Month: April 2022

When we started Ourdancefloor.net a little over a year ago things were much different than they are now. The quarantine was slowly coming to an end, and we were ready to head back out on the road. We had always been road people but 2021 was a year we will never be able to duplicate, and we saw places and things we always dreamed of, and the things we saw before, felt new again, considering what we had been through.

But with each trip and amazing experience I had out there, I was always left with the same feeling. A longing for home. A need to reconnect with the place that introduced me to this music and this culture. Where would I be if New Mexico didn’t embrace me? If they didn’t see me for who I really was and asked me to become that person? It’s a strange moment trying to understand a culture only to realize at its base this will always be a community first.

A group of people who will look out for each other, cheer each other on, and most of all, grow up together. We have that advantage that I don’t feel other music scenes have. We are a part of each other’s lives, and because of that we have watched each other evolve. Our failures, our successes, our moments of awkward and unexpected truths we have together, and I don’t feel that is meant to be taken for granted.

That is why I want to write about Gizmo today, a person that I met two decades ago, although we were two very different people back then, weren’t we? She isn’t a DJ, but then again neither am I. In fact, this website was never meant to be devoted to DJ’s and yet still, you’ll find the only people I’ve written about so far have been DJ’s. Now that has to change. Now, we have to talk about the people on the dancefloor. The people who contribute to the vibe and the community, and in the end, our beautiful culture.

I’m not even sure when we first met or even that we spoke much. Things were different back then in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Everybody went to the rave to escape and to let go. We left our everyday identities behind, and we became our true selves in the only place we were allowed to be those people, at the fuckin rave. We really fell into it too. In fact, I didn’t even know her real name until we met years later as adults.

When we first met my name was Mango and her name was Gizmo, and we were just two raver kids dancing in the night. Most of the time back then it was never a long conversation as much as it was a ‘Hi, how are you?’ or ‘I’m so glad you came.’

We were teenagers. We had so little to talk about. So little experiences of our own to share. It’s so funny to think of that now. We wanted to so badly to be in each other’s lives and yet each of us were just at the beginning of them. So unaware of how the world was really going to change us.

Today, you know her as Shawna Lovato, but looking back I remember a raver named Gizmo who seemed to always have a wig on, but then again, I feel like everybody did. Or maybe their hair was actually that color, or maybe we were just rolling balls, and everything looked multicolored, or maybe I just have one memory and I’m seeing it over and over again. It’s really hard to say, but even with saying that the image of her from those days is still so clear, and I feel that will always be the Gizmo that we all know. The Gizmo we found in the darkness covered in smiles and glitter.

The story of Gizmo the raver is not the only reason I’m writing today, though, because what needs to be said abut Shawna is not just that she’s been a part of this for as long as any of us, but also that she’s just as committed as ever. Supporting those around her, sharing their music, and videos of them playing. She isn’t just some random dancer in the crowd, she is a voice of the New Mexico rave scene who has experienced it all, and still wishes to be here with us. She wishes to support right here and right now.

On a side note, I owe Shawna credit for introducing me to musicians and acts that I love, such as George Fitzgerald, Gorgon City, Lensmen and Calibre during a time when we needed new music in our lives. But don’t we always?

It was when we had just moved back to Albuquerque from Las Cruces after finishing college. We were awkward antisocial adults now and reintroducing ourselves to the New Mexico Rave Scene was a strange and unusual feeling.

We had been away for nearly a decade, hidden away in our own personal bear cave together, my love and I, learning and growing and becoming adults. Wondering if we’d ever go the rave again. And we did. But when we did, we found something we didn’t expect.

We found many of the people from our youth still there. Still dancing, still living, still supporting this culture. Gizmo was one of the first people to welcome us back. And don’t even get me started on the pizza party’s we’d have.

But that’s Gizmo. That’s New Mexico. You’re not just a person in the crowd, you’re a part of our scene. You’re someone that people value. The rest of the world doesn’t allow that. They don’t want to acknowledge how desperately we all need each other to survive.

Don’t be so naïve to forget how much House Music saved your life. But it wasn’t just the music, you see? It was the people you found it with. They are what helped you get through, and in this case, welcomed you back.

