"Hey, Collins, why don't you just get out of here and go to the 2015 Kia Sedona launch party. That should be low-key and keep you out of trouble for a few hours." Erroneous, erroneous on both accounts.
But I'm a team player so when Papa Jalopnik tells me to go to a party, I ask "how high?" I mean, you know what I'm talking about. I enlisted Editorial Fellow Chris Perkins to roll with and help me find my way to the place. We rocked up at around six thirty already exhausted from a day at the New York Auto Show, feeling a little awkward, and decidedly sober.
The place was decked out like some kind of steampunk fashion show, that some idiot had ditched their minivan in the middle of. I was determined to shake somebody's hand who actually worked at Kia, but found myself following the doorman's gesture when he said "Whiskey bar's over there, gentlemen."
Sure enough, there was a Kia exec ordering a scotch next to me. We talked about how Kia's cooking a V8 Sorento to blow the doors off the SRT Grand Cherokee (no, not really) and after we went our separate ways I figured it was about time to go home and fire up some Star Trek Online.
But then they had to go and bring out the sexual contortionist dancers.
Out of nowhere the lights and music changed to accompany two twin-looking chicks writhing all up on each other on a plastic runway as a pack of crusty old journalists, exuberant PR people, and automaker executives that just wanted to go home looked on with loose jaws.
"Well we can't leave now, we've got a duty to bring this story to the readers damnit!" I said to no one as I turned around and had my beverage recharged.
As you can see, the ladies were decidedly less interested. But Kia, those clever devils, anticipated that might happen. To even things up, they brought out some hunky shirtless dude to do tricks on a set of monkey bars he brought with him from somewhere.
Equal opportunity objectification always makes me feel a little better. But obviously Kia had already out-progressived everybody by sexualizing the hell out of a minivan. I learned nothing about that minivan, by the way. Other than you're not supposed to put our drink on it while you livetweet a hula-hoop dance.
Kia knew people would forget there was a minivan in the room, so they projected pictures of it on the wall every once in awhile. This image was punctuated by others and a screen that asked,"#WhatsYourSedona?"
A question I think we all ask ourselves from time to time.
They had a guy who threw rings around an umbrella, and a woman with an LED'ed hula hoop that I rather enjoyed. But shit got real weird when the Lady And The Egg showed up.
Sleepy and swimming in scotch at this point, I was pretty sure I wasn't seeing what I thought I was seeing. But the photographic evidence proves it; we all watched a woman in a green leotard dance around with an inflatable egg in the name of selling a minivan.
In what I'd like to interpret as some kind of metaphor for "versatility" and "great interior space," the woman somehow stuffed one limb after another into the egg until the damn thing swallowed her up.
I have no clue how she did it, but she did make it out with a POP that nearly gave some of the white-mustached gentlemen in attendance a heart attack.
The last display I could handle was a chick swinging on an enormous hoop earring set up like trapeze. This might have been the most athletically impressive show... I was getting tired just watching her whip all over that thing. Oh yeah, and duh there was a DJ.
All this transpired over maybe two hours... when we emerged from this smokey den of iniquity it was still light outside, and I was suddenly a little embarrassed that I was ready to pass out.
The thrilling conclusion to this story is that I got some fried pork dumplings on my way home that dropped into my scotch-soaked stomach like depth charges and made finding my way back to Brooklyn, where I was meant to sleep, a very visceral pain in the gut.
So that's how Kia throws down after the car show. Now that you've seen a little bit behind a different side of the industry curtain, I'm keen to know; would you like to hear more stories like this? Because I'm sure I can get into much more trouble for your amusement.
Images: Chris Perkins