Anywhere live music is happening is my sanctuary. The happy place where so many of my favorite people gather for the pure enjoyment of the experience that is live music. I’ll travel miles and miles to go wherever that is happening to recharge my battery and raise my vibe.
Right now my heart is broken into a million pieces because in one of my favorite happy safe spaces (a Phish concert) there were neo-nazis attacking live music lovers who were there for the same reasons I just shared. Going to shows like this are something we live music fanatics plan all year for. Time off work, money saved and hours and hours of planning are all a part of it and it’s worth it for the few hours of bliss. The victims all traveled to Washington state because of the love they feel for four men who heal us with their sounds.
Instead of a beautiful musical experience, something unimagionable happened. A couple of men with swastika tattoos threw bowling bowl sized rocks with the intent to cause harm to some fans because of the color of their skin. Those men came to cause harm. And cause harm they did. One of the injured suffered a broken neck and a brain injury. Let’s all take a moment of silence to send a prayer, a positive thought and/or some love to those people all that witnessed this hate crime.
I’m super passionate about a way of life that I call Conscious Partying. This way of raging isn’t just about what you ingest at a show, but also about the impact of your actions on the planet. In the past, I did things for the pure joy of it without thinking about how my choices were saying something way bigger than I thought they were.
Nitrous Oxide may be fun at the time, but in the festival scene it’s so much more than a colorless gas with a sweetish odor, prepared by heating ammonium nitrate that produces a quick high when inhaled. The high that causes laughter, dizziness and a brief moment of ecstasy that comes out of tank has a super shady dark side. Besides the litter of thousands of balloons that users usually mindlessly toss on the ground for others to throw away that once thrown away takes years and years in a landfill to break down is just the tip of the iceberg. The impact nitrous has on our scene goes way deeper than that. Like WAY deeper.
The men who caused harm onto others at the Gorge Phish show were there selling nitrous. People just like you who were there to rock out to their favorite band were purchasing this gas from those men. By purchasing nitrous on the lot at a show you are in turn supporting the sellers. Because there is so much money to be made from these balloons, people have gotten hurt and even killed over it. There is even a mafia. A mafia that pays off the police and security guards. A mafia that doesn’t care about you or your safety. A mafia that will literally kill you if you get in the way of them making a buck.
As a loving and compassionate human beings, I’m pretty confident that you don’t support that kind of behavior.
Next time you’re at a show and hear that hissing sound, think twice.
I love you. Together we can make a difference. Don’t buy balloons.
Please share this message.
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