But see that’s not all Gizmo is these days. Now, you can go and experience the Gizmo vibe all on its own. Every Friday at patio 201 Shawna is hosting an event showcasing some of the best up and coming DJ’s New Mexico has to offer. This week, on Friday, April 29th she has DJ’S Aimee Jane, Call Me and Davey Jones doing a b3b all evening long, and when you combine that with good food, cold drinks, and a welcoming environment for all ages, you suddenly have something that isn’t just unique to New Mexico, but also a true representation of Shawna herself.

The idea is a place for people to just chill and enjoy talking to one another again surrounded by good music and a growing culture. I suppose in the end, what I value most about Shawna is the fact that she will always be someone willing to have a conversation, and through that conversation you will find absolute love for the music. Our Music.

So please go and enjoy the moment. Watch the sunset, groove to the smooth music, and acknowledge the fact that the people we are surrounded by are not just people who share the same likes and interests as you; they are the ones who help get you through. They are the people you met one day in the magical unknown that we call the Rave. Was it coincidence? Or was it fate? Don’t let these connections go. Don’t take them for granted, but most of all, don’t let them be forgotten.

See you on the dancefloor.

There have been many discussions over many periods of time that have revolved around the definition of the Underground Sound. What is it? What does it represent? Or even the eventual question, WHO is the underground?

If you haven’t had this discussion with groups of people at different moments in your life, then I’m sorry, you’re not surrounding yourself with the right people, and that needs to change. I’ve personally witnessed this conversation in at least five different cities in at least three time zones, and the arguments are always the same.

We all want to claim to know that sound. We all claim to represent that sound, and yet we can all never own it, because the underground is not something you own, so therefore, it can never be something you define, only feel.

For example, when we first got back into raving, we were in our late twenties. We had taken a break to go to college, and it paid off. When we finally returned to the rave life, we had the energy to enjoy it again, and the ability to appreciate it since we had experienced life without it.

I can even remember our first real show back was seeing Derrick Carter at Effex downtown, a few years ago. We had been to Effex a few times before, but this time felt different, especially because it was the first time we’d ever get to see Derrick. Finally, we were seeing Derrick.

Derrick Carter was the first true DJ to me, mainly because I knew he was the one DJ that could play anywhere at any time, and he’d know how to bump it. He represents the true idea of a DJ, in that the DJ themselves are a walking dancefloor, capable of creating that feeling without even knowing it.

Derrick Carter breathes house music just like we all hope to, and yet we knew from his example, you breath it by living it, and you live it every single moment of every single day.

That was always the Underground Sound to me, but then again, things change. Right around the time we finally saw Derrick Carter, we also took a trip to see another House DJ named Solomun.

I’d say it was around 2015 or so, and he was playing a sound I just didn’t recognize and still I loved. It was different. It was unique. It was just as much its own power as something from Chicago, and it was nothing like it. Existing because of House music, and yet evolving into something new. Creating its own Underground Sound.

It was during this period we became obsessed with seeing Solomun in person, agreeing to go any distance if given the chance. Over the course of four years or so we saw him at least six times, with every single one being amazing and unique.

Maybe I’ll talk about each trip someday, but the point is that for that period, the Underground sound to me had evolved from one era and city to another. But then again, was it Solomun that we loved, or was it the environment of the cities we saw him in? What decides the underground?

Somebody had to book him. Somebody had to set it up. Somebody had to create the environment he walked into. To say the DJ was the only thing that represented the underground would be unfair to every single person involved.

As I began to ponder and ask these questions, before I knew it, it did that thing again, and it evolved into something else. This time it was Luke Slater.

Now, if you know who Luke Slater is, you know he’s not any new kind of sound. In fact, he’s as vintage a techno sound as any DJ out there, and yet his sound pops with freshness as much as anybody’s.

Yet still, even with saying that, I know he represented a new moment of Underground sound for me for just a bit there. He represents an evolution. I suppose they all do.

It started with seeing him in a dark scary warehouse in Los Angeles, and it continued with seeing him in an even darker and scarier warehouse in Detroit. In both instances it seemed to be a pinnacle moment for us, as we had heard of Luke Slater for two decades leading up to seeing him, and now saw him in such real underground environments, that I feel they may never be topped. For that moment at least.

