The Rubulad of Cali, Colombia

One of the things I've been trying to figure out here in Cali is how to have the kind of nightlife experience that I like, which has changed a lot over there years. I used to be a nightclub person, and over time, I started to prefer bars with a fun atmosphere. I'm not sure if that's because I'm getting older or if New York made me do it because all the nightclubs seemed to be closing down and no good new ones were taking their place. Whatever the mysterious reason, that's the way it is. But when I do want more of a party, in New York, Rubulad (and other parties that wish they were Rubulad) was what I went for.

Rubulad in the Church

If you're not familiar with the magic of Rubulad, allow me to explain. It was a group that moved around locations throwing kind of free-for-all parties with electronic music. My two favorite locations was an abandoned church in Bedstuy and a big public school in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They sold cheap beer (PBR.... the champagne of hipsters) and liquor, people came in costumes (which they often got a discount for doing), and there would sometimes be art installments. I remember my friend Frank and I sitting entranced in a room of the school location where they were projecting cartoons on the wall while someone played discordant piano music live.

I know. You're gagging on how hipstery and pretentious this is, but I loved it.

So I didn't quite need to find anything similar here in Cali, but well, I did. Alexis, a friend of mine from a neighboring city, came in to visit. We we're supposed to go play Tejo, a game where you through a rock onto another sort of rock and try to get an explosion to occur. It's a traditional game in Colombia. But when we got there, all the fields were busy, so we just drank beer, watched, and decided what to do next. After some aimless wondering around San Antonio and Alexis looking through Facebook, he told me about a party called convulxion, and while I wasn't super excited at first, I didn't have anything else better to suggest, so I thought, "Why not?"

We killed a bit of time in Granada, going to Cool (which was barren at 7:30) and then to Imaginaria, which is always fun to visit for their cocktail list. By the time we finished there, we walked to the bordering neighborhood, which is where convulxion was.

When I got inside, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a giant, two story room. There was pool, which no one seemed to take advantage of, a DJ booth with crazy scenes being projected behind it (lots of 90s and Nintendo nostalgia mixed with utter randomness) and some nice music playing from the first DJ. There was a makeshift bar in the back where they sold Poker (kind of the PBR of Colombia) and shots of whiskey. For a small charge, you could bring in your own bottle of whatever from the outside, which we eventually did. The placed also reaked of pot. Which is fine with me.

The people were almost all alternativos, and the second DJ who played was absolutely amazing. By the time she was well into her set, everyone was moving, somne stoned, some drunk, some both, many half-naked and everyone dripping in sweat. I looked around and realized there I was: In the midst of beautiful anarchy, where no one was normal and no one had expectations of how you should act, a place where being foreign was no more out of the norm than having your whole body tattoed or your face pierced. And I finally got a moment to relax.

convulxion