Sunday, February 5, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
the larger implications of an awful night
A reasonable amount of time has passed since the show that made me so angry I started a blog. I'm still angry, but there are other issues to contend with as well.
I'm not comfortable with hitting a transperson, and I'm not comfortable with not being comfortable with it. Actually, scratch that. I'm not comfortable with how people perceive it when you say "I hit a transwoman because she wouldn't stop dry humping me and then she tackled me." If I said "I hit a man because he wouldn't stop dry humping me and then he tackled me," there would be understanding, if not a small round of applause. I don't think this is fair. At all. I think anytime I find myself in a situation that has become so threatening that I feel the need to physically defend myself I shouldn't have to question whether or not it's politically correct.
I understand that transpeople face many, many obstacles in their life and discrimination in more forms than most people could ever comprehend. I also tend to interact with people on a case-by-case basis, which is sometimes known as treating people like individual human beings with no regard for whatever differences they may be displaying, or concealing. Thus, when I am attacked by a person I respond in the way I'd respond if I were attacked by any person. Lastly, I was raised in a household that didn't exactly take gender roles seriously so I've spent the bulk of my life not giving a shit what's going on in your pants. I tend to give way more of a shit about what's going on in your head, and if what's going on in your head is "I think it's okay to violate another human being," I have a serious problem with that.
I used to be totally okay with physical confrontations, but getting older has done this crazy thing to me where I suddenly find myself thinking through my options before acting or, in this case, thinking through my options while acting.
Then there's one of the other horrifying issues on display at that show -- girls who were too drunk to stand and too drunk to speak being kissed/rubbed/groped. I would hope that by now most people agree that if someone is too drunk to stand or speak, they are too drunk to consent to any kind of sexual contact. I think that's pretty basic common sense. I also think that if you are the friend of a person who is so wasted they can't take care of themselves, you need to get the fuck out of your little bubble and help that person not get assaulted. Shitty as it is, most strangers are not going to want to get involved in that situation and as that person's friend you know if they are being touched by someone who is pre-approved for touching or if they are being touched by a fucking stranger in a room full of goddamn strangers.
My final issue is one that has become recurring. Since I sing in a hardcore band, I get touched a lot. I go out in the crowd, I push people, I lean into people, and they push and lean right back (with the exception of some guys who have no idea how to respond to a girl pushing and leaning into them while screaming in their faces -- they tend to just avert their eyes and act like maybe it's not happening). I love this touching. It's what makes running around and shouting like an idiot fun. Now, though, there's this weird thing where girls think that it's okay to touch me in what I shall delicately refer to as my no-no zone. Basically, I've been getting my tits grabbed by people who know how much it sucks to get your tits grabbed. I can't imagine anybody doing that to a dude they didn't know while he was running around and shouting.
Would you tweak his nipples while he was making that face?
If the answer is "no," please do not tweak/grope me.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
January 9th, 2012
We played at the Dustbowl in Chicago with Culo and Wild Child. I don't know how begin to list the problems I have with this place, the people who run it, and the people who hang out there. It was a last minute show, supposed to start at 8 or 9. We showed up, nobody was there. The space turned out to be a garage/workshop-cum-artist space. Ordinarily, these types of spaces are great.
Friends began arriving, arriving much to our surprise. We had let people know about the show via mass text a few hours before it started, so we weren't expecting much.
At 10:30, we just started setting up our stuff and playing. Nobody at the house would tell us anything. They had a tiny PA and an 8 foot mic cable attached to a board sitting on an end table. I explain to the guy who lives there that he might want to move it onto the floor or something. Everyone seems to be there to get fucked up. It occurs to me that not only have they never held a punk show, but they have maybe never been to one.
A girl starts filling a bubble machine on our bass amp after we repeatedly ask her to stop. She spills bubble shit all over the amp and the power strip, and then runs away. Another girl comes and gets the machine and apologizes. She is drinking vodka from the bottle and wearing a party dress.
We start playing. Immediately a transwoman dressed like a raver Teletubby takes over the area in front of me, along with a small man who is wearing headphones and appears to be mentally ill. The Teletubby starts to dry hump me. I push her away. She knocks me into the drums with the strength of a full grown man. I sprint after her and start to hit her with my microphone. I stop, but I'm not sure why. She continues to take up an 8'x8' space by herself.
In the meantime, the small mentally ill man is following me around, pelvic thrusting while holding onto his crotch, his hands firmly inside of his pants. I am not okay with this. My friends are not okay with this. Nobody wants to hit a mentally ill man.
Theresa breaks a string after our second song. I am thankful we can just stop playing, but then someone produces a guitar and we continue. The rest of our set is a shit show, with me unable to move due to the Teletubby and the thruster.
At the end of our set, a random guy starts setting up electronics equipment. He plays dance music for about an hour. People are getting more fucked up. The punks wait it out in the next room. I am upset about the events of the last couple hours.