Then after that, it did that thing again, where it evolved, and it became somebody else, and so on and so on. It just keeps going. Luke Slater is just as underground as ever, and yet I will never have that chance back.

Same with seeing Solomun in that warehouse in LA, or when we didn’t get into the warehouse Derrick Carter played here in New Mexico. Different eras. Different scenes. Same idea.

I suppose my overall point is that there’s no such thing as one underground sound, but there is such thing as one underground feeling, and that’s what we have to remember, now more than ever.

If I were to tell you Solomun was underground, you’d laugh and make fun of me. He just played Coachella. But I can remember a time where nobody knew who he was, just like I can remember being the only person who knew who Derrick Carter was, and that seems so crazy to think now. Such changes happen to our culture before we even notice it.

With that I wish to say we’ve got to get back to that moment where we celebrate each other, but also where we’re honest as well. This obsession with being the best sound is taking the place of being the truest underground.

That’s why, after all my travels, and all the shows, and all the lessons I’ve learned, I’ve come to one simple conclusion. I suppose I didn’t want to see it at first, but now I know it as fact.

For New Mexico, the only true underground is local, and we’ve got to believe in that again.

Long live the underground.

A Strange occurrence happens while on the road, and you just didn’t see it when you started. You just decided to trust it. To believe in it more than you believe in yourself. It also meant risking more than you originally assumed, although looking back, I still see without hesitation that it was worth it.

Every dancefloor I found was one I was meant to find, and the ones I did not make it to, are no better or worse than the ones I ended up on. There isn’t some list, or guideline telling you how to go about it.

We’ve come far enough, however, to look back, and that is the next mountain to climb. We have to turn it into something of merit, and with that a different perspective. I feel the next step is still through education, although nobody will ever agree to it. A culture of intelligent individuals who seem stuck in their own repetitions. With the people being the most creative being left on the outside. Or are they?

I don’t feel it will ever be that simple. There are creative people on the outside, but there are also creative people on the inside. It is unfair to devalue those who have accomplished something simply because we haven’t. This is where the culture now fails itself, where we fail each other.

Realizing this failure has lead me to the conclusion that our best option moving forward is trusting the next generation of Ravers, although we must hope that’s what they remain. Ravers. I feel if we remain committed to the club mentality, we will only have club kids, and that is a completely different section of nightlife, isn’t it?

To say one is a club kid nowadays, is not a reference to Michael Alig and the club kids of NYC, although perhaps it would be better considering their commitment to theme and decadence was a form of raving all on its own. In this case my reference to club kids is a bit different, though. In this case the context is that of people in their twenties who have only experienced the idea of raves in a club or organized festival.

I feel they are given a bad rap in the grand scheme of our culture because they will never be old school, and yet still, they have the commitment in a way I don’t know if we do anymore. We love it, and it helps us to endure, but we can’t be at the show every night anymore. We can’t keep saying we belong there even though we may one day realize we never did in the first place.

The raver evolved to the festival kid, and now the club kid has a new claim to the culture. But have they earned it? Did any of us? To me it’s very similar to how trance was popular when I was a teenager, and then House, and then Dubstep, and now it’s Techno. But then again when I first heard music at a rave it wasn’t any of those sounds. It was Jungle bouncing off the walls of some random place in Santa Fe.

That was for me, though, and the next step should be for someone else. Their moment should be realized while it’s happening. I don’t feel they have all the answers, but I also know something has to come of what they’ve put into it, and I don’t feel any of us know where that goes.

With all that said we try and stay away from clubs, however impossible that may be. And lately even festivals have become too outrageous a journey to take part in. As crazy as it sounds one day you do finally have enough, and just want to sleep for a bit.

As much of an old man as I’m becoming, I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful to say I’m one of the ones who can rest. Not everybody who started this journey with me can say that. Old age is the gift for making it through, although don’t bother telling that to anybody who’s old. I think mainly we’re just sick of being old.

So as an aging raver, who’s past his prime and growing greyer by the day, I’d like to say to the kids who aren’t such kids anymore, simply this.

Be Kind, and honest. And don’t be afraid to face the truth, and yourselves, and each other. It hurts at times, but I suppose that’s part of being a grown up. A lot of stuff is gonna hurt a lot of times, and you can’t do anything but learn to live with it.

