Bye-bye The final 3am by MIREILLE SILCOTT It's been four years since "3am Eternal" was launched. And this is the last column--not because some club has finally successfully sued--but because other things have beckoned, and I'm shortly moving to England. Erk. The last column. What to do? I was thinking of pulling out quotes from some of the first columns, when I believed I could make house music seem really important to naysayers by drawing, eh, creative links between clubbing and hoity-toity historical things (mediaeval Christianity, Restoration drama-- what was I thinking?)--when I assumed that writing well meant going over things three times with a thesaurus and using words like "vituperative." But even I can't read those things. Then I thought about going through crates of old flyers and rooting out long-forgotten names for the sake of a very complete, alphabetical, meticulous and fair list of thank-yous. But that's never been the "3am" way, has it? Fair? Bah. So here instead is one terribly incomplete list of people I can remember at the moment. People who made this column what it is today (namely, over). People who are probably thrilled that this means I'll stop bugging them at 1am on Tuesday nights for gossip, oops, I mean, news. Massive, all-round thank yous to: Chris "one day you will like good music" Pronovost, Benno "there is a conspiracy for mediocrity" Russell, Luc "who said that?" Raymond, Double "A" & Twist, 514, Hardcore and Sona, Wig and the Ninja crew, everyone at In Beat, Patrick Lengendre from Playground, Victor, Kiki & Nick at Channel, Shock Productions, all at DNA, Robert, Caroline and all at BBCM, Groove, Justin, Jordan Dare, Downtown Rob Brown, A-Trak, Ian from KOX, Robert Ouimet, Vice, Chris Farley, Alain Vinet, Bettina, Mateo, Fred Everything, XL, Dr. Love, Laflèche, Krista, Patrick Dream & Nav, Mark Anthony and... Oh, screw this shout-out business. Too many people, not enough space. And hell, you all know the names anyway. I guess, this being the last column and all, I'd rather leave you with--er, you might want to stop reading now--what I think I've learned from writing it. And what I hope sometimes got across between adjectives: * Petty politics are never as petty as they seem. * Being underground is as commercial as being commercial. * Labels are a gift, not a plague. * Fleeting trends are never inconsequential. *The distinction between smart and dumb music is usually drawn by the smart side's insecurity. And inability to dance well. * The audience is much more influential than most DJs or producers think. So any DJ who complains of "uneducated" crowds is just uneducated himself. Period. And all that said, I'll now thank those who really kept this column going: the readers who hated me. Oh, and those who liked me, too. And all the fantastic kids who sent mixed tapes, letters and e-mails. Thanks to Al, Annarosa and all at the Mirror, of course. When, in 1992, I began scribbling about clubs, doing a little Xeroxed newsletter called Flush News, I used to end it with this corny phrase "party on, disco citizens." So, yeah, party on, disco citizens. And don't let anyone ever tell ya it's a waste of time. It hasn't been so far, has it? XOXO, your forever humble scribe, Mireille