The Age of Aquarius

Räkälä, as the church’s youth club was called, had burnt to the ground and Heikintori’s disco didn’t even have a B-license. Teenagers on the verge of adulthood could smoke cigarettes publicly – if they dared. King Alcohol was a slightly different matter. No one looked favorably upon indulging in beer or wine at someone’s home. Not even when the one planning to do so was of legal age. Binge-drinking in the bushes at the trenches of Vallihaudat could end in getting frozen or in the embarrassing situation of falling asleep in the warmth of Kino Tapiola’s auditorium.

I was born at the end of October and had always been the youngest in my class. In summer, the popular places for youth weren’t open, so a few months’ age difference didn’t matter then. But when autumn came, the situation was completely different. I was the only one who had to stay home, watching television, while the whole gang cheerfully headed towards the delights of Otaniemi. Those eight weeks in the fall of 1973 were the longest of my life. I could only be satisfied with the exaggerated rumors of the joys of Dipoli’s discos and pubs.

I had to suffer one additional week, because the all important birthday happened to fall on a Sunday. Finally, on Thursday, I made my A-purchases for the weekend. I had underlined candidates in the Alko’s price list. At the liquor store counter, you had to be able to present your case without hesitation. In honor of the celebration, I decided to buy something other than the same old Soave, the cheap Italian white wine. I ended up with Rom Cassis and egg liqueur. Cassis because it reportedly had the best price-alcohol ratio. No one had told me anything about the taste of that horror… The egg liqueur was an impulse buy. I liked eggs, so I thought the drink would be somewhat like drinking an egg-sugar mixture. Well, it was – a little bit.

On Friday, October 26th, we finally gathered at Cassu’s place. The other guys had already managed to visit this private club a few times. Surprisingly, Cassu’s mother was quite agreeable to this kind of pre-disco partying. Cassu had an excellent Hi-Fi system: a Garrard turntable, a Harman-Kardon amplifier, and homemade speakers as tall as a man. There was plenty of noise – especially after the door closed and mother left. Everyone had something to drink. Getting tanked was a traditional method that was passed from generation to generation. Beer and long drinks were the cheapest beverages available in discos and bars. Yet they were too expensive to begin the night with. Moreover, many new records were debuted at these gatherings. It was cool to slowly get intoxicated in the company of good friends and vinyl records. Music was a topic of discussion and the new artists were carefully weighed.

Cassu rattles a tray of ice cubes loose from the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. He jiggles it under the tap and tips the loose cubes into a large bowl in the center of the table. One by one, bottles also rise to the table from the violet Alko plastic bags. There’s Soave white wine, Karhu beer, Carillo bitter, Lonkero… I pull out a big brown bottle from my own bag. ”The classic Cassis for the chassis”: a sweet aperitif made from rum and blackcurrant juice. I read from the label. The corny joke on it makes me chuckle in the anticipation of a buzz. Ice in the glass and Cassis on top.

– Cheers! Finally in the game and got an ID in my pocket. Here we go.
– To Rob’s adulthood! Down the catch!

I swing half a glass down my gullet. The disgusting sugary blackcurrant essence flavor attacks my taste buds full on. My body decides to reject the apparent poison. Cassis bursts out of my nose. Mostly back into the glass, a few splashes fly onto the table. I dart into the kitchen to blow my nose and rinse my mouth. I also bring a piece of kitchen paper to clean the table.

– Well, what happened? Didn’t you like the Rom Cassis?
– I can’t drink that stuff. Absolutely horrendous taste. Tastes like used vomit.

Luckily, I have a secret weapon in my plastic bag. Egg liqueur. I dig out a sleek, egg-yolk-colored bottle of liqueur. Very rich, says the label. And it’s right. It’s not so much a drink but a thick sweet alcohol-infused pudding. The taste is at least tolerable. But drinking it doesn’t work. I fetch a spoon and a dessert bowl from the kitchen. I pour the liqueur into it. Yellow, thick goo slowly plops into the dish. I start spooning the egg liqueur while others squirm with laughter.

– We can tell the doorman that Rob hasn’t actually been drinking. He’s just been eating eggs.

Timo agrees to swap a couple of Long Drinks for almost a full bottle of Cassis. The clock is approaching six and the mood rises with each gulp and spoonful. Hurriganes’ ”Rock and Roll All Night Long” makes the glasses and bottles on the table jingle. Soon we’ll be hitting the road and heading to Vesimies, Aquarius, the big disco in Dipoli.