Learn to know the silent truth that you don’t get over some things, you just live with the pain of them, and the realization that to the rest of the world it just doesn’t matter. And if you don’t know what that means I guess you will one day, when you’re old and grey.

Also, enjoy the silence. Some of the realest moments in your life will happen in silence. Don’t be afraid of that. We surround ourselves with such consistent noise, that we forget the sound of our own thoughts sometimes. Experience that again every now and then.

And finally, you’ll see as you get older, it will be harder to stay true, and honest and filled with a good heart. I’ve learned perhaps that is the real test of aging.

Not just health, but also a good heart. Can you age and still keep that strong and honest intent? Can you be what you claimed you’d remain all those years ago, or will you let this life change you into something else? Will you grow or will you mutate? In the end is it possible they are both the same?

I don’t feel I am meant to have the answers to these. I think you are. So, protect your heart, stay true, and I’ll see you when your journey has lead you back to me. Whenever that may be.

– A.❤️

There’s no proper way of putting into words the way you feel when you finally go to Detroit. It’s a moment you can’t have back, and yet also an emotion you have every time you’re there. It’s like the repetition of Techno when heard in the dark warehouse.

You have to travel far and into the darkness to find it. You have to believe in it enough to ignore all the warnings signs and simply jump. You have to jump into Detroit like you have to jump into Techno. But once you do, you won’t want to climb back out.

I didn’t go to Detroit until I was an old man. Well, I shouldn’t say old, just older. Much older than when I first started listening to techno, and I suppose in rave years you could say I was slowly becoming a fossil.

Although not yet. First, I’d have to earn my Dinosaur status, and my two weekends in Detroit would help that perhaps more than any two trips in my life.

When I first heard about Movement Music Festival in Detroit it wasn’t called Movement at all. It was called DEMF. Detroit Electronic Music Festival. It was kind of just a rumor there for a bit.

Every year, in the heart of Detroit, they’d gather for a free festival to play techno all weekend long. Everybody knew about it even though so few of us had ever gone. Before anybody wanted to go to EDC, and even before Ultra got so big, we knew DEMF was out there somewhere. Waiting for us to come find it one day.

I didn’t finally find it until I was in my thirties. Married with three kids, and far past my prime, I knew this was going to be my one shot to go. So I went.

Many people ask me how I manage to balance everything and still travel, and I simply tell them the same thing. Just go get it. Don’t ask anybody for permission. Don’t wait for the right time. Don’t worry about all that other stuff. Don’t be one of those people. Just go get that shit. And when you get it. Get it again.

It’s a metaphor for life, I suppose. But I just see it like, you’ve got to one day decide if you’re gonna be that person you dreamed you’d be. Of course, make sure your bills are paid, and your children are fed and safe, and that your affairs are in order, but also be willing to go the distances others won’t. Prove to them that it can be done and show the only thing stopping them is fear. They are afraid.

I was afraid too, though. I can’t deny. Looked for any reason to back out. Any reason to not go, and yet before I knew it, the tickets were bought, the hotel was reserved, and we were on our way.

That first year was a struggle, I’ll admit, and it had so much to do with the fact that the very weekend before we were at another festival on the other side of the country. EDC. And not just EDC. Camp EDC. First time they ever had it and they absolutely had their growing pains, but so did we.

We went for the wedding of two friends who aren’t our friends anymore, and although it hurts to know that I’m also thankful we were a part of it. I gained confidence in knowing my love and I could face the things we had to that weekend and we stayed strong, together. It wasn’t the weekend we expected, but also one we chose to be a part of. It was our choice to be there.

And I’m glad we were there for them. Glad we had that chance to be part of it. We’ve walked into hotel rooms filled with the shadiest of people, and we’ve done it to save our friends, and still they stayed. They chose that over us, and we’ve got to be okay with that. We had to leave them behind before we caught our flight to Detroit. Before we were changed forever.

It was hot that first weekend. We went out expecting the cold of the Midwest and maybe some rain, and yet we got there to clear skies and heavy heat similar to what we felt in the deserts of Nevada, if you can believe that. But this was different. We weren’t going out to the Motor Speedway to hide away from the world, we were going into the city. The living, breathing, bumpin city.

