Tripping the Light Fantabulous

Maybe it was the poll on Fabulon’s blog asking who was the most fabulous, Pet Shop Boys or Erasure that set me off brooding about music from my misspent youth. So now I’ve been haunting YouTube’s videos of bands that have gone the way of all vinyl twenty and thirty years ago. Punk and electronica and New Wave and New Romantics and New This and New That and New Knickers and all of it so very important to someone I can hardly remember being, except for the music.

I was a big Flock of Seagulls fan, yes, it’s true, I have no shame. Ramones, Pete Shelley (I have three versions of “Ever Fallen in Love” currently on my iTunes,) the Go-Gos, Roxy Music, Soft Cell, B 52s - as long as it was loud, I’d embrace it.

And dancing, or rather, the wild flailing I claimed was my dancing. Interpretive movement for the absolutely graceless, didn’t bother me. You know the incredibly annoying queen thrashing in the corner of the bar with his head down and eyes closed, colliding into anyone unlucky enough to fall into his orbit? That was me and I guess I should apologize now, years later about knocking the beer out of your hand, but I can’t because I still don’t care. I said then if no one is bleeding, you haven’t really been dancing and I stick with that.

I suppose it would have been bad enough had I been some Kylie Minogue sized threat, but I’m 6’2” and my arms are more than a yard long. When I would launch into my dervish routine, I would take up considerable real estate.

My main patch was a dingy, tiny bar in New Orleans called Jewel’s. Do you remember the glory that was Jewel’s? No dance floor, not that that slowed me down and staffed with a fabulous DJ, the late, totally great Doug Bryson. Doug would crank up the bass so far, song lyrics were completely obscured. Imagine my surprise to find out all these years later that Joy Divison had words to their music.

My dear friend, the divine DianefromTexas would simply dive for the sidelines when she saw me winding up for some of my terpsichorean madness, it’s one of the reasons I adore her so. Magda, another long suffering accomplice from those vanished days, would just get behind me and enjoy the open space I would clear.

When Tim, the urban street pirate artiste (http://www.superagentfred.com/ ), recently told us about a mutual friend, Jen, who defended her personal space in a bar from some Dancing Queen by giving her a good stiff bif, it was like a bad flashback. Jen’s on the wee side and so cute, but she’s tough. I applauded her, but secretly shuddered, knowing that it could have been me. Of course, I haven’t cut loose in years, but it could happen. Just don’t start up any Buzzcocks.

I gotta go