Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 06:23:55 -0700 From: doom@leland.stanford.edu A late VISION... Sorry if this is hard to read. (It wasn't easy to write either.) I recommend using something like emacs Or just to look at it. think of it as one easy- to-delete package... I'd been staying away from the expensive raves, but "The Gathering" folks came highly recommended by some sfravers, so I thought VISION might be a good one to try. The end of the message at the VISION number: I thought: Exactly! "Peace. Keep it alive." The rave spirit, such as it is, seems a fragile thing. This made my friend want to vomit. And I can understand his point of view. That "Peace" bit turns me off: it's a very retro, Whatever the sixties were self-conscious, neo-hippie thing. about, it wasn't nostalgia. The gas station at the Livermore exit was overrun with young ravers that night. I talked with one of the locals about things: "What's that big party up the road...". Oh, just a dance party. (Nothing to worry about sir. Really.) "Any live bands?" No, just DJs, playing (Just like a records. high school dance) "How far away are people coming Well, we're from Palo (Rich suburbs only. from?" Alto. No sleazy urban areas.) "They're going to sell lots of Actually there won't be (A non sequitur. beer here tonight." a lot of alcohol I was playing there. Because then my tapes at him. you have to hassle with Got to watch liquor permits. that...) Still, it was one happy Indian dude behind the cash register, looking at everyone buying stuff. Talked with some guys in the parking lot, locals getting off work, they'd found the bus making a supermarket stop, and picked up on the energy of the bus riders. They'd heard that it was going to be $15 at the door. It was $20. This was really annoying, but We Were There Already, so... And from the desk you could see the bright green Argon laser flashing through the dust and smoke, behind a long row of silhouetted pillars. Shadowy figures were moving around in a space literally the size of a few football fields. We bought tickets. Then I noticed the no in-and-outs rule. I tried to ask a security guard if they'd mind if I brought in some water bottles. He immediately assumed I was asking if I could go out some time later to get them. And in general he acted like a I worked out a way to smuggle in serious jerk. (He said, in a low, water inside my leather jacket. threatening tone: "Are you trying This was completely unnecessary, to give me a hard time...") If I but the security pinhead had made hadn't bought my ticket already, I me paranoid. would have left right then. Later, inside one of the porta-cans, by the light of my flash light, I found a little wad of You can take this as my cash lying on the floor. life in microcosm: Enough to pay for the evening. To find this money, you needed to be anal retentive enough to carry a flashlight around with you, but not too anal retentive to pick something up off of a rather slimy, grimy floor. Like a friend said to me once: "You seem like a weird mixture of laid- And maybe I'm back and compulsive." also a mix of "cynical and idealistic". Overall my friend was much impressed: "This looks like a scene from Blade Runner, except we're *here* we're walking around in it." He was also much impressed by the money involved. You could practically hear the sound of a cash register, and see the dollar signs lighting up his eyes: At least two thousand people, at $20 each, that's a gate value of at least $40,000. He came up with a high estimate of the costs to the promoter of around $12K. I tried to argue that $28K in profit, in one night? he must be underestimating the costs, probably by a factor of two or so, as people often do. Later, he talked about this with Could there be considerations various people. Turns out his boss we don't know about, like knows someone who puts on raves. bribing the authorities? The guy said he was really nervous about the first one he put on, but I notice that I know, this after that he knew he couldn't many ravers is America. lose. Supposedly it only costs seem to have You can't about $8K to put on a typical rave. a similar bribe The The most he's ever made in a night: attitude: Man here, $65,000. "Hey, the right? Gathering, Also, a friend of his knows a guy these are There are crack in Sacramento who organizes good people, houses out there raves. This guy is also raking right? They that don't get in money, using the fact that he wouldn't rip hassled, but can get DJs to work for him for us off, raves do. Why? next to nothing, out of right?" friendship, or for "the good of the scene" or something. So our first impulse is to make excuses for So-- much as I hate being the the $20 cover charges. voice of doom in rave paradise-- watch out for these people. There are really good guys around, but there are also people quite capable of poor-mouthing about all the money they're losing so their workers won't gripe about being paid zilch. If you believe in free market capitalism, you expect a certain Someone was saying that one rough justice in prices. point of the charity rave Competitive pressures are supposed was to help overcome negative to force people to bring prices competitive relationships down to the level of their costs... among promoters. prices far above costs are supposed to be unstable. Things like this don't have such an innocent ring to my ears. So what's going on here? Can we expect the cost of a rave to drop soon? Are the major promoters price-fixing somehow? But what would maintain the monopoly? (I have similar questions about CD prices, but that's What keeps cheaper guys another story.) from competing? Out on the dance floor, Vitamin B found me, and said something about how he was afraid this might have been like a big LA rave, but it was a lot better, the people were great, like if you touch them and it was all right... you know? I said sure, but I hadn't known it until he said it. At that moment, I realized I was still warming up, I hadn't quite blended into the An uptightness example: raviness of the scene yet. There was a kind of uptight, nightclub On a typical night in paranoia going on in my head that the Underground, I disappeared instantly. was shirtless but still dripping with sweat. One of the women working there put her arm around me and hugged me. So, I start thinking things like "does she want to sleep with me, or is she hustling for tips or what?" At a rave there wouldn't be that sense about it. She just hugged me, that's all. I said hello to some other sfravers, and I wound up over in front of the left Compulsive: I've always speaker column. Time to put got a handful of disposable my ear plugs in. ear plugs in my jacket. Still more compulsive: I've almost always got my jacket with me, no matter how hot or awkward it is. Dancing in front of the speakers was an experience in itself. Moving your head completely changed the sound. Up is treble down is bass... Dancing where your physical