th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Haha. That must have really bent y’alls brains. Reading back over the excerpts, it actually isn’t clear that the article is about drugs until you get to the bottom where I mention the snorting out of lightbulbs. You must have been like “Oh no! I wonder if they snorted the meat or those delicious dipping sauces?!?”