I could feel the life of Detroit the minute I stepped down from the plane. It was like feeling the history of it all at once. Motown, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Belleville Three, Jeff Mills, The White Stripes, even fuckin Eminem. Detroit has produced so many original and talented artists you’d be a fool not to see how important to American Culture it really is, and not just because of Techno. Everybody loves Detroit.

The Headliners for my first time there alone were the WU TANG CLAN. All of the surviving members were gathering to celebrate the anniversary of their classic album Enter the Wu Tang: 36 Chambers, and they were doing it for Detroit. I couldn’t believe it.

I have been a massive fan of the East Coast rapping crew since I was twelve years old, and I’m even wearing a Wu Tang shirt as I write these words now. When I bought my tickets the lineup had not been released yet, and still, I could have never expected they would be on the lineup. I was going for Techno, and maybe for House, but instead I found so much more. I found my home.

That’s the first thing you should know about Movement. You’re gonna go for Techno, and then find so much more. So much more that you’re just gonna keep going all weekend long. From this stage to that stage to the afterparty, to getting ready in the hotel, to the next day and the next day, and you just keep going. Constantly dancing, constantly moving, constantly evolving with the sounds that surround you.

EDC claims to be the gathering of all the rave tribes, and it is, but I saw more people dancing at Movement than I’ll ever see at EDC. For ECD people go to watch and marvel and wander in amazement. People go to Movement to dance. Everybody dances the entire time. And it never stops.

Even as you sleep, or eat, or try to put your makeup on. Or after its over and you’re at the airport or on the plane. You find yourself dancing over and over again to that rhythm you hear only in Detroit.

And it stays with you when you get home, and you go back to your life and your job and all the other things that drive you insane. The music stays. You just have to close your eyes and you’re there again. Like you never left. Like it never stopped. Because to us it never will.

It’s not just about the music, though, although its still the best weekend of music I’ve ever had. It’s about something so much more. It’s about believing in something the rest of the world doesn’t and it’s about hanging on to that no matter what.

Through all the changes, and sorrow, and loss. So much loss. You get to a point where you wonder if the music is the only thing you will never lose. You have those thoughts more times than you want to admit, and still you carry on. You keep going. And then you get there. One day you just find it, and you didn’t even know you were searching.

There was this moment in our first year, when we were sitting in the VIP, the first time we ever bought VIP in our lives, and it was well worth it. But we were sitting there alone, my love and I, seeing the world together, still, and we met this couple that were sitting next to us, and they just started talking to us because I suppose they could tell we needed friends. That old Friendly raver mentality never goes away. You know?

So, we start talking and they’re from Canada, while that’s at least where they live now, and they start telling us that every year they meet up with all their friends at Movement. And they tell us how they’re all spread out across the world at this point, and they all live their own lives, and they all come from somewhere different, and yet still, they know to always meet up in Detroit. I think they said they had been doing it for around 17 years. It was amazing to hear.

They even introduced us to a bunch of them. All of them waving and shaking our hands and welcoming us to Detroit. I remember telling them how amazing it was they still did that, and I wish I had that too. And I remember him saying

“Well now you have us too. Now you have Detroit.”

And I just cant explain how much it meant to me that he said that, but he knows. I wondered if I’d ever have that. Friends to travel with. Friends to see the world with. Is it asking for too much

Were they like us when it first started for them? We waved goodbye as we ran off to see some DJ we loved, and they were doing the same, and we told them we’d see them again, but I also know I don’t have to. Knowing they are there is enough for me.

“Even if I never have that, I’m so happy they do.” I said to my love as we walked alone. We walked it for Techno.

That weekend changed me so profoundly that I know the person I was got left behind back there. Still back at Hart Plaza now. Like a ghost. Waiting for the music to start up again. Waiting for the movement to begin.

The next year I returned, but it was different. We weren’t alone this time. In just a year, we had found our tribe. We found our friends. Or maybe the found us? Our own group of people from all around the world. All unique, all amazing, all so capable of inspiring me every day, and all in love with the music like we are.

We went to movement together, and we celebrated in the rain, and discussed who we wanted to see, and who we didn’t, and we planned for the afterparty, and fought a little bit, and sat at breakfast together without eating a thing, and we fell asleep talking, and we shared bumps, but most of all we danced.

