The following is Chapter 10 of my memoir, "Paper Squares and Purple Stars: My Life as a Rave Outlaw." I'll be sharing the book on t2 for free, chapter by chapter, but you can buy a copy and check out the reviews here. If you're just getting started now, check my t2 page and start at the bottom to read the previous chapters and the preface to catch up!
Chapter 10 - Where’s the Party? (March 2008)
I wasn't able to see the news broadcast because I lived in Baltimore and it was a local report for a Philly station, but moments after it aired, my MySpace feed was filled with grainy recordings that ravers took of their televisions. I clicked one of the links to see the woman that was standing in the middle of the street that night, she worked for NBC10 News. From the start, the report was a blatant rip-off of the classic “do you know where your children are” cliché that has been recycled and regurgitated by news anchors for decades.
The reporter introduced the story with the following monologue: “We’re about to take you inside a rave, where you'll see underage kids and drugs. Where's the party? Ravers call it God's basement. During weekdays, the basement is a typical school cafeteria. But when the sun goes down on Friday nights, this basement in West Philadelphia is used for something else. This is no grammar school, but we got quite an education from Tru Skool’s rave party headquarters. We showed administrators at Philadelphia's Global Leadership Academy Charter School what we found in the basement on a recent weekend. It's your basic rave, complete with techno music, lights, and glowsticks.”
News clip:
The report then showed footage both inside and outside of God’s Basement during a show and you could see the reporters sneaking into the party dressed like ravers, with Care Bear backpacks, butterfly wings, and kandi bracelets.
“That's me, undercover. I slipped in with a couple of other NBC 10 employees,” the reporter said, adding that, “I paid fifteen dollars to get in. We're searched at the door for weapons. We see alcohol but mostly marijuana. Lots of kids lighting up. This one is wearing a pillbox around his neck. Lollipops and candy pacifiers are popular among teens taking the designer drug ecstasy. Here's a nitrous oxide balloon being filled for another kind of high.”
Then they interviewed the snitch, she was some overbearing mother who probably made her child's life a nightmare. They protected her identity by using one of those voice distortion devices and they had her face covered by a giant shadow, like she was in the witness protection program or something.
"It's dangerous. They're going there, and they're allowed to do drugs in these places, openly. They're doing Ecstasy. I think it's despicable," the snitch said behind a dark silhouette.
When it came time to give us a chance to defend ourselves, the statement that Mickey made to the press was chopped up, taken out of context and used against us. Mickey made a statement to the media at NBC10 studios that took him 20 minutes to deliver. He spoke about the culture of freedom and love that God’s Basement was a part of, and about the community that was the only thing that was holding some of these kids’ lives together. He told them about the code that us ravers lived by, PLUR, which stands for peace, love, unity, and respect. Sadly, they did not air any of that footage. Instead, they chose to use two sentences which painted the picture that they wanted to show people. Out of all the things that Mickey said, the only words that they decided to show were, "We try our best to stop it. If our best isn't good enough, we apologize."
They set us up. They baited us into making a statement so they could twist it to fit their own narrative. Still, we were a few steps ahead of them. As the segment aired and news crews formed their plan to swarm God’s Basement later that evening, Mickey was across town setting up at an entirely different venue. The Tru Skool MySpace page that was shown on the news went silent, and the address for the replacement venue was passed through the underground by word of mouth, phone and text. Within hours, thousands of God’s Basement regulars received the message. Just in case, Mickey left someone behind to hang out in the parking lot to point lost ravers in the right direction, but they would later tell us that no one was there aside from a few confused cops and news reporters.
I was driving a full car that night, Caylee, Jerry, Duke and my eccentric friend Matt from back home rode along with me. When we got to the new venue, I parked a few blocks away just in case the cops found the place before we did.
“Yo, we should probably just take our pills now and not have anything on us when we walk up there. Who knows what we might run into tonight,” I warned as I grabbed a bag of orange snowman pills from my pocket and tossed them to Jerry in the back seat.
“You guys are taking two at the same time?” Matt asked.
“Uhhh...Yeah, It's not always the best idea cuz sometimes it will mess up your stomach, but we can't risk having anything on us,” Duke replied.
“Do you think I can have two?” Matt asked.
“You know your body brotha, if you think you can handle it then go for it,” I said.
“It sucks we can't take any weed in there,” Jerry said.
