First off: dress. Wear a nice hat. This shows respect for the host. It can range from fabulously feathered froofiness to a simple yet sassy cap, but no matter what, take advantage of the tea party as an opportunity to kick it up a notch fashion-wise. Some people just don’t get it, like this guy:

Do not show up at a tea party dressed like a pirate.
Even Captain Hook would agree it’s bad form.

Second: location. You don’t have to be Emily Post to know that you can’t have a tea party if you’re stomping around in the middle of the street. Also, holding a sign makes it totally difficult to pass the sugar. You will spill your tea, and the jam won’t stay on your scone. It’s okay to have a tea party outdoors, but you really need to sit down at a table.

Third: guest list. The tea parties they keep showing on TV have way too many people at them. Intimate conversation is kind of difficult when a few thousand people are all trying to squeeze into the same party. Less is more, dudes. Plus, it looks like some people are all sour grapes over not being invited, so they’re sneaking into the tea parties and acting like asshats. Limiting your guest list = easier to spot crashers.

Four: anger. You can totally be the kind of person who is super opinionated and get all angry because someone is wrong on the Internet, but when you go to a tea party, you are supposed to be nice and only talk about how tasty the snacks are. But all these fakey tea parties are full of angry people. Seriously, folks, if you can’t say something nice, fill your mouth with blueberry bread.

Fifth (and biggest) problem: I don’t see tea anywhere. No tea, no scones, no jam, no cucumber sandwiches, no petit fours. WTF, guys? Lots of people are walking around with tea bags, which is a sad reflection on Americans’ understanding of how to make a nice cup of tea. Like, check out this chick:

Tea goes into pots of boiling water,
NOT on hats made from the dead carcasses of Muppets.

Educate yourself. It isn’t hard to make tea, and nothing cures anger like a nice currant scone slathered in clotted cream and strawberry jam.

We sidle up to the bar to watch the band finish setting up. The guy sitting next to me is pretty drunk, which is embarrassing enough, even if you don’t factor in that it’s only 9:30 p.m. He smacks — not taps, smacks — me on the arm and asks why I have on blue (I’m wearing green) and Darien has on red. “Did you guys plan that?” he wants to know.

“No, we didn’t,” I assure him politely, and turn back to my friend.

“Yes, you did,” the guy retorts, poking my arm. “We just started talking and you’re already lying.”

“Ah yes, you’ve figured out our secret,” Darien confesses.

“It’s all part of our plot,” I tell him. I’m not interested in helping this guy use us as a target for his rather cliché bitterness for life and love. We successfully ignore him for a while until I get smacked on the arm again. What is this, the Mos Eisley Cantina?

“You guys look like, you’re, like, Stepford Wives,” I am informed.

“Excuse me?”

“Like, so prim and proper, you’re like Stepford Wives.”

Confused, mainly because Stepford Wives would never, ever go to a bar, I ask him if he’s read the novel.

“I saw the movie. You’re Stepford Wives because you’re wearing the same thing,” he claims. His friend, who has been sitting next to him silently this whole time, begins to smile. He can clearly see that a train wreck is about to take place and wants to enjoy every moment.

“Actually,” I inform him, putting on my most going-to-scare-you-with-my-formidable-and-rarely-useful-knowledge-of-literature tone of voice, “The book has nothing to do with clothing. It’s about loss of feminine identity in the face of patriarchal control.”

The Wingman gets this kind of Oopsie This Girl Is Smarter Than She Looks look. But the drunk guy, oblivious, persists.

“No, it’s about how you’re all proper. I saw the movie,” I am informed. Well, isn’t that nice. He repeats a few things he’s been saying about how we are uptight and prissy. His evidence for this is based on the fact that we (a) are dressed up and (b) don’t want to talk to him. Except he doesn’t quite put it that way. In his version there was more slurring and profanity.

“Do you practice saying things to offend people?” I ask him in all sincerity, while Darien flips him the bird.

“No, I don’t mean it as an insult,” he says in a very insulting tone. “But you are. You’re like robots.”

I tell him there are some advantages to being a robot. He then says something extremely classy to the effect of that if I were a robot I would be able to provide nonstop manual stimulation to his favorite body part. I shake my head and correct him.

