One of the TV channels I watch has taken to airing stress breaks. In the middle of their wall-to-wall news coverage of whatever nightmare is plaguing our world this week, they'll suddenly insert thirty seconds of puppies and kitties frolicking in a flower garden. It's probably just filler where an ad would normally go, but it's a nice breather.
We could all use more frolicking puppies and kitties right about now.
It's tough to be the light-hearted columnist in a world where not too many hearts are light these days. 2020 is proving to be a tough year to fix with a few paragraphs about my cats or how much I hate to clean my house (but if you're wondering, my cats remain awesome and my house remains messy.)
For me, the biggest heartbreak in all of this is seeing how divided we've become. Facing problems is hard, but it's harder when you leap on social media only to find some "friend" you haven't seen since high school yelling opinions at you. I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.
Sometimes I just wanna stop and post a picture of a cat to my Facebook page. But I can already envision the comments:
"Aww, what a cute cat."
"CATS ARE TERRIBLE, LIBTARD! #teamdogs"
"They say owning a cat reduces stress levels by 8.5%"
"The WHO just refuted that study."
"The CDC just refuted the WHO study."
"DON'T TRUST ANY STUDIES YOU SEE IN THE MEDIA, SHEEPLE #fakenews"
"Cats matter."
"ALL ANIMALS MATTER!"
"You're a speciesist!"
"Your cat needs a rabies tag."
"VACCINES ARE POISON!"
"THERE IS NO RABIES, PEOPLE. IT'S JUST A BAD FLU!"
"HILARY CLINTON EXPERIMENTS ON CATS IN THE BASEMENT OF A PIZZA PLACE IN NEW JERSEY. #WAKEUP"
By morning, I'd be lucky if Kim Kardashian wasn't hosting a benefit for feline rights or the President wasn't tweeting that my cat is a communist.
I've always subscribed to the simple premise of being nice to people and wondering why we can't just all get along. Of course, it's probably complacent idealism along those lines that's allowed systemic racism to fester for decades. I get the anger. I understand the tipping points, whether it's witnessing a senseless murder or watching your income dry up while we shelter-in-place. I don't think the answers can be found by torching an Autozone or proudly walking into a crowded room without a mask, but I get the anger. It's palpable and well deserved.
But I swear to you, we can and will get past this. I've seen it before. I've been to places where we all got along without pretense or drama. It's possible. Maybe we just need a good beat.
Most people graduate college and join the work force. I had the bright idea to become a rave promoter.
You remember raves, right? Find an inconspicuous warehouse, pack it with as many kids and loudspeakers as logistically possible, and then blast thumping house music at inhuman volumes from dusk to dawn. For much of the early 1990s, it was my life -- and for a while, it felt like utopia.
Every good movement has its slogan. In the rave community, that slogan was PLUR -- "Peace, Love, Unity, Respect." It was the credo of the scene, and it held true more often than not. No one was turned away from a rave. No one was judged or marginalized -- if you liked house music in the early 90s, you were marginalized enough as is. Raves were a safe space to hang with like-minded weirdos and dance like lunatics without anyone caring.
Out of boredom, last week I hooked up my old VCR and went through a pile of unlabeled VHS tapes in my closet. The very first was footage from a 1994 rave I helped organize in downtown Davenport. We had 1100 people at that party, and watching that tape was even better than frolicking kitties.
We didn't even notice at the time, but it was a sea of diversity. No one cared what race you were. No one cared if you liked boys or girls or if you were a Republican or a Democrat. It was just a big collective of weirdos celebrating each other, their shared love of dance culture, and their shared future early-onset hearing loss (hey, nothing's perfect.)
We had licensed, uniformed security at every event we organized. They were usually really bored. In over 100 events, the worst thing I saw was a yelling match in a bathroom, and strangers had already self-policed the scuffle before we even caught wind of it.
Of course, utopias seldom last, and neither did raves. Like most fads, crowds shrank after a few years. In larger cities, drugs and crime and cops put the kibash to most parties. I'm sure those same issues would have filtered down here eventually had we not retired from party promoting at the wise old age of 24. But those glory days were something special, and I'm proud to have played a part.
I'm not an idiot -- I know we can't solve racial disparity, airborne pandemics, or political strife with a well-choreographed dance-off. Real life is not the "Beat It" video, which is good because I'm a terrible dancer. But I know we can do better than this.
At the very least, let's try and inject some PLUR into our lives. We can and should talk about the issues plaguing our world. But we should be able to do it without yelling, looting, doxxing, mask-shaming, trolling, or murdering our fellow humans.
Call me a snowflake if you want. I won't be able to hear you. My ears are still ringing from that party back in 1994.
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