We danced nonstop and we did it together. At the underground stage, the pyramid stage, the stargate, the one by the riverboat, and of course that main stage. At the Heart of the city. We danced like we would never have the chance to again.

And don’t even get me started on those afterparties.

I’m not going to Movement this year. I have to miss it. I have to prove to myself it can go on without me, and yet I know it will. It will be amazing, and beautiful, and filled with the people who dared to dream of nothing else but techno.

If you’re going, please, dance for us all that can’t make the pilgrimage this time. Dance like crazy. Dance with your friends. Or Security. Or the Dj’s themselves. Dance with strangers, cause you never know. They may be the tribe you were looking for.

Next Month is Movement. And though we won’t be there this time, my friends, and my family will be. The ones who will remember this one final thing that I will never let go.

We will always have Detroit.

Our Home.

When I was in the third grade I was a bully. It’s not easy admitting it, and I know the story is far more complicated than just saying that, but I also know that in the eyes of Wherry Elementary and Albuquerque Public Schools I was listed as a bully. It didn’t matter that I was the shortest kid in the class, or that I had no friends, or even that my home life was so empty. It only mattered that I kept getting in trouble for beating up the same kid. Over and over again. It got pretty bad, to be honest.

So bad that he had to change schools. Can you believe that? I beat a kid so bad he had to leave the school. It’s not something I’m very proud of, and it’s not something I brag about at all, although, I feel it fair you know the whole story. And you can know why I had to beat him so bad.

His name was Dorian. He had glasses and he was in the boy scouts. I was a brown kid who had nobody on his side. Of course, I was the bully, right? It was a no brainer. Easy story. That’s what the school said, that’s what our parents said, of course, that’s what Dorian said.

But Dorian and I know the truth. We know what really started the violence, right? We were both there that day. The first time. He had just started school there, and we were out playing basketball at recess or something. I remember I had just scored on him, and many times when I’d score on someone, or strike him out in baseball, or even just out due him, he’d usually get mad, and that’s what happened with Dorian. He just couldn’t believe I was better than him. So, he did what they always do. He started talking shit.

Standard for a little guy like me. Most people look at me and think I’m soft, and I am. I’m a snuggly little bear, but I’m also a little bear who’s had to defend himself his entire life. Everybody wants to pick on the little guy and that’s what was happening now. Dorian was starting in on me.

First it was the standard stuff. “You’re short. Blah Blah Blah.” All that other stuff. Then he called me something I had never been called before, although I had been told this day would come.

“Well, you’re just a dirty Wetback.” He said. Right there on the basketball court. In front of my friends, in front of the other players, in front of everybody watching. He called me that. And he smiled.

As soon as he said that I grew calm, and I thought back a couple years before then. A conversation I had with my mother that was weird at the time, but I now realized was so necessary in preparation.

“Mando. One day, someone’s gonna call you a Wetback.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a dirty word. And if somebody calls you that, you punch them in the face.”

“Liz, don’t tell him that.”

“No. He needs to know. It’s gonna happen one day. And when it does, you walk right up to them, and you punch them in the face. And you make sure everybody sees it.”

“Even if it’s a girl?”

“Well, no. Don’t ever hit girls. But if it’s a boy, and he knows what he’s saying. You punch him in the face. I’ll never be mad at you for getting in trouble for that.”

That entire conversation re-played out in my head as I stood there on that basketball court, and I knew exactly what to do. As my friends grew red in shock, and Dorian smirked at what he said, knowing what he said, acknowledging this probably wasn’t even the first time, I, the smallest kid in the 3^rd grade, walked right up to him and I punched him in the fuckin nose. Hitting him so hard blood spurted out on the concrete court right there at the school.

He jumped back in shock. Fixing his glasses. Looking at me in fear, but also aware of what I just did. That first time stopped after that one punch as the bell rang just after, although it wasn’t the last time. No matter how many times I would fight back, Dorian would never stop saying racial slurs to me. It just never stopped.

What’s worse is when we’d go to the office, he wouldn’t even admit what happened. He’d say I was just attacking him. He’d play innocent. He’d deny my story. He refused to admit the words he used, even though I could never deny the violence I showed. Everybody took his side.