Dipoli is a kind of party place hub. Three different types of venues are on offer. Kaljakellari, the beer cellar, is favored by the most heavily alcoholized drop-out engineers. It’s a purified drinking den, albeit equipped with a good jukebox. The biggest hit among the Tapiola youth is Vesimies disco. There’s a certain humor in the name, although its origin probably relates to the hippie-haze spread by the Hair musical. Vesimies is as barren as an old exhibition hall – just the large dining hall of the Dipoli building slightly modified for evening use. There’s plenty of space, the walls are white, and the lighting is bright; neon tubes shine up in the ceiling. So, not exactly a cozy place to spend the evening. The only purpose-built party and disco venue is Teknologföreningen’s TF, better known as Täffä – which, to modern eyes, looks quite a lot like a Star Wars land battle robot and is decorated with a long concrete slab. The lighting is suitably dim and adjustable. Dance floor with DJ and strobe lights and a large bar fill the ground floor. The second floor has a smaller drink counter and comfortable sofas surrounding tables for gathering and chatting about, let’s say, English league soccer games – as often happens on Saturdays. I stare at the matches, which I find utterly dull, just to be able to participate in that trivial debate. Social pressure is noticeable…

So, what is done in Vesimies? If you’ve cleared yourself in past the grumpy, breath-sniffing doorkeepers, your first stop is the downstairs restroom. You’re in a hurry because you’ve gulped down your last drop of booze with your buddy group around the corner, watching the queue progress. You shouldn’t join the queue too early. Firstly, if you stand outside in the cold for too long, it gets cold; secondly, if you wait for too long, the ”groundwork” drinks enjoyed around the corner may make your speech slurred, making it difficult to get in; thirdly, queuing is not comfortable when you need to urinate. Timing is the key. If there is no queue at all, all the doormen’s eyes and noses turn only to you, which may not be good either.

If you’ve overcome those obstacles, your route leads upstairs. On the stairs, you should avoid stumbling: the disco hostess’s sharp eye can still at this stage send a stumbling party-goer downstairs and through the doors back out into the cold Otaniemi winter evening. Regardless, there’s cigarette smoke everywhere, so your spot will be dictated by whether you want to talk about football, ice hockey or music.

After an hour of conversation and a few pints, you start to scan the environment, wondering if there’s a different table company available. Asking for a dance is the easiest way to change tables, provided that the chosen target answers affirmatively. You surely don’t want to sit with the same bunch of guys talking about football all night, right? A couple of drinks give you just enough courage. On the other hand, if you’ve downed five pints, luck may not strike. It’s also smart to inquire about the dance partner’s music taste. The DJ might even concede to your request and play that T-Rex’s ”Hot Love”. This, in turn, raises your points considering the continuation of the evening and a possible escort gig when the disco closes at midnight. The pattern is the same at Täffä, but everything is on a smaller scale and away from bright lights. It’s actually a question of mood which of the places is more attractive. Sometimes there are bands performing at Vesimies. On the other hand, at the same time, Täffä might have a stripper; of whose performance you luckily don’t see much, thanks to the dim lights.

We are sitting on the sofa upstairs at Täffä. The DJ is playing Bowie’s ”Starman”. Everyone has a beer or a Long Drink glass in hand, twirling it around. Tonight, there is a new kind of anticipation and excitement within our group. The discussions about the English league matches are now on the sidelines. No one else here knows that our table company has placed a bet on whether Hassan dares to streak naked through the crowded dance floor downstairs. Hassan and I have agreed that at 8:45 PM, I will go to the downstairs restroom to assist him in his preparations. It is now half past eight. Hassan seems completely calm. My heart is pounding, and my palms are sweating. I almost drop my full glass. Who is the one going to streak through the dance floor? I take a long sip as Hassan stands up and glances at me. I wait for him to disappear from sight. I also get up and follow him. Fortunately, in the men’s restroom there are only a couple of guys wobbling at the pee bin with cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Hassan goes into a stall. I hear the rustling of clothes and some heavy swearing. The guys leave. Hassan hands me a plastic bag. His clothes are in there. I have to secretly smuggle them into the restroom near the entrance.

