There is no way of knowing exactly why we as humans exist. People spend their entire lives hoping to reach some sort of feeling of contentment, of release, of security, of total and complete un-self-consciousness in which they can truly be themselves and just exist, unfettered and free. When the futility of daily life crushes down upon you, it's enough to make you want to study some Lou Reed lyrics for hints on how to cop heroin from some weird dude in the East Village. But there is another way, friends, and besides, that drug dealer Lou Reed was writing about got arrested in, like, 1981 anyway.
That other way I was just talking about before veering off into that dumb, sorta obvious music joke? BOATS, MOTHERFUCKER.
Yes, boats. There is literally nothing more true and real than going out on some shit that's keeping you afloat on top of some water. And that's not me just saying that—that's science.
Boats are the best. There’s an entire genre of shoe devoted to them, as well as a pair of 2 Chainz albums. Boats are an entire way of life. Some people even live on them! Know why math got invented? So motherfuckers on boats could figure out where they were going. Same with astronomy and medicine. (I made this up, but, honestly, this is probably, like, 40% true.) So when, through no actual effort of your own, you get the opportunity to hop onto a fancy boat party to get drunk and ride around in the Hudson River, you don't say, "Yes," you say "FUCK YES," and immediately block out the thought that your Sperry's definitely smell like jenkem because you've been wearing them without socks since college.
In my excitement over the prospect of riding the high seas on a mid-May evening, I spent, like, the three days beforehand psyching myself up to pick out the sickest, most rare outfit. Obviously, one's body must be draped in only the waviest of fabrics on a boat. I ended up settling on a white oxford and a pair of seafoam green shorts that look like a bathing suit, mainly because they were a bathing suit that I cut the weird mesh underwear out of. Looking in the mirror that morning before work, it was inarguably the coolest I've ever looked and double-inarguably the most nautical.
The problem with trying to do a pre-planned look to match the tenor of an event is that unless you're really fucking good at it, it will invariably come off as fufu and gimmicky—the closer the facsimile of actual authenticity, the more glaring the uncanny valley becomes to people who actually know what's up. I realized this fact about .0000042 second too late on the H.M.S. Boat Party. All of the motherfuckers who looked like they knew what they were doing there weren't dressed like they were trying to scam on the breakfast buffet at Sandals, but like they'd just gotten off at work at their six-figure jobs where they had enough money to do things like go on fancy boats whenever they wanted. I suppose there's some sort of greater truth about humanity to be revealed here, but, eh, fuck it, probably not.
Anyways, the real moral of the story here is that boats are dope, especially when they give you liquor drinks with lids on them so you don't spill. Also, don't wear a fucking costume to the real thing.
Drew Millard wrote this while gone off liquor drinks with lids on them so you don't spill. You can read more of his work on Noisey and follow him on Twitter here.
