The Brood

Three generations of 20 something partiers have past through the well worn battle grounds of Las Vegas nightlife, since the golden age of late 90's pre bottle service VIP booth corporate fleecing of the casinos came to pass. A friends birthday as well as the interest of a girlfriend compelled me to go back on my somewhat recent rigid stance of staying out of the nightclubs for an extended period of time. Not to fear, due to a recent resurrenge in the local party scene a fresh crop of off strip underground spots had began to flourish once more bringing with it an entire new scene of youngsters eagerly spilling out of their SUV's and luxury sedans seeking a sancutary where they could conduct drug experiments upon themselves in the proximity of cool revelers, liberal security, and non oppressive dress code that turned many places on the strip into more like graduation festivities than a open minded, come as you are, be yourself, type of house party.

As I got out of my friends luxury sedan, legions of youthful adults lingered around their automobiles down in the parking lot from the bar where they played a variety of dance music tracks, absorbing that repetitive, deep, seductive nature of house music and with each proceeding song becoming more and more committed to the cult of the midnight sun, who live from dusk till dawn, sometimes longer, until the drugs wore off or they found another afterparty with complementary ride, might be a hotel suite, a cabana at one of the hip casino properties, or possibly a McMansion decorated in a tropical themed backyard, the pool, slide, wetbar, booze, drugs, and the potential for sexual exchange.

There are moments when my age ceases to exists as the decades of adventures in the excessive celebration come back to life pulling the inanimate digital files of debauchry off the shelf, then back into play. It all arrives so naturally, nothing forced, as if I happened to be conducting masters classes on how to go completely insane while having fun at the same time, the naunces of pushing the boundaries with no limits, walking along the line of extreme behavior and death, fearless, empowered, determined to outperform, over glutton, as well as lead the charge in the night time crowd pushing themselves in series with the ever intensely increasing sounds of the dance music coming from the speakers in the room, had a flow to it, a rythmn, which over time became ingrained into the DNA of the listener so no matter this person might be in the world, once that familiar pulsation of bass could be heard in the distance, a bee line rush in drone like fashion would be made to the source of that vibe until the person was enveloped in the subtlities of latin flavor, sped off to distant regions while reconnecting with various like minded brothers and sisters on the dancefloor.

The brood has been split into two camps. The early crowd that prefers a more mainstream sound, music that played again and again on the public airwaves until it achieves a subliminal state, a comfortable space where they can feel, cool, accepted, and unique while not undergoing a phase of self consciousness when the DJ begins playing vocal less techno music that only becomes more aggressive, uncomfortable, unstable, and erotic, setting off a nueral impulse inducing death cult, hyper sexuality, along side inexplicable indecent acts that make people unaccustom to such performance exceedingly distressed. Yet that is their personal issue which these types have to come to terms with in order to be considered amongst the true batch new brood who roam the neon streets nightly in conquest of fresh kicks, unyet imagined hedonism, and brain serum extracts that get the user higher than anything else known to the human race.

By 3am, the early crowd is gone, the music is proper, and the people in the place have no qualms in regards to race, sexuality, and distate, the foundation is being laid to maximize personal pleasure while sprinting through a drug stimulated time warp. The friend of mine wanted to go old school after being offered some exstacy tablets by a person we had be talking to throughout the night. I personally passed on the tablets for years after finding the powdered MDMA which always was purer and uncut without the sort of knockoff, easy to find, cheap, synthetic narcotics that gave the user a different ride everytime, could be good, but ocassional the chemicals in the pills only magnified an undercurrent of paranioa or smacked out emotions. Yet, how could I say no, when all the other 20 somethings around me were already high off their tits giving me the subconscious thumbs up, as if to say, hey old man, we hear all this talk of your reputation over the decades from this party to that party across the globe, well teach us something we don't already know, can you do it? Make a believer out of this crowd. Now my new place in the club is as elder statesman, motivating everyone around me to get mental, fall into the music, the fury of the beat, to throw everything away, self, ideal, any sort of hope in attaining all the lofty well placed goals of society, discard them, they no longer apply to anyone on the dancefloor right now, if you hang around past 5am, then the gods of the eternal evening succeeded in converting your soul into a lifetime participant, no matter what age, when the call is made, you will respond, take you rightful place amongst the new camp, to teach, to observe, and most of all to listen to the new camp, who seek wisdom, reassurance, and compassion from a life that at best sometimes feels volatile. The youth danced on, track after track, 5am arrived, as my age and unexercized will took control once more, daylight was upon us, not again, I thought, not another sunrise, the brightness of the sun would have to be postponed one more day, return to the isolation of my darkened room, let the afternoon pass, seek shelter with a familiar friend, let her soothing seduction calm nerves, give me the strength to go another day without real sleep, eyes dialated I look in the mirror, such a familiar sight, but the thighs of a fresh warm woman await, a delicacy one such as myself finds immense comfort and pleasure in with which to keep the horrors of a drug induced comedown far away.