Dancing Days are Gone Again Part 1

Well, this is becoming more of a habit day by day, must file a report no matter how battered, sleep deprived and emotionally drained I might be, so here we go. The dance music Wed. night at a small club called Body English at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas will be closing its doors next week in order to go into a cocoon like state to reemerge has a more prolific butterfly of a nightclub to coincide with all the new renovations on the hotel property. So this long standing club music night shall be going dormant the following next week leaving a large chasm in an already dance music (techno, house, and trance) deprived city. This fact gave me more motivation than usual to go and at least attempt to absorb the last little bit of this small paradise island before it dissapears from site forever. I have found over the past couple of years; one of the main reasons for people to come to this night was for the hour of free drinks offered right as the doors open early in the evening. It usually only takes one time of participating in the free drink bonanza to remedy oneself from ever doing it again, as the entire idea of the free drinks its self can be a little misleading.

Once upon walking into the club, the first thing you would notice is now empty the place is except for a small little bar located at the back of the club, seems only one of the three bars in the place serves the free drinks during this time, so very quickly a small crowd begins to form around this ten by twenty bar, aggressively pushing and shoving their way to the front of the line order to get some of the free drink fiasco. Once at the front of the line, you shall discover that there are only three alternatives in the free drink dept., one is some low grade champange, the kind you might find the homeless drinking in a brown bag or your grandparents serving up during the holiday season, two a concotion of a drink resembling a vodka and cranberry with a vodka supposedly based on a fairly well known brand of vodka which after about eight of them in ten minutes can get you incredibly buzzed, and the third drink might have been a burbon and coke sort of mixture, never really went for anything but the vodka cran combo, just because it felt like the safest and least hangover prone drink of the bunch.

With this established, now comes the rub, which means why these drinks are not actually free, after battling with the other drunks, prom queen cuties, and bartenders' friends for some space at the front of the bar, you get a rather fast lesson from one of the female bartenders on how to approach the free drink situation, which is order at least four drinks at a time, because the directional flow of people in the tide makes it difficult at times to get back to the beach head of the bar especially with only an hour to drink, within the first half hour there are anywhere near three hundred people fighting the attention of three, maybe four bartenders, so how does one get those bartenders attention. Well, the easiest approach I have found is to hand them a ten or twenty dollar bill the first time I go up for a set of drinks, more than not I would go to the club by myself, but occasionally someone was naive enough to attempt to endure this classic case of binge drinking that would make any college age student run for cover. Yet after handing over that ten or twenty, the pipeline of free drinks became virtually unlimited; there was no sort of cutoff point to the amount they could serve, just the hour time limit itself, which would lead to massive accumulation of vodka cranberries right at the last minutes of the hour where an enormous scramble for any amount of free drinks erupted into a mosh pit day traders floor like environment, where arms, bodies, and loud voices all came together in a symphony of chaos looking to satisfy their alcohol fix one last time before the prices returned to their normal over inflated levels that could find the same free orders now costing in the range of at least fifty to seventy five dollars a round, which adds up pretty damn fast if you happen to be the guy or sucker, whoever you want to call him that has to run point on the drink patrol for the legions of attractive women in tow at the nightclub, the cost of attaining ornaments, during this holiday season seems all so appropriate, but if the drinks run out, amongst all sorts of other illegal substances, then there go the ornaments as well, but that is an entirely another subject for another day.

So I have sucessfully acquired my first eight drinks, those twenty dollar bills come in handy, now all that is left is to drink them all down as fast as possible in order to get eight more before the clock strikes midnight. The drinks are fairly watered down, mostly ice and juice, but if you know how bartenders work, remember they are tip motivated, the bigger the tip, the better the drink, this is how they recall your face, out of all the thousands of people they deal with in a night and knowing some bartenders myself, customers tend not to tip very much due to the fact that the drinks at least in Las Vegas but in most high end nightclubs are very expensive, for what one beer costs at a club you could buy a six pack or even a twelve pack of some domestic rot gut, yet the point here is if you tip them well, you shall always get preferrential treatment from the maddening crowd that surrounds on all sides, VIP like status, quick service, and loaded up drinks that will make you cringe after the first taste due to the strong alcohol content.

This is the fast track to complete devastation and if not checked can lead to a very early night in the bathroom puking or stumbling around the nightclub like some asylum escapee, but of course after a few weeks amongst the other binge drinkers a small nesting develops where all the familiar faces congregate for the fraternity like contests of witnessing who can down the most drinks in the allotted hour of time. This sort of novelty has a duration of at the most maybe three weeks, one or two will do for most, I personally have down sixteen in an hour, for what reason I can not quite recall, but there were others who had no problem outdoing my feat with great zeal and a rare ability to hold their liquor, yet to endure another two hours before the guest DJ would arrive became more of a battle for survival than a night out on the town. There are not too many places in the club patrons can sit down without paying for the priviledge to do so, most of the nightclubs follow this policy, otherwise the entire place would be filled with passed out partiers, throwing up in corners and attempting to have sex in most obvious of places, especially the dancefloor.

