Outside, the Life of the 'Cocktail Party'

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- By the end of the first quarter Saturday, outside the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville, a drunken mass of humanity sprawls in baking parking lots and beneath cool shade trees, the largest collection of people in America who cannot walk in straight lines. By now, the ratio of men to women has shifted, perhaps for the only time all day, to something approaching equal numbers. Women wearing bikini tops and tight dresses warble on flip flops or bare feet, men, Florida fans mostly, have discarded their shirts and stand bare-chested in the bright sunshine propositioning women as they pass.

"We still got beer left," a group of shirtless Florida fans, Cocktail party Romeos, call to a group of bedraggled Georgia girls, Capulets in red heels.

"We're looking for liquor," says one of the girls, moving past.

A scalper stands off to the right of the passing couples, four tickets held tightly in his right hand, jaw clenched.

"Game's going to be close boys, don't you want to go inside?" he asks, squinting his dark brown eyes to avoid the sun's rays. It's Halloween in Jacksonville, and all the world outside the Cocktail Party is a stage.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of football fans descend on Jacksonville for the Georgia-Florida football game. Some of them, a small minority, actually see a football game. The remainder, a teeming mass of humanity, remains outside the stadium and occasionally squints up at the looming structure as the crowd roars inside. Idly they may wonder whether Georgia or Florida has the better end of the game. Most likely, they don't react at all to what happens in the game.

Because they're too drunk.

This is their story.

















Getting There

Since 1915, Georgia and Florida have played a football game. For virtually every year since 1933, the teams have played this game at a neutral site, Jacksonville, Fla. This is the most popular social event in Jacksonville. There is no second most popular social event in Jacksonville.

The term World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party was coined in the 1950s after a sportswriter witnessed a fan offering a drink to a uniformed officer. In 2006, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive wrote a letter to CBS requesting that they no longer use the phrase World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

"We would appreciate any initiatives you might take to avoid using the cocktail party reference. This is a great college football game, which highlights a traditional rivalry full of the passion of football in the Southeast. Our hope is to keep the focus on the game."

In so hoping, Slive has failed.

For 16 of the past 19 seasons, Florida has emerged victorious. Prior to this, Georgia won. At least according to the record books. No one really knows because those victories seem so far in the past now, grainy, archival footage of Bulldog greats dominating games that Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy checked the score of. Now, well, Florida wins.

That doesn't mean Georgia fans fail to travel to the game. They still come, tens of thousands of them, wearing their bright red and black Georgia polos and barking haphazardly into their fraternity brothers as they wait to board flights. Like the one I'm on, leaving from Nashville en route to Jacksonville. My flight is equal parts Georgia and Florida fans, middle-aged white middle managers in their uniform of choice, coaches' polo, tightly tucked into jeans or khaki pants, BlackBerry carrying case buckled on the belt loop. Accompanied by well-coiffed middle-aged women with astoundingly pert breasts and hair that, also amazingly, has not faded one bit.

As soon as we board our Southwest flight -- my friend Tardio has accompanied me -- these men spring into action to aid an attractive damsel in distress. It seems a woman can't fit her bag into the overhead compartment. Fifteen men attempt to aid her. Including a male Southwest flight attendant.

It is clear to all that the bag does not fit into the compartment.

But no one is willing to acknowledge failure.

After a five-minute struggle, the flight attendant places his hand on the young woman's bare shoulder, "Don't worry, we'll find a place for your bag," he says.

"Just once, I want to know what it's like to be a hot chick," Tardio says.

My friend Tardio has come to chronicle the Cocktail Party with me. And by "chronicle the Cocktail Party," I mean, drink. But that's in the future. Currently, Tardio, a medical malpractice defense attorney in the city of Nashville, is convinced his carry-on bag contains the greatest Halloween costume on Earth.

He has purchased a pair of blue doctor's scrubs. All his costume requires is a name-tag, which we will have to purchase in Jacksonville because the two of us arrived at the airport 38 minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart.

As we arrived at our gate 23 minutes prior to boarding, Tardio looked down at his phone. "We still had 10 minutes," he says.

He plans to write just one word on the name-tag that he will wear on right lapel of his scrubs: William.

On Thursday night, he conveyed his plan to me. "Get it?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"I'm Health Care Bill," he says.

Health Care Bill is currently reading the latest US Weekly magazine, purchased as we waited to board. "Sienna Miller is looking old," he says, scrutinizing her photo.

