Everyone in the community has something to say about it, to criticize or embellish regarding its state, or a piece they will endlessly lay claim to. I asked myself for a point in the maelstrom, the madness, the endless masquerade of excess and circumstance.
So I broke it down for myself in a way that I am content with, whether it can be agreed upon or not.
Nightlife has many quirks, many different classifications of characters, venues, contests, rivalries. There are performers who never made it big, some who never will, some who don't want to, some who are about to in a big way. There are pretty people who are grossly unattractive. There are ugly people who are inexplicably sexy. There are both. And neither.
In nightlife there are drag queens - some young, some not so young. Some gorgeous, some busted to shit. There are drag queens who will engage you in sparkling conversations every time you see them, and some who will ignore you completely... every time you see them. There are some who are work horses, and some who are show ponies. Both are necessary and both are good at different things. Some are famous because they can have you rolling on the floor, and some are famous because you just cannot stop looking at them.
Nightlife stars alcoholics and self-proclaimed prophets, it stars souls deadened and empty, and those full and full of themselves. There are club kids in their fifties, club kids in their teens, club kids who hate being called club kids. There are promoters and producers, self-promotional geniuses who are seen as pricks and cunts merely because they understand the tricky, almost intangible art of making everybody know their name. There are people who are just pricks and cunts. There are somebodies who act like nobodies, nobodies who act like somebodies. There are people that crash every party and pull every stunt in the book to get recognized, yet no one cares. There are people that do nothing and then wake up in the morning to find themselves on every guest list in town.
There are photographers, some are your best friends, some are your worst enemy. Some are amazing artists, some are into blind self-promotion. Some will love you, some will hate you. Sadly, some forget that they are real people too.
There are bartenders sculpted from clay, have little to say, make amazing drinks, make shitty drinks, put pills in your drinks. There are some who will ignore you if you don't put down your card. There are some who will walk you to a taxi because they want you to be safe. There are gogo boys and burlesque girls of all shapes and sizes, bouncers with bad fucking attitudes and bouncers who ask how your mother is doing.
There are people emaciated by their emotional lack of social, sexual, and fame-driven fulfillment. There are content people who want to make art and cool shit with other people who want to make other art and other cool shit. There are people whose boundaries for hedonism have absolutely no price tag.
There are people you drink with and greet regularly whose name and face you will forget in six months, and there are some with whom who you will be friends forever.
Everyone has a place, and everyone is essential.
But the one thing in common between each and every one of these people? The one element that drew them in and keeps them in the unstable and sometimes self-destructive stratosphere known as nightlife?
This foreign notion of fun, fun for all, fun because we are psychos and freaks, fun because we don't give a fuck, fun because we live in the most exciting city in the western world... this sense of "fun" is what drew everyone in, what keeps people staying, what we seem to have regressed from so sadly. Yes, there are VIPs, and yes there are lists, and all of these things are necessary, but they are meant to keep the machine in a spin cycle... not to indulge an unfulfilled fantasy of high school elitism - a delineation that is sadly and sorely not often made.
And this "fun" is why I have decided all that it will be. This, within itself. Those who choose to join me in this, I welcome it. Those who do not, very well. We are all different, as I listed above. We are all entitled to have opinions, to talk shit about each other, we are ALL GUILTY of it. But hopefully if you did take the time to look at this, like I did to spit it out, then perhaps we can all challenge our conditioned notions of being too good, not good enough, taking a simple thing as a party and its events way too seriously... and remember before we even walk in why we are all there - to have a good time and to make memories, and to enjoy the opportunity we all share to be here, at this point in time.
Time for bed.
Thank you for your consideration.
No comments:
Post a Comment