Oh, Danceteria...!

 

So my sister was visiting a few weeks ago. I had not seen her for a hot minute so one night we got lost remembering way back when we were younger and started talking shit about people we both know (as we usually do when we get together) while checking her Facebook. I am not on social media sites like Facebook or Snapchat or TikTok so I am not in touch with anybody I knew way back then. Nor I want to. 

What that convo also brought back was the memory of me going to my first gay club. It was Chicken Night, I think, because we did not have valid IDs to go in. I went with a bunch of guys my age and some older because it was a 'new' gay club and it was supposed to be awesome so everybody wanted to go. I had no idea what to expect, because I had never been to a club, let alone a gay one. Oh, I had been fooling around with men for a while then, but socially we were pretty much into house parties and maybe block parties. But we did not go to clubs. 

So that night I got into my prized 501 Levi's (Button fly, slung low, boot cut. I still like that style today) and my ever faithful black t-shirt (I have no idea what was on the front, babes, it's been awhile. Probably some Depeche Mode or The Cure) black Converse high tops and a chain attached to my wallet and I was ready to go. We all crammed ourselves in a taxi (no Uber back then, alas!) and off we went.

To say that I got a shock the second I stepped in that club is a total understatement. Oh, I was not a virgin or anything like that. I had had sex with men at that point, duh. I even had a 'boyfriend' who was with me that night. But the thing is that I had never, ever, in my life seen two men dancing together. Let alone two men dancing together and grinding against each other. Two men dancing together, grinding against each other and kissing. In public. In plain view of everybody in that club like it was nothing. I was floored. And a little turned on. 

Some context: this club visit happened many, many years ago. There was no Gay marriage, there was no Grindr, there was no PreP. AIDS was still a death sentence. There was no high speed internet or Gay-Straight Alliances at schools. All I knew about Gay life is what I was living and I was basically a kid from the suburbs with no world experience.

So now you may understand why Madonna's song Danceteria pushes all my buttons. She also went back to those first times going to a club, that experience of music and lights and sweat and laughter and bodies dancing together. A temple of sweat and surrender. And that is what I felt that night: I was giddy with euphoria. It was not a Madonna song what was playing that night when we stepped in, though, what I heard was another song I did not recognize.  But many years later, in another club, in another life, I learned what I heard was Fly Robin, Fly. By Silver Convention. I think that maybe because it was Chicken Night, they were playing a ton of music that we recognized at that club, but they also played some Disco classics. That's the thing about gay clubs way back then: the music was fantastic, the DJ had his vinyl with him at all times and he knew what he was doing.... 

So yeah. A song can indeed take you back.

Thanks, Madge. Your music has always taken me there....

So, what song takes you there? To your first club night?

XOXO

P.S. BTW, this video below is Madonna at the Danceteria nightclub, during the first ever live performance of her song Everybody in the early eighties. It was open mic night at the No Entiendes show and this is my fav Madonna incarnation ever! (Right, Anne Marie?). Oh, and it was her birthday yesterday. She' a Leo and just turned 68. And that girl in the video below had a vision of what she wanted in life and she got it. I hope I have only a portion of her drive, curiosity and joie de vivre when I turn 68....

HBD, gurl. 

Oh, and here's the making of the Danceteria video, which we saw in Madonna's mini-movie...