Wild Child starts playing. They are unhappy with this show. People are push moshing. They are very, very drunk. I am standing with a friend when the bubble machine girl stumbles at us. She vomits and falls to the floor. Someone carries her away but she comes back and starts making out with the Teletubby in the middle of the drunk pit. They fall down. Everyone falls on them. Things are going from bad to worse.
A guy keeps elbowing Cole and the singer from Culo. A fight breaks out. I have to pull Cole and two of our friends off the guy. A girl starts yelling at us. The guy starts crying because he lost the WWII knife he brought to the show. These people are so fucked up they can't talk. The punks have united, though. There is a palpable undercurrent of tension. The puking bubble machine girl can't even stand up on her own. The Teletubby has been dry humping people the entire set. The bubble machine girl is not laying down in front of the drums, shrieking. Wild Child stops their set to make a plea for sanity. It doesn't work. They finish. They were awesome.
Culo sets up. They play like shit, but great shit. A lady friend gets knocked out. The people who live at the house are throwing garbage at the punks. The Teletubby gets in my face to ask if I'm still mad at her. I tell her to stay away from me. I tell our guitarist I'm never playing or going there again. He tells me I'm being close minded. I am furious.
I am also pathetically grateful to our friends (old and new) for coming, and staying. Culo plays too long, feeding the fire. There's more smoke than actual air in the room. They stop playing, and we get out of there as fast as we can. The people who run the place are being dumb about money. We tell them to pay Wild Child, not us, since we are local and Wild Child is not. They don't understand. I hate them. Someone threatens to set our car on fire. We leave.
Larger implications of this clusterfuck to be discussed in the next post.
Friends began arriving, arriving much to our surprise. We had let people know about the show via mass text a few hours before it started, so we weren't expecting much.
At 10:30, we just started setting up our stuff and playing. Nobody at the house would tell us anything. They had a tiny PA and an 8 foot mic cable attached to a board sitting on an end table. I explain to the guy who lives there that he might want to move it onto the floor or something. Everyone seems to be there to get fucked up. It occurs to me that not only have they never held a punk show, but they have maybe never been to one.
A girl starts filling a bubble machine on our bass amp after we repeatedly ask her to stop. She spills bubble shit all over the amp and the power strip, and then runs away. Another girl comes and gets the machine and apologizes. She is drinking vodka from the bottle and wearing a party dress.
We start playing. Immediately a transwoman dressed like a raver Teletubby takes over the area in front of me, along with a small man who is wearing headphones and appears to be mentally ill. The Teletubby starts to dry hump me. I push her away. She knocks me into the drums with the strength of a full grown man. I sprint after her and start to hit her with my microphone. I stop, but I'm not sure why. She continues to take up an 8'x8' space by herself.
In the meantime, the small mentally ill man is following me around, pelvic thrusting while holding onto his crotch, his hands firmly inside of his pants. I am not okay with this. My friends are not okay with this. Nobody wants to hit a mentally ill man.
Theresa breaks a string after our second song. I am thankful we can just stop playing, but then someone produces a guitar and we continue. The rest of our set is a shit show, with me unable to move due to the Teletubby and the thruster.
At the end of our set, a random guy starts setting up electronics equipment. He plays dance music for about an hour. People are getting more fucked up. The punks wait it out in the next room. I am upset about the events of the last couple hours.
Wild Child starts playing. They are unhappy with this show. People are push moshing. They are very, very drunk. I am standing with a friend when the bubble machine girl stumbles at us. She vomits and falls to the floor. Someone carries her away but she comes back and starts making out with the Teletubby in the middle of the drunk pit. They fall down. Everyone falls on them. Things are going from bad to worse.
A guy keeps elbowing Cole and the singer from Culo. A fight breaks out. I have to pull Cole and two of our friends off the guy. A girl starts yelling at us. The guy starts crying because he lost the WWII knife he brought to the show. These people are so fucked up they can't talk. The punks have united, though. There is a palpable undercurrent of tension. The puking bubble machine girl can't even stand up on her own. The Teletubby has been dry humping people the entire set. The bubble machine girl is not laying down in front of the drums, shrieking. Wild Child stops their set to make a plea for sanity. It doesn't work. They finish. They were awesome.
Culo sets up. They play like shit, but great shit. A lady friend gets knocked out. The people who live at the house are throwing garbage at the punks. The Teletubby gets in my face to ask if I'm still mad at her. I tell her to stay away from me. I tell our guitarist I'm never playing or going there again. He tells me I'm being close minded. I am furious.
I am also pathetically grateful to our friends (old and new) for coming, and staying. Culo plays too long, feeding the fire. There's more smoke than actual air in the room. They stop playing, and we get out of there as fast as we can. The people who run the place are being dumb about money. We tell them to pay Wild Child, not us, since we are local and Wild Child is not. They don't understand. I hate them. Someone threatens to set our car on fire. We leave.
Larger implications of this clusterfuck to be discussed in the next post.
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