Gatsby Would Have Been Proud of My Birthday Party….or Maybe Miley Cyrus.

It’s all fun and games until a live band, DJ, photographer, liquor sponsors, Cockatoo, and all of LA shows up.

By Alyssa Ramos

Considering my birthday party last year that shocked and impressed everyone with it’s location in a massive mansion in the Hills, complete with nightclub, movie theater, observatory, and basketball court, I obviously knew I had to top it this year for my 26th birthday. Aside from my typical, multi-location birthday parties in Miami and Palm Beach, I wanted to have a nice cocktail party in LA as some sort of statement that I am now old and matour (fancy way of pronouncing “mature”). But who was I kidding…

I was aware, of course, that all of FSU would be in town for the BCS National Championship game last Monday (which we won, obviously, GO NOLES), and wasn’t exactly thrilled with all of the “FSU’s going to take over Hollywood”, and “Tally in Cali” bullshit that was going on during MY birthday week, but it somewhat changed when I started to see everyone and oh, was informed that a group of my guy friends from college had rented out the original house that I had wanted to throw my party at. The one that they all knew of because I have about 8,000 photos of me at its infinity pool all over my Facebook.

“Why don’t you just have your birthday at the house we rented?” My friend asked after I invited him to my already-planned cocktail party. “I already invited a bunch of people, but yeah I’d love to!” I replied. “Yeah I want to have big parties here all weekend.” He said. Perfect. 

I STILL don’t know why people underestimate me. I think they all thought it was going to be mostly FSU people, “dominating LA” as they all proclaimed, yet no one took a second to consider the fact that, oh I don’t know… I’m a  socialite that LIVES here and already had people planning to attend my party. Around 8pm when the two liquor sponsors (thanks Veev) and photographer (thanks Gary Reisman) showed up, the guy renting the house finally said, “Exactly how many of your people did you invite?”

I immediately started sweating, “Just like, 40”. I lied, and he could totally tell. Actually, I’m pretty sure one of my friends that lives here and had wanted everyone to go to a club over my magnifoocent party informed him of what I was capable of. “Get on the phone, and get a security guard, right now, or it’s off.” “Ok, but this is a party house, they have parties here all the time.” “Security guard. Now. I’m not kidding Alyssa.” Eeek! To be fair again, this house is notorious for having parties, I’m pretty sure even Justin Beiber had a party there once, and the owner even said, “People rent it out for the view and the pool, not the actual house.” (Which was his response to me after I texted him saying that my friends had arrived early and there was blood and kiddie toys everywhere.)

So the (armed) security guard came…and so did about 200 people. The way to differentiate between the people I actually invited and those who just thought they were going to a “sick mansion party in the Hollywood Hills” was that the ones who were invited actually wore cocktail attire as I had instructed and weren’t shocked to see the house, and those who weren’t were not in cocktail attire, took a million pictures in front of the pool, and had no idea it was MY birthday party. If there’s one thing you don’t want to fuck with with me with, it’s my birthday.

Everything was going fabulously until around 11pm when we got a noise complaint and had to move everyone inside and turn off the music, much to the disappointment of all of the people visiting who were outside getting high off of the view (it’s a pretty amazing view). My disappointment was that the live band that was setting up to play outside now had to set up in the crowded living room, and they were taking forever because they forgot a chord at the SLS hotel and had to have an Uber bring it up to them.

There was a white Cockatoo, because, I mean, what fabulous party isn’t complete with an exotic bird hanging out. I actually felt bad for the bird though, I remembered it from college – it belongs to a group of guys that have been in Tallahassee for like 10ish years and still party like they’re in college (kudos to your organs), and take the bird everywhere they go…including driving across the country in a school bus that they own and operate at FSU called “Shabooms” to drive people to the bars. The bird actually might have more photos with people than the infinity pool. I also heard they were responsible for the mushrooms that everyone was on until 6am, but let’s not skip ahead.

As soon as the DJ arrived around midnight, and the band was finally set up and getting ready to sing Happy Birthday to moi, of course, owner of the house comes and starts kicking people out. Except…the majority of the people there took Uber and/or had no idea what was going on, so the process was prolonged and unsuccessful. “Happy Birthday Alyssa.” He said to me with a death look as I was trying to sneak around to find my friends. I think I even saw Ryan Cabrera at one point, I hear his sister is a ‘Nole too. Anyway, I don’t do well in situations like these…especially when I’m to blame for a raging house party. Luckily Katelyn grabbed me out of no where and said, “Steven got an Uber! Let’s go!”

I immediately went into mission mode. I slipped through the drunk and confused sea of guests, avoiding the owner at all costs, and into the kitchen to grab my Poloroid camera, then back upstairs into the master bedroom’s closet where a group of people were doing blow to grab my purse. “Thanks for coming guys, by the way, cops are here.” I said sweetly before dashing out. I felt like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s when she escapes from her own party when the cops come.

(This is pretty much what happened except I left with friends and not a creepy dude) 

We ended up going to another house party in the Hills with a few other people from the party. “Should I tell people to come here?” I asked the owner..”NO!!!!” Everyone in the kitchen yelled in unison. Well, fine.

I ended up going home after that, but low and behold, I come to find out that a bunch of people stayed at the party, and even MORE showed up later in the night. A few people told me that it was a mad house, with blow everywhere, people on mushrooms, the DJ spinning, and people in the pool and jacuzzi until 6am. (This is why movies like Wolf of Wallstreet and Project X don’t shock or impress me). I probably would have cried if I was there, but I’m glad everyone else got weird on my birthday.

The next day I thought everything was all fine and dandy, and that everyone had a good time and whatnot, but mmmnope. First I get a text that says, “The cops are here, they’re kicking us out.” then a few minutes later, “Thanks for inviting everyone in LA, they’re kicking us out of the house…” along with a few more paragraphs bitching at me…to which I replied, “You told me you wanted to have big parties all weekend…”

As Miley Cyrus would say...”It’s our party we can do what we want.” …Except I’m not Miley, and apparently we could not do what we wanted to……but I guess we did it anyway. Happy Birthday to me!