"No, she isn't," I say, "she's like 26."

"Really?" the man who will be Health Care Bill asks. "She looks older."

Welcome to Jacksonville

On Friday night, the cabs of Jacksonville descend on the city. And by city, I mean 400-mile radius of north Florida. Because, you see, no one is ever where they want to be in the city of Jacksonville. Also, it's nearly impossible, given that Jacksonville is the largest metropolitan city in America in terms of geographic size, to leave the city of Jacksonville no matter how far you drive. Or, for that matter, to actually leave Jacksonville's airport.

Jacksonville's airport, a monument to the color gray, eschews several archaic design traits such as functionality and economy of space. There are approximately 14 departing gates, all roughly a mile apart. Occasionally, as we make our way out of the facility, we see people, lost highwaymen en route to the holy city of Mecca perhaps, splayed out on the gray floors taking a nap or eating a meal. When you exit the airport you pass a row of offices. As if, in designing the airport, someone thought, you know what will make people love our city more? If they see the hard-working bureaucrats of the airport instead of reaching the baggage claim in less than four miles.

Moving on Up

Health Care Bill and I snag a cab. In Health Care Bill's bag he's actually carrying two pairs of scrubs, one blue and the other navy. That's because on Thursday night, he convinced me to participate in his costume plan.

"You can be Health Care Reform," he says, "but we'll make you a name-tag that says R.E. Form."

Our cab ride to the Courtyard by Marriott off Butler Boulevard in South Jacksonville costs $60. At this hotel, we are 5.8 miles from the stadium. Amazingly, Tardio and I stayed at the hotel next door to this one, the Red Roof Inn, for the 2007 Cocktail Party. The only thing I remember about that hotel is that they sold condoms from the vending machine.

Tardio surveys the half-acre of parking lot between the two motels. "You've really moved up in the world in the last two years," he says.

Checked into the the hotel, Tardio insists that we call a cab to take us to Walgreen's so he can buy some name tags and I can buy my costume necessities.

In lieu of Health Care Reform, I put out a suggestion for costumes in Friday's column. Immediately, I received an email from Blake P. who wrote, "Clay – you definitely can't go wrong with Alan (and baby Carlos) from The Hangover. Easy with some aviators, a cheap baby holder and baby doll from a dollar store with aviators. Plus, you didn't have to shave your beard, so you got that going for you."

In the 10 minutes before we left for the airport, I walked two blocks to the Family Dollar store in my neighborhood in north Nashville in search of said baby. I pushed open the dollar store door, covered in white metal bars, and scoured the dirty aisles, my foot occasionally pushing trash up under the product stands, for five minutes. There were many babies for sale, but given that I live in a majority black neighborhood, the baby dolls were all black.

Every single one.

I found myself faced with an unexpected ethical dilemma.

Could I really walk to the ladies, older black women, working the cash register and ask if they had any white babies in the back? Perhaps placed up on a shelf somewhere in storage? Maybe mis-delivered when the white baby dolls were destined for the suburbs?

Essentially, was it racist to ask for a white baby in a dollar store filled with black baby dolls?

Could I preface my request by remarking that I voted for Obama, liked Angelina Jolie? Anything?

The baby is white in the movie, that's what makes the name Carlos funny. What were the odds that elderly black women had seen and enjoyed The Hangover. Could I really capture the requisite level of verisimilitude with a black baby?

What's more, how does Family Dollar, a national chain, ensure that only babies of only one race are delivered to their inner city stores? Do they have a key-code for truck delivery that ensures only black baby dolls are delivered to my store? Am I, a white man, actually being discriminated against? Shouldn't the babies be diverse everywhere, a rainbow of smiling, plastic dolls?

I call an audible and flee, sans baby, without asking a question.

Decisions, Decisions

On our cab ride to Walgreen's we debate whether we should wear our costumes on Friday, tonight, or Saturday. It's a difficult decision because Saturday is Halloween, but we'll have to wear them to the game. "I'm sure that lots of people will be in costumes tonight," I say. "I don't think many people will dress up for the game."

Tardio has the opposite opinion, but if I argue my side long enough, I know that eventually he will agree.


After procuring a white baby, a Draft Tebow shirt in Jacksonville Jaguars colors -- more on this later -- name-tags, a case of Coors Light, and aviator sunglasses for a baby doll, Tardio insists we go to the liquor store so he can buy a bottle of Maker's Mark for the game.

