McRave: How Greed Killed the Techno-Acid Test

by Ian Rage

. . . For the man in the suit has just bought a new car from the profits he’s made on your dreams . .. from Low Spark of the High Heeled Boys, Traffic, Island Records © 1970.

It seemed innocent enough. When English kids headed outdoors dancing under the moon to the sounds of remixed American house music in the late 1980’s, it could be seen as a backlash against the repressive dullness of Thatcherism. Along the line, someone decided to throw in a little ecstasy and more kids started showing up. Before long, thousands made the scenes.

Eventually, the media created a tempest-in-a-teapot firestorm of middle class disapproval. In it's official response, Parliament and Thatcher had little choice but to crush the burgeoning movement by declaring it a public menace. Privately, they couldn't give a damn. But, by calling in the air cavalry to assist the local law enforcement and flushing these underground raves, as they came to be known, out of the wilds and into the hands of mainstream promoters, the government hedged its bets with an overblown show of conservative zeal. This was the death knell blow to the rave scene in the U.K.

Big bucks snuffed out the English rave.

Not coincidentally, the rave phenomenon washed upon the shores of America a little more than a year ago. Like a message in a bottle, disciples from the UK imported the rave to the greenest pasture of them all - California. If money rotted the rave scene out of England, American promoters, with their predatory instincts, should bastardize the concept beyond recognition in record time.

American youth are typically ripe for most “waves” or invasions of British pop culture. Sprinkle in a little West Coast hippie nostalgia, a few heaping doses of ecstasy, a couple of gigabytes of high tech nonsense suited for brains softened from too much exposure to MTV and a few years of George Bush’s “Son of Voodoo” economics and voila! The Second Coming of the Sixties is upon us! Or is it the Saturday Night Fever Seventies revisited? It’s difficult to sort out at times.

The Nineties’ Ravers’ styles are a television and pop culture inspired potpourri of the past three decades. The influences run the gamut from Dr. Seuss to The Monkees to Sesame Street to Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers. Specifically, it is this lack of its own original cultural identity, which makes less discerning ravers susceptible to commercial exploitation by certain promoters. This naive and unsuspecting target market are sacrificial lambs jumping for the proverbial knife as these eagle eyed hucksters, frauds, charlatans, con men, scammers, grifters, street hustlers and back alley boobies stop at nothing to scavenge the dumpsters of pop memorabilia knowing how to polish a turd, wrap a pretty bow on their slick package and call it a diamond. (See Rave Nader’s Rave Alert! piece.)

The rapid acceptance of raves into American culture has far transcended its humble roots. From the great outdoors and underground warehouses, promoters are now talking about “corporate policies” to “spread the faith.” In classic Nineties’ doublespeak, words like “communalism” are intermixed with plans to organize and replicate similar buku bucks multimedia extravaganzas in other cities. Given the recent explosion of news media coverage, the monster box office potential (SF’s Toon Town allegedly took down $175,000 on New Year’s Eve at $30.00 a pop) and the integration of Silicon Valley gimmicks, it seems obvious to some observers that this latest hybrid of the rave is to be expected.

But, just how can these cyber-lounge shows be viewed as anything less than mutant yuppieism in Haight Street drag? For in the land that spawned the Disney version of reality (VR, natch) and fast food chains, “new and improved” raves should not only be expected, but, are in fact the ideological conclusion of a society whose footprints have been long since washed away from the sandy beach of time at an alarming rate. And, the mind reels, with thoughts of the franchising premiums to be made in the Japanese after market which is hot, hot, hot for anything with America’s social imprimatur. Yes. Local rave promoters are already planning to open in Tokyo within months. Bonzai all the way to the bank, baby!

So, as perversely bizarre as this twisted type of logic would translate to most, corporate decisions to franchise hamburger stands and alternatively spawned underground social gatherings are apparently not a distinctly disparate process, but rather, prefabbed on the same assembly line. Or so, at least, thought Orwell and Huxley. Who knows? Perhaps, there even might be future Ray Krocs, Sir Jimmy Goldsmiths or Henry Fords in our midst. But, more than likely, these rising monopolistic titans of the scene will resemble the Boeskys’ and Milkens’ ilk. Judging from the bad vibes at their events, being pioneers in cyber/social experimentation is for them just another day at the office. More to the point, corporate America has a new look. Eschewing pin stripes and wingtips as Eighties’ anachronisms, Generation X can now proudly don its own uniform of funky hats, bad haircuts, tattoos by numbers, pierced noses and Doc Martin boots, while schlepping off to the vault.

One can only wonder, “What is really in those so-called smart drinks?”



Copyright © 1991 by Timothy Johnson. All rights reserved.

Category-5

The phone rings and it's Chuck. Come up for dinner? Sure, no problem. I'm on the way. The first storm of the year builds off shore. Category-5 typhoon just inundated the Philippines. Villages buried under mud. People swept away in floods. Upgraded to a Super Typhoon -- whatever the hell that is. Fisherman in the South China Sea call them daaih-fùng or big winds. But it doesn't sound good in any language. A nasty business these big winds. Anybody's guess what lies in store for us. But it's dark and ugly. That much I know.

