Now that Spring Break is in full tequila-guzzling swing, we asked some of our favorite party people about the crazy spring break shenanigans they got into back in the day. Read on for tales of spiders, puking, pool dance contests and more.
Cat Marnell, Writer + Editor-At-Large at VICE
"I went to a prep school called Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts, where the big pre-Spring Break treat was (and still remains) its 'Winterim' program, where for two weeks in March everyone chooses an 'intensive course of study' -- sailing in New Zealand or learning French in Paris or something. Anyway, my hockey player/student government boyfriend and I were caught having sex in his dorm and so we couldn't go to Costa Rica together to build houses for the poor or something. I dunno what we were going to do -- obviously the real plan was just to have more hot illicit teen sex! In abandoned doghouses or something. Anyway, I got suspended from Winterim as punishment and sent home to D.C. To get the project credit, I had to do two weeks of grueling psych ward rounds with my arch-nemesis to this very day: my bitchy hotshot psychiatrist DR. DAD! -- Who was so mad he wouldn't TALK to me, and we were in the car together three hours a day! (Not that I WANTED him to!) We left the house every day at 6:40 AM and got home every night at 8 PM. It was f-ing miserable and the only time in my life I felt true empathy for my aforementioned always-in-a-bitch-mood father. Cat Marnell, Writer + Editor-At-Large at VICE
I wound up getting expelled from Lawrence for drugs like a month and a half after I came back from spring break -- just before graduation. But this time, I came home pregnant! Yes, with a giant Xanax bar. No, I had a gory second trimester abortion. The End."
Lesley Arfin, Writer
"I didn't know I wasn't supposed to mix red wine and Tequila. I got way too drunk way too early in the evening and ran into a girl I knew from another high school that I hadn't seen in years. She'd had a nose job and her face looked so radically different that I puked all over her. My drunken brain couldn't handle the shock of her new face.
I also snuck crystal meth on the plane. We went to the Bahamas."
Photo by Nicholas Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com
Derek Blasberg, Writer and Man-About-Town"In my last year of high school in St. Louis, Missouri, we all went on a senior trip to Puerto Vallarte, Mexico. I had my first sips of tequila (but not the last) and I entered (and won, of course) a dance contest by our hotel's pool organized by the pool DJ. Because yes, there was a pool DJ."
Peter Davis, Editor-in-Chief of SCENE Magazine
"I was booted from boarding school in Connecticut, for being a punk rocker glued to a skateboard -- the official reason was lying about leaving campus without permission and it would have been my Pomfret School record-breaking figth time in front of the 'DC,' the Disciplinary Committee. (Think a court-like scenario made up of grouchy preppy teachers and nerdy students -- my worst nightmare.
So the second I got home to NYC, I snuck out and of course went clubbing. Naturally, I was busted by my parents. My mother told me, through fake, overly dramatic tears, that I was 'done' amongst nice people and belonged in jail. My mom always takes things next-level.
It was late February and my parents were going on their annual trip to stay with fancy friends like Annette de la Renta in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas. My mother was 'terrified' to leave me 'to my own devices' in Manhattan. 'You're coming to Lyford with us and you'll work as a gardener the whole time at the house.' Needless to say, I never raked a single leaf.
I was pissed at Pomfret and missed my hooligan friends. So I bought a bunch of those 'It's Better in the Bahamas' postcards with bodacious bikini babes and wrote every member of the [Disciplinary Committee]: 'Everything worked out for the best. I'm on the beach in the Bahamas and happier than ever. I heard Connecticut is really cold now. Off to Paris next.' Bad boys finish first!"
Photo by Billy Farrell Agency/BFANYC.com
Billy Farrell, Photographer and Co-Founder of the Billy Farrell AgencyPhoto by Nicholas Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com
AndrewAndrew, DJs"We've never really been on spring break, but this year we plan to watch that new James Franco movie, and then re-enact it. We've already bought the neon bikinis."
Photo by Mireya Acierto/PatrickMcMullan.com
Vashtie, Artist, Director and Downtown Party Promoter
"When I was a freshman in High School my friend Liz invited me on her family's Spring Break trip to Myrtle Beach. We piled in her Mom's car with her two brothers and drove down. It was pretty tame; we hung out on the beach, ate at Planet Hollywood, flirted with boys on the boardwalk.
I think my craziest Spring Break memory was me falling in love with a caricature artist that worked at Myrtle Beach's Boardwalk. I was 14 and he was definitely older than me, but somehow we started a penpal friendship after meeting. I think that's more weird than crazy. I still have the letters and the caricature drawing he did was terrible."
Tilda Swinton and Justin Vivian Bond. Photo by Miguel Villalobos
Daniel Nardicio, Nightclub Promoter
"Years ago, I was throwing an underwear party in the basement of The Slide bar on Bowery. At about 1a.m., the place was packed, and in walks Tilda Swinton in a floor length Calvin Klein gown, fresh from a Paper Awards event where she had just been honored for something. I came over to ask her what she'd like to drink, and she said: 'I am NOT getting into my underwear! I've just had twins.' Of course I didn't ask her to, and she hung out at the bar with Justin Vivian Bond all night drinking while god knows what was going on around her. A true New York moment."
Kayvon Zand and his entourage arriving in Vienna
Kayvon Zand, Singer/Performance Artist"Best spring break memory was arriving in Vienna for LifeBall in 2011. The proper way to make a spring break entrance into a foreign country: bouffant, check; snake crown, check; umbrella servant, check; blonde bombshell in tow, check."
Andrew W.K. and friend CC on spring break
Andrew W.K., Musician, Party Expert and Santos Party House Co-Owner"The craziest spring break I ever had was back in 1999. My friend CC and I rented a house in Acapulco and planned on spending a week there just going completely wild. The house was almost in a jungle sort of area, and our goal was to go to the beach and invite all these girls back to the house to party hard. Well, on the first day, we realized that the house was infested with spiders. And I mean really, really, really gigantic spiders. It was extremely intense. There were tarantula-sorts of fat spiders, and bright-colored giant boney spiders, and shiny black pointy spiders. During the night, you could hear them running on the ceiling and then falling onto the floor with a thud. When we finally did get some pretty bikini girls to come over to the house, we thought they would never stay because of all the spiders everywhere. That's when things got really crazy. One of the girls was using the bathroom and emitted a blood curdling scream, before limping out the door crying -- turns out a spider had crawled up from under the edge of the toilet and bit her where it counts! All the girls freaked out and so did we and we left the house and checked into a hotel. Then we partied so hard that I don't really remember anything else from the entire trip. But I'll never forget those spiders -- they were amazing."