Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, and Doof-Doof-Doof

[mbarrick]

Oh, yay. We have some damned ravers upstairs. What, may I ask, is peaceful or respectful about subjecting your neighbours to hours of doof-doof-doof? It doesn't do anything close to fostering feelings of love and unity to those that don't want to hear it. What's respectful about ignoring common courtesy? If you want to listen to dance music at a volume that reverberates in neighbouring apartments, go to a club - it's not like there is a shortage of places that play that shit - or put some damned headphones on and keep it to yourself.

Now, before you say, "Oh, he's a surly old goth fart: obviously he has an irrational hatred of our happy little world," let me fill you in a bit . Chances are I was raving when you were marvelling at your first pubic hairs, or as would be the case of the people upstairs, still shitting in your own pants and enjoying it. I was quite happily attending raves when the scene was still genuinely underground, and the typical venue was a False Creek or Yaletown warehouse. The parties started loosing their appeal when they started being invaded by suburban yahoos looking to take advantage of girls on X (now called "E"). Around that time the cops started cluing in to what MDMA was and what was going on at the parties. Pretty soon the parties were getting busted downtown. The suburban yahoos were pulling shit like showing up drunk and doing things like setting off the sprinkler system. This happened at one party, which happened to be on the 6th floor of an industrial/office building on Terminal St. - the lower floors were occupied and many thousands of dollars damage were done. We unfortunate attendees got a little wet, the promoters got soaked. Coincidentally at that same party I introduced my roommate at the time to E. In short order she proceeded to blow all her money on E and attending increasingly crappy raves. She stiffed my now ex-wife and I and skipped on the rent.  Some people I knew from the earlier days had, rather than give up on the scene entirely, segued into promoting the watered down, superficially "drug free" raves in sanctioned suburban venues (the beginning of what became the techno club scene in Vancouver). Eventually that worked in my favour since the ex-roomie's desperation to suck up to the people who were quite consciously taking money from the people they saw as killing the real scene (rationalizing that if it is going to suck, then one may as well make some money off it) gave me a wonderful opportunity to serve her with papers for small claims court over the rent. One of my long time friends that the ex-roomie was obliviously sucking up to, conspired with me to invite the ex-roomie to the techo night at Mars where miss spent-the-rent-on-drugs-and-ran found herself being handed a subpoena. As the original Vancouver scene descended into lowest-common-denominator lameness I experienced such fun things as heroin cut with speed and passed off as E, spending $25 to get stuck on Anacis Island in -10 °C weather in a warehouse with no heat, and other crap. My ex-wife told me she was leaving in the few minutes before the E took hold at a rave. Ever wandered around a hockey rink filled with ravers, heartbroken and angry but unable to really feel it or deal with it because of you just ate a happy pill? Right around that same time, as the even the suburban crap spaces started to become a problem to secure, the parties were clearly never again going to be interesting urban events in remarkable spaces downtown, filled with interesting urbane people-- the parties started moving out into the forest, attracting the pot and mushroom consuming hypocritical urban-dwelling tree-hugging contingent. In this city that is no small number. If I wanted to eat mushrooms in the woods while listening to repetitive and derivative disco music I could have easily stayed in Duncan. Nightclub events cropped up, filling the gaps between the outdoor parties  - and if a few drunk yahoos trolling for girls on E was annoying having a bar filled with them was utterly dismal. Rave culture came from urban European 1970's gay-bar drug culture. You can pretty much count on something like that having gone utterly to shit by the time it is picked up by drunk college boys looking to get laid. Bottom line is I've got five years of raving under my belt from over a decade ago and I got my fill of it then, leaving it as it turned into what it is today.

Ex nihilo nihil fit. Especially my opinions. Generally I'm content to let people underestimate the breadth of my experiences. Today, less than a week from my birthday, I'll give a the little hint above about what has gone on these past 37 years... I considered writing more, giving away a few more hints, and deleted it.

Comments

[sciencequeen.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize to a degree...but you have to agree that lame people come in every flavour, not just "raver".

I attend lots of parties (I don't call them raves because "raves" imply that there's 14-year-olds running around high on crystal meth and listening to jungle music) and the crowd is getting older. My friends range from 18-48...all of which I've met in the past 4 years or so.

All those things that you mentioned *do* happen...I see it a lot, but that doesn't mean that that's all there is to "raving". I would much rather be at a party with people high on E/LSD/what-have-you, than be around a bunch of drunk people who have the personality of a wet dishcloth.

Although a lot of people in "the scene" are like you said, self-righteous pseudo-hippie wannabes, those people are easier for me to handle than boring, bible-thumping, "I drink coffee, alcohol, and smoke cigarettes, but I don't do drugs" type of people.

I take the good with the bad, which is in every scene/sub-scene...I've gotten a lot from my experiences, and still do! I'll stop going when I stop learning. :)

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's no question lame comes in a variety of flavours. Like the "I drink coffee, alcohol, and smoke cigarettes, but I don't do drugs" lot it is the hypocracy of those who do lip service to PLUR, "random acts of kindness" and the like while high, yet have trouble displaying common courtesy in their daily life.

[sciencequeen.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

It also seems too though, that a lot of people, anywhere, spend far too much time developing their egos (who they want people to believe they are) rather than who they actually are. Their "party persona" is usually an inaccurate representation (or at least skewed to the situtation) and present other facets of their personality one-on-one, in a stress atmosphere, or in a relaxed atmosphere.

I just try to love everyone...high and sober. :P I don't stop caring when the party is over. :)