We return to the hotel, prepare our costumes, and walk to the only restaurant nearby, Applebee's. The Applebee's is selling jello shots on the patio, and inside the restaurant is packed with revelers rooting for Georgia or Florida.

"Let's sit at the bar?" Tardio asks.

"I'm not sitting at the Applebee's bar," I say. "And besides, it's packed."

It's true, there are no seats at the Applebee's bar.

It is 7:45 on Friday evening.

We drink beers out of yard glasses and eat spinach and artichoke dip.

"Can you imagine getting a DUI leaving Applebee's?" I ask.

"Can you imagine leaving Applebee's sober?" asks Tardio.

Beach-Bound

Back at the hotel, we get dressed. I've brought my family's brown Baby Bjorn under strict instructions from my wife not to lose it. I buckle the baby carrier, insert my white baby, affix the aviator glasses onto the baby, while Tardio dons his scrubs.

"Do you think I should write William on my nametag or Bill? asks Tardio.

"I don't think people are going to get either," I say.

Tardio scrunches his face. "F---," he says, "you've got me worried now. Is my costume going to bomb?"

"Yes," I say, "I think so."

"F--- me," says Tardio.

We compromise on "Bill." The quotation marks, we surmise, add the requisite symbolism necessary to make it apparent that Tardio's name is not actually Bill, rather, the name is a part of the costume.

Health Care Bill has no pockets in the scrubs so he has me carry his credit card, cash, two Titans vs. Jags tickets, and his license. Later, after I drop them on the floor, Tardio admits that he didn't mean to give me the tickets to carry as well.

Once more we hop into a cab, only this time it's actually a shuttle service driven by a man named Meza. This time we're destined for the Jacksonville beaches. After another $40 fare, we arrive at Brix, which is a bar made of bricks and pronounced like bricks except spelled with an X.

We stand outside, awkwardly peering into the bar.

"I knew it, no one is in a costume," says Health Care Bill.

Tardio is correct. We decide to go for a walk, fake white baby in sunglasses swaying in front of me, and find the bar with the people with costumes inside.

Thirty minutes later, having traversed the entirely of Jacksonville Beach, we have not seen a single costume.

"It's almost like," Tardio says, "the city forbids them."

The only costumes we see is for a group of happy costumed people who are climbing the stairs to what appears to be a loft party. We contemplate following them. Instead we get in line for Brix, I show Tardio's license for him, "Bill's not my real name," he says to no reaction from the bouncer, walk outside to the patio, and sit in the darkness.

We begin to drink.

Health Care Bill regularly surveys the crowd looking for someone, anyone in a costume. "I was worried about looking like unfun losers if we didn't have costumes," he says, "now we just look like losers."

We begin to argue over who has to go get the next beers from the bar, and reveal our costumes in the light of day.

I have to.

The bartender, a youngish woman with dark hair and mean expression stares at me. "I don't get it," she says.

"Did you see the movie Hangover?" I ask. "I'm....

"I get it," she says, unsmiling.

Someone dressed as David Robinson from Navy shows up. He fist pounds me, ignoring Health Care Bill in the process. Then other costumes, mercifully, begin to arrive.

We make our way inside. By midnight the costumed people are beginning to take over. We're moving into the mainstream. At least those of us who are in costumes.

Most people believe that Health Care Bill is, in fact, a doctor who has not had time to change after work. We test his costume on others, tell them it's three words long and that Bill is the last word.

No one guesses it.

What's more, "Doctor Blue Bill," is the best guess. Primarily because, "Doctor Bill," the primary guess, has only two words.

Three bars later and enough beers and shots to sink two less shameless men, we end up in the street looking for a cab. I call Meza, the man who drove us in his shuttle service earlier.

He's too busy to get us.

Mercifully, we find another cab. As we climb in, I call my wife, at two in the morning back home in Nashville, and leave a long message for her that consists of Health Care Bill jokes. She has no idea what is going on.

A few minutes into the cab ride, I begin to get text messages with things like this written, "Hey, good night, U are cute, lol."

It's from a Jacksonville area code. Health Care Bill swears he didn't give my number to anyone.

At 3 a.m., as the most recent text arrives, it suddenly hits me, our car service man, Meza, has me confused with someone else and is sending flirtatious e-mails to me on accident.

"I think it's on purpose," says Health Care Bill angrily ripping off his nametag.

"At least you didn't go with William," I say.