One week was enough for me, the sheer fact of staying at this particular nightclub from 10:30pm to 3 or 4am completely wasted on booze serves as more torture than pleasure, sure you will encounter all sorts of people and situations throughout the night, not all of them uncomfortable and possibly hookup with a woman, who may or may not have also participated in the booze fest free for all where the two of you can go straight high school Tijuana club night on the dancefloor making out in front of everyone without a care in the world, where that might lead is probably a strong motivator for this legion of lushes to show up for the free drinks in the first place. The clock is ticking and the hive is abuzz with conversations, pick up lines, and demands for attention from the bartenders, yet soon enough the booze is cut off and just like the end of the trading day, the floor clears while the bartenders clean up the residue of the feeding frenzy while casually gathering their wits for the long hual of questions from bombed out tourists who cannot fathom why the drinks are no longer free at 2am in the morning amongst all the other propositions the primarily female bartender staff endure throughout the night. It is no secret or shock that these ladies must dress like exotic dancers, give off allure, and in the end offer service to even the most base and grossly obvious perverts who seek some private time and are as persistent as a crack junky looking to score, no street too dangerous, no comment too inappropriate.

Tonight though, I head into the nightclub around 1230am that is about the time the headlining DJ goes on, sometimes 1am, but this saves me time hanging around the early crowd that tends to consist of all the free wheeling drinkers from hour number one, the music tends to be more mainstream and behavior a bit more gross like shameful sexual orgy of pig farmers lathered in baby oil and rubbing alcohol, attacking each other with the zest of some drug possessed speed freak in leather chaps. The entire scene evokes memories of what it might have been during the time of Caligulia, though after witnessing some of the dancefloor activities on occasion, it might have made the roman hedonist go fetal. Amongst the crowd of zanies on the dancefloor is a group of people I term the Asian mafia, they are a group numbering on any given week from ten to twenty and they are always twisted on some sort of chemicals, throwing and swinging their women around on the dancefloor in some sort of primative ritualistic cult like behavior in attempt to channel some sort of ephinany like enlightenment. Most of the men have to be at least fifty and myself being nearly fourty feel like the old man in the crowd, but thankfully these guys in their dark shades have no problem bopping around on the dancefloor for hours at a time without pause as if programmed by the flow of the music, some sort of subliminal carrier signal has been supplanted within the music itself.

I like to take up residence in their area, just for the ebbing wave of relentless energy that seems to slowly possess me as the music gets better throughout the night. The plume of naroctic effluvient takes position around my senses and spirit, there is no one in this club who week in and week out look more fucked up than this clandalstine cadre of drug induced warriors, awaiting the ceremonial shaman to approach the musical alter of sacrifice where brain cells shall be lifted over heads and then cast into the fire of Parkinson's like behavior into the next couple of decades. So the mafia holds down their side of the dancefloor in a sort of impromptu role as nightclub diplomat to all the first time tourists who might be getting their initial taste of real decadent behavior, due in fact to the techno/house music, which tends to be louder, faster, and when hallucinating more sensorial and without going into another tangent of my own experience, let me just say that people begin to hear, see, and feel things that they might dismiss during their conscious hours of sobriety, but when existing in more of a dream state on the dancefloor where experience of visual, aurual, and emotional states may take on a more surrealistic nature things can come at you very fast, it will make sense at the time and for someone who is new to the experience can find it a bit rough on the sanity, almost like an intense science fiction stoner film, where any sort of reference point with reality has long gone by the wayside. I have seen it happen, losing the plot is a term people use, complete disassociation, an extended vacation that some never want to end, no stress, just blissful release of chemicals made within one's own body on command from the brain, amongst people who share in this same belief of the never ending high, a fool hearty pipe dream but for those four or five hours, as a friend of mine would say, bye bye.

The headline DJ is beginning to gather himself, he has an assistant who is in the middle of setting up this mini recording studio up on the DJ booth, beginning with an array of cables, modules, and other computer based equipment, one cannot be sure whether he is going to play music or maybe attempt to remotely launch a space shuttle from somewhere in Florida. This whole process of plugging in wires, adjusting buttons, and booting up laptop computers takes nearly a half an hour, while the DJ himself sits off to the side somewhere patiently drinking a cocktail while entertaining a myriad of people like the promoter and various hanger ons who take worship complex to entirely another level, so while this like colony of worker bees buzzes about the DJ, I sort of begin to contemplate how much longer I will stay, looks like the headliner will only play two hours, three is much better, yet everyone is different and the crowd has some input on how long a DJ will play, if they responsed well early to some of the slightly motivational tracks, which get the party started so to speak this will cue the DJ to focus more into developing the emotional flow of the night via the music, a psychological symphony or just mere sonic manipulation, regardless a more clued up crowd, meaning a dancefloor that follows dance music to the point where they know many of the tracks or at least know the flow of the DJ playing or lastly just love to dance like someone with possessed with the spirits of James Brown and Iggy Pop can take the night to another level like going from Defcon 5 to Defcon 2 and when Defcon 1 is reached make sure you place your sanity somewhere familiar, cause on that occasion when the music, clubbers, DJ, and dancefloor hit Defcon 1 time and space start to bend, hours can turn into minutes and before you know it the lights are on, it's six am with presence of a new day making its way over the eastern horizon.