Batching it is never quite as desperate as it sounds. Chuck turns out a respectable meal with a modicum of flair every time. We eat some spicy vegan concoction and wash it down with a fine red wine. It seems many of the local farmers are in a bit of a jam. By waiting for that one last week of sunshine to fatten up their pot gardens, they are now perilously close to being royally screwed and losing it all from a monsoon three weeks early and now only hours away. So the calls go out to friends and friends of friends to jump in with both feet and lend a hand in finishing the harvest.

One kid literally stepped out of his battered Toyota Forerunner 12-hours ago a complete stranger without any ties to the community or any reasons for local job prospects. For bailing out my farmer neighbor, he walked away with about three pounds of the exotically named Afghanigoo. The sweetly pungent, sticky buds will move at $20 per gram back in his hometown of Phoenix. The 453 grams in a pound will bring in a staggering nine grand on the street in Arizona. Multiply that little stash times three and it's not bad for a day's work. No wonder he's grinning from ear to ear as though he's just won the biggest lotto in history. But, I don't blink an eye. What's given away locally as a neighborly gesture is nothing short of a major crime where he comes from. All it takes is for some sad sack to have the misfortune of a run in with a redneck deputy in the Grand Canyon state and they might be staring at a ten-year stretch in a federal pen for interstate narcotics trafficking. Some may say, changes in latitudes - changes in attitudes. I say, pure and utter insanity.

The sky continues to darken over a night cap of aged single malt scotch. Thank god, neither Chuck nor I have a green thumb much less the inclination to ever consider driving across the desert and into the arms of trigger happy Arizona rangers. I'll take my chances with a northern California storm. As the first big drops splatter across my windshield, I pull into my driveway with yet another new appreciation for the sounds of a howling wind through the trees and the crackling roar of a fire waiting inside.

Doesn't it always feel good to be home?

Cheese Steak

I'll do better next time. I swear to God. I know I can. Sweetie, you know how I feel about you. You're the only one for me. Of course you are! What -- you don't believe me? How could you say those kinds of things? All right. Maybe I do come across a little like that sometimes. What's that? You really mean that? But, I thought -- wait a minute -- let me check this other call -- Hello. Oh, baby. Could you hold the line just for a minute, let me get rid of this other call. Right. I'll be back in a sec -- Hi sweetie. Oh, some telemarketers. Listen, fix yourself up 'cuz I'm comin' over right now to take you out to dinner. Of course, I mean it. Oh baby, you know your the only one for me. Gotta run if we're gonna make it to the restaurant on time. Hurry up! Love you, too! -- Hi baby...what's that you say. Of course, your the only girl for me!

Around the Next Bend

Dear true friend,

I feel your heart with my soul. I listen to your words with my eyes. I, too, hang on to those beliefs that others long to have abandoned before they realize never having discovered them to begin with...for it is the journey within the heart that one traces the path to the soul... and it is by far the longest, frequently most perilous and often loneliest journey of all.

Many years ago I re-entered the temple of my personal vision quest alone, hurt and bewildered by fate's course. I sought to absolve my past, live fully in my present and rekindle my future. Soon thereafter -- and to the astonished disbelief of many who feigned having known me -- I became a father, a husband, a provider and inherited a part of myself previously unexpected. It was a brilliantly perfect time for I shall always relish the unexpurgated simplicity of life on its own terms.

It was later I rediscovered that when we walk into the flames it only burns for an instant before we are released. Into what I cannot say with any degree of certaintly. I only know that in the moment of surrender, we are reborn with a new life --- free from the baggage and bondage that holds us back from ourselves -- and with no plans other than to be fully alive in the exact moment.

Living in real time is what it is all about and always has been for some.

It is precisely in that moment that we live our lives in a state of blissful elation. Without preconceptions or contrivances, there are no expectations or disappointments. We experience absolute freedom to become whatever it is we are in our dreams. It is only when we attempt to mark our time that we become aware of its passage. And, by crossing an imaginary line with that passage comes a sense of loss. Opportunities never seized. Dreams never realized. Promises never kept. Relationships never fulfilled. A life never lived. A shadow creeps from overhead ushering a sadness unlike any we have ever known. Life's joys are diminished. We are overwhelmed by darkness and despair. We feel anxiety. We experience depression. We become listless and lost. By the time we hit rock bottom, we are practically marking the days on the calendar like a death row inmate awaiting the executioner. Much like aboriginal "dream time", the concept of linear time is foreign to some and when imposed upon them, ultimately, fatal.

We are taught that lives without measure are failed in themselves. But, from whom or what do we view those virtuous examples of existences? And, for what purpose do we examine such trivialities -- other than to satisfy others? And, just who are these "others" that we sacrifice all that is precious in our own existences to appease?

I believe the answer is absolutely no one. For many, the moment of truth is to distort who they are by allowing external influences determine precisely whom they have actually become. They become trapped in a hall of mirrors which conceals their real identities from themselves. They have lost their perspective, balance and judgment. They are uncertain as to who they truly are for they have lost their sense of self.