“Yeah man, I know. It’s fucking lame. That's like the most obvious thing for them to see and smell if there are cops and reporters in there. This is bigger than just a party now though, we gotta make some sacrifices to keep this shit alive,” I said as I placed our weed stash in the glove box.
God’s Basement was tucked away in a residential part of the hood where the streets were dark and quiet at night, but this new place was downtown and in a high traffic area. As we stood in line waiting to get inside, I remember hoping that this spot would be a suitable replacement for God's Basement.
“What the fuck is taking so long? The line was never this crazy at God’s,” Duke said.
“Looks like they are checkin shoes yo, and I got no clue who them meatheads at the door are,” Jerry said, poking his head above the crowd trying to see what was happening at the front of the line.
“Shit, I'm glad we played it safe,” I said.
Sure enough, when we reached the front of the line, we faced a relentless search that reminded me of the treatment that we got at those stuffy clubs back home, and it seemed that the security guards may have been off-duty cops. As soon as I got through, I found Mickey and asked him what was up. He said the security measures were required by the venue, and it was the only way that he could get anyone to agree to host the show, especially after we were treated like gangsters on the local news. Our conversation was interrupted by a sloppy middle-aged man who was wearing a stained wifebeater and a cheap gold chain. I assumed he was the owner of the club because he started to complain about a drink that was spilled on a pool table and quickly rushed Mickey away to the scene of the crime. I could tell that this guy didn’t trust us and that this place was going to be nothing like God’s Basement. All of the lights in the building were on, even on the dance floor, and the security was at full staff. It was also significantly smaller than God’s Basement, and it was set up way more like a bar or lounge than a rave.
I noticed that there were chrome poles scattered throughout the dance floor and realized that this must have been a strip club at one point in the past, which is really the only thing that I found charming about the place.
The venue was definitely an odd fit, but it was all we had for now, and Mickey was willing to give it a shot, so I was along for the ride. While I was wandering around scoping out the new spot, Mickey hopped on the stage and grabbed the mic.
“They thought they could stop us! But they just drove us deeper underground!” Mickey yelled into the mic. The packed room erupted in cheers and applause.
“These are crazy times, but now more than ever we need to remember what has kept our culture alive this long. Like I always say, we gotta respect the rules we break and watch our backs, and watch each other's backs because the outside world has decided that our community is the enemy. We all saw that very clearly in the news report where they misrepresented us and cut my statement apart until there wasn't anything left. Now all them assholes are camped out in front of our home just waiting to exploit us even more,” Mickey said, the audience now silent, hanging on his every word.
“God’s Basement is an amazing place, and we are going to fight to get it back, but it wasn't the place that made the party, it's the people. We can take this anywhere as long as we have the love and the music...So Tru Skool is here to stay, welcome to the Skool House everybody, let's have a blast tonight!!
After that announcement, DJ Starkiss played an excellent happy hardcore set, but in the middle of one of his tracks when he was about to drop the beat, he switched over to “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, just to troll the crowd with a rickroll. The community was definitely there, so in a way, it did seem like we could take our party anywhere, but it still didn't feel like home. We all made the most of the evening though, which wasn't hard to do because those pills ended up being amazing. Although, as the night went on, Matt began acting increasingly weird, which was really something we had come to expect from him, and honestly one of the things we came to love about him, but tonight was different, it was almost like he was someone else. I noticed something was off when I spotted him standing near the bathroom with his shirt off talking to a stranger who was laughing so hard he could barely stand up.
“How u doin brotha?” I asked casually.
“I'm doing fantastic, I was just reading this guy’s mind,” Matt said, with bulging eyes.
“Your buddy here is a fucking riot. He was just making the most ridiculous Jim Morrison impression, which is crazy because he looks just like him!” the stranger said laughing.
“No, you don't get it, man… I AM Jim Morrison...I AM THE LIZARD KING! I CAN DO ANYTHING!” Matt proclaimed in a voice that did seem eerily familiar to Jim Morrison.
“See what I mean? Dude could legit work in Vegas or some shit,” the stranger said.
“You like the Dire Straits,” Matt said in a very calm and creepy voice.
“Uhhh...Yeah, I actually fucking love the Dire Straits. How'd you know that?” the stranger asked.
“You like the Dire Straits because I do, for I am the son of God,” Matt said with an entirely straight face.
