From: bbehlen@soda.berkeley.edu (Brian Behlendorf)
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 11:14:36 -0700
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.3 5/22/91)
To: sfraves@soda.berkeley.edu
Subject: A little of that ol' VISION thang.
Status: OR

	I'm not sure exactly what form this post is going to make, it's
gonna come out pretty stream of conscious-like, but then again everything
I've ever written here has been stream of consciousness so I'm not worried.
Just giving you warning to bear with me.  In fact, now that I've written
it and like it, I'll add a PLEASE READ THIS, NOW.

	*what* is SFRaves? 

	The idea mainly came out of frustration with my situation back in 
March 1992.  I had moved up from LA the previous fall, where I had been going
out once a week to parties down there, and when I moved up here I found
myself completely out of touch with what was going on.  I heard about one
called ToonTown, tried to go to it, but alas found out after waiting an hour
and a half in line at King St Garage that it was 21+, something I had never
run into in LA.  I had heard about parties here and there, but never could
find anyone who even liked the music enough to want to venture out and check 
them out.  I also feel in love with the Internet at this time, and I saw a
post from a certain Jon Drukman mentioning the Woopy Ball on the Manchester
mailing list, and another post from someone on rec.music.industrial about a
local party.  I figured there HAD to be SOME people on the net who knew what
was up around here, so I asked the sysadmin of my machine if I could run a
mailing list and he said sure.

	Within a week we had 80 subscribers.  The Woopy Ball was the first
weekend, and I met Jon and Mike there, and Andrea, and it began to click that
maybe there were quite a few people on this; and I began to become really
good friends with many of you, which was completely different from my college
social environment in which I found most people rather cold and self-absorbed.
We held a picnic in May, and it clicked that here we had an incredible group
of people who have this elusive thing called a "vibe"... and I began to feel
like family with you, and with the list at large, and I began to be less and
less inhibited about what I post, who I talk to, everything.  It's like
someone said, it feels like the community of SFRaves have always existed, it 
just took an entry in an aliases file to bring us all together.

	And then we threw Connection, which, until the day I get married and/or
the day I die, will rank as the most intense experience I have ever had.  It
was the feel of a community putting on a party, where everyone felt GOOD, 
where we felt like we were leapfrogging into a future full of warmth.  It was
a personally very transformational thing for me, and I think the same is true
for many others.

	It was also the beginning of my journey into the realm of becoming 
someone in the SF House Music culture.  I found a group of people I really
liked being with; I also found that our method of communication could be a
model, a basis for something bigger.  Even as we were having the time of our
lives, we began to identify things in the scene, and even in the world, that
we wanted to see changed.  SFRaves became a channeler for memes, for emotions,
for expressions on what house culture is and how San Francisco is/could be the
center of it all.  

	Now, you could say I got stars in my eyes... but I don't think it was
unjustified, and I know many people felt the same way too.  I didn't feel and
still don't feel like I was responsible for it, I was just the janitor of this
majestic House.  

	The cycles of life, though, ebb and flow, and as high as SFRaves ever
got, there were low points too, points where I wanted to send a message to
the list saying "UNSUBSCRIBE" or even consider shutting it down for a day or
two to calm some peoples' nerves.   I ultimately resisted the urge, mainly
because I believe the list could self-check itself, for every low the people
would wake up and give it a high, etc.  

	However, this cycle concerned me because I was afraid (and still am)
that this cycle could affect our ability to spread and enhance the vibe.  
I wondered if this was just an expression of insecurity, if I really could
define the "vibe" anyways.  I saw a huge procession of people subscribe and
then unsubscribe within days... my rational side said ignore this, SFRaves
shouldn't and can't please everyone, but my emotional side wanted SFRaves to
serve as a basis for uniting people and engendering that "family" feel we
all had at the beginning, towards the scene as a whole.  

	There are still lots of sicknesses in the scene, perhaps more now than 
ever, and if we could playa part, by spreading ideas and memes and opinions 
around for everyone to share, that we COULD make the scene better.   I wanted 
to include everyone on this - I was actively working to get the promoters I 
know hooked up in one way or another to share in this Great Experiment, 
because communication is the main thing I felt was missing in the scene.  
The Come/Unity meetings of promoters and DJs and concerned folk enhanced this, 
and I could see barriers of distrust being shattered.  I wanted to bring that
to the electronic realm, and them to us, because I feel the synergy would just
be incredible.

	This is still a dream right now.  There are a few promoters on the
net, some more vocal than others, there are a few DJ's, there are a LOT of 
people who go out and spread the vibe, and we are known as an entity by
many if not most people in the scene.  The calendar you see every Thursday
is going to have an "official" status, as a way for promoters to plan
their schedules out and try and avoid massive clumping of parties around
certain weekends.  In other words, we are making inroads.

	But sometimes we stumble.  I haven't been communicating this dream
as much over the net as I should have; I'd talk about it to others outside
the scene, we'd become excited about the possibilities, and then we'd come
home and read our email and get discouraged at times.  

	But there's no way I'm gonna give up that easily.  I *know* I'm
not alone in this dream, and for the most part I think SFRaves has had
that spreading-the-vibe effect for awhile.  But we have so much POTENTIAL
I want to see used.  Right now the most vital thing the scene needs is
COMMUNICATION, people need a forum for expressing their views and for
listening and understanding each other.  Right now the many-to-many nature
of email mailing lists is the single most powerful format for this.  Let's
use it right - let's take the concept of love, peace, harmony, and RESPECT
for each other back into our lives and spread it.  I'm going to work this
summer on making the SF scene the most wired scene on the planet (it already
is, I'm gonna make it even more so), and watch the fireworks fly.  Sure, 
we'll always have our ups and downs, and I still want people to talk about
ANYTHING they feel like talking about while still providing a high-quality
high signal-to-noise-ratio mailing list.  

	Remember that when you send mail to sfraves@hyperreal.org you
are sending personal mail to about 500 people.  That is an awesome power
for such a subtle action.  Please don't abuse it - use it freely, but just
think about what you're saying for a second.  If it's something more 
appropriate in personal email, take it there.  But if it's something we
all can learn from, by all means bring it forward.

	SFRaves and the fractalizing threads that have led from it are the
most significant thing that's ever happened to me.  I know most other people
aren't going to go to THAT level of enthusiasm but I want people to feel what
I'm feeling.  This "dream" I have of making SFRaves a powerfully positive 
force in the scene is nebulous, and we may never know if we've ever gotten
there, but I think as long as we keep it in mind a lot of good can come
about.  In fact, the medium has so much potential it is our RESPONSIBILITY
to see this happens.  I've seen so much over the past month and a half of
my travels that has led me to think we tend to take our scene for granted a
lot, and its almost become a victim of its own success.  Let's not let that
happen.

	See you all at Connection 3!!

	Brian