Ryan ChartrandI’m OK with having to look on the fringes for most art in San Luis Obispo. I mean, let’s face it, Cal Poly is a polytechnic school and focuses more on jobs and technological advancement than artistic exploration.
For that reason, as a member of the outside circle, I’m not too bummed that earlier in the week when I complete my short story, I can’t just throw it out somewhere on the campus and ask for criticism.
I have to search around to find someone who cares about literary art form and not about how rewarding reading “The DaVinci Code” is.
That being said, partying seems to be the one art form that students at this college would care about. The number of people that party vastly outweighs the number that read, search music bins and go to art galleries.
But to be honest, most approach partying like they approach writing essays in their general education English classes. Just get through it and fill in the blanks with something that works.
What do I mean by that? I mean that buying a keg of High Life and plunking it on your porch with a beer pong table and a boom box blasting something labeled “Kelly’s Dance Mix 3/28/07” is just lame.
And trust me, it’s still lame when you apply a Madlib theme that fills in the blanks of “blank bros and blank hos”.
So, just like with the rest of my art, if I want to party, I have to search on the fringes. Sunday night brings “Pop Rocks and Push Pops: Neu Rave 1992” a party designed to replace our cancelled Mochipet show.
First off, the whole affair is B.Y.O.B. I mean, imagine that someone deciding that a party means more than luring freshman girls from the dorms with promises of a keg line.
In fact, the only thing one can really find inside to put in their mouths is a load of fruit-flavored push pops.
The party itself is themed around the growing musical scenes pushing out of England and France that fuse electronic music, disco and punk.
Bands like Klaxons and CSS highlight the DJ booth where a multitude of people move back and forth spinning the “hits.”
You’ve probably heard some of this music without even thinking about it. New Young Pony Club’s song “Ice Cream” plays throughout an Intel commercial that seems to be on TV constantly.
It’s the one party where throwing back can after can of Sparks isn’t lunacy and alcoholism, but instead an artistic statement about a scene where flashing lights and lightning-fast bump and grinding is the norm.
There’s a lot of that lightningfast bumping and grinding too because the whole thing’s been set up so the room’s filled with a quick pace and continuous entertainment.
Thought has been put into it so that the whole thing can become an experience and not feel like continuously waiting in line and filling your time with mindless rambling.
So, Cal Poly students, if you’re going to make partying your thing, put some time into it and make it at least be artistically competitive.
Seriously, if you’re going to be doing it all the time be unique and be inventive. It’s possible. It’s like reading; if you’re going to take it seriously, you can’t just collect Tom Clancy novels because at a point those get boring, and you’re just doing it to do it. With reading, that just makes you lame. With partying, that makes you an alcoholic.