Good morning John. It's Pizzamas.

I have every opportunity to say most of the things, but I have searched around and I don't think I have said this.

I like mosh pits or maybe I used to like mosh pits. I may have gone in my last mosh pit.

Like I know that I am a huge dork and I wouldn't want anyone to think anything else, but flinging myself into unknown turbulent physicality with strangers one of my top 10 sensations of my life.
And I think there are some misconceptions about them.

The first being that they are purely anarchistic and that they are violent.

Now you can get hurt in a mosh pit and there are violent people in mosh pits. But there are also rules and rules are going to be different from scene to scene like a death metal mosh pit is very different from a ska-punk mosh pit.

But anyway as an example the pits I was in. The first and most important rules if somebody goes down you get them back up again however you can. Because that is the dangerous moment in a mosh pit when somebody is in the ground.

You don't punch you don't kick like showing and pushing are so different from punching and kicking but I was super fascinated with when I was a kid though and this like, this era of my life is maybe from like 15 to 25 is who is making these rules and if you think about it enough it becomes this like very clear microcosm for how culture works.

Now there are a lot of inputs here but like in small shows which was where I was at, like the person in charge is the lead singer and if there is like some violence happening in the pit they can either just let it go or they can say something about it.
That's a responsibility that is on them as a leader in that moment and from there those cultural norms were then spread throughout the crowd and something that had been a questionable activity beforehand became something that you obviously shouldn't do and that the rest of the crowd would enforce.

There's a live a live seven seconds album called scream real loud and you can several times throughout the album hear Kevin seconds say like get that guy out of there or hey hey hey you need to calm down.
Seven seconds most wholesome hardcore band ever and bands of that era would also write songs about the rules which, I...it's fascinating to me. Seven seconds has a song which is called not just boys fun which is about how to make the hardcore scene more inclusive to all genders from 1984. It was 1984.
And the ridiculously influential kind of overlooked way before its time band operation ivy like you listen.... their big album energy like 50 percent of the songs are either about how to be a good person generally like healthy body sick mind or about how to be a good member of the Gilman street punk scene. The crowd is one of their songs out of the following line, if we're scared of one another must be scared of ourselves more than just another crowd we need a gathering instead. Like it's church. These people were my first exposure to how to intentionally lead a community. Now, our parents were also good at that for clarity but there is a difference between like a hardcore band and your mom in terms of like how cool they are. They were leading their communities they were establishing norms and they were talking about what behaviors were and weren't acceptable.

The world looks like chaos and yet usually we're all able to stay on our feet but in the best situations when we aren't somebody is there to pick you up. Because bad things happen when people are on the ground and you lift that person back up not just because that's the rules but because that feels so good.

Having someone help you when you really really need it is nice, and helping someone else when they really really need it is even better.

There's music playing John and it's my first video of Pizzamas so you know what that means. Thanks, Operation Ivy.