Categories
ranting

plur

Peace Love Unity Respect

Ok, so Saturday morning I checked my email and there was this email from a mailing list I have belonged to for about three years. It was one of those “surveys” you are supposed to fill out and forward to your friends and the person who sent it to you. Now I have not posted to the list for almost two years, I read the posts that come up, but between work/school/living in Europe I never posted. So I figured I would post a reply and see if I could raise a few eyebrows.

Apparently I did. I, very quickly, got two responses that amounted to “who the fuck are you?” So I composed a reply which stated how I got on the list, who I knew and why I have not posted. I sent the reply to both the people that mailed me and CC’ed it to the list. I guess I should have used the BCC because I got a not-so-happy response from one of the two people who mailed me because I had included their email in the posting to the list. Here are the emails:

yeah, so how come you think the scene at Velvet might be considered anything less than ball-stink? it’s fucking eau d’nutsack in that piece. and cut it out with your “et al” and pretending to speak english with your shit-hole typos and yada yada. nobody gives a shit.
GO BACK TO ENGLAND OR GET BLOWN UP IN THE STATES.
no offense or anything. i just haven’t gotten any total shit like this email from you in a long time.
stay off the marmite and steer clear of limeys.

and,

parties are for washed-up party kids and fags.
probably wont be at another one for a long time.
and if i was at a party i would be so drunk i dont think i would know where i was.by the way, thanks for posting that thing with my return address to the whole list so that everybody can know that i emailed you…i dont really like to have that shit broadcast.

Umm, yea, not PLUR.

Now, being poked fun of for spelling or something is one thing, but on a mailing list devoted to party-kids and raver I do not expect that I should be insulted in anyway but jesting. Maybe it is because I am jaded, or an old-school raver (not even that old-school!) but I believe in PLUR. Peace Love Unity and Respect where the guiding principles of the raver/party-kid community when I began raving. The people I met at parties where just nice—and not always because they where fucked up. They believed in PLUR—or at least they practiced it in public.

Over the years I was a hardcore raver I watched the scene change to one filled with much more violence and unfriendliness. I don’t know if the rise in drug use I observed was a result or a symptom of this but the two went hand in hand (don’t get me wrong—people at raves have always used drugs, and always will but the number of people who came specifically for the drugs as opposed to the scene/music/people went up.) The rise in rudeness also accompanied a rise in popularity of raves and techno music—as dance/electronica became more mainstream here in the US I ran into more and more people who would just as soon tell you “fuck off” as smile at you.

So from the response to my first email to the list in a long time I have to guess that the scene has not improved any. Don’t get me wrong, I did get some email’s that where more positive but it only takes one ass hole to make an experience leave a bad taste in your mouth. So my response to all this was:

Given the responses I got to my last email it’s no wonder that the
Liquid Lounge “Family” fell apart. (and I don’t mean just Rose’s)
To xxxx: no offense take and to answer your question, I thought Velvet was better because the people there where a lot less rude than the people who came to buzz. It did not start out that way but over time—to me—it got that way. I agree that there was a ball-stink problem with quite a few of them! If you don’t want to read my yada yada and et al’s then don’t. And I could give a shit about what someone who cannot even type a sentence with correct capitalization thinks about my spelling—I have dyslexia what is your excuse?
Yes, I am a jaded, washed up raver who cannot stand drugged up rude
party-kids/ravers/clubers/or whatever they call themselves. I do subscribe to PLUR.
Flame away,
-beggs

Let the flame wars begin!