I was in a tater tot riot once. A huge tater tot food fight. A packed club in a blizzard of tater tots. The walls were caked with processed potato. We stood on the balcony and watched the scene below, tossing any strays that came our way back into the vortex. My favorite album release party ever. Band was called the Tater Tots, of course. Though the only thing I remember about them was the food fight.

That was sometime in the late eighties, I think. It was at this pretentious place called the Probe. Everyone hated the Probe so the tater tot flinging was especially enthusiastic. Manic and enthusiastic. I recall seeing the manager looking on, livid and helpless. No one followed rules then. We were all punk rockers or ex-punk rockers anyway. And the tater tots were inedible even by tater tot standards. Big money had not been spent on the catering. But the little inedible things made perfect bite sized projectiles. They were all around on tables, thousands of them. You could scoop up a handful, fling them rapid fire at random across the room and grab another handful. The more nimble probably managed thirty tater tots a minute. We slipped and slid on mashed tater tots, found whole tater tots in our clothes, shook crumbled tater tots from out hair. And that was the last time I ever saw tater tots served at an album release party.