Mondo Journalism

Mondo Journalism

How do I explain Mondo Journalism if I have to? It could be nothing, it could be everything; I have no way of knowing which way it will go. The only thing I do know is at this exact moment in time and history I have been given the chance to try something new, and I’m going to explain what that is right now. Don’t worry. It’s not some religion or anything crazy like that. It’s really what I was already doing without knowing it.

It started simple enough. I wanted to interview the people around me. Well, I shouldn’t say it’s that simple because every human being on the planet thinks that at one moment or another. Hey, we should record ourselves. So, it’s not the most original idea, but that is not the point. At this stage there’s just about nothing original anymore. We’re watching movies that are based on remakes or stories that have already been told for a long time. We’re seeing reboots, reading reimagining’s, and there’s no better an example than in the music world, where Mondo Journalism will always live.

We have reached a point in electronic music where most people hear a song, and they tell themselves,

‘Wow, this song is amazing. This artist is a genius. How does the whole world not know about this?’

And we feel like with this song we have a special gift or secret to share. But when we finally get the chance to tell others, and to show them, we are met with the strangest response.

“Oh, I’ve heard this before. I love it too.”

And you feel happy that you share that connection, but you also think, how long have people been loving this song before I ever found it? Does it matter?

We’ve all had that moment, I’ve had that moment about a million times, and I know I am never going to stop having that moment. But that is where this idea comes in. It started when I was listening to a song, well, I’m not gonna say what song, but I can say that I heard it for the first time in Las Vegas in a nightclub that wasn’t designed for house music, and yet still there it was. It was a weekend filled with a bunch of promoters from Europe who all agreed to host a different event at the same club on the same weekend, allowing us, the dancers, to have minimal travel and maximum dancing. It was a wonderful idea, and although this story is not about that weekend, I still can’t help but share this exact moment as the moment Mondo Journalism may have begun.

We had waited close to two hours, if not more, trying to get in. We had weekend festival wrist bands, but that meant little in Las Vegas. First came the VIP, then came the guest list, then came the people willing to pay cash up front, and then after that you can start letting the people who bought the tickets early in, which is against the whole idea of buying your tickets early in the first place.

It’s supposed to be buying them early gets you in first, but not in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, the money they’ve already made means nothing compared to the money they are still trying to make; we are never the money they are still trying to make. Well, there was that one time we started shrooming in line in the Mandalay Bay and all the people started climbing on top of each other, and there’s no denying that’s definitely a bit of Mondo Journalism, but maybe that story will come later. Maybe.

This one is about the night Mondo Journalism was invented on the dancefloor. It was different than just about any night we’ve ever had in the club and it was the beginning of a weekend that we would never forget. Strange to look back and realize the idea came in the same city that Gonzo Journalism was best known for. I realize now it was meant to be that way; for me and for whatever came next.

Regardless of how unfair the Las Vegas club entry system was, we still got in, eventually. And it always works the way you need it to; the universe, more or less, approved. I can remember we were in line with these three dudes from California and we were chatting with them the entire time, and we talked about the Halloween festival coming up, and how they had gone, and how we hadn’t, and they told us all the fun they had, and all the fun we were going to have, and we instantly connected with them based on the music we were still waiting in line together to see. We would keep seeing those three all weekend long, and we’d let them cut in line, or they’d buy us a drink, and it was so natural that I’m amazed how easily connections like that come sometimes; people from our world take for granted how strong our bonds are almost immediately after our meeting, and how rare that really is.

I shouldn’t be so quick to insult Las Vegas either, because the club and the set up itself were both beautiful. It was a modern club that had giant lamps standing around VIP tables everywhere and the massive lamp shades made sure they suited the look more than they lit the way. This was the first night of the weekend and the company hosting was known for throwing classy and sophisticated shows with quality DJ’s that mixed between house and techno whenever they wanted. I honestly thought the best chance I’d have at going to one of their shows was maybe out east in Miami or New York City even, so when the chance to see them as close as Las Vegas came I took it. What I got was the reward of a lineup I know I would’ve never gotten anywhere else.

It started as soon as we walked in and the DJ was playing an old song I loved so well, but his own version, a version I had never heard before. Already the idea of a remix of a remix was shining through.

‘Can you find some Ecstasy? I really need to find some.”

She continued to talk over an overwhelming beat coming out of the massive speakers as the DJ danced and grooved with the sound his very hands were in control of. I had heard this song since I was a teenager but never like this. What made it an even funnier occurrence was the fact that we were rushing to the bathroom to finally take our ecstasy. We had learned at that point to never take our drugs before we got in, and Las Vegas was always the best example of that, as mentioned with the Mandalay Bay.

So, this time as the music blasted and the strobe lights scanned across the entire club as if the fire alarm had gone off, we rushed to the corners to swallow our tickets over the edge. Behind the DJ was an outdoor casino that was in the center of a giant swimming pool, always open and always willing to take your money. Most of the people sitting there hardly looked up to notice the madness that was happening inside, but it was still a nice thing to see while rolling balls and lost deep in this trippy ass music. Kind of something I never thought would happen.

