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Summary: An Interview with Douglas Rushkoff about Ecstasy Club
Review: --You've written five successful non-fiction books. Why anovel now?
Because I want to finally tell the real truth. Ifind that in non-fiction the facts sometimes have a funny way of obscuring reality. That, and the potential for libel. When I make up the people and institutions, I can tell much truer stories about the world I'm exploring than I'm free to do as a journalist. Just think of how many movie stars we all know are gay, but who the press pretend are straight. It's not out of respect for their privacy, that's for sure.
--In your early books you tend to celebrate the culture of cyberpunks, ravers, and generation X. Here, you appear to attack them.
It's not attack as much as satire - although it's not so far from how many of these people think and live. I guess I felt, when writing non-fiction, I needed to bend over backwards to give fringe cultures a fair shake. No one else does. I've been inspired by these folks - by Timothy Leary, R.U. Sirius, rave kids around the world, and wild young media hackers - and felt the need toto let the world in on the terrific stuff they were doing. Most adults don't appreciate the creative intelligence of young people, especially young people taking psychedelics and dancing all night. Personally, I feel like I've pushed through all this and come out the other end. The naïve optimism of the early cyber years and rave clubs were terrific breaths of fresh air. It's what allowed for so many of the great insights that have led to terrific new art and technology. That's what Cyberia is about, and I don't regret having celebrated that.
But there's a danger to taking the "designer reality" idea too seriously. These kids are so creatively intelligent, and see so many patterns in everything that it's easy for them to fall into paranoia. I've met people in the San Francisco South of Market scene who really do believe there are covert operatives following them around. And they have a very abstract set of notions about the world. They seem to want to remove themselves from the real world with all its real-life contradictions and confusion, and move to a sterile, experimental world of absolute peace and harmony.
Ecstasy Club is about what would happen if one of these people, say, got pregnant. Try living in a zone of "infinite timelessness" when you've got a fetus growing in your belly.
--Is that what this book is about, then? Three ravers and a baby?
Not exactly. It's about a rave collective - a cult, really - formed with the best of intentions yet vulnerable to its own slightly paranoid tendencies. It's a spoof on conspiracy theory, really. A comedy of manners set amidst a bright group of ravers who think they've got the drugs and technology necessary to touch the next dimension. They're really quite sweet people - they just don't understand yet that the greatest spiritual challenges in life are usually right in front of your face.
I also take some of these giant TV cults to task. It becomes quite the action yarn when the kids realize they are up against some indeterminable combination of city police, government officials, TV cults, computer magazines, and even extra-terrestrials. They end up kidnapping one of their enemies and - well, it's a long story. There's lots of raves, road trips, and veiled cultural criticism in there, too.
--And you have a movie deal, right?
Yup. Miramax bought it, and the producer, Cathy Konrad, really understands the story. I'm thrilled about it. The screenplay could never be quite as convoluted as the book, but I think the dance scenes and action at the end will translate well. It's certainly a fun world to make a movie about, and no one's tried it before. I remember when I had to pitch it to the Hollywood people. It boiled down to something like: Altered States meets Trainspotting meets Flatliners, but with a rave soundtrack. I just love the deconstructed language of references those guys speak in.
--And we hear you make $7500 per hour as a media consultant to television and movie companies. What are you, a writer or a businessman?
I don't think I'll ever live down that New York Times piece. I'm not a consultant - I'm just a writer who once in a while gets to tell businessmen to stop trying to program youth culture. I'm inspired by the same media-savvy qualities in America's youth that seem to frighten media executives. Really, I'm just a guy who has a lot of fun exploring the weirder, darker communities in our midst, and then writing about them for other people. I get to have experiences, ingest chemicals, and meet people that very few other folks get to. The least I can do is share what I've come away with in as entertaining a manner as possible.
As far as trend-watching, that's all part of it. Whether I'm writing fiction or fact, it's always about what I see or think I see on the cultural horizon.
--So, it appears from this novel, anyway, that you think conspiracy theory and paranoia are on that horizon?
They're already here. Ecstasy Club is absolutely a novel about our paranoid times. Between X-Files, Dark Skies, Independence Day, JFK, our culture has gotten about as paranoid as it's ever been. Maybe moreso. Look at Heaven's Gate. I see it getting worse. What I tried to do in the book is take conspiracy to its logical extreme - give people a taste of what it would be like if all this were true, or at least if we believed it all to be true. That's really the joke of the whole book: it doesn't matter if "they" are really out to get you. If you believe it, and act as if they are, then they've already won.
--As a cultural theorist, though, what would say are the reasons why we are living in such a paranoid culture?
The reasons are everywhere you look. You can't walk into a store without being photographed, behind every news story is a cover-up, and nothing is quite what it seems to be anymore. It's as if history itself has been reduced to hype and spin. Every event we live is the result of the hype that went before it, and the spin with which it is reported and remembered after the fact. That's even what most modern spirituality comes down to: spin and hype, hype and spin. In the book it becomes a method of time travel, actually. You can influence the future and rewrite the past with good public relations.
