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Guide2Outdoor Parties
By Brian B.
This article is brought to you courtesy of Hyperreal.com
IF YOU CAN'T READ THIS NOW, READ IT LATER.
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
This summer has seen quite a few outdoor renegade parties. Everything
from the large Full Moon Raves every month to the smaller parties such
as Xochipili and Harmony and the Mother Earth Sound System gigs showed
that people in this scene understand and appreciate the incredibly
liberating feel of dancing to music outdoors, where many people feel
it belongs, despite what law enforcement and the predominant
government policies towards "public land" may dictate.
However, many of these parties have been busted, sometimes after a few
hours, sometimes in the morning, sometimes even before the sound got
going. There were also cases where the people who came to celebrate
the beauties of the earth left a very distinct scar where the dance
floor was.
It doesn't have to be like this. There is a LOT that you, as an
attendee of renegades, can do to help ensure that the party goes on
without a hitch. What I am about to present here is a checklist, if
you will, of actions/thoughts/memes you should consider next time you
head out for that outdoor party. These rules are primarily designed
for the people attending renegades, though if you're throwing them you
should probably read these too.
BE COVERT
There's a LOT of strategy involved in deciding on a site for the
party. I'll save that for a later communikation; the advice I'll give
here presumes the organizers have done as much as they can to make it
as remote as possible. But no place is gonna be 100% silent. so...
When driving to the site, do NOT blast techno out of your car windows.
You want to make the people living on the route to the site as
ignorant of your presence as possible; which means make SURE you know
your way there (a Thomas Bros. map is essential), have a full tank of
gas, and bring all the water and food and such you'll need with you.
Don't presume there'll be a 7-11 nearby; the quickest thing to alert
the locals is 40 ravers hanging out at 7-11 at 2am in the morning. Try
not to drive in big caravans, either, coz nothing will turn heads like
20 cars following nose-to-tail down a deserted road.
Upon arriving at the site, there is a lot you can do to help ensure
that if/when police show up, they have as little to gripe about as
possible. When you arrive, park as closely together with other cars
as you can, so that as many cars as possible can fit in the (probably
small) parking area. If there is someone coordinating parking, listen
to what they have to say and don't try to find a closer space. If
there's no one coordinating parking then use a bit of intelligence in
parking by avoiding obvious places and parking under NO PARKING signs
and such. Sometimes you can't avoid the NO PARKING signs, so consider
any parking ticket you might get as payment to the local authorities
to allow the party to go on - they usually won't ticket if they demand
that you leave, and they'll only tow the people parked in really
stupid places, like where the shoulder of the road is only 2 feet wide
or something. Besides, a $20 parking ticket gets stretched pretty
thinly between passengers if you carpool, which you should do as much
as possible anyway.
WORK THE VIBE
The best thing you can do now, if the music hasn't started, is leave
your car and go to where the actual site will be - or offer to help
carry equipment. Basically, do ANYthing except be next to your
car--you wanna stay out of the parking lot. I have seen more than a
few renegades busted because the music hadn't started yet and everyone
was around their cars, blaring music out of the speakers, drinking
40's, setting off firecrackers, etc, and the cops could see it was
just a bad scene - had all these people been down on the beach or on
the grass waiting for the sound system to start, it would have been
completely different. Head straight for the site. If there are
residences nearby, be as QUIET as possible when walking. The last
party at Berkeley Marina was busted because people staying in the
nearby hotel heard the people slamming their cars doors, not because
of the giant sound system on the other side of the hill.
Now, it's time for the three NO-NO's of outdoor events
the three
things which should not be present in any significant amount. They
are serious VibeKillers, and even though separately they may be
enjoyable they really have a negative impact almost every time I've
seen them at parties.
1) NITROUS. Nitrous is fun, I've done it. But Nitrous also brings a
mindset and a culture very different from the outdoor experience -
when a guy shows up with a tank and starts selling balloons for
people, it does 2 things: it draws people away from the vibe of the
crowd, because when they suck on a balloon it takes them into a world
of their own for a while, lost in their own headspace, pretty much
uncommunicative with anyone else. It also creates that nitrous greed,
where you want more and the seller wants to sell you more and more and
more money exchanges hands. I could care less what you want to do at
your own parties, the constant SHSHSHSHSHSHSH sound that is heard at
many parties these days is like a drill to those of us who wish it
wasn't there. And you KNOW it's a lot more obvious to police, and
gives them a huge reason to shut us down.
2) ALCOHOL. This has probably been beat into the ground so it should
be obvious, but evidently not to many people. Alcohol doesn't help
you dance, it doesn't help you stay up longer, it doesn't give you
energy beyond a short-term buzz, and it never works well in
combination with other psychedelics. Again, it's not a drug I'm out
to abolish or anything, there are certainly times it's appropriate,
but like nitrous, it can seriously hurt the vibes. It's also the only
reason I've ever seen rudeness or violence break out at outdoor
parties. If you want to bring it, keep it discreet and don't overdo
it.....
3) FIRECRACKERS. This wasn't a problem until a few months ago, but at
the August 1st FMR, when someone set off a bottle rocket, I heard one
ranger say to the other, "that's it, we gotta shut this down". And I
don't need to remind you all of near-disaster of the hill fire at Let
Freedom Rave last July (we are the luckiest scene on the face of this
earth, I tell you.) Please, for the sake of the party, don't bring
em.
Okay, *phew* sorry about all that vitriol. Now to more positive
things.
