Disturbathon

[SeanSparks]

I'm going to post Steve (DJ Hironymous Superfly)'s review first before adding my own. He's been part of the Disturbathon team off and on for many years, and I thought what he had to say after the fact was rather apt. From his blog:

Almost two decades after its inception, the Halloween Disturbathon continues to be some sort of party juggernaut. Its crew is hard-working and sometimes ingenious. Although many things, including the venue, have become a matter of routine, this hasn't slowed things down as much as streamlined them. And while the atmosphere of the event has mutated from intimate, raw, esoteric fringe happening to annual carnival, the world needs more carnivals in the oldest sense of the world. Disturbathon offers an arena in which everyday values are inverted, for some more than others.



I will readily admit that I had more fun at this year's event than I've had in ten years, with the strictly personal exception of meeting Luz there three years ago. Spinning in collaboration with David on his keyboard was the highlight for me, hands down. I could not have imagined such music, a fiendish fusion of hellish medicine show frenzy and old time gospel dementia. Forget the bombastic crush of annoying loudness that often eclipses all other performers and has typified too much of latter-day Disturbathon's sound. If there was a musical trance-channeler in the house, it was David, who should be heating up the main stage area. I don't think anyone who heard him in the wee hours would contest this.



Just as I was happy to enjoy a last set there, I was equally happy to quit the scene. Some problems seem to stem from the party's growth. An inescapable number of assholes and OFP (Ordinary Fucking People who show up in store-bought costumes or street clothes to gawk and suck the energy out of the room) have created an alternate Suburbathon within the greater event. The pretence to being an underground event has largely faded despite invitational rigmarole. On the other end of the scale are the jaded, tiresomely pretentious would-be hipsters who show up to preen and strike poses without engaging the party in any interesting way. Both groups suck energy at an alarming rate and it's hard to imagine how to shake them at this point, nor is it my sticky wicket.



Finally, Disturbathon suffers greatly from the simple fact that the Diabolicrats are overwhelmingly male. It's a boy's club and it shows. Yes, there are female Diabolicrats but there need to be a lot more. This may account for one of the event's more pedestrian attractions- the "Stripper Room" in a community renowned for having hundreds of public stripper venues. Here the scale tips from unsettling to mundane. Also, the set-up of the public bathroom verges on misogyny, a flat plywood surface elevated above the commode with a cut-out hole above which female guests must crouch, all under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras that narrowcast onto TVs in another room. Such frat-house follies subject women guests to indignity while the guys skate, reminding us that some pranks confer an initiatory shock while others just reinforce the status quo.



For the most part, Disturbathon offers and will probably continue to offer the sort of well-worn fun that has typified its adolescence. Like most dares, it harmlessly bumps its head on the ceiling beyond which truly disturbing events occur. And a simulacrum of fear and shock is okay in a world in which we're bombarded with the atrocious, the tragic and the violent with sad regularity. It still offers enough fun for guests to escape to. And having reached critical bureaucratic and attendee mass, it offers some, like myself, something from which to escape. At the very least, this Halloween attraction's popularity signals that there are a lot of people in Dallas who treasure and will support freaky weirdness. And that's a good thing.

I'd also comment that penises are not meant for shaking hands. Thanks to all the guys who thought otherwise and tried to give me passing handjobs as I squeezed through the small hallways. I don't know where my ethics really lie with consent being something negotiable at an event like that. For part, it is Disturbathon, a zone in which the attendees are to be disturbed, but at another, I don't feel that being disturbed and being very slightly raped fall into the same category.

Shame on me, I suppose, for being bold (and cheap) and going naked for a sign.

It seems like while Disturbathon as an art project has lost it's spark, it still does a good job of disturbing and making people uncomfortable. However, I might just be getting old, or been in too many orgies to be affected, but watching an old man get fucked in the ass by an amputee's nub didn't really bother me. Guess I'm just jaded to the amputee gay scene.

In summary, it was fun taking Mer to see some fuckedupery, but I doubt I'll ever go again. More than anything, after I saw all there was to see, I was really just bored and tired of looking for a place to sit down.

-Sean

[DREX]

best d'thon ever

fuck that....best party ever

[DREX]

oh and if dude was there working he would have known the stripper room was almost completely designed and executed by a female

[SeanSparks]

Originally Posted by DREX

oh and if dude was there working he would have known the stripper room was almost completely designed and executed by a female

He's been involved with Disturbathon for a long, long time. He's not really involved with it anymore, and that was definitely his last one, simply because he's more into art terrorism and social pranking than a theme park for weirdos. I don't know if he was aware that a woman designed the stripper room, but it doesn't change the validity of his points. Women can reinforce gender stereotypes just as well as men can, sometimes even moreso.

