Left In Lowell

An astute reader sent me a link to an article in the Lowell Sun today, a publication I’ve been neglecting in light of the big national events that have rocked the country. But I can’t ignore the rank stereotyping by City Manager John Cox, the big bully. Unbelievable. First, the article, and some quotes (since the link will soon die):

Goth festival falls silent at ballpark
Promoter cries foul; city manager says permit for event never filed

LOWELL — With five weeks until show time, the city has pulled the plug on the New England Punk, Goth & Metal Festival scheduled for LeLacheur Park on Oct. 1-2.

The 70-band event, which was expected to draw 5,000 people each day, was to be the first concert ever staged at the ballpark, home to the Lowell Spinners minor-league baseball team. The news took Matthew Marchesi by surprise. The 25-year-old Lowell promoter said he has signed contracts with four headliners and sold 1,000 tickets.

“They are afraid of who we are and might be,” said Marchesi, whose company Spaz-tik Ltd., runs events such as Slaughter House Saturdays at Reflections in Chelmsford.

Marchesi said he had a contract with Spinners management for the show and thought he was all set. But on Aug. 15, City Manager John Cox read about the “scheduled” Goth fest in The Sun and immediately contacted Spinners’ officials. Cox said he told the Spinners that proper procedures weren’t being followed and that he was unhappy with the choice of event at the city-owned ballpark.

“First of all, nobody sought the city’s permission about it,” Cox told The Sun.

“Also, it’s not the type of thing we want there. Someone like James Taylor would be more appropriate for the first concert.”

St. Onge told The Sun two weeks ago the Goth concert was a sure thing. The Sun made repeated attempts to contact St. Onge this week, but calls to City Hall and his office were not returned.

Organizers say the festival is being discriminated against because it features Goths, a subculture that favors dark clothing, dark makeup and moody music bordering on the macabre.

“We are perturbed. After the article came out in the newspaper, by Monday they had decided they wanted to get after us,” said Anderson Mar, an alternative-music producer from Malden who runs a company called Dark Sky Productions.

St. Onge is the guy we always deal with in regards to permits for city property (whether that’s bake sales or rallies) so yeah, he’s the person who has the power to issue them.

All right, here’s where I make a private confession to you all: I am a gamer. A role-playing gamer. No, I don’t play D&D, but that’s because D&D isn’t hardcore enough for me. I like my fantasy role playing game to be really good, so my favorite game is Ars Magica. Why am I telling you this?

Because ‘gamers and goths are all often victims of stupid, uninformed stereotyping. Called anti-social, Satan worshippers, or worse.

Goths get the biggest hit, because they wear their “difference” on their sleeves - and on their face, in their hair, etc…in other words, it’s visible. In the 80s, there was a murder trial in the south where circumstantial evidence against two teenage boys consisted of flimsy eyewitness testimony and “they’re Satanists! They do that Wiccan thing!” Their conviction was overturned on appeal.

You know what? I know lots of gamers and goths personally. They are a social bunch - hell, playing a role-playing game is about as social as you can get, short of playing Truth-or-Dare. Interacting in character with other players is the whole point, and you spend the evening laughing, talking, and not drinking (drinking and role-playing don’t mix). Guess what? We’re not evil. I bet if you did the statistics, you’d find the rate of bad sorts among us geeks and freaks would be the same as it is in the general population.

Here’s an action for you: call the City Manager John Cox, (978) 970-4000, and tell him to stop stonewalling the efforts of a legitimate group of people who would like a venue to listen to their music, just because they aren’t your type of people. Hey, if they trash the place, prosecute them after the fact, just like you would any other group using a city venue. But don’t assume they are bad guys just by blackness of their fingernails or the paleness of their skin.