RESPECT THE MOTHER
One goal of outdoor parties should always be to leave the place
cleaner than we found it. However, even if we take out all our trash
the mark we leave can be totally obvious. There are things you can do
to minimize your impact:
Respecting the mother means if it's grassy, take off your shoes. I do
this all the time, and never catch a cold because the rest of my body
is warm. If you can't stand the cold, get some thick wool socks; the
goal is to tear up the ground as little as possible. Even tennis
shoes are better than, say, docs or hiking boots. I've seen gorgeous
grassy fields turned into mudpits after a single renegade because
people wore boots with thick cleats and insisted on doing a shuffle
dance.
Respecting the mother means not tearing down plants and not urinating
in bushes if portapotties are within any sort of walk. Respecting the
mother means looking out for signs which say "endangered species", and
staying away. Respecting the mother means not pulling down live trees
to add wood to a fire (I've seen all these happen).
And finally, respecting the mother means not throwing cigarettes butts
on the ground. Put them in a spare pocket or throw them in a trash
can. But they are NOT biodegradable, contrary to popular belief.
Why is this important to the non-bust-ness of a party? If a ranger
comes and sees that people are keeping to themselves and not harming
the land, which is what he's worried about, then he may be persuaded
to simply let us go. But the other extreme is the Palo Alto Estuary
ranger after the FMR in May, who was so enraged with the treatment the
wetlands got that there is now a cop sitting in the parking lot every
night. "Don't ever come back!" he reportedly said to the last car of
ravers out of there.
DON'T FLINCH
I have been to very few parties where the police do not arrive. And
actually, to be honest, I feel better if the police arrive, talk to
people, and leave, than if they never know about it at all. There is
nothing inherently immoral in gathering outdoors to dance to music -
we may be violating specific laws regarding sound permits and "park
closing hours" (why should public parks have closing hours??), but the
right to assembly is guaranteed by the constitution.
So, when the police do arrive, the handling of the situation needs to
be very careful. There are two main scenarios I've seen:
1) The police arrive to see what's going on, they find a group of
happy people dancing. No local residents have complained, there's no
danger of violence emanating from the group (cops can sense that
"vibe" too), there's no alcohol or other obvious drug use and the site
isn't getting trashed. At this point, they may decide to simply let
the party go on. What is important here is that you treat the
officers with dignity and respect, and understand that they are only
doing a job thrust upon them by superiors. For those of you who are
confident and not tripping and understand what their situation is, go
up and say hello, introduce yourself, explain what's going on, etc.
Be gentle, tell them you understand the park is closed, etc. BE
HONEST. You don't have to give your name, but if the timing and
attitude is right giving your name and showing ID might build trust
with them. Tell them the site will be cleaned up in the morning, the
place will be left "cleaner than we found it". Anyway, eventually you
may be able to build up a level of trust, either personally or from
the group, and the officer may simply say, "okay, I wasn't here." and
at that point you're clear. Keep in mind that busting a party is not
a small task, and a couple of cops probably won't want to go through
the paperwork to do it unless they see some reason. Give them no
reason to go through it, and they may let you go on.
2) The police arrive and are not happy. Either they have a
pre-existing and media-formed bent against "your evil rave parties",
or something was done to really piss them off. In such a situation,
there's not much you can do. The party is over, and it should be
moved to a backup site. You can try talking them into an hour more or
until sunrise or something, but do not see this as a battleground.
There is a time and place for everything, and a remote field is not
the place for a constitutional showdown. The cops' bark is worse than
its bite - they may threaten to haul everyone's ass to jail and
impound the equipment, but like I noted before it's a lot of work for
them; if everyone just packs up and leaves they're usually happy.
Feel free to catcall and cajole; but remember that usually the order
to disband the party comes from higher-ups, and doing that can only
make them angrier. The worst thing to say: "do you really want a
bunch of fucked-up kids on drugs on the streets?". Drugs are a real
sore point, to say the least, so don't even think of trying to use
that as a bargaining tool!
It is important to remember what you are doing is NOT illegal. It's
simply unpopular with the powers that be. You wanna change that? You
can, by sending letters to your city council, the mayor, to anyone you
feel has a direct influence upon policy. Or, make an attempt to get a
site legally - it can be done, it just takes a bit of legwork and
cash. Register to vote, register your friends, and make them know
that you wanna be HEARD. Your rights are only yours if you choose to
defend them.
ENSURE THE FUTURE
If the party was successful, even if only for a few hours, be sure and
help out with donations so that the organizers will know their effort
was appreciated and so they can give some to the DJ's and sound guys
and whatnot. You don't have to give a lot - $5 is a good figure to go
by--but even beyond its monetary worth is the message "I believe in
you".
We as a community also need to learn how to police ourselves; if you
see someone pulling down a live tree for firewood, don't just stand
there and say, "Gee, that's awful. I wish someone would tell them to
stop" - tell them yourself, and get your friends to help too. If we
don't do this then the "outside world" can't help but see us as
something to be discouraged. We're better than that.
There is a lot more to say on outdoor parties, but I think this will
be enough for now. Look for future communikations on other topics....
If you have email you can send me feedback at
iconekt@uclink.berkeley.edu. See you outdoors!
Brian
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Hyperreal.com is a resource and a home on the Internet for information and activies surrounding the memes of music, dance,
art, altered states of consciousness, and experimental ways of expressing those memes over the wires. Information like this
doesn't want to be free, it NEEDS to be free, and it needs a place to be expressed independent of any overriding
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