I’d get suspended, and detention. They even started making me see the school psychiatrist, where he’d try and understand why I was so violent. After a while I just shut down. I stopped talking to any of them. I even stopped telling my parents it was even happening. It just became normal life.

Dorian didn’t stop, though. He just kept talking shit. And it just kept getting worse. So, because of that I just kept fighting him, winning the fight every time. One time it got so bad his mom came in and spoke to me in front of the whole class. She reasoned with me to stop. She was a single mother in the military, struggling to be home. I felt great sorrow for her. I could feel how I was letting her down, and I didn’t have the heart to admit to her how much of a racist bigot her son really was. I just couldn’t be that person, even if he was.

After a while it got so bad, he just simply moved away, and I carried on. After that I stayed out of trouble, and I honestly haven’t been in really any fight since. What’s crazy is I saw Dorian again on the first day of sixth grade. A group of friends ran up to me and said Dorian was there and they encouraged me to go face him again. I suppose they expected to see a fight.

But when I got there, and I saw him, and I remembered all the things he said, I knew I had outgrown him and the abuse we did to each other. But then again, maybe he did too.

                I can remember walking up to him, and saying hello, and having him say hello back. And then we looked each other in the eye and we both silently agreed it was time to move on. We damaged each other, and for reasons that were taught to us. Not reasons of nature. Dorian is out there somewhere, and he lives with the scars of my violence like I live with the scars of his bigotry, and I realize neither of us are right.

A bully is still a bully, no matter how you try to explain it, and nothing will ever justify it. We bullied each other, and we both knew we couldn’t do it again. I walked away as my friend’s showed unhappiness for the anticlimax, but then again, they weren’t going to be my friends for much longer either. After that I don’t think I ever saw Dorian again. It just became a memory from there. A memory and a lesson.

I bring up Dorian now because I have that feeling again when somebody brings up the name Dave Decibal. I’ve never met Dave before, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him DJ either. We’ve been a part of the same scene for over twenty years and yet, for whatever reason, the only time his name gets brought up is when he’s bullying somebody else. Over and over again.

He’s bullied so many people in this scene that I don’t even think anybody knows when it started. We just know he’s always been there, doing that thing he always does. My family and friends have been on the wrong end of a Dave Decibal lie multiple times, and it’s shocking to think how many times his name has come up. How did this happen? How did we get to a point where we have let all these angry straight males have such control over our culture? How can we do better?

When trying to answer those questions, I have come to a realization that I wish to admit now. First, i’d like to say I’m sorry to Dave Decibal for bullying him and saying awful things about him. Even if I feel I am justified that doesn’t make it okay, and a bully is still a bully, no matter the reason. I made an oath to remain positive and to contribute, and attacking another member of our community, even if it was just with words, is not acceptable. BY ANY OF US.

We owe each other PEACH, LOVE, UNITY AND RESPECT, and I was not showing that to Dave. So, if Dave ever reads these words. I wish to say I am sorry, and I love you. Because loving you is better than whatever we were doing before.

Second, you’ve heard enough straight males talk about the failures and disgusting acts of other straight males. If you’ve read this far, I wish to say thank you, but I also wish to admit that the best thing Dave and I can do about this stuff sometimes is just simply shut the fuck up. We men have been damaging our culture and those in it for so long that it’s time we step back and listen and try and learn. If we want to do right by this culture, we must learn that this isn’t about us, and we aren’t the solution. But we’ve also got to stop being the problem too.

That is part of why I wish to make peace with Dave. I was reminded something yesterday, and it’s the reason I’m writing right now. Well Dave was arguing and fighting with everybody he could, I was hanging with a Sonya/ia. My wife. My partner. My best friend.

It was our first day off together in over a month, and we had both been working so hard that we truly just wanted to see each other again. Can you believe that? We like each other so much that we still miss each other like crazy, if only just for a few hours. Its weird being in love like that. You feel vulnerable, but also strong. You know there is somebody out there that has control over your heart, but you also know you have theirs in return. It’s a balancing act every day. Trying not to destroy each other while also trying to cherish one another as well.

I love her perhaps more than I did when we first met two decades ago when we went to her first rave together, and I know part of that is because we are still trying for each other. Always trying. Now, as I laid in bed with my wife, watching blade runner for the millionth time, snuggling, and smoking weed, I realized that Dave and I are probably very similar. Same age group, same place of origin, same choice in music. But there’s one thing different about us that changes everything. I have a Sonya/ia, and he doesn’t.

