ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIP SERVICE WEB MAGAZINE
Do you sometimes really want to smash the living hell out of your computer with a badass 20 lb sledgehammer? Would love to stomp your printer until it’s nothing but chards on the floor? Feel like throwing plates and glass as hard as you can at the wall, just to hear them shatter to bits? Crash and Jane at Studio Servitù figured as much and devised a delightfully angst-purging night of mass destruction, Je M’en Fous (which I will now assume means “breaking stuff rocks!”).
Being a huge fan of breaking stuff, I was ALL IN, baby! I mean *ahem* it’s always nice to go out and support Lip Service sponsored events, so The Boss and I thought we’d give this whole “breaking things” a try. *haha* We arrived and were ushered into the huge freight elevator and through the hall toward the signature striped entry of Servitù. Immediately, our ears were greeted with the glorious din of a killer DJ set, accented with the buzz of conversation, punctuated by increasingly rapid smashing and shattering followed by whoops and shouts from the crowd. What a great way to kick off a night out!
It wasn’t long before we were right in the midst of the action. Crash pulled Jimi behind the layers of chicken wire into the smash zone, toward a PC tower all teed up and ready. Now, those of you who know my lovely partner in crime know what a chill, low-key sort of guy he is. Well, ha ha and ha! Not with a big ol’ sledgehammer in his hands, he’s not! With his long hair flying, my otherwise gentle husband laid waste to that damned thing, slamming away and dragging it back into place to beat on it some more. When he was done, his ear-to-ear grin was all I needed to see. It was time to make some breakables pay!
Waved into the zone, I donned some safety goggles and was given some plates. Fastball pitch, straight at the wall! SMASH! Oh yes! More smash and crash! Glorious! I can tell you, the sound of porcelain hitting brick at high speeds … seriously satisfying! Practically the moment I was done, I wanted MORE! Everyone, please meet my Inner Berserker.
One by one, everyone in the crowd got to take a turn getting their rage on. New faces were steered by friends toward the table of breakables, shown the impressive array of bigger, badder targets. They, in turn, brought more friends to the wire. It became the standard greeting of the night. “Have you broken anything yet? … Oh, it’s soooo goooood!” You could tell, even if you were in the lounge area or bar, who had just made the most recent smashing noises by the relaxed, blissed-out expression on their face. Some people came in a bit dubious, thinking, “I don’t know. It seems a bit violent.” but, before long, they reappeared with the same post-smashy grin.
My hero of the night had to be Chopper Dave, a fellow photographer and all-around great cat. It was his birthday and he wanted an epic weapon to swing. So, he crafted The Thor Hammer, a solid steel, twenty pound sledgehammer which packed quite a wallop. I know this because I got to wield this badass tool of berserkerdom, hefting it over my head again and again to utterly demolish a temperamental printer. Take that, paper jam! Apparently, I seemed to be having too good of a time to quit yet, so Crash handed me a PC laptop, informing me and the crowd that the provider had (and I paraphrase) “a shitload of porn in there and wants the whole machine utterly destroyed.” Starting with the beast called Thor, I made short work of the bulk of it. But, there was detailed demolition called for here. I was doing a solid, right? Had to be thorough. *heh heh* So I was provided with a claw hammer to go batshit on every last bit of the thing. I guess I really got into the breaking, because I managed to slam the laptop so hard, I also broke the bloody hammer. Umm, oops sorry? *heh heh* That’s right, suckahs, don’t mess with this degenerate camera jockey!
As I mentioned, there were quite a lot of big items one could select, stacked up high against the wall. These were easily the most fun smashing sessions to watch and, by far, the most impressive-sounding. Every time a computer monitor or TV received its first strike, the boom was resounding, almost shaking your insides, the shattering screens bursting like a miniature preview of the fireworks to come later in the weekend. Superb!
Beside the obvious, the ladies of Servitù added some rather ingenious touches of wit in the targets and arsenal. My favorite weapon? Easy. It would have to be the guitar Jane used to massacre a TV that needed killin’. Hell yes! If Elvis didn’t have that gun, that’s how he’d have done it. “Uh, Red? Man, gimme that guitar. Thank you very much!” Favorite beat-down of the night? Eat this, Easy-Bake Oven! That’s what you get for making shitty cakes that taste like paste!
All in all, it was a crazy, fun night beating the hell out of pesky bits of technology, along with some of our favorite freaks of the LA underground. I hope they have another one really soon because our TV decided to stop working and, damnit, I’m pretty pissed off to have missed True Blood. I think it needs a dose of Thor Hammer, don’t you?
Thank you to Jane and Crash of Studio Servitù for being such remarkable hosts (as always). Thanks, too, to Michael Vegas for providing great photos (to see all Michael’s photos from Je M’en Fous, check out his FB albums at The Soul Thief). And, of course, thank you Lip Service for sponsoring such a fun and unique event.