So, my attempt to turn Gone Gonzo News into a full-fledged news organization...failed. Yes, this was my lofty goal for the summer, be the next Rupert Murdoch. (minus the conniving "will hack your dead daughter's phone line" journalistic practices).
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“Sometimes it appears that we are reaching a period when our senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to be approaching an age of the gross; persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action.
The young overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual – and the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”
- Vice President Spiro Agnew, 22 May 1970
- Sampled by deadmau5 on BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix, 10 April 2009
I’m a raver, and I’m not the drugged out, mindless misfit that politicians and journalists and the former Vice President of the United States think I am.
It’s hard for me to explain what raving is like because raving isn’t meant to be explained. It’s meant to be felt – in your eyes, on your skin, in your soul. It’s about looking up at the heavens, then down at the pulsing throng of people around you, and rejoicing at the simple fact that you’re alive. It’s about hugging your friends, and telling them that you love them with all your heart, and meaning it. It’s about being kind to strangers because you understand that we’re all here for the same reason.
We rave because we love dance music’s inherent simplicity and occasional complexity. We do it for the pulse of house beats, the bliss of trance rhythms, and the wonderful, furious, face-melting wobble of dubstep.
We do because no one else is brave enough to.
The Electric Daisy Carnival is the raver’s Christmas. It’s the highlight of the summer festival season, the only event on the continent that attracts nearly every big-name artist in electronic music.
Last year, the festival was headlined by Armin van Buuren, the Dutch DJ widely recognized as the finest in the world, and deadmau5, the Canadian producer known for performing his live shows inside a huge, self-illuminated mouse helmet. All together, EDC attracted 185,000 ravers over the course of two days. I was one of them.
It was my first rave, so I remember it particularly clearly. It was a characteristically beautiful Los Angeles summer evening. The air was balmy and cool, the sun’s rays were no longer harsh but refreshing, and the permanent haze that swathes downtown’s skyscrapers was miraculously gone. It was the kind of evening that reminded you most of this country’s population wishes it lived in here.
As the sun finally dropped below the Coliseum’s bleak gray walls, I looked up, basking in the glory of the unseen sunset, which had thrown rays of pink and orange across the entire glorious sky. As I tilted back my head, the DJ, Laidback Luke, unleashed yet another unbelievable song, sending 100,000 ravers into pure, unbridled, ecstasy.
We were here for “love and light,” he said, and as the first set of fireworks ripped into the beautiful pink summer sky, I realized that I had never felt so alive before. The defense mechanisms built up through 19 years of foreign climates and cultures, of the struggle for acceptance, of always being the outsider, simply melted away.
EDC changed my life for the better. It gave me the confidence to be the person that I know I am.
In 11 months that have followed my first rave, my relationships with my friends, partners, and parents have deepened. I’ve grown more poised and self-aware, and I’m far more open and expressive with my emotions.
The truth is that every generation spends its maturity trying desperately to extract meaning from its existence (which is how ideas like heaven came about in the first place). You criticize us for it, but understand that life is inherently visceral. Why not embrace it?
True ravers know that a rave - a real rave - is more than some drug-fueled, mind-bending, all-night dance party (though those are fun, too). A rave is a vision of the world as it could be – as it should be. Ravers are a community of good people. We don’t want to fight or argue or complain. We want to have fun, to be ourselves, to wear crazy costumes, make colorful bracelets, and share our joy with old friends and new.
We live in the moment, and we hope for the future. We understand that a rave isn’t like any other kind of party, that it’s not just some hedonistic ritual.
It’s a reminder of the world’s beauty, a place where we recognize the human ability to create the sublime. It’s humanism at its finest, an experience through which we derive meaning from our lives.
~Bryan King
I didn’t sleep on Friday night; I was too excited. My alarm went off at 8, but I was wired already. My roommates decided to go out that night, so they were hung-over and sleeping. Time to get up you stupid motherfuckers! I wake up, go directly to my refrigerator, pull out a nice little plastic baggy with two tabs of acid in it and down the rabbit hole I go. The next couple of hours are a blur: there’s a breakfast in there somewhere, some television, and the sound of some familiar songs from my childhood, but it’s nothing but a blur.
Then I’m there. Where? There. Where? FUCKING DISNEYLAND BITCHES!
LOLZ. Now that I’ve done with that whole eerie, creepy buildup to my destination, you know I’m the fucking happiest person in the world. And for those of you who have yet to cream your panties, IT”S MY FIRST TIME EVER. YAY! (insert ejaculatory scream here)
Disneyland is truly the most magical place on earth. Add a head full of acid and a pill of what we’ve now decided was cat tranquilizer, and you literally will explode with the magical-ness of it all. I know I did.
We spent over 12 hours at Disneyland which consisted of: Space Mountain…Twice, Lollipops, Alcohol, a scary run in with a drug dog, The Tiki Tiki Room, 5 trips back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure, multiple Mickey hats, fireworks, 2 moment’s where I cried (which never happens), and the most amazing explosion of color and Disney (World of Color) to end the night.
It literally changed my life; it’s a magical place that only believes in happy endings and cotton candy. Everyone is happy, everyone is dressed up, everyone is either 40 or 4, and everyone shares the communal experience of being at the most amazing place on the planet. It was surprisingly busy last Saturday (I forgot about spring break), but the well-oiled machine that is Disney made me and my best friends feel like we were the only people there, or at least the only people who mattered.
I entered Disneyland that day as a 20-year-old college student who never understood what Disney means to be people and it’s power as one of the most identifiable brands in the world. I left an exhausted, strung out, 5 year old, high on a combination of life and the drugs I’d been taking all day, with a new understanding of Disney and everything it represents. I won’t spoil anything for you people who haven’t been because you have to experience it for yourself. But I had the most magical day at the most magical place in the world, and if you haven’t given yourself that gift…KILL YOURSELF! Or go… NOW BITCHES!
howmanyhuntersarethere