What happens in space, stays in space, says Rasta

The great misconception about the New Zealand-born surfer Dave “Rasta” Rastovich is that he’s some kinda pious deadwood. It’s a misread that makes me weep more than all the children in the world.

What fun might you wring from the neck of an event run by the thirty-five-year-old libertine?

Let’s investigate.

Where: On a space station. Everyone there would be held captive – if you’ve got people prisoner, you’re guaranteed time with people you want to be with, and you’re seeing something that only a handful of people have ever seen. Like way, way out, past our atmosphere and all the planets.

Interiors: It’d have to be a lot of windows, and a lot of Hubble space telescopes, looking thousands and thousands of light years away into other galaxies. The telescopes would move around so you could see all through the galaxy, and you could zoom in and go “Yeah, what about that distant star?” and just trip out on that. It would also have a sound system of sorts, beaming inside the station and also out, so you can imagine it’d be going through the outer galaxies and back down to Earth.

Theme: It would be Barbarella themed. It’d make a great theme, there’s so many costumes and creatures and all kind of things.

*Interviewers note: Barbarella is a 1968 film in which Jane Fonda plays a “highly sexual woman” who is tasked with rescuing Doctor Durand Durand from the planter Tau Ceti. Along the way she discovers penetrative intercourse for the first time, having only experienced sexual pleasure through pharmaceuticals, and overloads the “Ex-sex-sive” machine, a torturing device which kills through sexual stimulation.

Charity: I think it’d just have to be a decadent gathering. Actually… you could use it to raise awareness about planetary issues like climate change and deforestation, because you’d get a perspective (from space) that not everyone on Earth can get. For example, the Amazon – you can see all the run off now. Deforestation has caused all the top soil to run out into the river.

Music: Well, it’s my dream party… so I’d have to have Jimi Hendrix play. Probably not even playing songs – just jamming.

Special guests: As a short list – Barbarella herself, and some big thinkers – Einstein, Nikola Tesla, John Lennon, Ghandi. From the surfing world, Tom Blake, Duke (Kahanamoku). Jesus – I’m sure if you brought Jesus onto a space station, it’d be interesting.

Dress: I’d have to be naked. I’d pretty much have to ask everyone else to be naked too. At the door you’ve got the option of Barbarella, like some weirdness from the 60s or 70s, or just… nakedness.

Drank: The Kool-Aid from the Kool-Aid Acid Test (A group of American activists put LSD in Kool-Aid, as part of a bid to legalise the hallucinogenic). Back in the day, Timothy Leary was the main proponent for political LSD testing. He was kinda the frontman for psychedelia at that time. So he’d definitely be behind the bar, serving it. There’d also be some super-health elixirs. They probably wouldn’t need to be alcoholic or hallucinogenic, everyone’d already be tripping, looking down at Planet Earth from Space.

On the walls: There’d be screens all around showing what the Hubble telescopes were looking at. That, and the huge glass windows everywhere so you could see all around.

Filmmaker for the night: Alby Falzon (Australian-born filmmaker). We’d have to see the sun come around, so we could get some kind of tripped-out, Morning Of The Earth type thing.

Pals to hang with: I’d already be based on the Russian Space Station, so I’d just drift across from that to meet everyone.

Speech: Dave Chappelle.

Surprise guest: It’d have to be Miki Dora.

After Party: No, I think it’d be good to just keep going, and not come back down to Earth.

Sponsor: SETI – The Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Institute. Set up way back in the 60s, with radioscopes and scanners and everything.

Party photographer: Nope. What happens in Space, stays in Space.