Rave Rave against the dying of the light
Rave Reviews
for release 08-26-05
Washington D.C.
by Lightning Rod
America is more than a place. America is an idea, it's a dream. What has always made this country great is that in America you are free to be the biggest fool that you want to be. You can be Pat Robertson or Cindy Sheehan or Michael Jackson or Michael Moore or Deepockets Chapra or Dr. Phil.
A couple of centuries ago that wild and crazy guy Thomas Jefferson and his wiggy buddies got the nutty idea that they could just up and declare independence from England. Imagine that. Just a bunch of tobacco farmers and printers and surveyors issuing an ultimatum of rebellion to the most powerful empire on earth. When we celebrate the Declaration of Independence every fourth of July we are remembering the spirit of rebellion that is one of the foremost features of the American character.
This is the character that allowed us to tame a wilderness and migrate from coast to coast and develop industrial might that was unsurpassed in the world and provide fertile ground for science and invention and innovation. It was so distinct that they devised a term for it. It became known as Good Old American Ingenuity.
This ingenuity gave us the sewing machine, the light bulb, the telegraph, the telephone, cotton gin, airplane, computer, transistor, microchip and on and on, and oh yes, pet rocks and pop rocks and astroturf and astroglide and hula hoops and frisbees. All products of American Ingenuity.
America has always been the place where you could be as crazy as you wanted to be. You could be crazy enough to believe that you could get light out of a filament of tungsten, a vacuum and a bit of electricity, or cure polio or fly faster than sound or hell, go to moon.
In America a couple of whacky bicycle mechanics can have the temerity to invent powered aviation and launch an industry that has changed our world. Wilbur and Orville were NUTS! But they were American nuts. In America a geek like Henry Ford can imagine an industry based on running carriages without horses.
Only in America could a pizza eating college dropout nerdy nut-ball like Bill Gates become the richest man in the world. He took a chance on a wild idea and it paid off. It's the American way. Tesla and Marconi and Einstein immigrated here because they sought a free market for their ideas.
America was the place where anything was possible. We had organization without regimentation. We were a wild west speak-easy rave club operating on the license of guts to open. This is America. Or at least it used to be.
Which brings us to the little incident in Utah a few days ago where 90 armed and masked ninja SWAT cops swooped down on a bunch of harmless kids who were dancing to electronic music and maybe drinking some beer and smoking a joint and dropping the odd hit of ecstasy. Kids do this all over the country.
Several years ago I was the MC and stage manager at a rave club in Dallas. For a couple of years we had 3-5 bands a night playing there. It was all off the books, unlicensed. We didn't sell liquor or drugs (but we didn't discourage the patrons from bringing their own). The place was huge (30,000 sq ft.) and some nights we would have 1500 people there. Raves are an example of the American frontier spirit. They are the modern embodiment of the Wild West Saloon.
The cops in Dallas never bothered us. They knew that there were underaged drinkers and people taking illegal substances and dancing with wild abandon, but they also knew that we provided security and that we were looking out for the kids. We discouraged or, if necessary, prevented violence and we didn't let people drive away if they were in sufficiently altered states.
The cops came and talked to us a couple of times but never harassed the establishment even though it was totally illegal and they could have closed it down for a variety of code violations etc. They saw that it was just clean fun and they could keep tabs on what was going on.
But those were different days. Those were days before this uptight religious zeal and rabid political correctness set in and we started marching to the redstate/bluestate lockstep macho party line. Raves are a joyous demonstration of the spirit of rebellion that made this country great. It's sad to see the machine clamping down on them. I'm sure that these events had nothing to do with the president's trip to Utah.
The Poet's Eye gets bleary at seven AM in the morning after the rave. My eyes are burning. But that burning feels like America.
There's battle lines being drawn
And nobody's right, if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
'Re getting so much resistance from behind
What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singin' songs, and carryin' signs
Mostly say "hooray for our side"
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outta line, the men come, and take you away
--Buffalo Springfield
