Preamble to Hatorade

A couple years ago I was at a party in Los Angeles in the home of a Blamex Wielding producer. The Blamex Wielding Producer had fallen asleep, the other guests had left, and leaving us the three of us who were left standing with access to the entirety of his property and wardrobe. So we were having an impromptu costume party.

This was not as sexy as it sounds. All three of us were born with twisted senses of decency, had graduated from accredited Drama institutions, and had no interest in sleeping together – at least not in a sexual way - so our costumes were creepy and highly intellectualized. In other words, we weren’t frolicking around dressed as French Maids and Construction Workers. Liz, my friend from New York who had traveled to L.A. with me for our friend’s premier, was dressed as the hipster version of Jesus Christ Our Lord And Savior in white crushed velvet. Carolla, a sound guy for Jackass and Playboy TV, was wearing someone’s snowboard gear, complete with goggles, and was wielding a snowboard, which he was using to try to knock both me and Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior into the massive pool outside.

Since I was the writer of the crew, my costume was undeniably the best. I was dressed in a Jack Daniels long sleeved shit, a Jack Daniels baseball cap, men’s boxer shorts pulled up to right below my tits, and knee-high soccer socks with flip-flops haphazardly wedged into my toes. I was TRULY forming a character – Gatorade Homeless Man – a dude who lived on the corner of 14th and 1st avenue who invented Gatorade flavors, wrote them down on discarded receipts, and kept them in his sock. He’d already invented flavors like vodka-berry-blast, and ass-sweat-mango-berry-fusion, and he was a recently born character, so this was impressive to all.

I flopped down in my Gatorade Homeless Man outfit on a chaise near the pool to watch the sun come up, feeling suddenly sad and suspiciously nostalgic. I blamed it on my sleep deprivation. But now, I seem think all of my brainstorms about Gatorade were bringing me back. I was reminded of another night, a night when simple Gatorade turned to Hatorade.