--But the book ends up being an advertisement for family values, don't you think?
Well, many people might think it's an advertisement for psychedelics. The kids do an awful lot of drugs. But
some of the main characters do opt out of the Ecstasy Club, that's true. They've had enough of trying to touch the next dimension. They've realized it's all hype, and want to tackle the real challenges of life, like how to make money without screwing over your fellow humans, how to eat without letting others starve, how to have a relationship without being untruthful or abusive, and even how to raise kids without projecting all of our own crap onto them. Life itself is as big a challenge as anybody needs. To create new challenges, or invent phantom enemies - that's just nuts. Funny, but nuts. I guess that's the whole point.
--I don't recant my earlier books. I just think people take all of this a bit too far. And people who take things too far are ripe for satire.
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Summary: And...
Review: ...and that emptiness and boredom and blankness are the only emotions which author transferred to me as his reader through the medium of his words and it feels like a disease which is called "I am one of GenXers". While being not exactly the effect the author probably aspired to achieve by his novel, it perfectly matches with the true state of lives and feelings of the people like the ones acting roles in his story. And by this, the work proves the eternal unity of the art and real life, both always creations of the creator...
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Summary: Origin of PLUR Foundation Myth
Review: A charismatic Brit and his entourage of overeducated dropouts take over a piano factory in Oakland, intending to squat there and throw the most massive raves the Bay Area has ever seen. But, as their project progresses, they find the mix of their idealistic youthful hormones and the hard drugs they gobble up like Captain Crunch has turned their enterprise into a paranoid schizophrenic cult called Ecstasy Club bent on time travel and transcendence. Things get weird when they actually succeed. But all is not well in Nirvana. Rushkoff manages to hard-wire a psychotically charged volume that connects all the pop-culture dots, like conspiracy theories, aliens, and MTV. The ironic distance of the narrator seems malleable, like physical distance on too much acid. Ecstasy Club seems to turn its own pages. (this review got accidentally posted to another Rushkoff book)
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Summary: Ultimate Trip
Review: A roller coaster ride through drugs, future concepts, morality, and cults. I loved the odd mix of characters and the piano factory setting. I never knew about the "rave scene" until reading this book.
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Summary: Ultimate Trip
Review: A roller coaster ride through drugs, future concepts, morality, and cults. I loved the odd mix of characters and the piano factory setting. I never knew about the "rave scene" until reading this book.
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Summary: Ultimate Trip
Review: A roller coaster ride through drugs, future concepts, morality, and cults. I loved the odd mix of characters and the piano factory setting. I never knew about the "rave scene" until reading this book.
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Summary: Techno, Drugs and Government Conspiracy?!?
Review: After reading some of Douglas Rushkoff's non-fiction work, specifically "Coercion", I was looking forward to checking out his story telling skills. I haven't read a lot of fiction lately, so this book was a nice change of pace. Ecstasy Club takes place in Oakland, CA where a bunch of lost soul Gen X'ers start a commune in an abandoned warehouse where they search for the meaning of life while raving the nights away and consuming as many drugs as humanly possible. The story twisted around drug induced psychoses, cult leaders, crazy government conspiracy theories and wild rave parties. Rushkoff has proved that he can write a fictional story just as well as he can write about current topics. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to his next fictional work.
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Summary: A furturistic novel introducing a new, psychedelic world.
Review: David Rushkoff, a New York City resident delivers an strounding novel, Ecstasy Club. Rushkoff's novel is a brilliant story which involves humor, romance, and psychedelic scenes involving mind-enhancing substances as you flip through the pages which "sets you free." As the young citizens of San Francisco claim an abandoned building in Oakland, they begin their entranced lives in the PF (abandoned piano factory). The factory gains famosity from each members' contributions. The club attracts a crowd of "party people" in search of intoxicating raves. In the novel, the characters fall in love with each other, they experience hallucinations together, and they find their way to the future. I think this novel which focuses on the success of a rave club is a comical yet serious story. I feel that this book captures the readers' attention by the numerous events experienced by the people. I liked this book and I recommend that this novel be read by many other people becaause it informs the reader about the "hidden world." Its also a wonderful experience which many shot consider reading or experiencing in the "real world."
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Summary: Esoteric-Brain Scramble
Review: For those of us entangled in the wonderful world of sex, drugs, and electronic music this tale provides a twisted reality. Rushkoff gives some interesting characters that any raver can picture. The book takes you on this journey through the lives of a few smart people and then flips around and makes what you thought to be another old novel into something you've never seen before..
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Summary: Mellow Out!
Review: Geez, some of these reviews are a tad harsh! This book is actually quite good. It seems as though the "Rave" scene is finally coming into its' own as backdrop/inspiration for various mediums of expression. I'm not sure why this book would provoke such harsh criticism...It's well written, the plot moves forward with internal logic and the characters are filled out nicely. No, it's not "Great Expectations" or "War and Peace" but then again maybe that's a good thing! Sometimes I find it more helpful to my life to read something with a cool story and not an overwhelming message. I for one enjoyed this book and think that many others would as well.
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