Downtown without a Cause

I often find it intimidating if not damn right difficult to emerge into a dynamic social reality such as the downtown scene having consumed more pot than booze.  Pot's got this whole self-conscious ego-effacing element that for what-ever reason drives me away from even the thought of participating in the grope-and-go of the dance floor.  I find myself considering far more than simply the desires of my penis when I am high, as opposed to what appears to be the common tendency among males intoxicated by ethanol.

Last night, as it happens, I found myself in a state of moderate 'stone,' shall we say, undertaking a simple journey to a friends apartment, to you know, hang around on couches shooting the shit and probably inhaling more of the sweet products of the combustion reaction between cannabis and oxygen.  But lo and behold, as the elevator opens to allow me out onto the appropriate floor of the building, I find myself faced with the people I was going to see, laughing and shouting and drunk as all hell, heading out, intent on a club  My oh my was I unnerved.


Feeling largely sapped of the ability to interact in a socially coherent way away from the comfort of a couch, I thought I would end up having to go home.  But I stuck it out a little longer.  And just long enough to have a young lady exclaim:

"Look at him, he's sooooo high!"

As it happens, that was just the ticket I needed to pull out of the impossibility of communication.  Next thing I know I'm stuffing my shoes full of soil and walking around like a clown.

But that's not the half of it.  Consensus emerged that we should, infact, sit here by these raised soil beds in front of the clubs, reading real-estate papers non-chalantly, "hrrrrmmmmm"ing about the houses and the state of the market.  And as people walked by, so it happened, we would all of us get up at once and cheer extravagantly, applauding the well-Being of those who happened to grace us with their passing.  We were quickly joined by others, and the routine turned into an all night applause party.  Far more fun than any one of us could have ever expected to have had in a club.

So what's the moral here?  That stoned people are antisocial?  That they can be pulled out by general good cheer and the creative possibility of street gags with friends?  Indeed, that may be.  But I think there is more to it.  It has something to do with the general degradation of the human spirit that seems to accompany much of the general club scene.  There seems to be so much drama and scoff, so much of the straight edged and the "you think your tough?" so much nonsense and decoherence that the true meaning of the thing has been wiped off the face of the concrete.

Sure, music and dancing are a part of the mating experience, as they are with most advanced animal species.  But human creativity offers so much more.  The standard club scene today suffers from a severe lack of community and ecstatic joy for life.  The same tracks over and over again, the same skinny dress and blonde hair brushing you off, the same totalitarian grin from the bouncers.  Why associate with such places?  Creative gaming on the streets offers a new and unique form of entertainment, communal participation, and just straight up good quality fun. 

Unless of course there's a sweet band playing near by.  Then the dance floor is where its at.  ;)