Party time
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Party is a phenomenon which is knocking out the cultures of the world, turning all those special traditions of the planet into a homologous system of behaviours.
Last night I was in Barcelona, Spain at the party celebrations for the day of San Juan. (mi santo in fact…) it has changed radically in the last twenty years when I witnessed my first San Juan party night. Alcohol and other substance of course have been well in evidence since the end of Franco’s days, but the party was essentially to detonate fireworks. An excuse for a fun party night. But I remember this twenty years ago was more for Catalan families – a sense of local fun.
Last night I wandered with my girlfriend down to the port and realised we were suddenly in a mass exodus of young and old , a growing and swelling river of partyseekers driving headlong towards the sea. The beach. (Danny Boyle’s movie The Beach was making this same statement then). I heard a lot more languages than heard Spanish or Catalan….The scenes on the beach at Barceloneta would without doubt make some of the more saintly Santos shudder. Don’t get me wrong – I love a good party but the idea of a beach packed with thousands and thousands of tourists self-imported to the party-city Barcelona…. gulping down mojitos, sidestepping to electronic trancewaves, and scanning the beach for beers or more mojitos is somehow not really my cup of tea. The party has become a traveling freak show on which everyone is expected to jump. If you dont get on to the party trip then you might as well realise your just unhip….
The party culture now has spread across the planet into every western country and more often than not into places where before there was no such concept. I have been in or seen with variation the same party in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Montreal, Valparaiso, Edinburgh, anywhere in Spain, Goa etc etc….A curious human phenomenon to self destruct under the illusion of having a party good-time.
The pressures to drink have intensified over the years although I never feel threatened by the alcoholic party mob – I stopped drinking years ago – but I notice the defensiveness of those who react to me when I tell them I am NOT drinking, rather like meat-eaters who become confronted at a dinner party with a vegetarian. Oh well I dont normally eat meat more than ..um.. twice a week.
An ex of mine says she loves the groove of the trance music style as it brings a tribal unity to the people involved. Ok, it may be true the modern party does generate smiling and a friendly vibe ( for sure more than the mods and rockers of my teens) but high on dope and scorched with spirits I think anyone can feel open free and ready to do whatever some babe of the other sex might want them to do.
The powers-that-be
I believe the modern party is being used by the powers-that-be to reduce the potential energy of the race we call human. I am sure David Icke would agree. A gradual slide into the party-that-never-stops, where the addiction to the event is empowered subconsciously to the mention of the word. Torremolinos in southern Spain was for years slighted as the party place that no one with style would want to be seen dead at. Tenerife, Barcelona – all tourist pollution spots on the globe. Party tourism for me is destroying our world rapidly due to the tourist’s arrogant assumption that they are better or more educated than the natives who just happen to occupy the place they have come to. A form of peaceful colonialism where the visitors dictate the future and eventually the present. A plastic party audio-visual party chemical party descent party destruction.
So a call to action !!!