“No, see, if I were a robot, I could replace my foot or hand if it got damaged. And if I went to a bar and some jerk insulted me and my friend,” I say, “I would be able to hit him really fucking hard with my robotic arm.”

His jaw drops a little bit. His friend chokes on his Bud Light as he suppresses violent laugher. Darien and I get up to go find more civil company closer to the band, which has started to play.

A little wake-up call, genius. If you’re trying to get attention, please decide what kind you would like. The good kind takes manners. But if you don’t have manners, please remember that insulting me and my friend is probably only going to get you a nice verbal castration.

I used to DJ a lot of dances in high school (you know, back before everything got so ridiculously formal and commercial) and my giant bible of CDs was an expensive but worthwhile investment. A friend and I would tag team so we could spin and dance, and we had strict rules. Requests trump prepared playlists, period. If you pick a stinker and it clears the floor, swallow your pride and change it ASAP. Play three or four fast songs and then throw in a slow dance, but pick slow songs shorter than four minutes long. (Anybody remember the social agony of trying to make small talk through the long version of November Rain?) In fact, as a general rule, try to change up what’s going on often. Perfect dance songs are two and a half minutes long, three tops. And first and foremost, don’t play the stuff you like if it isn’t what the crowd wants to hear.

This is a little different — I need to provide ambient happy sound for people in a way that stimulates good vibes and friendly conversation and a general hum of energy, but I can’t pick songs that are too noisy or obtrusive. They need to be there to contribute to the background but not actually draw attention. Even trickier, I won’t be there to make adjustments as I’ve got a plane to catch later on. So let’s get the constraints . . . hmm humm hrmmmm . . .

Genres: Electronica, Classic Rock, Blues, Funk, Soul, Indie, Shibuya-kei, and just a dash of New Wave and Glam for flavor.
Constraints: Must be happy and energetic but not attention-grabbing. No screaming, no foul language, no overtly sexual language. Must be able to last several hours without requiring attention or a second thought. Not too many of any one artist so we can just hit random and let her rip.

So here’s what we ended up with:

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You — Muse
Hungry Like the Wolf — Duran Duran
Short Skirt Long Jacket — Cake
Drive My Car — The Beatles
Modern Guilt — Beck
Rock The Casbah — The Clash
Help Me, Rhonda — The Beach Boys
That’s Too Bad (Byron Jam) — Donavon Frankenreiter
Viva La Vida — Coldplay
Such Great Heights — The Postal Service
Wonderful Night (feat Lateef) — Fatboy Slim
Different Colors — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Nothing Better — The Postal Service
Good Vibrations — The Beach Boys
My Mustang Ford — Chuck Berry
Dance the Night Away — Van Halen
Susie Q — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Here It Goes Again — Ok Go
Ramble Tamble — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Human — The Killers
Que Onda Guero — Beck
Higher And Higher — Jackie Wilson
Middle of Nowhere — Hot Hot Heat
And The Beat Goes On — The All Seeing I
Journey Of The Sorcerer — Eagles
Clark Gable — The Postal Service
Black Tambourine — Beck
Code Monkey — Jonathan Coulton
Up Around The Bend — Creedence Clearwater Revival
E-Pro — Beck
Numa Numa — O-Zone
Twiggy Twiggy — Pizzicato Five
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough — Marvin Gaye
Runaway — Jamiroquai
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da — The Beatles
One Way or Another — Blondie
Let’s Stay Together — Al Green
Canned Heat — Jamiroquai
Electric Lady Land — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Move By Yourself — Donavon Frankenreiter
You Must Learn All Night Long (Dauerfisch Remix) — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Sudden Stars — Stereolab
We Will Become Silhouettes — The Postal Service
Bobby Dazzler — Sons Of Silence
Sweet Pea — Amos Lee
Mustang Sally — The Commitments
September — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp — Mercury Rev
Frank Sinatra — Cake
Something Happened To Me Yesterday — The Rolling Stones
Brown Sugar — The Rolling Stones
Robot Rock — Daft Punk
All Summer Long — The Beach Boys
Coconut — Harry Nilsson
Bandages — Hot Hot Heat
Love and Wonder (Club Edit) — DJ Earworm
Love Like Rockets — Angels and Airwaves