Berlin 15:33 3 October 2021 

This is dedicated to the person who used to sit in the bathroom and drink everyone’s piss. For years you didn’t know if it was a good party unless this person was there begging to be pissed on. I never knew your name, but I have pissed on you. 

Tomorrow will not come for you. 

R.I.PISS.PIG 

Re: 

Opening of the most famous line in the world. A grand choreographic score unwritten but understood by every person who knows. An initiation rite. A secret society. Yes. All of these are applicable as you travel into this underworld. Combinations of black and basic and basic black. A walk of expectation and follow back in defeat. A combination of old club kids and new club kids, trans club kids. Straight white boys in dresses, femme queens, and non-binary ravers. Are we in a matrix, are we going back into one, did we ever escape the one we have been in?

It is sunny outside, a long singular line like the letter i is punctuated by the gap where judgment occurs. There are two lines outfitted in mostly black. One to the right of the entrance and one directly in front of it. One line is long, accompanied by cattle fences herding the people.

Towards that moment of judgment, a forced score for those who do not understand how this works. The question of tomorrow has been removed from the equation, the question of today is, will I get in? It’s the same shit different year. As we keep our heads down and “return to normalcy”. Fighting the forces of fecundity, the fecundity of friends, the fecundity of fun, the fecundity of force. Forcing us to move on without really addressing what today means when tomorrow has just left us here.

This particular combination of concrete box and darkroom has returned. No longer is tomorrow the question, the question is do you have a guest list? Do you have access? Do you want your access back? Will you reappropriate your lost privileges? 

The language of this score is Deutsch, English, Hebrew, and Italian. 

This is a 2G space. That means no entry to the unvaccinated or uninfected. The E.UNION have implemented a tiered system indicating accessibility and accessibility strictly relegated to pandemic measures, as evident by the building’s ableism. The policy is ruled by the amount of Gs. 4G, 3G or 2G. Not to be confused with a dose of G or a death by G. 

So giddy up, know this system: 

1. Geimpft (vaccinated) 

2. Genesen (recovered) 

3. Getestet (Tested) 

4. Guestlist 

The paramedics and police are here, preparing or responding? A little over a month ago a 25-year-old died of an overdose at a venue called suicide circus. One of the first times I can recall a death being reported at a club. But certainly not the first death at a club in this city. 

There are many cuties inside this cattle fence. A score is a basic set of instructions for a choreography. There is a score active here. In this queuecountercultural aesthetics are read as inapproachable, uninterested. There is no space for informality in the queue, this is not an improvisation. This is a score. This is a herd, wanting to be heard. Wanting to see the inside of this former Scandinavian power plant. This is one of the only places in the E.UNION where you can experience E.UNIONISTS observing the rule of the queue. Typically I find E.UNIONIST more antagonistic to the concept of lines. Favoring amorphous aggregates consolidated within the lost privileges of a feeling state related to being the “source” of “western culture”. The rules of the house. This is our score. 

There are a lot of almost solid looks. Slight details slightly off. A skinny patent leather pant with a red new balance number 574. An illegible face tattoo along the jawline, 2 cm off from where it might have sat PC (Pre-Corona/COVID). This is a place where a critical discourse is engaged but who’s critical discourse is uncertain. The rules are random, but someone is casting the crowd for the evening. 

People from the guestlist line leaving in cabs. There are some walking by who will queue for hours to get a “not tonight” accompanied by a gesture towards the exit instead of the entrance. They will then leave with a moment’s glance down the corridor towards the garderobe. My particular highlight was in seeing 1 of 2 tall dark and handsome men wearing Doc Martens, black pants, white socks over the Martens, and a ¾ long trench coat with thick wavy black hair. He was about 190cm/6’3” and either Italian or Indian. If you read this call me, you won’t have to wait in line. If you read this and you are that type, please email a photo and your interests to dancelawyer2001@gmail.com “Re: TDH GL”. (TALL DARK HANDSOME GUESTLIST) with a shortlist of qualities. VAXXED only, please. 

I have only been rejected once in seven years. I will give you my score. 

The Post-Corona looks are pre-AIDS, pre-Internet, It’s a beautiful day to wait in the sunshine wearing platforms shoes, harnesses, fetish gear, and all the countercultural decolletage of targeted Instagram ads. As I sat reflecting I watched a grape-shaped individual remove their coat an elaborate full-body G string hidden. (5G) 

5. G-String 

These fashions are sourced from times when claiming “queerness” meant claiming community. When investing money into a nightclub was investing money into that community. This is the temple of countercultural commodity. Where queerness is something you put on your FEELD profile, something that adds to your cultural capital. Do you even bell hooks bro? Here the kin is self-selected and self-identified, grouped by fashion phenotype, the wide-leg pant group, the ADIDAS tube sock group, the “nude” overcoat group, the skinny jean, and pointy shoe group, the latex group. But for all that I do see, I have to acknowledge what I do not see. 

On this day I thought it would be nice to interview all these groups. Interviewing the groups who have been waiting this entire time to come back to this place and wait in line. For hours and hours of time in line. I had questions prepared. They were: 

● How long do you plan to wait here? 

● How long have you been waiting here? 

● How long do you plan to stay? 