For a while I stand fiddling with the Baby Bjorn, attempting to undo it. But I can't seem to get the strap undone. So I climb into bed still wearing the baby carrying device. I take out Carlos, now absent sunglasses because they were stolen by a Florida sorority girl, and toss him across the room.

He bounces softly off the wall. Health Care Bill is already snoring.

It's gameday in Jacksonville.

The Hangover

At 11 in the morning, Spencer Hall, from the Web site EDSBS.com, calls. I tell him I"m still in bed wearing a baby carrier.

"Get up, bitch," he says, "I went to bed at four and got up at seven. And I slept outside."

Spencer is like this.

I could have called him and said, "I feel awful, I just had 14 quaaludes, a roofie, and a bottle of Jack, and Spencer would say, "I just had 28 quaaludes, four roofies, and two bottles of Jack."

He is already tailgating.

I put on my gameday attire, a Draft Tebow 2010 shirt, purchased last night. I do this for three reasons: A.) I believe this is the only way Jacksonville will keep a pro football franchise. B.) I'm interested in how people will react to the shirt and C.) I've never actually worn an NCAA violation that could be purchased for $12.99 at a local Walgreen's.

We procure another cab. Because we're gentlemen, we pick up two other people, Florida fans, to share our cab ride. Also, because it's cheaper. We explain that they will have to wait on us in the Applebee's parking lot because Tardio left his credit card there last night.

"'I just had a girl from Georgia in the cab,' he says. "She was wasted. I offered her a bottle of water and she said, 'Water? Why would I fill up my f---ing stomach with water?'"
"I know there is going to be $4,000 in Oreo shooters charged on this thing," he says.

This cab driver is better than last night's. Primarily because he is not sending me flirtatious texts.

"I just had a girl from Georgia in the cab," he says. "She was wasted. I offered her a bottle of water and she said, 'Water? Why would I fill up my f---ing stomach with water?'"

The girlfriend of the Florida fan is an Oregon student. She has blonde hair, fair skin and is concerned that the Oregon-USC game may not be on local television here. Her boyfriend has other concerns. "We need to get you some sunscreen because I want to touch you later and I don't want you sunburned," he says.

Our cab driver drops us off on Bay Boulevard and we commence to take in the tailgate sites. Immediately, my t-shirt draws compliments from Florida fans.

Georgia fans? Not so much.

"He's a f------ fullback," screams one man in my direction. This will be repeated approximately 14 times. In all, virtually every Florida fan approves of the shirt.

In every direction around the stadium, people are tailgating in the bright sunshine. It's a perfect day, cloudless, blue sky with bright sunshine bouncing off of the St. John's River, music blaring in every direction. Cornhole bean bags bounce along the well-worn grass, flip cup and beer pong spills drip off old tables. Everywhere you look, alcohol flows like the river that divides Jacksonville.

Fans are clad in Georgia and Florida gear but they're also dressed in the colors of other, non-playing teams. As we walk, I see every SEC school represented. Many people at the Cocktail Party have come with no indication of actually going inside the stadium, or, it would appear, with any real care for the fact that a football game is taking place at all.

As kickoff nears, a portion of the tailgating crew peels off and heads for the stadium.

But only a portion.

Many more, tens of thousands, stay behind. We make our way to a family zone tailgate alongside the stadium. Above us, towering in the sky, the Georgia and Florida sections of the stadium meet in the end zone. A few fans, wearing their team colors, stand up on the back row of last row of the stadium. We can watch these men cheer and divine what is taking place on the field. The Florida fans are cheering. Back down on the ground, a large tent housing the Heisman Trophy provides a modicum of shade and here fallen tailgating soldiers of both sexes lay passed out in the shade.

A man, bedraggled and shirtless approaches us, "Are they not serving beer in here?" he asks.

"I don't know," I say.

"F----------k," he says, turning the u into a long, drawn out wail. "Why do they even have the game if they don't have beer?"

Now joined by my friend Chad, a Georgia fan, we stand amid a huge surging crowd, relatively young in age, much younger than the actual crowd in the stadium, baking in front of a projection screen showing the game. Another shirtless man stumbles past. Earlier his back was painted with a number 2 and Demps written above it, but now, in the heat, he's sweated away the paint so that all that remains is a trace outline of the body paint.

Florida has already scored by the time we arrive, a Tebow touchdown pass to Riley Cooper. Not to be outdone, we see a second Tebow-to-Coooper touchdown pass, and Verne Lundquist shares his favorite SEC anecdote. Did you know the two men are roommates?

