Out and About: Raves for Red Wine Drinkers

When a person is butt naked in public, I think even the slightest display of grace becomes an act of elegance. I say “butt naked” because this gentleman’s arse was bare against the sofa where he sat, one leg cradled in the other next to a clothed party. His remaining bits were concealed by a tool belt, which at its maximum width would’ve been no broader than a standard can of baked beans. The slightest distance concealed it completely; giving an impression the man was sipping his red wine (using his free hand as a dainty saucer) with his giblets—not unlike the wine—breathing freely.

 

This sight and more were available for everyone and anyone to witness just last Saturday. If you were in Brisbane, all you had to do was go to a certain party supply store at a certain time. You couldn’t miss it.

 Besides the humming generator and the large bouncer, the window was filled with red-lit party statuettes—Nutcracker men, penguin waiters and a legless torso draped in a feather boa. This was just the window dressing. Literally. Inside gave way to a world lit in Starburst colours. Two giant disco-balls sprayed everything with flashes of silver. The building itself was a wrought iron shed, but a wrought iron shed which stored party decorations. More disfigured (but cheery) torsos hung from the high ceiling, along with what I think was an oversized sombrero made of old Courier Mail signage. A large flamingo surveyed the dance floor and we used large acme barrels for tables. This was, I should add, a BYO event. I’d brought a bottle of red, and was intending on hobo-ing it, until I saw the organizers had provided cups. Not only that, they had brought water (both free and ‘honesty based’) and esky’s for “public drinks”. Having been both carded and retinal-ly scanned at Ric’s the night before (since when did they do that?) this all seemed incredibly high-class. After all my previous idea of a ‘rave’ was a green-lit flophouse, cavernous except for a few jelly-eyed dub-steppers in eye goggles. Not that this rave didn’t have some of that.

I was asked if I dub stepped. I did not, but he didn’t mind. Most people were happy dancing their own way. (Too pretty good music as well, sort of like funk but without lyrics). My favourite dance move was the ‘back wings’, a lucid flapping of the arms at ones back. This was performed by a woman resembling Peaches’ Grandma (Peaches Peaches, not Peaches Geldof. Ew). Co-incidentally she was dancing near what looked like a young Mugatu – man corset and meggings included. There were aged Ravers in the aforementioned bug-eye glasses and Party Monster looks—a man’s bald head was painted black with a jagged motif, lips so dark and moist it looked as if he’d  been mackin’ with a punnet of blackberries. There were the obligatory harnessed bears (FYI; in general this meant furry gay men with two straps of leather criss-crossed over their chests, adjoined by stainless steel rings centred on their sternums and central backs. Usually worn with hilariously aerobics-looking bike-pants.)  and topless guys—not to leave out the star-nipped woman. My favourite was the country bumpkin couple, one of whom came dressed in full-length dungarees. I side stepped the entire hillbilly-homo innuendo and instead staged elaborate fantasies where-in I went to his farm and he made me scones. There would be geese there—dainty gay geese.  

In case you couldn’t tell, by that point I was fairly wasted. Fantasies involving baked goods and homosexual birds is a dead giveaway. But to my credit I was dancing before that. Although by that point I was slipping into all kinds of terrible dance-like motions. A rhythmic churning of the air was my low point, and the point at which I started laughing at myself. That’s what makes me a terrible group dancer—I’m constantly laughing at my own horrendous dance moves. It mustn’t give the best impression. And how do I explain over the din that ‘oh my God did you see what I just did then? – what was I thinking!?’ It’s a severe form of self-consciousness not welcome in a place where I’m supposed to give myself to the music and feel the rhythm. So I spent much of the evening dancing with one of the barrel-cum-tables. No really. Even when I finally peeled my hands off, I always kept one of those dark-wood, metal ringed babies in my sights. The one occasion I did leave it did not go well. I mean, where am I supposed to look when dancing in a group? At each other? To smile? Why? All I do is stand there wondering about what I’m supposed to be transmitting and for what purpose. You’d think drinking would help, but it only exacerbates things. I started dancing to the large pink flamingo, which was by then smearing into three or four. 

The bathroom is always a good place to gauge the mood of a place. In some places the lines are rowdy and the floor covered in a soup of liquids. Bleach and flames help you if any part of your outfit touches that muck. Others are clean-ish but cold. There’s much muttering and the occasional flurry of argument. At the rave there was only one bathroom. Outside there was a small anteroom with a flowers. On a small table sat a small vaporizer of perfume – Diesel Green to be exact. Strangers chatted. These were people unfamiliar not only by being unacquainted, but by age, race, sexual orientation, and socio-economic ya-di-ya-da. This wasn’t just a singular occurrence either, this was throughout the place and all over the night. Even I got to talking. It made me wonder. Are bars with a set type of customer; young, old, poor, rich, Indie, Goth, etc really ideal? Brisbane is gaining more ‘niche’ establishments, some with pretentiously self-proclaimed ‘high standards’, but is it really such a good thing? Or is it just more and more places where people go to feel inadequate about how they look, to stress more about what they aren’t than what they are? Of course this suits the owners just fine—since what improves a poorly selected ensemble more than a Daiquiri? 

Perhaps there’s some notion of similar people being happier together. I’m not so sure. Looking into the murky, pizza-bit filled memory of other nights out, all the fights I’ve witnessed have been between very similar people. I have never seen a Footballer wailing on  a Raver, or a Tart tearing into a Hip-Hopper. Maybe I’m going to the wrong places—or simplifying things too much. But I imagine Ric’s has installed such extreme security measures because of fights between their ‘target audience’, rather than who they perceive as being outsiders. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt, and I for one don’t want to go to a place filled with people like me. There wouldn’t be enough barrels for us all to cling to.