● Have you partied during the pandemic? 

● Did you have a hot girl summer? 

● Did your summer sizzle or drizzle? 

● Are your vaccination papers forged? 

● What drugs have you taken? 

● What drugs do you want to take today?

● What’s your ideal drug cocktail? 

● How do you feel about the Bottega Veneta fashion show and Soho House after-party at the height of the pandemic? 

● Are you an anti-capitalist? 

● Who are you wearing? 

Initially, my plan was to go as a character. Something like this. Once in front, I feel the fear of the all-seeing eye of counter-cultural capitalism. I should have worn my platform boots. I should have worn all black with an accent color. Even in the drafting of these words, I worry about compromising myself. “Ich möchte kein Hausverbot haben”. I fear the all-seeing eye on top of the pyramid scheme. I fear “die frage”. I do not disrupt the score with my improvisations. My questions also fall into that space of judgment. 

My first memory of this day is someone walking away. Disappointment crowned by slicked back lilac hair. A face frozen in a grimace of defeat. The score is active. The outfit is perfect, but it’s not a match. The next person I recall seeing was a homo couple on a park bench. Their matching 0-gage septum piercings gleaming in the sunny Sunday sun. Their ultra accented speech short and gruff. A head tattoo, platform shoes, Gryffindor-colored joggers, and no expectations. Next, a fashion guy I vaguely know. Meaning I know he has a big dick and bad attitude. They were recently nominated for a big fashion prize. I see him walking the score later. Even prizewinners face judgment. 

This is the score: 

PART 1: THE APPROACH 

A pre-party strut, a walk that all the persons approaching the building carry forth fervently as the score begins. A walk that embodies an attention to the carefree attitude one performs when they know they are being watched. I find myself inside this score even though I am not performing this evening. 

PART 2: THE WAIT 

Lining up for hours to experience a sense of belonging. Whether you get in or whether you stay out. It’s possible that rules change, my rules have changed since the last time I went inside this place.

This is my personal score: 

1. Go Alone. 

2. Wear ALMOST all black. 

3. Read a book that matches your look. 

4. Do not look at your phone.

5. Do not talk to the people around you.

6. Wear something that inspired something expensive. 

a. I would always wear a Bernie 2016 hat it worked every time. 

7. Come on SUNDAY late afternoon early evening. 

Contemplate the energy that this building will accumulate. Contemplate that in the same land eighty years ago the grandparents of these employees lined people up in a similar fashion for different results. Contemplate that this is counterculture now. 

PART 3: The WALK OF SHAME 

Walk away, head down, head up or head forward. You can choose your dismissal. Some are entitled, some are indebted, there is no wrong execution. There is no shame in walking away. But a visible disappointment lingers upon the palate. A follow-back-hand slap. This week there are ins and there are outs. As we head towards mixed uncertainty it seems like this walk of shame is also uncertain. But these words “shame and pity” are words for people who have no empowerment in their sexuality. 

Rejection shouldn’t be a source of shame. 

Those who are rejected walk away from the dark cavernous door and into a shining autumnal sun. Who will be the last one in today? Who will be the last one to walk away? This score requires a finishing. But it has multiple possibilities. Either way, you can win. 

We have to address that borders are not open yet. We have to acknowledge that this situation is FAR from over and that vaccination availability mostly reflects the international mobility of global privilege. In researching I found it bizarre is that in this link is a listing of nations who can openly travel to the EU. This list contains neither the USA nor Israel. The vast majority of those waiting in line are speaking German, Italian, or a variation upon the Anglican diaspora.

People have likely been saving up for this moment emotionally, physically, intellectually, financially for weeks. For months even years. But within a second of a yes or no all expectations shatter. What do you do when you are defeated. How do you speak with yourself? 

Someone has won, it is Klubnacht/day of club culture. The city hands out 10k to 40 club collectives = 400,000 euros to 40 collectives. 10k to throw a boat rave based on a techno song. 10k to a radical consent group who used photos of people for their promos without consent. I briefly interviewed one and the other person is deceased. 2 club kids dead in this text. Now that nightlife is kinda back on we will have to pick up old conversations with new political strategies. 

Later this day I would talk with American tourists who wanted to go wait in line, they wanted to wait. They didn’t expect to get in. I’m uncertain if they would even want to go in. It was the first time that I had ever thought about people going just to wait in line. To say that they tried. On Friday a client pulled me aside. He had previously been asking me how to get into this temple. Now he was asking me where he could buy coke. He was trying to do it on the DL because it was his mother-in-law’s 60th birthday. 

There’s a spot next to the entrance where typically those who got in gather 24, 48, 72 hours after the party began. A coquettish mix petering on the brink of not quite sober and not quite fucked up. An architecture to inquire into who will be aftering after. Who still has the capacity and ability to continue going. Today if you sit outside you can hear the toilet people talking about everything important at that moment. The temporary friends and alliances made within the boundaries of being on the inside. On the outside, it’s mostly silent as people watch and wait. In my experience, the inside is full of waiting as well. I have no real question about what happens inside, I’ve never had a problem seeing it. On this day I’m more interested in the exterior score. Shit talk unsaid, I enjoy my silence. Tomorrow was a question but the sun is out today. I walk away. My walk has no shame.