IF YOU CAN'T READ THIS NOW, READ IT LATER. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

ICONEKT COMMUNIKATION 1
GOING OUTDOORS

This summer has seen quite a few outdoor renegade parties. Everything from the large Full Moon Raves every month to the smaller parties such as Xochipili and Harmony and the Mother Earth Sound System gigs showed that people in this scene understand and appreciate the incredibly liberating feel of dancing to music outdoors, where many people feel it belongs, despite what law enforcement and the predominant government policies towards "public land" may dictate.

However, many of these parties have been busted, sometimes after a few hours, sometimes in the morning, sometimes even before the sound got going. There were also cases where the people who came to celebrate the beauties of the earth left a very distinct scar where the dance floor was.

It doesn't have to be like this. There is a LOT that you, as an attendee of renegades, can do to help ensure that the party goes on without a hitch. What I am about to present here is a checklist, if you will, of actions/thoughts/memes you should consider next time you head out for that outdoor party. These rules are primarily designed for the people attending renegades, though if you're throwing them you should probably read these too.

BE COVERT

There's a LOT of strategy involved in deciding on a site for the party. I'll save that for a later communikation; the advice I'll give here presumes the organizers have done as much as they can to make it as remote as possible. But no place is gonna be 100% silent. so...

When driving to the site, do NOT blast techno out of your car windows. You want to make the people living on the route to the site as ignorant of your presence as possible; which means make SURE you know your way there (a Thomas Bros. map is essential), have a full tank of gas, and bring all the water and food and such you'll need with you. Don't presume there'll be a 7-11 nearby; the quickest thing to alert the locals is 40 ravers hanging out at 7-11 at 2am in the morning. Try not to drive in big caravans, either, coz nothing will turn heads like 20 cars following nose-to-tail down a deserted road.

Upon arriving at the site, there is a lot you can do to help ensure that if/when police show up, they have as little to gripe about as possible. When you arrive, park as closely together with other cars as you can, so that as many cars as possible can fit in the (probably small) parking area. If there is someone coordinating parking, listen to what they have to say and don't try to find a closer space. If there's no one coordinating parking then use a bit of intelligence in parking by avoiding obvious places and parking under NO PARKING signs and such. Sometimes you can't avoid the NO PARKING signs, so consider any parking ticket you might get as payment to the local authorities to allow the party to go on - they usually won't ticket if they demand that you leave, and they'll only tow the people parked in really stupid places, like where the shoulder of the road is only 2 feet wide or something. Besides, a $20 parking ticket gets stretched pretty thinly between passengers if you carpool, which you should do as much as possible anyway.

WORK THE VIBE

The best thing you can do now, if the music hasn't started, is leave your car and go to where the actual site will be - or offer to help carry equipment. Basically, do ANYthing except be next to your car--you wanna stay out of the parking lot. I have seen more than a few renegades busted because the music hadn't started yet and everyone was around their cars, blaring music out of the speakers, drinking 40's, setting off firecrackers, etc, and the cops could see it was just a bad scene - had all these people been down on the beach or on the grass waiting for the sound system to start, it would have been completely different. Head straight for the site. If there are residences nearby, be as QUIET as possible when walking. The last party at Berkeley Marina was busted because people staying in the nearby hotel heard the people slamming their cars doors, not because of the giant sound system on the other side of the hill.

Now, it's time for the three NO-NO's of outdoor events - the three things which should not be present in any significant amount. They are serious VibeKillers, and even though separately they may be enjoyable they really have a negative impact almost every time I've seen them at parties.

1. NITROUS. Nitrous is fun, I've done it. But Nitrous also brings a mindset and a culture very different from the outdoor experience - when a guy shows up with a tank and starts selling balloons for people, it does 2 things: it draws people away from the vibe of the crowd, because when they suck on a balloon it takes them into a world of their own for a while, lost in their own headspace, pretty much uncommunicative with anyone else. It also creates that nitrous greed, where you want more and the seller wants to sell you more and more and more money exchanges hands. I could care less what you want to do at your own parties, the constant SHSHSHSHSHSHSH sound that is heard at many parties these days is like a drill to those of us who wish it wasn't there. And you KNOW it's a lot more obvious to police, and gives them a huge reason to shut us down.
2. ALCOHOL. This has probably been beat into the ground so it should be obvious, but evidently not to many people. Alcohol doesn't help you dance, it doesn't help you stay up longer, it doesn't give you energy beyond a short-term buzz, and it never works well in combination with other psychedelics. Again, it's not a drug I'm out to abolish or anything, there are certainly times it's appropriate, but like nitrous, it can seriously hurt the vibes. It's also the only reason I've ever seen rudeness or violence break out at outdoor parties. If you want to bring it, keep it discreet and don't overdo it.....
3. FIRECRACKERS. This wasn't a problem until a few months ago, but at the August 1st 1993 FMR, when someone set off a bottle rocket, I heard one ranger say to the other, "that's it, we gotta shut this down". And I don't need to remind you all of near-disaster of the hill fire at Let Freedom Rave last July (we are the luckiest scene on the face of this earth, I tell you.) Please, for the sake of the party, don't bring em.

