YEAR OF TAZ-HOPPING AND TRIPPING BALLS
| BEST OF 2020 | A window of radical possibility opened and I stepped into the void
Photo by Thomas Albdorf for my “Politics of Pleasure” story in Document Journal, out today!
To all my fans, friends, and frenemies: thanks for sticking with me during this *extremely Virgil Abloh voice* “YEAR OF THE PLAGUE.” It already feels cliché to say what a cursed year 2020 has been—everyone had at least one cross to bear—so instead, I’m going to talk about pandemic pivots, metamorphosis, and transformation.
I launched this newsletter at the start of the pandemic out of desperation—stunned, hysterical, and broke, I prayed that ya’ll would save me from a rigged media game that even the best players keep losing. It… worked?! I’ve done the wildest and most rewarding journalism of my whole goddamn life—criss-crossing the country while chasing protests, parties, and cop-free temporary autonomous zones (AKA “TAZ”) in Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and beyond.
It was a long and sometimes lonely road fraught with fear and risk—I got shot at, detained by police, robbed of thousands of dollars of gear, stalked by strange men. Every step of this journey haunted by the specter of disease and death—(I pause here to note that all the reporting I did was outside and masked)—yet I’ve never felt so palpably alive; an Overton window of radical possibility had swung open and I was stepping straight into the void.
The underlying impulse behind my work this year was to attempt to understand the new American counterculture fermenting on these streets through the frameworks I know best: music and drugs. My burning question: what are the politics of pleasure and partying in this revolution for racial justice? This line of inquiry might sound blasphemous to some—I explored this tension in my essay on the messy politics of pandemic raves—but again and again, as death and destruction torched every city I visited, I saw so much dancing and hope on the streets.
I will never forget hearing drum and bass rattle the night air as a police helicopter chased me through downtown DC. Watching crying mourners dancing like strippers at a memorial for a protestor killed by a car attack. Twerking to 90s house and reggaeton in a homeless kid’s DIY music shack during a tense standoff with cops in Philadelphia. Blasting The Chemical Brothers outside a jail in Minneapolis as protestors barricaded the train tracks. At one point, some activists and I even created our own “therapeutic autonomous zone” in a park in Brooklyn, with activists teaching protest workshops and DJs playing psychedelic trance.
Sis, I’ve been CARRYING. And there is no way I could have done this balls-to-the-wall gonzo journalism without all of you, and the small amount of dough this newsletter brings in. By throwing me $6.66 a month (the price of a satanic coffee), ya’ll have allowed me to run straight into the frontlines without waiting for a magazine editor’s approval; afford the gear I needed to livestream; check into a cheap hotel room when I was feeling unsafe and needed a place to crash. Thank you for this freedom.
(If you’ve been a free-reader so far and have some coin to spare, please for the love of god pay your fabulously underpaid party girl correspondent so I can go even harder next year.)
Now take my hand as we jump back to the beginning of this hyper-accelerating time warp, and reflect on what the FUCK just happened. (These are just the highlights btw—the full archive is here.)
OK, let’s begin.
TAZ-HOPPING AND TRIPPING BALLS
1. PROTESTCHELLA (LA)
This is where my journey down the rabbit hole really began, and the first time I got the sense that something important yet inchoate was shaping the new counterculture—and the culture wars to come.
2. THE CHOP’S LAST STAND (SEATTLE)
People keep asking me: so what was the infamous CHOP autonomous zone really like? Well, this is the story of the final shooting and the longest night of my life.
3. THE FALL OF OCCUPY CITY HALL (NYC)
This is when I picked up an important new thread that would unravel throughout the summer: how homelessness isn’t an afterthought but a critical intersection of racial and housing justice.
4. GEORGE FLOYD AUTONOMOUS ZONE (MINNEAPOLIS)
Did you know that the blocks around where George Floyd died has been a barricaded autonomous zone since day one of the uprising?
5. HOW THE PHILLY AUTONOMOUS ZONE WON
Can autonomous zones be effective protest strategies? This sprawling homeless encampment that beat the city’s corrupt housing system at its own game suggests that the answer is HELL YES.
6. STICKER’S WORLD (NYC)
I was so scurred to share this very personal story behind the viral police kidnapping video, but Stickers reminded me what it’s like to live fast and loose on the streets and I wouldn’t have traded this night for the world.
7. CLUB SOBER
As much as I love drugs, I am also invested in sobriety and creating alternative models to traditional programs like Alcoholics Anonymous for people in nightlife and music.
8. WELCOME TO THE PSYCHEDELIC AGE, BITCH
Dissecting the November US elections, where the biggest winner was DRUGS, and the dark and druggie fervor of our times.
9. SHROOMS ARE THE NEW WEED
Inside the nascent psychedelic underground, the question on everyone's lips: how do we avoid the mistakes of cannabis?
10. WHAT THE FUCK IS WEARABLE KETAMINE?
The thorniest question at the heart of this story is whether addictive drugs can treat other addictions.
FINAL HIT
OMG I almost forgot I also wrote for some magazines too! Lol here are my faves:
✍ A ~cover story~ on the almighty Grimes (The Face)
✍ A deep dive into the politics of revolutionary pleasure (Document Journal - NEW!)
✍ An investigation into whether weed strain names are a scam (Playboy)
✍ An analysis of the $$ biz $$ of virtual clubs (Bloomberg)
✍ An essay on the end of 2000s-era Brooklyn nightlife (Electronic Beats)
✍ An exposé on ketamine nasal sprays (Double Blind)
✍ A review of radical protest art (Art Forum)
LAST THING I PROMISE, here are some sweet podcasts I hopped on this year:
🎧 New Models: Slide to the Left
🎧 Rave to the Grave w/ Vivian Host
That’s it! Shoutout all the collectives I collabed with in 2020—Unicorn Riot, Extinction Rebellion, New Models, Masks For the Masses, Sesh-Ins, Stoners Night LA—and the big homies who fed and housed me this year.
Happy Hallucinating this NYE, and see ya on the flip.