SEV 1 Party

“We Built this City” by Jospeh William Morgan and Mountains vs. Machines based on the original 1985 hit by Starship & “Broken Mast Bay” by Sail North🎵

Almost 20 years ago I was an underage college student.

I both worked and went to university in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the land of enchantment.

I have many stories from that time that are core to who I am – we studied art deeply while simultaneously holding jobs. We would wake up at 4 AM to be on-set in Greer Garson for the movies filming there. Pack in. Pack out. Make sure all the camera parts are there or you’ll hear about it.

I loved my friends, and whenever I have caught up with those from the former College of Santa Fe, they are bonds that traverse time. There’s one story that is core to who I am I was reminded of when Joseph William Morgan released his latest “redux” of the Starship hit “We Built This City.”

I had a small campus apartment and above me lived John (*Note this is not his real name – I will leave real names out of this to protect their digital identity in the age of data leaks and credit card theft). John was a partier, and in many ways, I was one of the people who kept him grounded.

When they’d smoke weed, I was the one that had a crock pot roast going downstairs that everyone would come eat because the entire unit could smell it. I didn’t smoke because I was too worried about possibly failing classes and losing my scholarships. I also rarely partied for the same reason. I was worried if I didn’t get up at 4 AM, if I missed packing out, if I didn’t show up for set or for my jobs tutoring others or in the equipment room I’d be fired at any given moment depending on the job I had then.

We had a friend named Travis (again not a real name). Travis was a sculpting major – eccentric and a bit out there, but always told the truth.

Had wild ideas.
Dreamed bigger than all of us. Travis was over 21 and was the only person who could buy alcohol.

So, that Saturday, we decided host a party in John’s apartment.

At least 30 people came – far too many to fit in a 2 bedroom space. John loved playing guitar and also, Guitar Hero, depending on the day. I don’t remember which one of those things came out, but I can confirm at least one of them did.

And at some point we started to put on real music, if you consider hits from the 80s good and Starship as “good” which is absolutely debatable.

You can imagine getting a bunch of creators into an apartment where most of them are underage, alcohol is being served, and rock is playing exactly what began to happen.

We began jamming.

Loudly.

Too many runaways eating up the night

John jumped on his couch. The only solution was to be louder.

Someone’s always playing corporation games
Who cares, they’re always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page

I was thinking “We might be getting a little too loud.”

And unfortunately so did the RA who, usually, never reported us and was a close friend.

We built, we built this city, yeah (Built this city)
We built, we built this city

Knock. Knock.

Travis was going to open the door while we were still singing.

Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll!!!!!

To some widely smiling campus cops and our RA.

It was in that moment I learned who was a real friend and who was, in a moment of crisis, going to throw you under the bus.

I was under 21. John was too. Travis? Travis was over 21 and was going to take the full hit for everything for being a nice person. We were all safe, no one was super drunk. We were simply, too loud.

Two girls with ciders in their hands started yelling that no, they couldn’t answer the door or ‘they’d get in trouble. The guys that gave them the alcohol should do it.’ I gave them an extremely sour look that is burned into me for embarrassing my gender and the name of integrity.

I saw Travis swallow his soul, eyes driving guilt into the doorknob.

John behind him because it was his apartment. I jumped up from where I was sitting and said “Give me 30 seconds.” Because both Travis and John were too inebriated to realize, and I was absolutely not, that everything was in plain sight. So I solved that problem…

And then I said, “Open the door. I’m coming with you.”

We stepped out, with the door cracked open. They had no justification to enter.

“You know you’re being a little loud.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Are you guys drinking? Are you over 21?” The three of us answered truthfully to protect everyone else in the apartment. Travis was asked to go meet them the next day or so. But because both John and I had stepped aside with him, and because our reputations were exceptional, the three of us got community service. We got to pick when and where. No one got cuffed or charged with anything.

We went back into the apartment, waited for them to leave, and then kicked every one out, but especially the people who had done everything to prevent themselves from being accountable.

When I did community service later I met some of the most honorable people in my life.

Everyone had a story, and we were excited to be there to help anyway. You see, most of us kind of did this later in our careers too – I served on a non-profit for a non-small portion of it and still donate to several. We didn’t need a party as an excuse to do community service – we knew in our core we needed community.

This is the very true story of a night I don’t even remember if I had any alcohol at all, but couldn’t for the life of me live with my close friends potentially going to jail. None of us got jail. It’s not on our record. Because you know what campus police and people can see through?

Accountability & Transparency

Accountability can be learned, but only if you model it first and it has a spectrum of how you model it. We could have forced everyone in that apartment to be accountable by opening the door as widely as possible.

Transparency isn’t earned, it’s gifted. We had gifted enough transparency for campus cops to do their jobs and they knew we knew we were going to be accountable for our choice whatever they decided.

That was more valuable in that moment to that entire room of people who were going to grow up to be something. Standing up with our peers was more important, than being just a little too loud, to those who were responsible for our future.

So next time you see something go wrong – whether it’s an incident, whether it’s a corporate decision that screws over your peers, whether it’s anything it all – it may feel extremely terrifying to go first. But go first. Put in that incident so you can get help as fast as possible. Be LOUD.

Build your CITY so it echos like a very annoying song in everyone’s brain for a long time.

Sometimes making yourself quotable and loud, is the only thing that makes a difference in the grand scheme against things breaking and going wrong all the time, the worst of which is when we break people which is extremely hard to get perfect and doesn’t respond with exact errors. If being loud while also being accountable and transparent doesn’t work?

You will still get to keep the people you care about for a very long time – that has more value to you against anyone who doesn’t see that.

Header Image of “Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas in Starship – 1985 Cleveland’s Public Hall” submitted by Dave Cackowski released under CC BY-SA 4.0