RAVE

There is nothing like being in a university town. Espeically when that university has 100,000 students and drinking alcohol outside (in a park, on the streets) is legal. Combine that with an infatuaion of techno and you got yourself one hell of night.

I am by no means a raver. I don't like the music palyed at raves and would probably not like the people who attend. I am not a big drinker and have never done any drugs. (Come on, this bod is one of a kind. Got to take care of it).

There is an annual party that is held the last saturday of Setemper: Lo Street Rave Parade. I asked my boy Luigi why it was in English and why it wasn't just 'Street Rave' or 'The Prade' but he did not provide me with a good enough explication. I tried to tell him that having both the word 'Rave' and 'Parade' was unecessary. He wasn't having it.

When he extended the invite to accompany him and his friends to this Rave I immdediately said yes. I knew I probably wasn't going to like it but I want to take advantage of everything offered to me while I'm here. Plus, I knew I was going to see some wiiiiiiiiiiiild sh#t.

While we were waiting for the bus I knew we were in for quite a night. I was with around 7 other students and they were all on their way to drunkness. I had to pass on every beer, and bottle of wine that was offered to me for two reasons: 1. I honestly did not want any and 2. I thought it was best to not be 5th person to drink out of the same bottle.

We boarded the bus along with two other groups of students who were either drunk, or in the process of getting. We arrived at our destination and as I exited the bus I looked at the bus driver and although he didn't say it, I felt like he was praying for all of us. He knew where we were headed and he knew what goes down at these things. But hey, this guy doesn't get paid to give advice, (thats what your therapist is for. Or for others, to also prescribe a little sumtin sumtin) he is their to drive and he did his job damn well.

The walk to the rave itself was only 2 minutes but you could have been standing ontop of The Statue of Liberity and probably caught some tunes. Upon first glance of the scene, I precited the amount of time until my migraine was felt. I gave it 11 minutes.

Every 20 feet there were massive white vans with giant sound systems. Each one was blasting techno music and had hords of people dancing in front of them. Well, I don't know if you could call it dancing. In my opinion, it was more like every person's crotch was fire and they were trying to put it out with invisible water.

Every 10 feet there was a vendor selling beer. Man, they were raking in the dough on this one. Every 30 seconds a drunk and/or possibly drugged out italian would stumble up to the vendor and just point and hand them money. I say the odds the vendors hustled them was 1 out of every 4. Shoot, I would've.

As the rest of my group was getting absolutely HAMMERED (they were now passing around an espresso liquor) I began trying to remeber at what hour the buses stopped running. I wanted to plan my exit route now so I could encounter as few problems as possible when I actually decided to split. At this point, I had been there for 15 minutes and was going to give it another 15.

Luigi then saw someone he knew and she told us to come to where her friends were raving out (Yeah! Totatally!) so we relocated. I was up for it. Maybe a change of scenery would provide new entertainment. Nope.

As I began walking it seemed as if I was entering the smoking section. Everywhere I turned or looked someone was smoking a cigarette or something else. Me, being asthmatic and an anti-smoker in general, was dodging the smoke like I was in a boxing match. I must have looked ridiculous. I put my swetshirt over my nose and mouth and was bobbing and weaving like the heavyweight championship was on the line.

Once we reached our new destination, I knew I was about to head out. I took one last glance around to make sure I wasn't about to miss anything.

To my left: I saw two people, genders unknown, making out.
To my right: Guy wihtout a shirt on and eyes half open whom you probably could have told that he was currently on Mars and he would have believed you (assuming he is familar with the planet, of course)
Behind me: Giant tree with two guys laying down with their dogs who appeared to be having a misearble time (the dogs that is)
In Front of me: The greater part of the rave which consited of people who, independently could not stand up but, thanks to the compact dancing that occured, were erect.

'That'll do it' I said to myself.

I decided I had raved enough.

I took the #28 bus back home and called it a night.