Georgia, wearing their black helmets and black pants, has failed to provide an early challenge to the Gators.
Tardio pulls his bottle of Maker's Mark out and mixes it with a bottle of Pepsi. Five minutes later, we're surrounded by police officers, "You get two choices," say the officers, "dump it or leave."

Tardio dumps it.

With Georgia trailing 14-3, we leave en route to a rumored party thrown by a Florida Coastal Law Professor. The pass word is, "We're not with the party."

As we walk across the parking lot, we pass a man in a white Chevy Tahoe SUV, he's slumped in the front seat of the car blasting, "Forever Young" as loud as his radio will allow.

Now, in the parking lot, the smell of alcohol, dirt, and filth, sweat, and sunshine baking on asphalt melds together into a potent and pungent smell. Like a flood after the waters have receded. Everywhere are beer cans, discarded bottles, shattered glass, and now, the tailgating zombies are out, stumbling from one place to another, the wasteland of football Saturdays.

A girl, sitting on a curb, shoeless, dress haphazardly gathered around her mid-thigh stares up at us, shielding her face with her hand, "Do you have beer?" she asks.

"We're going for some," we say.

"Okay," she says, standing and falling into line behind us like she has just arrived on a deserted island and heard we knew where water is. Soon, two of her friends have also joined up, a collective search and rescue party with a blood alcohol level that would allow surgery without anesthesia.

I stop near a single port-o-potty marked, "Private."

"Did you bring your own port-o-potty?" I ask some tailgaters.

"Yes," they say, "we do it right."

They've also brought a chef, a man named Robert. Robert tells me that he brought 60 pounds of chicken, 50 pounds of filet steaks, 20 pounds of crawdads, 10 pounds of andouille sausage, 50 pounds of potatoes, and 30 pounds of corn-on-the-cob for the tailgate.

Inside the stadium roars, Bulldog side, as tight end Aron White snags a Joe Cox touchdown pass to slice the lead to 14-10. Later, White will give my favorite quote of the game, "We came inside and saw those uniforms, and we were pretty excited by them," White said. "But as they say, the uniforms, they don't score the points."

I'm so sick of all the people who give the uniforms credit for scoring.

"With more beers, we make our way to Church Street. ... It's like a third-world country here. ... If I wanted to buy a rooster and a 34-year-old woman from Romania, I'm confident I could buy both at the same hat stand."
With more beers, we make our way to Church Street, on the west side of the stadium. It's like a third world country here, dirtier even than the other areas we've been thus far. Old brick factories crumble, every building with more than one story seems to be falling into itself, a sports bar with a dirt floor leads into a dark room where I expect to see goats munching trash underfoot. The road is dusty, everything seems to be for sale. If I wanted to buy a rooster and a 34-year-old woman from Romania, I'm confident I could buy both at the same hat stand.

I don't see any guns, but I believe that every person within 10 feet of me has three concealed weapons. The heat is making my head swim. Stumbling people are everywhere, a few men lay passed out in the dry grass, open-mouthed, staring at the sky above them, shirts slightly raised above their bellies like bloated Civil War soldiers. Suddenly from nowhere, a dirt alley, a tin-roofed shack, a dirty-haired scalper with deep sunburns materializes trying to sell us tickets.

"Georgia is making a game of it this year, don't you boys want to see the second half?"

"How much?" I ask, because I want to know how much he wants for the tickets and also because I'm scared not to reply to him.

"Twenty bucks," he says.

I wave my hand in his direction. "Nah," I say.

"How much will you give me?" he asks.

Inside the bar, Herschel Walker is on the television screen, a Zaxby's commercial. A couple of Bulldog fans cheer, remembering better days. Their voices carry out into the hot street, my beer tastes like water. Water, with helium inside.

My lips are dry.

I spit into the street.

Someone is throwing up in a trash can. No one gives him a second glance.

"How about it?" asks the scalper.

A girl walks past then, she's wearing a bikini top and tight shorts 16, maybe, but already looks 42. ""The game?" she snorts, rolling her dark eyes, "you can't drink at the game."

Health Care Bill is beside me now. "Where's the game?" he asks, meaning, I think where can we watch the game.

It's Halloween in Jacksonville, a carnival of excess, a game within a game within a game. This makes sense to me when I write it down in my notebook.

Now?

I'm not so sure.

"Everywhere," I say. "Or nowhere."

Health Care Bill nods. "God," he says, "my costume was awful."