The vibe as it is called, is something that develops in those who listen to dance music, a few just have a natural gravitation toward the music, fits them, no learning curve and it is not all just about the drugs, for some sure, but I know quite a few people who will just drink a soda or water throughout the night, but be dancing around as if hit with taser and tranquilizer gun simulatenously once the music picks up steam. Dance music DJ's, at least the great ones, start off with a real midlevel tempo, something to get the bodies moving, yet not some mind altering deep heavy club music that get people speaking in tongues while journeying through out of body experiences before 2am and having witnessed nights like that throughout the years, just have the medivacs, stretchers, and medics on standby, the casualities will pile up, an epidemic of hopped up cretins will take things too far if left unchecked, some shall attempt to leap out into unfamiliar boundaries they have yet to understand then get dragged into the undertoe when the waves of chemicals released from the brain get stronger and more immidiate sending them into shock, psychological shock, a clean break from reality, it can get intense when one's body starts running the show without the rational mind being allowed any input, images appear, thoughts germinate, mortal thoughts, paralysis, orgasmic like waves drowned everything else out and without the proper training in how to manuever throughout all these various states during this freak out, things can get messy. The combonation of club music, drugs, and a group of like minded people who are all participating in developing this state, this possession, or ritualistic attempt at enlightenment will get right on top of the novice who sees all this as one big barrel of fun, like doing beer bongs at high school parties. But it is not and I have seen the zombies, the paralyzed, and the OD'd fall at times right into my arms, dehydrated, ingesting narcotics they truly do not understand or even recognize, just eat the damn thing, says one friend to another, you'll love it, as they wake up at the hospital, full of IV's and stomach pumps, if they are lucky, others wake up sexually assualted, robbed, or braindead.

This is the darkside of recreational substance abuse and from someone who has spent a quarter of a century participating in such adventures, it is not always fun. Luckily, tonight the only people who seem to be in the war zone is the Asian mafia and if you took a sample of any their blood, sweat, or hair folics, I have no doubt you would instantenously start to hallucinate. Not really, much of a crowd tonight, they are trying and the DJ notices, attempts to jump start the collective shift to the next gear, but this crowd does not understand this DJ who is playing club tracks that drift more toward the heavier partiers that have internalized this housetechnoprogressive sound to the point that when the music is heard, their bodies begin to chemically react at a cellular level, you can put me in that catagory, great dance music is like a fix, an adrenline rush, a connective emotive state of existence which when place one on top of another become like building blocks ending up in a constructive architecture of happiness, other parts of the brain take over, start calling shots, cause how else can people aerobically maintain five or more hours of physical stamina, dancefloor pilates, some might say drugs are involved to maintain that energy level, but others just are carried away by the music. Not as much tonight though, a great bunch of sounds as I take a break to talk to a few friends about the Wed. night weekly becoming a thing of the past, again, as so many nights, over so many years, a place to gather in a society bent on moving at the speed of light and beyond, this stopover, this sanctuary is one of the few places where club music fans can interact with like minded people, but even more important where people who have not really experienced this scene, sound, and crowd, can have an opportunity to explore it without judgement, with encouragement from the regulars, I have watched people, unfamiliar with the club music scene, stand around, taking it in, sort of weirded out by the group of raver kids spinning their lights in fluid like movements, or the throngs of dancefloor junkies going at the dancing as if it was their last night on earth, as well as the large groups of patrons from aboard where dance club culture is well connected with the mainstream, throw in the mafia and a few other crazies, and what transpires is this circus on the edge of a riot at all times and when that right dance track at the right moment is played, total insanity will ensue, something described by Dante from his book the Inferno, the atomsphere seems unreal that all these people are letting go, feel secure with themselves, and are enjoying what life has given them, these things themselves will hook a few new people as I watch them go from ridiculing the whole scene amongst their friends to full on club mayhem arm in arm with a bunch of other loonies smiling their ass off when the music gets heavy, deep, and primitive. Dancing is primitive in its nature, tribal, a community of people coming together part spiritual, part celebratory, and all encompassing love in understanding how music connects us all.

I'm going to cut it here, all the other fun stuff happens after the club closes, work starts in five hours and I did not get home till 9am yesterday, so some spatchka, then Part 2, no editing on this one tonight, so if it is a bit sorted, just realize life inside the metropolis does not always provide time to edit ones life. See Ya