“This fucking guy! That escalated quickly. First, he's Jim Morrison, next he's Jesus,” our random raver erupted in laughter again.
“I am Jimmi Hendrix, and so are you...Don't you get it man? We are all everyone. Whoever we want to be,” Matt said.
The stranger began egging him on and asking him more questions, so I figured his weirdness wasn't hurting anyone, if anything they were getting a kick out of it. I was a bit concerned that he seemed to be disassociating with reality, it looked like he actually believed some of the crazy things that he was saying, so I knew that it would be best for me to keep an eye on him. Just minutes later, I saw him leaning on a very large and intimidating man while shouting in his ear, still wearing no shirt and sweating like crazy. I quickly moved through the crowd to intervene in the conversation.
“Hey, I hope my friend isn't bothering you. It's his first time out in a while,” I said nervously.
“Don't apologize, He's the best! We’re gonna put him on the mic in a minute,” the large stranger said. It seemed that he was one of the MCs for the evening since he had control of the mic.
“Are you sure that's a good idea?” I asked.
“Of course! This man has a message that the people need to hear,” the MC said laughing.
I had no clue what Matt said to this guy to convince him to hand over the mic, but after hearing the conversations he was having earlier, I was really nervous about them letting him up on that stage. The outcome was even worse than I anticipated too, instead of getting up there and saying some crazy shit, he just puked all over the stage as soon as they handed him the mic, and yes, the mic did pick up the audio. Mickey rushed to the stage to see what was up and asked if Matt was on anything, to which he replied, “I'm on ecstasy.” On any other night Mickey might have sat down with him for a few minutes and had a conversation to make sure that everything was OK, but tonight there was a zero-tolerance policy. Everyone had to be on their best behavior, and we fucked up. I walked over to the corner of the bar where Mickey and Juggalo had Matt isolated. They were trying to make sure he was coherent and didn't need medical help, and they were trying to figure out who brought him there.
“He came here with me,” I confessed as I approached them.
“Fuck! All the way from Baltimore?” Mickey asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“I'm sorry man but he's gotta go, I have no choice. My hands are tied. He yelled out in front of the owner that he's on drugs. It doesn't matter who he's with, he's gotta go. I'm sorry,” Mickey said.
“No, I understand, I’m sorry. I feel like I'm always letting you down,” I said.
“It's not your fault for trying to bring people to my party, but I bet you'll learn from this though,” Mickey said.
“Nah I already have, I get it...Good luck tonight, I'm sorry about everything, I'll get him out of here,” I said, grabbing Matt by the shoulder.
Juggalo walked us out, and the whole way Matt would not stop saying crazy shit. Eventually, as we were leaving out the back door, Juggalo told him, “You're a real dick for getting my friends kicked out of the party, you better give them some money for driving you all the way out here.”
“Money for nothin man, chicks for free,” Matt said as he strutted away with no shirt on.
“What the fuck?! Is this kid fucking serious!?” Juggalo shouted as we disappeared into the darkness.
The ride home was not pleasant, to say the least. As soon as we got on the highway, Matt announced that he had to puke again, but there was no way in hell that I was going to pull over to the side of the road at this time of night.
“Well you better do it out the window because I'm not pulling over so some fucking pig can scoop us up for looking like a bunch of junkies on the side of the road,” I said.
“Ok. I'll puke in my shirt,” he said.
“What?!” everyone in the car shouted in unison.
Sure enough, he did use his shirt as some sort of receptacle and he threw the whole damn thing out the window when he was done with it. He entirely avoided making a mess of my car but also succeeded in grossing everyone out. Thinking back on it, they may have been a bit angry with me for refusing to pull over, but pulling over on the side of the road to puke is asking for trouble, and that was not a risk that I was willing to take. For the entire ride home, Matt was stuck in a frantic loop, telling the same strange stories on repeat. Head loops happen on psychedelics sometimes, where people get caught in a feedback cycle about a negative thought and obsess over it for long periods of time, but with him I could tell that there was something far deeper happening.
“When I was in the nuthouse I would always tell them nurses ‘sometimes ya feel like a nut, sometimes ya don't’,” Matt said over and over like a broken record.
Until that moment, I hadn't realized that he was institutionalized in the past, and I had no clue that he had these types of inner struggles. I thought that he was just a bit strange like the rest of us.
News Clip: https://youtu.be/yCDA9kxAI4U