But it did. It was real, and so was I, and so was the beautiful woman I was there with, and so was the giant pill I swallowed in the hallway outside the bathroom, so I didn’t have to leave a tip for the usher just to get high in the bathroom. After an hour we were already consumed and lost in the dancefloor. A new DJ had taken over, and he was more melodic than the one before, who was playing that disco we like so much. And I hesitate to say melodic because that’s been a big new genre lately, and I don’t want to promote it one way or the other, but there’s no denying he plays more melodic. I would call it harder progressive, but that’s part of the point of this whole argument. Every person has their own definition of genre, so what’s the point in having one?

I should also say that this DJ isn’t the reason I’m talking about this night, and neither was the first one. But they were both outstanding and they brought me to the point of an epiphany, and even if they aren’t the ones who caused me to have it, they were still a part of the process of getting to that moment. All the dancing, and the smiling, and the sipping of drinks, and the kisses between my love and I, it was all a part of the buildup to what would happen when the wizard came on. The first time I saw the wizard is the moment Mondo Journalism was born.

I’ve said before that I don’t like using names when it comes to actual DJ’s, and I know using a nickname will cause most people to guess pretty quickly who it is, but in this case I don’t really care. The wizard had a reputation for years as somebody who was different than just a DJ, and although I had never listened to him much, I also never denied the name. He had that aura around him that suited exactly what you were already thinking about him, and after seeing him I have no question as to how much he suits his title.

And It wasn’t about just one song or one moment, even though I’m about to explain one now. It was more about how it felt being on that dancefloor right there at that space and time and knowing that the only people who will ever understand how powerful that night really was are the people who were right there next to me. The ones willing and openly agreeing to let go and have this moment with me. These strangers I probably will never see again, they are the ones that would accompany me on this, and only this night. The night the wizard went funky.

I’m sure he plays funky all the time. I’m sure to people who have seen him ten times this wasn’t that big of a deal. It was just his style to change up his style. That’s the wizard. That’s what to expect. But what if you haven’t seen him ten times? What if this would be your first and maybe only time? What if you didn’t know a whole bunch about him? What if you didn’t even know where he was from, or what style everybody else tried to label him as? What if you knew only enough to know that he was magic, and if you had the chance to cross paths with him on some dark dancefloor in some corner of the world, you’d make sure to see for yourself if that title was correct. And finally, it happened, and finally I put him to the test. And finally, I saw and heard for myself.

The song came in slowly; I didn’t notice it at first. It was kind of low. After he took over, he was bouncing between funky and hard until it felt like everything went so low that possibly something was wrong. It happens from time to time. The sound will go out, the DJ won’t notice they lowered the wrong channel; in the past sometimes it meant the party was getting broken up; in this case it was exactly what he was trying to do. He wanted to grab your attention and make sure you were listening and seeing and feeling what was coming. And it slowly came in, and we were right there in the center of the dancefloor in that fancy club in the middle of the desert; we were in the perfect spot to feel it and see it and remember exactly how it went.

I can remember everybody was dancing and celebrating the moment, and he was as well. And it wasn’t like he was doing it for show or anything like that, but rather he kept hugging the people in the booth with him and they’d dance together and then he’d wave out to the crowd, and everybody would respond, and it was just a moment where everybody, including the wizard, couldn’t help but dance and enjoy it. At that moment even he was just a part of the crowd. And slowly the voice came in.

“It’s sad to think.
I guess neither one of us.
Wants to be the first to say.
Goodbye”

And the disco melody that played with it; and the way the beat felt when it hit on both sides of my mind; the way it changed me and made me realize that a moment like this does not just happen for anyone anywhere. It only happens for those willing enough to go out and take them; to believe they are possible, and to fight and struggle and sacrifice, and to make sure that nothing will stand in the way of you being there for that one time and at that one place. It matters to you even though nobody else will ever know it happened.

We had that moment, and just like the rest, it happened and then it was over, and nobody would ever think to bring it up again. It would just get lost in the shuffle with all the other moments we’ve always had that even we can’t remember. It’s not even that this moment was better than any other one that night, because as soon as this DJ was over, the next one was from Germany and he played this amazing Techno that only Germany knows how to, and everybody just moved and rocked with it for hours until the sun came up and they made us leave. That was a great moment too. They all are.

But as the weekend went on, and we kept going to shows, and we kept having new and special moments, we kept talking to people and everybody kept bringing up the wizard. It seems we all had that moment of the weekend at the same time with the same DJ. We saw our friends we met in line, and they said the same; we saw another friend from El Paso, and he brought up the Wizard without us even talking; we met this nice couple from Seattle, and they said the same. Everybody was blown away by the Wizard and I left that weekend with that major point in mind. We all had the same feeling, at the same place at exactly the same time. It was magic. The wizard delivered.

It was about more than the wizard, though. That weekend itself was insane. The first night was just the beginning. We blacked out and found ourselves at different casinos all throughout the weekend. We had to hide from security at one point; I almost fought one of those dudes we met on that first night for flirting with my date, even though I knew she was flirting back. We even witnessed a gruesome murder on the Las Vegas Strip. The weekend was filled with madness, and passion; absolute bliss mixed with brutal insanity. I could write a story on that weekend alone, but instead I will spread out the pieces throughout my life, so as to always come back to that weekend when Las Vegas and I changed forever.

