Michael Alig and his Club Kids

So, the movie Party Monster came on Flix tonight, and it is not only based on a book by James St. James, the "original" club kid, but a gruesome true story. If you are unaware Alig's story, firstly I highly recommend reading it (known by both Party Monster, and Disco Bloodbath), he was the king of this colorful club scene. He made it a career of party planning for night clubs in NYC. He hosted fabulous parties with over the top costumes, alcohol, sex, whatever drug you desired, and acceptance for all. Not all seem appealing to me, but the point of the matter is that these parties had everything. I've researched this entire scene out of curiosity and I've decided that I wish I wasn't in elementary school at the peak of the hype of it all.

However, the reason the scene winded down was because Michael Alig testified as guilty to murdering his drug dealer Angel Melendez because of a quibble over money Alig owed him. When Alig admitted to his crime (not only murdering Angel, but chopping him to pieces lovingly placed in a box and thrown into the Hudson River [no wonder it has such a bad rep, I think I remember hearing that on the news in '97]) he was sentenced to 10-20 years in Washington Correctional Facility for manslaughter in the first degree. He's set to be released in March of 2011 and people are torn between expecting to triple lock their doors or to expect the party of the century.

I hope you get the general gist of Alig's story.

I watched these videos of interviews with the club kids at the height of their clubbing days:

[There is a third video, but I didn't feel like watching it yet.]

As I was watching this I got kind of irritated with Donahue and the audience. The club kids explain their scene as a way to express themselves without judgement and in a totally accepting environment. They're living their fantasy and using it to move up in the world in their own way. It was a way from them to escape from the mundane life experienced during the day. After dark they could be whatever, or whoever they wanted.

As Donahue put it they're kids who sleep all day, party all night, and have no real aspirations or goals. My favorite part was when he asks if black people are allowed in the club. That baffles me. We live in a nation where we're expected to be a melting pot where everyone is accepted and it is expected especially on the East Coast. With comments like that, even in the '90's, it's absolutely ridiculous to expect progress. Whatever.

They weren't out to hurt anyone, they just wanted a place to express themselves and be whoever they wanted to be. A lot of them lived double lives, especially the underagers of the scene, where their friends and family had no idea what they did during the night.

Yes, there were bad things, mainly drugs, but that was their way of having fun and having an escape.

Don't misunderstand, I do not support drug use of any (with some minor exceptions) kind, but I won't judge them for their life style.

The point of my rant is that I'm wondering who the hell are people to judge them? We all want the American dream, to be happy and make money essentially, and this fulfilled that dream for many people.

As for me, I'm kind of hoping for the party of the century following March '11.

This really grinds my gears.

Ahh, Facebook. Best and worst invention of our generation.

It has definitely grown, and improved in the last 5 years, but at the same time it has taken some turns for the worse. One of which being allowing people not in college to join. Including parents.

They just don't understand. This isn't classmates, and statuses are very different from people to people interactions. There is Facebook-Lingo such as de-friend, and stalking. For some reason they feel it is necessary to be entirely proper when utilizing the site.

Apparently 'stalking' is an incorrect term.

My parents told me to look up the definition of stalking today so I understood that Facebook stalking is an incorrect term. What they fail to see is that it is simply a phrase.

So let's compare and contrast.

Stalk, verb: To pursue, or approach stealthily.

Noun: To harass or persecute (someone) with unwanted and obsessive attention.

To Facebook stalk, noun (my own interpretation): To intentionally, and intensely research a person's Facebook activity.

Now, stalking doesn't necessitate an action, and neither does Facebook stalking. Some of the time when someone is "stalking" a person's profile it is simply out of curiosity. However, looking through all of their activity of the past year and commenting on it is basically exactly the same. Most people follow, check up on, stalk, or creep the same group of people. Obsessive attention? Yes.

Calling it stalking is like an all inclusive joke amongst almost all of Facebook. It's not an insult and it's not meant to be offensive or taken seriously.

It's hard to explain to people who haven't watched Facebook grow, but really... it's not that big of a deal.

I'll reiterate like every other kid on Facebook (...even though I'm a college graduate): Parents should not be allowed to have Facebook accounts.

Plain and simple.