For every moment I’ve had in this life I know It’s been enhanced and multiplied by the fact that I have a person by my side to experience them with me. I am not alone. And sadly, Dave is. Now I don’t know Dave’s history. I don’t know if he ever had a true love. I don’t know if he’s been done wrong. I don’t even know where he’s been. Or what he’s done.

I just know he’s alone right now and I’m not, but it doesn’t have to be like that. The bully doesn’t always have to be the bully. There’s still time for us to be better. For the women in our lives. For the children who will one day be in control of our scene and our culture. For the people around us who still believe in us. It’s not too late, but at the same time, Dave and I have to admit something together.

It’s time for him and I to move on. We’ve got to get out of the way. We’ve got to let everybody else have their shot at this now. So, because of that I’m making a simple offer. If Dave deletes his twitter. I’ll delete my facebook. I’ve often thought of myself as the anti-Dave or in many ways the Dave of facebook. Whereas Dave is the Mondo Gee of Twitter. So, let’s leave together?

I’ll go back to working on my website, and supporting DJ Sonya G’s career as a renegade DJ, and he can go back to whatever he does during the day, and we can contribute to making our scene and social media a place safe from bullies again. If only just making sure two of them will stay off of it. I don’t know if he’ll ever read this, but if he does, the offer stands for the extent of our lives. When you’re ready to leave social media, so am I.

I’ve been watching a lot of Rick and Morty, and with that I see Dave isn’t the anti-Mondo, he’s just me from another universe. We live in a multiverse and there are infinite versions of us living right now. Dave and I are from different universes. In his universe he is Dave Decibal. In this universe I am Armando Gallegos.

I am grateful for the universe I am in. Grateful for my family, and my friends, and the amazing moments I’ve had in it, and I wish only for Dave to feel this love one day as well. Maybe one day he’ll find his own version of Sonya/ia out there. And maybe her name wont be Sonya, maybe he doesn’t know her name yet. And I hope you find her, Dave. Because my life gets eternally better every time I meet a Sonya/ia.

Oh yeah, I forgot to close with this moment Sonya, and I had when we were maybe twenty years old. We were up late smoking and talking in bed, like we always do, and I started telling her about a kid I’d fight a lot and how he’d call me bad names, but nobody would believe me. But that I’d beat him bad and that I felt awful about it cause I didn’t wanna fight, but I feel like I had to, based on what he was saying. And then I describe his appearance and I said some of the stuff he was calling me.

“Are you talking about Dorian?” She asked with a bit of shock.

“How do you know his name?” I replied.

“Holy crap. You were his bully?” She responded.

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“In third grade some kid named Dorian transferred to our school and he said he had to change schools cause of some bully, but after being at our school for a while he kept getting into fights there. I was a mediator, so I’d have to mediate his fights all the time with other students, and he was doing the same thing there.

He kept calling them bad names and they’d fight him. He was in mediation all the time and he was always so mean. Don’t worry. You weren’t a bully. He deserved it.”

I was stunned. Even with that moment of peace I had with Dorian in the sixth grade, that didn’t change how the school system saw me. Through the rest of my public-school life, I was deemed a bad kid and a troublemaker because of that issue Dorian, and I had. I was always inspected. Always interrogated. Always considered to be doing wrong. It weighed on me heavily, especially because I always knew the truth, even if they didn’t.

What I felt at this moment was an immediate understanding that even if the whole world thought one thing about me, somehow, by coincidence or magic, or whatever it is that happened to us, I have one person in my life that knows the truth. That knows who I really am, and she knew it even before she met me.

I know a huge reason for my success in this life is because of the impact Sonya/ia has had on me. She believes in me, she supports me, she is my partner. If you have a Sonya/ia in your life, you, like me, are one of the lucky ones. Say thank you, and I love you, and I’m sorry, and I understand, but most of all, I’m ready to try again. Keep trying over and over. No matter how many times you fail or succeed. Don’t give up on each other, or the music, or this culture, or even weirdo’s like me and Dave Decibal.

Let’s give it another shot? Let’s start again? Do you know who taught me to do that?

A Sonya/ia did.