RED ROOM II: Europa

Everyone would greatly benefit from a European vacation.

Unofficially, it changed my life. Perspectives are very important in how we deal with others and with our environment. Changing perspectives can greatly alter a state of mind and even go as far as to create a new path in your life. Pfffchhheaa, soh duuude datsss wat happin. I changed my perspectives and out bore a new path for myself, a path dimly lit with a small red light off in the distance.

I was never into music.

It was simply too..."all the same shit?" It was always about the new top tracks, and quite honestly I didn't see the importance. I enjoyed some stuff, naturally. I grew up liking old school rock and roll (Dad) and funky ass booty shaking disco electro (Mom). There was flavor in that, I could see it and I could see how my parents could see it. I remember thinking I really really wish I had something to that efkt. Something that I could call my own personal music taste.
I was listening to Top-40 Junior year of College.

(From now on I will dub this genre as "Shit-40")

Well as I said before, Europe happened, and Europe changed my perspectives. There was this growing culture of something I couldn't describe. It wasn't just this or that, it was everything. It was everywhere, literally. You heard it in the stores, in the coffee shops, at the night scene. All different versions of what I genuinely regret labeling as simply [insert word here] (I refuse to use this word, it's like using racial derogatory slander but against what I truly now love and honor: Electronic Music. But if you don't know what this word is by now, it starts with a "T" and ends with a "fuck no"). I loved it, and I couldn't get enough. I needed to hear it, everywhere, all the time, day and especially night. The bass was my new heartbeat.

And when I came back I told many stories of my adventures. How I walked the earth, in Europe. But I just didn't realize how powerful and how fast the "disease" of electronica was creeping through my veins. In just a few weeks my entire music selection transformed and I hung those good old tracks in the backroom for an undisclosed later date. New tracks were fascinating, each one a different flavor and a different beat. It was the beat that was important, a different beat meant a different...

Ok ok, I'll get right to it. Erich, Katharine and I - skratch - Erich and Katharine were headed to a party. DinoWhores and Trannysaurus Sex Party, quite original. They were making masks, cute little dinosaur masks made of foam and in bright neon colors, quite original. I didn't feel like going because it was going to be at this gross house next to the 7-11 and there were mad weirdos always showing up at these events. Don't get me wrong, there were some decent people there but there weren't enough of them to shine through the muck of darkness that these weirdos brought to this house.

So I didn't want to go, but I made a costume any way. And then I started to smoke. Lots. Like the scene in the 5th Element, I had activated all the key ingredients and unlocked a curious and yet simple affair.

1 Strobe
1 Projector
6 speakers
1 Reciever
1 Computer
3 People
...Oh yeah and T

+

ELECTRONIC MUSIC

And the raves were born.

RED ROOM

This has been quite the journey.


Muggy emptiness. Damp blistering cold. Dim Streets. Ancient Drag. Where can I eat? Where should we go eat? What should we do? Let's just go, anywhere. Is there anything open? Is there anything to do? "I have nothing better to do," said the porky five-0. Trees, shrubs, blossoms, bugs, quiet streets, barn animals. Horses should gallop around these parts, instead tourists take over with an endearing regimen. Old useless things couple with younger more useless things. The literature we wear and eat can be our only hope. Actually, I'm lying. Hope lies with the outside world. Is there something to do here? What do people do here? They...i.e. "we" escape. It is a land of escapism. Nothing is real, and all that is real is an illusion. There is nothing here. This is the very place where our lives were born. In this charming void we managed to find and create something out of nothing. The night bore out a slight glimmer of a "something to do." I remember it being a deep red.

This is the story of the RED ROOM.

There is nothing that I can tell you to make you understand the importance of what we were to later dub as "the rave." Imagine trying to cough up a series of words and sentences that would be able to grasp the total feeling of what it feels like to be on a roller coaster? Or in a free fall? Or sex? A very well-versed description is possible. What's not possible is to live vicariously through a mere description of certain aspects of life. The life altering experiences that these events leave as a gift to those who enjoy them cannot be obtained from mere statements (yes, I know that might sting some writers out there, but I'm just jamming, so read on). They must be felt! You've got to sweat to feel the beads on your skin and sense the rhythmic motions of your blood stream.

Take a music track, one of the best tracks you have. It must be danceable, but the dance style does not matter. Find some bass: ear phones, large speakers, an auditorium, your car, etc. Make sure it's dark, as close to blackout as possible (this is important for your first experience). Close your eyes. Pretend that there is nothing in this world except the music track that you have selected and you. I repeat: pretend that there is nothing in this world except the music track that you have selected and you. I'll repeat it again: there is nothing in this world except the music track that you have selected and you. You and the music. Music + You.

Equals.

The vibrations flowing around you coming from your amplifier are being processed by your brain. Your brain can recognize the patterns of vibrations and therefore you can register a beat or a melody. You are alone, remember? And nothing in this world exists except you and the music. So what are you going to do? There will come a point when your body cannot possibly hold still. I don't know why that is, but it just is. It might only be your head bobbing up and down or your just tapping your foot. But something somewhere is flowing with the rhythm.

You've done the hard part.

Now all you have to do is: continue. Just keep playing the music. Any music. I love electronic music. But go ahead and play that banjo crap because after all, your the one that's listening not I. In time your whole body will be in motion. You may not be in a steady beat or feel like your dancing "well." Just remember that you are alone. Eventually, you will finally feel nothing but your body and the music (which I told you to do before but I knew you just had to work up to it).

For those of you who are sitting there and have had the audacity to just read through and not have serious plans of carrying out any of these instructions: get over yourself, you're not too good for this. You don't suck at dancing because I'm pretty sure you've danced a mere 36-48 hours in your life, and according to some statistic it takes about 1000 hours to get good at something? Whatever, point is, you are not above dancing. Dancing is part of who we are. Let me explain. Our bodies hear and our bodies respond, savvy? So why don't you just try and respond to some of this.

Okeedokee, that's enough of that. Back to the Red Room. I went to Europe and came back.
I wish that read "I went to Europe and never came back." This is a long story, so I'll get return to it.