-Sean

[>]

Sean's bathroom looked like there was an african tribesman in there.. muddy hand prints all over the walls.

[lysistrata]

Originally Posted by DREX

best d'thon ever

fuck that....best party ever

yeah, i guess you didn't get groped, had strange men follow you around, or had people try to take your picture without asking first. oh yeah and, you have a dick, enabling you to pee standing up in the misogynist bathroom with the toilet seat on the floors, loaded with cameras and a fucking viewing room with couches (some of the only couches at the event)--or not have to pee in it at all, if you found the giant bathtub urinal outside the bathroom.

those factors alone would have ruined my night, had i not gotten to hang out backstage with a bunch of my friends, or had i not seen craig take an amputee leg in the ass, while sitting atop a giant art-limo that was rocking back and forth because people were fucking inside it.

[DREX]

Originally Posted by lysistrata

yeah, i guess you didn't get groped, had strange men follow you around, or had people try to take your picture without asking first. oh yeah and, you have a dick, enabling you to pee standing up in the misogynist bathroom with the toilet seat on the floors, loaded with cameras and a fucking viewing room with couches (some of the only couches at the event)--or not have to pee in it at all, if you found the giant bathtub urinal outside the bathroom.

those factors alone would have ruined my night, had i not gotten to hang out backstage with a bunch of my friends, or had i not seen craig take an amputee leg in the ass, while sitting atop a giant art-limo that was rocking back and forth because people were fucking inside it.

that sucks and i can understand where you coming from...the girls i was with had several fuckers coming at them all evening....but when i told the pervs to fuck off they did as ordered...and when one of them didnt i promptly told him id cave his skull in if he didnt scram....so we ran essentially unfettered by any bullshit....its a shame that you werent as fortunate....craig?....are you talking about pumpkin balls?

[DREX]

Originally Posted by SeanSparks

He's been involved with Disturbathon for a long, long time. He's not really involved with it anymore, and that was definitely his last one, simply because he's more into art terrorism and social pranking than a theme park for weirdos. I don't know if he was aware that a woman designed the stripper room, but it doesn't change the validity of his points. Women can reinforce gender stereotypes just as well as men can, sometimes even moreso.

-Sean

yeah ive known of steve for a long time....we use to go to the river with the same crew years and years ago....and although I don’t agree with him on the matter I do appreciate what the guy has to say regardless of his facts being askew….as far as any gender stereotyping I find the entire argument ridiculous….unless that is your citing that men like to fuck and look at things they want to fuck….other than that I think you would be hard pressed to find a stereotype that isnt shit, puked, pissed and cummed all over by disturbathon….ultimately i guess you either like it or you don’t…..but save all the analytical psychobabble for your ethics class

[juandingo]

some people are blowhards and some people are fuck hards. lets leave it at that.

[BigBallinColin]

all I am going to say is the pee on me guy made me feel pretty good about myself.

[DREX]

Originally Posted by BigBallinColin

all I am going to say is the pee on me guy made me feel pretty good about myself.

thats pumpkin balls....hes rad

[Sindell357]

i think its great that theres a guy named pumpkin balls that wants to get peed on!

[DREX]

Originally Posted by Sindell357

i think its great that theres a guy named pumpkin balls that wants to get peed on!

he was real bummed early on cause his pumpkin malfunctioned

[Sindell357]

that sux

[SeanSparks]

Originally Posted by DREX

yeah ive known of steve for a long time....we use to go to the river with the same crew years and years ago....and although I don’t agree with him on the matter I do appreciate what the guy has to say regardless of his facts being askew….as far as any gender stereotyping I find the entire argument ridiculous….unless that is your citing that men like to fuck and look at things they want to fuck….other than that I think you would be hard pressed to find a stereotype that isnt shit, puked, pissed and cummed all over by disturbathon….ultimately i guess you either like it or you don’t…..but save all the analytical psychobabble for your ethics class

The analytical psychobabble is part of what makes events like Disturbathon happen. Aside from being an orgy of nasty wonder, it's also something that is designed to send a message. Discussing what the end message appears to be is part of the art process. So no, I won't keep my input reserved for any area of your design, I'll put it where I want.

-Sean