My only regret was having not recorded any of it; at least that’s what I thought. I don’t like to pull my phone out at the show; I’ve never been one of those people. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t look down on it, in fact that entire concept is part of where I came up with Mondo Journalism. There are many times where I’m so lost in the moment that I forget that I have a small computer in my pocket capable of documenting and even sharing all of it.

Granted there are people that take it way too far and have it out all the time so that even when they’re not recording, they’re texting or talking to someone and doing anything they can to avoid the music they came there to hear. So, I can’t deny I have my opinion on how far it can go, but for the most part I love that people want to record and remember this moment. I do too. But sometimes- most times- I simply forget. I start dancing at midnight and before I know it, it’s 6am and it’s time to go. It just happens.

But there are other times where even I feel the need to record a moment, and when this happens, I normally don’t even remember what I recorded until the weekend is long over and I’m at home recovering and trying to get back to the “normal” life everybody else is a part of. It wasn’t for nearly a month before we started looking back at the pictures and videos from that weekend. We needed time to prepare ourselves to relive that weekend. Plus, two weeks after this festival we immediately went to California for the Halloween festival we were talking to our friends about. Our busy and hectic festival lifestyle did not give us the time to even register what was happening, let alone allowing us to recover or even resolve the issues created by that and other weekends before it. This life isn’t for everybody. I can say that from experience.

The truth is we simply forgot to look. We kept going and going, and we knew that was the only way we had of dealing with this life, so we knew the only way we could get over the last show is by going to the next one, and the next one after that, and the next one after that. It’s a never-ending process of preparing, partying, and trying to keep that party going forever. Because of this state of mind, I thought that moment on the dancefloor with the wizard was left to only be in my mind, as with so many other ones. But what if we could document them? What if we can preserve them in an authentic way and from the point of view of the people experiencing them? What if the wizard entrancing the dancefloor wasn’t lost? What if it will always be remembered?

That’s where it finally kicked in. It was when I was lying in bed with my love, the same date I mentioned was flirting with someone else I almost had to fight, on my birthday to boot; but that’s how she was; that’s how she is. She’s dangerous. She gets me into trouble; I sometimes have to get her out of it. I’ve carried her home, and I’ve held her hair well she’s vomited in an alley. I’ve hid drugs for her, but let’s be honest; she’s always the one hiding them for me. And cleaning my nose so I don’t get caught, and making sure I know where we are or what we’re actually doing, cause sometimes It never actually matters to me like it does to her. She gets me into these moments that I never thought I’d find, and while I’m there, sometimes she’s smart enough to record them.

You can always tell they’re her videos because mine are always so shaky and the phone is usually spinning around. Hers’ are so steady and clear. And in this case, it seems while I was lost in the moment, she was recording the entire interaction; she was recording the moment I was having with the wizard; and she did it on my phone without telling me. Well, we laid there feeling depressed over a trip we had to cancel, that’s when I saw it for the first time; that’s when I realized I could relive it forever.

Mondo Journalism isn’t a cute catchphrase to get you to buy my book. It’s a way of life, it’s a belief, and it’s a commitment to something bigger. It’s looking at these moments and knowing that if somehow, I can record them, but with our voice, on our terms, in our way, it could become something bigger than just a night out at the club. It can be a physical representation of what we’ve been trying to show the world for so long. It’s taking on the grand challenge of saying this is something worth remembering.

It’s something more than just the night at the club, or the warehouse, or the festival too, though. It’s about those people you meet and those conversations you have that you know you may never have again. You don’t know when you will see these people again or if at all. This one moment with them may be exactly just that, one moment; because of that I will spend the rest of my life trying to make these moments last forever. It’s about all those other moments that happen outside of the DJ’s reach. The late nights, and early mornings, and long drives, and cigarette breaks, and intimate discussions that are so amazing to have that every single one of us stops and thinks,

‘I wish the rest of the world knew these beautiful moments were possible.’

But they don’t. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t want them, or they don’t notice, or they simply don’t care. They just simply ignore our world for the most part. We are always and forever a realm that exists with or without them. It doesn’t have to be like that, though; we don’t always have to live in the shadows. We don’t always have to pretend we are somebody else. Mondo journalism means stating and saying without hesitation or question that this is who I am, and this is how I live. You don’t have to agree with it, but you have to accept that our story deserves to be told just as much as anybody’s.

How many times do I have to sit through another movie about a sad superhero when I want to follow the villains around and record what they’re doing? I want to go to the party and see it for myself, and I want the rest of the world to acknowledge the crazy fucked up things we do and see when over the edge of their imaginations. I want them to see that MONDO means love, and peace and yes it includes them. Everybody has a voice, and every story matters, and every person, raver or not, deserves the chance to share it the way they want and how they experienced it. No filters, no lies, no hiding anymore. MONDO journalism sees the world for what it really is because in the end Mondo is the world. Come dance with us.