The Shit Hits The Gravitron At Electronica 1997

Here's a party I desperately tried to forget as the years flew by until I was reminded of it by a group of fellow 90's ravers.  A night so rotten from point A to Z that I swore off parties for a few months after exclaiming that the scene I had adored had become a place of despair and certain doom.  Regardless of superstitions and the like I guess it was just my turn to have a night filled with regret in all forms, to have luck kick me in the teeth, say goodbye to a friend, and wish for sobriety like I had never wished for anything before.  

Something for your Troubles? 

So the night started off normal enough, another weekend, another party, the difference being I had never been to this venue before.  For those who don't know Scandia is a low end amusement park in Ontario, CA with an arcade, batting cages, gravitron, mini golf, and bumper cars.  http://www.scandiafun.com/ontario/   When I learned of this location I got excited for there were much more things to trip on, especially for a guy who happened to be toting a whole vial of liquid in his pocket.  Perhaps I'd pump coins into the softball pitch and enjoy the endless streaks of tracers not wanting to bat the ball but admire their excellence in flight, spiritually connect with Sinistar or Ms. Pac-Man, or look for and find god on the 12th hole of mini-golf.  The sky was the limit and I had the means in my pocket to reach up for and pluck out every single star should I desire.

Foreboding Helicopters Were Foreboding

So we get there after another underwhelming drive through the 91 Freeway then a short stint on the 15 towards Las Vegas.  Arrive early, exit freeway, park car, exit car only this time we're not worried about the fucker getting broken into ... again.  We are greeted by a friend of ours from the scene who I will call, Mr. B, for obvious reasons.  A short background on Mr. B, he has been supplying the LA underground scene with very good MDMA for a long time.  He is also a thug and built like a yoked, rabid Rottweiler.  Him and his brutish cronies have been known to viciously stomp people who peddle bonk pills at parties and are also notorious for bashing and robbing those who have moved in on parties where he is earning his living making him both a sinner and a saint.  He was always fair, polite, courteous, and cordial to my friends and I and I never had any fear of him whatsoever.

Getting back to the night, Mr B is obviously nervous which in turn makes me uneasy.  Some meaningless small talk is made as we look up in strange unison and notice three helicopters above us circling and hovering like buzzards above a carcass taking it's last breath.  I figure this party is already busted but no such luck.  Our group makes off towards the newly forming line to get in while Mr. B walks very fast in the other direction.  Then he runs, but not far.  He is tackled by what look like fifteen feds, DEA we suspect, shackled and instantly vanned.  That was the last we saw of him and the abduction is all we talk about while on the line.  Distraught over our fallen solder I vote to cut our losses and return to the safety of our domicile but am outvoted, tickets punched, party entered.  The ghetto birds disappeared.

As soon as I get in make straight for a bathroom, break out vial, and feel 4 to 6 drops of high octane brain juice hit my tongue in effort to forget the horrors of a half hour prior.  I'm so rattled by the experience that I decide not to sell any of the brain juice as had been planned because, after all, people do get pinched.  I sample different rooms here and there displaying different forms of dance music but I wasn't feeling it, or anything else for that matter.

The arcades beckoned and I spent many hours behind them shutting off my surroundings as the colors became vibrant and the characters I was controlling gained multifaceted dimensions of incomprehensible and unrecognizable proportions.  I lost more of my coordination and concentration coming up with complex mental paradoxes between the arcade that was consuming my mind and the rest of the known universe that was consuming everything else.  The arcades had gained so much luster that they had completely lost their luster.  Moving on ...

It Lied To Me and Said It Would Be Fun

After bouncing about here and there, checking out this and that, for reasons unbeknownst to me to this day the Gravitron made perfect sense.  What could possibly go wrong?  Sit on a wall, room spins, slide up wall, look at colors.  Seems easy enough.  That and I had come to the realization that I had been watching the machine do it's thing for the last forty five minutes.  People go in, machine spins, people come out.   

So thirty of us party kids pile on in and take our places.  It starts.  Some bastard pipes in some greasy 80's hair metal music.  The room is stifled with the smell of vics vaporub as the monster gains momentum, our asses now lifted from the floor.  Standing upright the sensation of control in any aspect are totally fucking gone.  Heels off the floor, higher and higher.  The machine is now screaming fast as "She's My Cherry Pie" blares like the sirens of the oncoming demon horde of the apocalypse.  Waves of nausea come and go as we are now collectively between the ceiling and the walls.  A girl directly across from me catches my attention.  Her hands are covering her mouth and she is ghostly white.  She releases her hands from her mouth like doves fleeing the Vatican and detonates.  I stare in both horror and astonishment as a massive glob of vomit suspends in midair then splatters against the wall roughly four seats away from her.  Pure horror as kids scramble like crack house cockroaches to get away from the wretch which is now moving and spreading like a gelatinous beast of incredible intelligence.  Kids screaming as panic sets in and the relentless machine not giving an inch or showing any mercy.  A dude a few seats from me turns to his right and completely cakes the poor girl sitting next to him lathing her head in bile from the concession stand.  She screams like a gut-shot rabbit.  With my senses maxed out the smell of puke quickly overcomes the cabin.  More screams, fear, despair.  The music is cut, lights come on and the Gravitron slows utterly satisfied with it's destructive course.  People bum rush the doors and exit as if they were on fire.  Someone else pukes next to the ride, one last offering to a vengeful god as park employees laugh at the carnage.    

Yeah, no shit.  

 And that was it.  Night officially fucked like a virgin on prom night.  I stagger to the nearest picnic bench and put my head in my arms, still spinning and spinning, wanting to puke but knowing in the back of my twisted mind that it is never going to happen.  The voice of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson repeating over and over, "buy the ticket, take the ride".  Some people come to check on me and the only words I can mutter are sick, gravitron, and spinning.  They get the idea and leave me to my self inflected suffering.  Someone else brings me a Sprite and I gingerly nurse it for the remainder of the night while wishing I was sober, showered, and in my warm cozy bed.  I don't even remember the ride home.