Lame...

YPSILANTI, Mich.-The most obvious thing about my twitter coverage of the rock show at the Tap Room on Saturday night is its brevity; a whopping three tweets. The moral of the story is of course leave your underage friends chained to the radiator where they belong.

What could have been a night of eloquent prose delivered in less than 165 characters was scuttled right out of port by someone who was just obeying the law. I was denied the opportunity to remark on the music, which I'm sure was incredible or make fun of the hipsters, who were plentiful, because The Man gets his panties in a bunch when people under 21 want to responsibly consume alcohol.

The irony is that the person I was with who was underage ended up getting blacked out drunk and making a scene, so obviously responsible consumption wasn't his modus operandi. But it stands to argue that had we been allowed to remain at the bar his drinking would have been more limited. An article in the December 1986 issue of the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that people tend to consume fewer drinks at bars than at parties and they tend to have a more accurate count of the number of drinks they have consumed.

The declared purpose of the house party scene is "let's get f***** up" and, unless the party is being hosted by amateurs, the beer pong tables and open liquor bottles floating around ensure that those in attendance will not want for libations.  The booze tends to be much cheaper too, even free in some cases, meaning that a night of hard drinking at a party is easier on the wallet than a similar night at a bar.

Had he been allowed to stay, the individual I was with probably would have only had the few drinks that people would have been willing to buy for him and not ended the evening on the bathroom floor. Underage drinking is inevitable, but in the proper setting it can be a valuable lesson in moderation. It is considerably less lame to hang out with one 19 year old that is drinking responsibly then to go to a house party full of 19 year olds acting irresponsibly. The house full of 19 year olds tend to feed off of each other's retardation and can kick off a chain reaction of idiocy as the stupidity snowballs out of control. Most bars don't seem to have this problem.

My complaint is not against the drinking age but rather a comment on the juxtaposition between bar culture and party culture. The former tends to be more relaxed and conducive to responsible drinking, while the latter tends to be an angsty, out of control, socially awkward, uncivilized mess. The age difference obviously comes into play because people of drinking age will tend to be older, more mature and more experienced.

Those who have more experience in any other activity such as math or basket weaving often mentor those who have less experience. Yet after someone reaches the drinking age they tend to socialize less with people who are under it. This means that the opportunities for more experienced drinkers to mentor less experienced ones are decidedly limited and tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

A greater emphasis needs to be placed on situations where underage people can be taught how to drink responsibly. Events like concerts, where an individual might have their of-age friends buy them drinks are perfect opportunities to learn moderation. I realize I'm advocating that people break the law, but I would rather have the law broken in a calmer setting with a few guiding hands than in an anarchic orgy of excess.