attitude controls what you With my head right hear... down in front of the woofers, it I can imagine a literal was easy to hear a "sonic space", sound buzzing distortion beamed in different with each beat. places so that your motion dancing through So yeah, it would provide the the only modulation for the sound music. could've been A subjective interactive cleaner. experience. The true anti- thesis of "performance". I could feel each beat on my out stretched Which could of course be hands, like regular made objective (simply gusts of wind. recorded?) and used as a musical instrument. Other people were crowded around the speakers. Acoustic energy junkies, A full-body theremin? who like to feel the sound against their skin. One girl was leaning into the speakers face first, feeling the vibrations on her body, while a guy friend caressed her from behind. Interesting people there all right... could it be I'm one of them? Maybe not: they were all without ear plugs... I was getting tired of the weight of a can of jolt cola banging on my hip. My friend didn't want any, so I went over to the the next circle of people in the "chill" region. I started talking to the guys, rather then the girls to diffuse any anti-pick-up paranoia. "Do you want some of this?" I said, and opened it in front of them so they (Just bringing something could see that it had been sealed. to give away is such an The guys turned me down, but the easy thing to do, but girls on my left took it from me. people are so impressed And one of them says "Can I ask you by it... "Thanks a lot, something? Is there any acid in that was really cool...") this?" Later on, a tall, pretty, dark-skinned girl wearing a silver back-pack came by and smiled at me again, and offered me a drink of her Cranberry juice. I said "Is this straight?" as I took a sip. It took her a moment to figure out what I was asking, but then she was emphatic "No, no, there's nothing funny in it!" Maybe there's more drug paranoia than drugs around. Not far from the speaker column, a woman started doing things like clearing a space in the crowd, and getting people to I've got no problem with play catch with a couple of silly ice-breaking games, water bottles with glow-toys and I'm a great joiner-inner, inside them. so I start playing along. Just as we were getting into playing catch, then she suddenly decides that that's So I could see that she could enough, it's time for be annoying... I began to something else. suspect she was really getting off on control as much as anything else. Playing Queen of the Rave. (But then, this is the kind of issue I'm sensitive to: She makes another clearing in I'm often attracted the crowd, and gets a friend to to people who are play this little game where dominant, but I have they hyperventilate, then both no interest in stand facing each other, being submissive...) squeezing each other's necks until one goes unconscious and collapses. S t She comes up to me and tells r me to hyperventilate, as a though I'm going to join her n in this game. g u I joined in as a spotter, instead: l I was one of the people who caught a them as they fell. Mostly I was t catching the Rave Queen herself, i and she fell a *lot*. They did o this dozens of times, and she was n always the one to go under first. . . Her group of freinds tried . variation of this. Can you . get four people to do it . in a circle, a hand from . two different people on . each side of your neck? . . They wound up with two crossed . pairs of people: four people . at once. So then we were . short of spotters. . . I tried to recruit some people. . There were a couple of guys . dancing behind me. I said . "These people are playing some . strangulation games." They . laughed, shook their heads and . help up their hands in the . "hold it" gesture and backed (I'm more anal retentive . off a bit. I said "No, no, than some, but not as much . just catch them!" They still as others...) . backed off. I gave up. . . . . . An old sexual practice... It features heavily in "In The Realm of The Senses", a bizarre Japananese erotic Vaughn Bode -- an early underground movie I've always comic artist -- died doing this, liked. using an "automatically" releasing (A sound track bondage device that failed to from this would release. be great for a chill space.) It's a controversial topic in places like alt.sex.bondage: some say it's far too dangerous to ever consider, others say that if someone is really into it, they're going to do it, so you should explain ways of minimizing risk. (A different version of the safe sex vs. abstinence debate...) I'd heard about people doing this only once in a non-sexual context. Essentially it was a how-I-spent-summer-vacation at camp story. I'd never seen anyone do it before... Seemed kind of twisted, but I suppose it's a more direct route to hypoxia than say, sniffing glue, or inhaling nitrous oxide. It wasn't likely these people were going to seriously hurt themselves. They had some decent safety features worked However, hyperventilating out, like the fact that they first strikes me as bullshit. were standing up, so that you Okay, so you oxygenate your would fall away from the system first, but you won't go hands that were pressing on unconscious until your brain your cartoid arteries. is starved for oxygen, so hyperventilating can't possibly do much more than Even so, I can imagine some delay the onset of catastrophic failure modes, unconsciousness. e.g. a clueless catcher does too good a job of holding you If this game is supposed to be up, while a slightly dazed competitive (see who passes out (or unconsciously homicidal?) first), then hyperventilating partner squeezes you a bit makes sense as a defensive too long... measure... What bothers me a bit more about A game where you'd have an this is the possibility of doing advantage if you happened to minor, almost unnoticeable know some "pressure breathing" damage. Be kind to your brain techniques for mountaineering. cells, I say. But more than this, I just don't get the point. I *like* being conscious. Except of course... the very fact that it's so extreme makes it work as a ritual of trust and bonding. Anyway, I think what I should've done was direct them toward a different game. Some guys near by were dancing with women on their shoulders. I could've tried talking this I don't know why I didn't one Buff Dude in the strangler's exactly... except that I was circle into picking up his having trouble getting their partner, and I could've tried attention, and it isn't easy to to pick up the Queen. This is communicate twenty feet away a game with much of the same from the speakers. Or maybe I features -- trust, physical felt intimated by The Queen, contact -- but I much prefer it and I knew it wasn't my place to the strangulation ritual. to give her orders. All in all this was an interesting rave... I'm much greatful to the folks on the list who recommended it. But I think I'll stick to the under $20 range in the future.