What a paralyzing predicament. To be at the cross road of one's life, completely freeze in the middle of the intersection and be run down by an oncoming bus with anyone other than yourself behind the wheel is patently absurd. By taking your foot off the gas, tapping the brakes to supply air in the hydraulics and pulling to a stop along the side of the road, one can open the door, get off the fucking bus and walk away from the whole kit and kaboodle. Oh yeah. You're behind the wheel of your own bus. That person who looks like you in the cross walk is just the imposter that you've allowed others to convince you that you've become wandering aimlessly across a busy thoroughfare!

Of course, that person is no one that you or I actually know. It could be any one, including ourselves, but more than likely it never seems to be us. However, while the view of the road from a higher focal point might allow us to see further ahead, it doesn't change the outcome of the final destination. Sure, we ride in a little more comfort. But, the road doesn't really change on our way to where we are going. Only our perception of the ride itself.

And, in the end, all we usually do is readjust the rear view mirror and keep our eyes focused on the road ahead. Isn't our ultimate stop always just out of sight and around the next bend?

Negentropy vs Entropy

Wow. Humanity's soul speaks deeply when allowed to manifest. It has always possessed that gift, but societal mores continually bridle its girth in a corseted fashion.

I can only speak from my own experiences. When we are of this world in the "real" sense we give up a part of our spirituality. I am not referring to organized religion or a value based society that points to the sky expecting answers. I am referring to heart felt connections that permit us to live -- responsibly, yet freely -- in the moment. I believe there is a pantheistic aspect to all of our existences, which is free from the dogma of orthodoxy. Our beliefs are formed not just through the pursuit of hierarchical learning, but from understanding the importance of intuition in our being. Rollo May referred to this phenomena of surrendering our insides to the teachings of others in 'The Loss of Innocence'. We sacrifice our souls in our indoctrination into the realm of hierarchical pursuits. We trade who we are for the acceptance by others for what we are "supposed" to be. In the end, we accomplish much according to those standards that are imposed upon who we were originally. But, at what cost? And for whose gain and whose loss?

It's a real conundrum...life. I feel I need to plunge deeper if I am to attain any measurable value in this existence of mine. I've barely scratched the surface this time around. Sure. I've had my moments, which is more than most. And I suppose in that context, shouldn't that be enough? I am satisfied with what life offers. But, in the end, it only offers what we allow.

Which takes me back to my original premise. We only live deeply when we abandon our fear from holding back. Walking through the fire is less about getting burned and more about experiencing the moment. It is only then that we live.

Freed from the trivialities of convention, humanity moves me. Sometimes we need to walk away in order to take those two steps forward. What is life? Negentropy triumphing over entropy. Richard Marsh -- a former teacher of mine -- used to tell me: "Sometimes we need to get out of our mind in order to get into our mind..." I think he learned this axiom while on the beach in Zihuatenjo with Timothy Leary. It was undoubtedly a revelatory insight while in a hallucinogenic drug addled state. Nonetheless, the lesson is readily learned. We serve a higher purpose when we allow ourselves to get in touch with ourselves. A circle rather than a straight line. Forward movement does not come from a simple choice of negentropy over entropy. The path of evolution is circular.

While at the Institute of Visual Perception at Princeton University, British researcher Osmond Humphrey collaborated with well known author Aldous Huxley in a series of experiments involving the use of the hallucinogen peyote. Much of the experimentation was the basis in defining premature psychological closure as a method of connecting the dots to form an image not present but inferred from limited visual information. The result was Huxley's 'Doors of Perception' and Humphrey coining the term in an epigram to Huxley: "To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic."

In Your Light

In your light I learn how to love
In your beauty, how to make poems

You dance inside my heart
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

**************

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.

***************
We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
I want to hold you close like a lute,
so we can cry out with loving.

You would rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror, and here are the stones.

****************

What was in that candle’s light
that opened and consumed me so quickly?

Come back, my friend! The form of our love
is not a created form.

Nothing can help me but that beauty.
There was a dawn I remember

when my soul heard something
from your soul. I drank water

from your spring and felt
the current take me.

Rickey Henderson Runs to Cooperstown - 90-feet at a Time!

I remember being at the Coliseum in 1982. It was a really electric atmosphere. When Rickey got on base, you knew he was going to steal. The other team knew he was going to steal. And they still couldn't stop him. Ever. So he'd take off, Lansford would foul one off, and Rickey hustled back to first. Then, it would start all over again. Crowd chanting. Soft throw over from the opposing pitcher -- who at this point can't even begin to concentrate on Lansford up at the plate. Krazy George starts beating on his drum; the pitcher starts his windup and he's off. Before the catcher could even glove the ball, it was over. And, he'd always go in HEAD FIRST with the crowd going wild!! He'd hold his hand up to ask for time, then dust the infield dirt off his pants. AND THEN HE'D STEAL THIRD!! Great days, Rickey -- thanks for the memories of Billy-Ball!! You deserve the Hall of Fame for your great lifetime accomplishments.