YOU ARE NOT THE DANCE FLOORYOU ARE NOT THE DJ An Open Letter to Walker Barnard

In order for society to have any kind of rebellion, you have to have free time and you have to have a meeting place. Today, young people meet in places where you can't even talk, the music is so loud you can't possibly have any kind of conversation. You can't possibly have any kind of extended arguments or any kind of new social theory being spawned, because nobody talks, because you can't hear yourself talk. In clubs today, it's a paradox - music is playing at a thousand decibels, people are coming together in a group situation and the real purpose they're there is to meet each other. They want to meet and get to know each other, but they're prevented from this overwhelming volume of music which masquarades as the official pretext for the club's existence. So I guess they "communicate" by dancing and they mime MTV chereography or rap music moves or whatever. Not exactly deeping satisfying, in my opinion.

- Vale, ReSearch

Dear Walker:

I promised myself that *today*, I wouldn't spend one bleeding minute on this computer. I also decided the other day when we spoke that I would reserve judgement on the things you were saying and simply hold my tongue - but that wouldn't make me a very good friend now, would it?

I am going to break both promises right now. I had many thoughts when we talked the other day, but the primary one that I didn't utter was very simply this: I take great offense at the idea that your artistic role (as you stated) is "to create ecstatic experience on the dance floor." That is *far* too narrow a definition for someone of your capabilities and depth. If you recall, there was a time when each skill we had - any of us - when the tools we had available to us - and the venues we had to express them, were all playgrounds for pushing forth what for me is still a very valid and real and meaningful cultural agenda. It is nebulous, this thing that we all spoke of and tried to expand upon, but certainly, truth, justice, and reaching into the heart of the value of Living Full Meaningful Lives heavy with Deep Conversation and an attempt to "find the truth" and suck meaning from every experience and think Very Very Deeply about what we doing, with ourselves, with each other, and to each other, as we set out to create a cultural milieu in which we could fell both comfortable *and* as if we had a stake not just in our own careers and accomplishments, but also in our scene at large.

I couldn't agree with you more than the conversation has changed Drastically in the past 10-12 years. The fractured nature of everything from the political landscape to the impact of New Media has rendered incredible changes on the way people think about things, and oftentimes for the worse, I think. The Global Village clearly has its downsides as well as upsides - people love the new so much that the notion of nurturing the communities around them is often a Lost Project, as people project themselves into either Pasts they cannot live in or Futures they simply cannot build. Many forget what is right in front of them, and certainly the Power of a (Local) Community has lost much of its appeal for those who can easily reach out and touch someone elsewhere every day for next to nothing.

My "best friends" now live in Australia, Buffalo, New York, & Petaluma, California, as I race up and down I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Those are the people I talk to *every* day. I find that extraordinary, really - it wasn't like that ten years ago. You might have a friend back east that you talked to once a week, on a Sunday, but certainly not six times a day like a friend you knew down the road. This leads to both a sense that we are everywhere at once - and that we are also *nowhere*, and that what is *right* in front of us is just some obstacle we need to get around to in order to someday get together with those people we *really* care about - this makes it difficult, if not Nigh On Impossible to actually feel like we have any Meaningful Stake in the Communities in which we actually live, and as just My Little Bit of Fame has taught me, there's really nothing more valuable than how we feel and interact in the place where we wake up and go to sleep in.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have lived the live(s) I've lived. On the one hand, I wrote a thesis statement at nineteen on the value of community and almost *immediately* was picked up by first the Sun and then the New Mexican to write about My Own Community. I got intrigued by The Big World Out There and all its pleasures and charms and New Media and I went to Wired. I found that world to be empty and devoid of the values I cherished - and yet LOADED with really fucking bright and interesting people from all over the world. Ten years and a couple of breakdowns later, I find myself in the community that I Love So Much and Could Write About for Days and no one will take my stuff - and the Great Big World has moved on too, so I can't pitch to Wired or Wired News or PC Magazine or any of those glittering prizes anymore because I Just Didn't Splash Loudly or Smartly Enough, and to a degree, as an artist whose choice is the Word, I am stuck trying to convince people to pay me to do what I'd gladly do for free - which is write about the people that I know and try to steamroller some change and some cross-fertilization between That Great Big World and the porches of the Aztec and the Baking Company and Winning's Cafe.

But while That Venue of newspapers and magazines is what I know and it's my first choice of Action and Value and Making a Fucking Difference, it's not the Grand Totality of My Being. It really isn't. It's taken me a long time to figure that out and not be sad about all the stupid mistakes I've made (and I've made PLENTY) and see that really, I have the ability to create the kinds of conversations and interactions and access points no matter who the fuck I'm (not) writing for. The most frustrating part about lacking access to the press is that I can't Heap Praises on people whose work I really like in print, whether that be in music or art or technology, but I certainly have the ability to do what I can to slap people on the back and say, "Dude, that's really fucking cool," one way or the other.

Back to this dance music situation. You are so fucking talented and interesting, and that was the case long before you picked up the bass guitar and *certainly* long before you started making tracks for the dance floor. The dance floor is a fairly limited medium, just as the press is a fairly limited medium, and there are far more ways to put forth a desire to see people engulfed in ecstatic life-changing experiences that make them Think Long and Hard about what they're doing and to then put More Intention into the Value of their Actions. I do it All the Time - people don't love me because I can get them press (which is what I used to think) people love me because I Can and Will and DO ask them hard questions about what the fuck they're doing because generally speaking, I'M GENUINELY INTERESTED in teasing their values out of them (and perhaps that's manipulative, because generally speaking, I'm hell-bent on changing them) so that when we walk away from each other, perhaps Each of Us has a Greater Understand of the True Project that we're trrying to tackle.

We want change. And we want it now. But really, it comes in such smaller increments than we ever imagined.

YOU ARE NOT THE DANCE FLOOR.

YOU ARE NOT THE FUCKING DJ.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR TRACKS.

ECSTACY IS CREATED BY THE ACTION OF YOU EXPRESSING YOUR TRUEST SELF - THE MEDIUM IS IRRELEVANT.