I just returned from a Halloween party at Pikes Hotel, a place where some twenty-year-old memories of mine were created. Because of the state I’m in, I want to warn anyone who reads this in advance: my account might be a little incoherent and not exactly conscientiously written. I might even repeat myself, but hopefully it won’t be boring. I can’t guarantee anything.
Pikes Hotel is a wonderful boutique (I really dislike that word but that’s what it would be called) hotel with quite an illustrious history. Famous people, mostly Brits, flocked to it and added to its original flair. Wham’s Club Tropicana was filmed there, and a room is dedicated to Freddy Mercury, a regular when still mortal. Apparently, Kate Moss is there for every Halloween party they throw, except for this year. Darn. But then again, the gathering was so eclectic, who needs her? Besides, at Halloween parties almost everyone is more interesting than they would be at other parties. And you get to ogle to your heart’s content, without feeling uncomfortable. Halloween is like a show, or a museum with music. Even if you don’t talk to anyone, you still have a good time just looking. And most of the people that come to this party are not tourists, unlike the club vacationers that come here during the summer to party their brains out for a week or two. They are people that have chosen to live here, and they are a very different lot.
On Ibiza, island of parties, the 31st of October is the best party of the year. Everyone who lives here knows it, but they don’t tell. Whereas in summer, you can see billboards for the club nights pop up like mushrooms in a moldy forest, the Halloween fests are barely advertised in local tabloids, and the places that accommodate them don’t even mention it on their websites. I’m not exactly new to this island, but it wasn’t until last year I started to become aware of something I was missing out on. Most clubs have already shut down for the season and only a few venues host an All Hallows Eve party, but they go out of their way to do it.
Although I have been madly in love with Halloween since the first time I was introduced to it (’twas in Los Angeles, where they certainly know how to throw a horror fest), this year my feelings towards ‘el dia de los muertos’ were shook up. It turned into something I didn’t know I was allowed to love anymore. Death has taken away such an important part of my life, can I still make fun of it? Should I party in its name? Am I supposed to relish the elaborate make-believe graveyard the people of Pikes Hotel have created on their lawn, when it was only a month ago I said farewell to my father in a real one? Can I paint my daughter’s face so that it resembles a skull or an evil templar? It feels like a twisted form of blasphemy. But then again, it doesn’t feel like the same thing; death is not a skull or a zombie or a ghost. It’s emptiness, an unfathomable abyss of loss, and most of all, the absence of life. Not just of the deceased’s life, but also of the people who loved him. With the death of someone this close, a piece of the life of the ones who remain behind, seeps away. Like a rechargeable battery than won’t ever be able to fully be charged again. So I decided to go after all, in a futile effort to fill up that gigantic void inside of me with images of gratuitous diversion.
The Pikes hotel is legendary. It’s also the perfect haunted house, with so many nooks and crannies you get to pass through; it takes a couple of rounds to understand how it’s laid out. An old finca, an Ibicencan farmhouse, it still retains many of its original elements, like the millstone in the middle of one the rooms, so substantial you can hardly walk around it. It’s charming with serious star-attraction.
The last time I hung out here was over twenty years ago. Lured by the stories of celebrities that were supposed to lounge at the pool bar everyday, I headed over there, riding a scooter and wearing a more than presentable white dress, because, well, you never knew who you might meet at a place like that. I walked onto the deserted grounds. No stars anywhere. Hesitant about how to proceed, I lingered on the terrace for a few moments, the harsh afternoon sun thrashing my bare shoulders. Finally, I decided to act all worldly and sit down at the bar to drink…orange juice, of course. Fortunately, there was a bartender, but she was the only one present. My juice all but downed (I do that very fast, drinking, that’s why I have to take care with alcohol: it usually goes down like lemonade, or well, juice. Sipping is something that’s beyond my abilities), I rose, ready to mount my scooter. But as I was doing this, a guy walked up to the bar. He had a mustache (absolutely not done at that day and age) like a mariachi and a sly smile. He knew what I was here for.
Tony Pike and Grace Jones
Tony Pike and I had some amusing conversations. I accompanied him to a couple of parties and a special Privilege club night, and got a taste of what it’s like to be the owner of an (in)famous rock star hotel on a small island, how people approach you. Interesting research material.
A few hours ago, I saw him again for the first time in twenty years. Although the mustache had gone, I did recognize him, and at eighty, he still looks pretty good. One of Pikes’ employees, a gorgeous and sweet skull girl that served beer from a hole in the wall, told me he still attends every party. Guess it keeps him young. I didn’t go up to him; he wouldn’t have recognized me.
As we danced and chatted our way through the Beetlejuices, the clockwork orange staff, the many walking dead and the party people holding plastic chainsaws and axes, we were let in on the night’s big secret: the Witch’s Tit. Only the Chosen were allowed to suck the mesmerizing motherly ambrosia from her rubbery nipple. Another delectable hotel employee, who assisted in the suckling, told us it had been Tony’s idea, which goes to show that living a life of neverending fiestas is good for you. Was it magical milk, that the Witch so generously offered to us, unworthy mortal souls? Nope. It was orange juice, just like that first time twenty years ago.
Or was it…?
For anyone who doesn’t want to pass up the best party venue on an island that has made partying into an art, Ibiza Spotlight puts it even more elaborately and convincingly.
Letters to Niels 