– Rob, everything okay? Five minutes left. Then I’ll run.
– Yeah, I’m leaving now. Good luck!

I run up the stairs. Then I slowly walk past the bar counter and into the hallway. The bathroom door is open. No one inside. My armpits are wet and the deodorant has failed me badly. One minute, second, third… I hear loud shouting. The shouting and whistling grow louder. The whole place is roaring. Has Hassan been caught? The bathroom door is torn open. Hassan! Familiar grin on his face.

– You did it! Dude, you streaked through crowded Täffä!
– Quickly, hand me my clothes. You all owe me five marks.

Gradually, the departure to Otaniemi’s entertainment center became a regular occurrence. We set up Carillo Club in Cassu’s room on Poutapolku. Carillo gradually became everyone’s favorite. Perhaps the excessive sweetness, which had been trimmed by bitter elements, suited the taste of someone under the age of twenty. After all, Carillo was also the strongest drink one could get from Alko at that age. We bought highball glasses and used Cassu’s mother’s nail file to mark a line indicating the maximum height of the drink when the glass was filled with ice cubes. The ice cubes cooled down the room temperature Carillo poured into the glass, and as the ice melted, it diluted the drink to the perfect level. Ingenious…

We went to Vesimies so often that we got to know the resident DJs. This meant that our song requests were regularly fulfilled. This, in turn, made the highlight of the evening, which was changing tables, easier because the lady you dragged onto the dance floor would always hear that specific rock or slow song. We also brought our own records to the DJ. Hurriganes’ ”Roadrunner” was played in the disco so much that the DJ bought me a new vinyl record.

Taking pre-disco shots had to be done with some common sense. If you got carried away with good music in Pekka’s or Cassu’s apartment and ended up emptying a whole bottle of white wine or, in the worst case, half a bottle of vodka, you could be sure that there would be trouble at the gate of Vesimies. It was unfortunate to leave one friend in the Otaniemi cold when three out of four had passed the door control. Even more unfortunate was having to turn back on the long journey home, wasting the best buzz. These entertainment mishaps happened to everyone. The bouncers also took advantage of their limited authority when in a bad mood. If they didn’t like someone’s face, even a sober person’s night would end before it even started. On the other hand, in the right chaos, the bouncers wouldn’t notice someone completely wasted as long as they stayed on their feet. A couple of times, I found myself waking up at home in my own bed with a heavy head in the morning, wondering how I got there when my last memory was intense dancing with a gorgeous girl on the Vesimies dance floor.

Sometimes, I didn’t feel like going to Otaniemi. Especially in the late 70s, when there was a lot of coupling happening within my group of friends, the drinking establishments in Tapiola city center were more appealing. The distance to those places was only a kilometer or two. Walking to Otaniemi, on the other hand, took half an hour, and the return trip took an hour or two. The second floor of Heikintori had a reasonably cozy place called Heikin Vintti, which also served decent food. Tapion Tuoppi, on the other hand, was a drinking spot for the slightly older crowd; a traditional pub filled with cigarette smoke and beer mugs. According to a local legend, if you frequented Tuoppi enough, Tapion Honka’s sports club bag would magically grow into your hand. Kultakukko’s charm was its view. It was located on the top floor of Keskustorni. I became familiar with Kultakukko in the last year of high school as a place to escape from boring afternoon classes. After a couple of beers, I could easily doze off in an speech class, for example.

Restaurants in downtown Helsinki gradually became known to us as well – usually as starting and ending points for a movie night. Of course, we also went to Helsinki to check out bands at Tavastia, Alibi, and Botta. This foreshadowed the future for me. During my years studying history, I still hung out with the Tapiola gang. But when I started my English studies in 1979, it brought about the ultimate change. The drinking and party places were found in the vicinity of the university: Pam Pam, Kluuvin Pubi, Pataässä, Kappeli, Il Treno, Ankkuri… Being a member of Hämäläinen Osakunta student club locked my gig situation at Tavastia for several years.

My last visit to Vesimies happened in the early 2000s, during the daytime. Not, of course, jumping to bubblegum pop in a disco, but perhaps sitting at the same table at Dipoli as during the Carillo Club era. This time, hunching over my laptop, preparing a PowerPoint presentation with sweaty armpits, at some huge seminar for student exchange programs. It would have been good to have a couple of shots round the corner and maybe sip a pint or two while waiting for my turn.