As a profoundly dedicated music enthusiast, I’m deeply numbed by the Chicago and Rhode Island nightclub tragedies. My thoughts are with the victims, survivors, and their families, and I wish they didn’t need to be—I wish they weren’t ’cause I can think of nothing else, and it makes me want to throw up. While ostensibly preventable, these incidents were accidents—freak occurrences that could happen any time. But as patrons we can’t become alarmists or isolationists—only more cautious.
Just Monday night, attending an event at First Ave, I parked near the Fine Line Music Cafe, a fairly small venue that happened to be on fire due to a pyrotechnic display that set the ceiling ablaze. Though everyone inside escaped unharmed and the fire was extinguished within 15 minutes, I could smell the smoke from inside my car and feel the heat as I stepped outside. Fellow concert- and club-goers, take note of your environment and keep your cool in emergencies.
Having experienced many times tight concert crowds, I try to imagine the element of hysteria and recognize one major difference: if you fall in the pit, someone will pick you up—several people will pick you up. For the sake of everyone, please, always look out for and help one another, panic-situation or not.
A personal history of attending live events shouldn’t hinge on the stage where the performers are temporary, but on the interplay within the crowd—everyone around you is a part of you, as friends, as fellow fans, as mirrors of yourself. They’re the ones you wait in line with, the ones who give you water, who pull you off the floor and remember you from shows before, and they’re the ones you’ll see at the next show or concert—they’re your scene, community, and culture. Please please please, let’s take care of ourselves.
I donated blood on Wednesday. It’s a social responsibility, and I’ve been feeling socially depressed, helpless and enraged by statewide budget cuts threatening non-profits, same-sex benefit backslides, and the patronizing bullshit misinformation passed off as sex and drug education for the adolescents of Minnesota. I see boy and girl soldiers in fatigues on campus—they’ve been told to leave behind their lives lovers friends families I see their glassy eyes rimmed red and filling up, and I want to give them hugs and beat the hell out of them.
I wonder what kind of person my blood will go into—my borderline unacceptable, low-iron vegetarian feverish in-the-mind social-ill-angst-panacea-in-the-giving piss-poorly circulating blood. I hate to pigeonhole, but I hope it’s a Republican in a moment of need receiving the needful freely given ’cause that’s what people < should > do for other human beings.
Site News: Two new moments of s u s p e n s i o n have found me. The bored is busted—I’ve emailed the host, but who knows when it’ll be fixed. Siiiiiiigh. In other news, I’ve registered two domains: www.theteachingemotion.com and www.megholle.com. Both sites currently have the same splash page (linking to d6) featuring a photo of my friends Anna and Bennett, made eerie in Photoshop for my electronic arts class. It’s supposed to have “cinematic narrative,” wheeeeee—in New Orleans we sneaked into an alley that, uh, looked cool, and we found that wicked courtyard.
No, we weren’t supposed to be there at all. As for the new domains, I hope to eventually screw around with flash in one of these spaces—the true purpose, though, is so google picks up links and puts that action (my name and book) at the top. It’s been nearly a year, man… how ’bout some search engine love already.
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