Okay, *phew* sorry about all that vitriol. Now to more positive things.

RESPECT THE MOTHER

One goal of outdoor parties should always be to leave the place cleaner than we found it. However, even if we take out all our trash the mark we leave can be totally obvious. There are things you can do to minimize your impact:

• Respecting the mother means if it's grassy, take off your shoes. I do this all the time, and never catch a cold because the rest of my body is warm. If you can't stand the cold, get some thick wool socks; the goal is to tear up the ground as little as possible. Even tennis shoes are better than, say, docs or hiking boots. I've seen gorgeous grassy fields turned into mudpits after a single renegade because people wore boots with thick cleats and insisted on doing a shuffle dance.
• Respecting the mother means not tearing down plants and not urinating in bushes if portapotties are within any sort of walk. Respecting the mother means looking out for signs which say "endangered species", and staying away. Respecting the mother means not pulling down live trees to add wood to a fire (I've seen all these happen).
• And finally, respecting the mother means not throwing cigarettes butts on the ground. Put them in a spare pocket or throw them in a trash can. But they are NOT biodegradable, contrary to popular belief.

Why is this important to the non-bust-ness of a party? If a ranger comes and sees that people are keeping to themselves and not harming the land, which is what he's worried about, then he may be persuaded to simply let us go. But the other extreme is the Palo Alto Estuary ranger after the FMR in May, who was so enraged with the treatment the wetlands got that there is now a cop sitting in the parking lot every night. "Don't ever come back!" he reportedly said to the last car of ravers out of there.

DON'T FLINCH

I have been to very few parties where the police do not arrive. And actually, to be honest, I feel better if the police arrive, talk to people, and leave, than if they never know about it at all. There is nothing inherently immoral in gathering outdoors to dance to music - we may be violating specific laws regarding sound permits and "park closing hours" (why should public parks have closing hours??), but the right to assembly is guaranteed by the constitution.

So, when the police do arrive, the handling of the situation needs to be very careful. There are two main scenarios I've seen:

1. The police arrive to see what's going on, they find a group of happy people dancing. No local residents have complained, there's no danger of violence emanating from the group (cops can sense that "vibe" too), there's no alcohol or other obvious drug use and the site isn't getting trashed. At this point, they may decide to simply let the party go on. What is important here is that you treat the officers with dignity and respect, and understand that they are only doing a job thrust upon them by superiors. For those of you who are confident and not tripping and understand what their situation is, go up and say hello, introduce yourself, explain what's going on, etc. Be gentle, tell them you understand the park is closed, etc. BE HONEST. You don't have to give your name, but if the timing and attitude is right giving your name and showing ID might build trust with them. Tell them the site will be cleaned up in the morning, the place will be left "cleaner than we found it". Anyway, eventually you may be able to build up a level of trust, either personally or from the group, and the officer may simply say, "okay, I wasn't here." and at that point you're clear. Keep in mind that busting a party is not a small task, and a couple of cops probably won't want to go through the paperwork to do it unless they see some reason. Give them no reason to go through it, and they may let you go on.
2. The police arrive and are not happy. Either they have a pre-existing and media-formed bent against "your evil rave parties", or something was done to really piss them off. In such a situation, there's not much you can do. The party is over, and it should be moved to a backup site. You can try talking them into an hour more or until sunrise or something, but do not see this as a battleground. There is a time and place for everything, and a remote field is not the place for a constitutional showdown. The cops' bark is worse than its bite - they may threaten to haul everyone's ass to jail and impound the equipment, but like I noted before it's a lot of work for them; if everyone just packs up and leaves they're usually happy. Feel free to catcall and cajole; but remember that usually the order to disband the party comes from higher-ups, and doing that can only make them angrier. The worst thing to say: "do you really want a bunch of fucked-up kids on drugs on the streets?". Drugs are a real sore point, to say the least, so don't even think of trying to use that as a bargaining tool!

It is important to remember what you are doing is NOT illegal. It's simply unpopular with the powers that be. You wanna change that? You can, by sending letters to your city council, the mayor, to anyone you feel has a direct influence upon policy. Or, make an attempt to get a site legally - it can be done, it just takes a bit of legwork and cash. Register to vote, register your friends, and make them know that you wanna be HEARD. Your rights are only yours if you choose to defend them.

ENSURE THE FUTURE

If the party was successful, even if only for a few hours, be sure and help out with donations so that the organizers will know their effort was appreciated and so they can give some to the DJ's and sound guys and whatnot. You don't have to give a lot - $5 is a good figure to go by--but even beyond its monetary worth is the message "I believe in you".

We as a community also need to learn how to police ourselves; if you see someone pulling down a live tree for firewood, don't just stand there and say, "Gee, that's awful. I wish someone would tell them to stop" - tell them yourself, and get your friends to help too. If we don't do this then the "outside world" can't help but see us as something to be discouraged. We're better than that.

There is a lot more to say on outdoor parties, but I think this will be enough for now. Look for future communikations on other topics.... If you have email you can send me feedback at iconekt@uclink.berkeley.edu. See you outdoors!