Friends, Romans, Countrymen… and most importantly, “party animals” – lend me your ears. I am about to become the most important person in your social life. For you see, party animals, no one on Earth is better qualified than me to lead you to “The Promised Land” – that being, of course, “The Mother of all Parties.”
Don’t bother your husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, boyfriend or girlfriend, lover or best friend. None of them, I repeat, none of them, can ever compete with my KNOWLEDGE of, EXPERTISE in and most importantly, ACCESS to… parties. Who knows? Maybe if you make a donation to my charity, The Peaceman Foundation, I will get you into an amazing party. However, only a few “chosen ones” will be lucky enough to ride with me in the back of my limo.
I shamelessly worship “The God of Partying” (don’t tell my Rabbi!) and he worships me. I live to party and party to live. If there was a University of Partying, I would be the class “valedictorian.” If “The Guinness Book of World Records” measured partying ability, I would top all of their lists. If the Olympic Committee made partying a sport, I would easily win the Gold Medal in every category. And finally, if the global intellectual community recognized partying as an honorable pursuit, I would win the Nobel Prize.
By now, those of you who have never heard of me are asking two questions: who the fuck is Sir Ivan and what makes him the party guru? Well, first of all, if you don’t know who I am already, maybe parties are not really that important to you – and that’s okay. Have a nice life and enjoy living in Boringsville. But, for those of you who are curious, please allow me to introduce myself.
I’m a man of wealth and taste (rock trivia – answer: Mick Jagger, “Sympathy for the Devil”). As legend has it, I was born Ivan Wilzig, in Newark, New Jersey in 1956. I was not called “Sir” Ivan then, although my father often referred to me as his “young prince.” At 54, my current age (not the most famous nightclub in history), I have had more fun than anyone on the planet. You name it: I’ve been there, done that, and still want more. Coincidentally, the first truly great parties that I’ve ever attended were actually at Studio 54.
But that was only the beginning. For 36 years (since the age of 18) I have been going out and partying almost every night of my life. Sometimes I go to just one party a night (which is already extreme), sometimes up to six parties a night (this is what puts me in a league of my own). Of course, some nights I would stay in – to study for exams in college (at the University of Pennsylvania), study for finals in law school (at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law), get a good night sleep before a big business meeting (for 20 years I worked for my family-run bank, The Trust Company of New Jersey), recover from illness or surgery, or just because I felt like staying home to read a book or watch a movie.
Do the math. Even after deducting all those nights off, I still have somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 parties under my belt. I have pursued “The Great Party” like a shark fisherman pursues “The Great White.” And I will be the first to admit, that on more than one occasion, even I, Sir Ivan, have had to beg, borrow and steal to get into a specific party.
It’s not something to be ashamed of… it’s a learning process that toughens you up for the next party. The tens of thousands of parties I have attended included every type of party imaginable, all over the world: corporate parties, charity parties, fashion parties, dance parties, drug parties, and sex parties. They have taken place at straight clubs, gay clubs, lesbian clubs, bisexual clubs, transgendered clubs, fetish clubs, strip clubs and country clubs. And let’s not forget over-the-top Wedding and Bar Mitzvah parties. Dress codes have ranged from BLACK TIE ONLY to NUDE ONLY. I’ve been to an all-nude wedding, but not an all nude Bar Mitzvah. I don’t know why. An all-nude Bar Mitzvah would surely show whether or not the 13-year-old Jewish boy had actually become a man (pubic hair is after all the first sign, isn’t it?).
So there you have it… round, round, round… I’ve been around. But going to more parties than anyone in the world is not the sole criteria for crowning someone a “Party King.” A true Party King must give as well as he can take. By that I mean he must be able to throw great parties as well as attend great parties – and that’s where I leave my competition in the dust. Whether you have or have not heard of me, I invite you to view my last party (or should I say, my last “creation”). For me, hosting a party is not just a way to entertain friends, but rather, the chance to take them somewhere they will never forget. Throwing a party is both a science and an art, and hosting one requires enormous skill and talent.
I believe that one must be able to throw a great party in order to truly appreciate and judge a great party. Anyone who has just “attended” parties, without ever having “thrown” at least one, will NEVER be quite as good a judge as someone who has actually put in the blood, sweat and tears that it takes to make a legendary party truly legendary. “Castlestock 2009” had only one equal in Hampton’s Party History: the 1997 “Jungle Masquerade Ball to Benefit the Rainforest Alliance,” also at my Castle in the Hamptons and co-hosted by my brother Alan. (Sorry no video for that one, but had you been there, you might have bumped into Billionaire Donald Trump or Home Run King Sammy Sosa). So you see, at least in the Hamptons my only competition is myself.
So now you have it! The secret’s out! I’m not only a legendary partygoer, but I’m also a legendary party-thrower!
Consider this blog your “Party Bible.” Follow me as I celebrate the joy of living through never-ending parties. Sometimes I will tell you BEFORE the party actually happens (trust me I have a nose for parties like a bloodhound has a nose for rabbits). Maybe I will tweet you DURING the party with a “blow by blow” report. (No, I’m not going to tell you who’s giving who a blowjob, nor am I going to tell you who is lined up to do blow in the bathroom). Other times I will just give a recap AFTER the party is over and I’m fully recovered (after all, it’s really not much of a party week if you don’t need a good nurse or at least a good massage afterwards). Remember, what you learn here you can’t learn at Harvard!
Someone once said that “whoever has the most toys before they die… wins,” but I beg to differ. I believe that whoever has gone to the most amazing parties before they die wins. The reason is because parties (all kinds) are the most fun social interactions we as humans can experience. The truly wise know that Fun with a capital “F” is more valuable than gold. Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, has been and always will be the goal that all healthy human beings desire the most. And parties are pleasurable for many reasons: they distract us from stress, permit us to fantasize, allow us to release energy, enable us to make friends, motivate us to explore business opportunities (networking) and perhaps most importantly, help us fall in lust and in love.
Life at best is short. PARTY TILL YOU DIE!
-Sir Ivan aka Peaceman
“The Party King of the World”
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