what’s the matter with these people?
It was a long time ago now but some narrative cohesion doesn’t seem too much to ask for (even from a blog): “In Between Days” was fun. I have rarely experienced such a palpably upbeat club crowd, and the dance floor atmosphere was spirited yet deferential, accommodating to all varieties of gittin’ down, ranging from shoulder-shifting to lumbering break dance.
Certain questions floated like lily-pads on the surface of my consciousness all evening, though. Questions like: What the hell is the matter with these people? Of which it appears I am one? I don’t know of any other generation that is so emphatically, relentlessly nostalgic. It’s weird. It’s narcissistic almost. But the question begs to be asked when you’re in a room full of 20-somethings in lace gloves, neon dress shirts and flounced hems, and when you yourself have orange knee-highs on. Cheering madly when two ’80s-era public television actors take the stage and begin twisting buttons. And when a remix of Walk Like An Egyptian causes people to rush onto the stage in a drunken wave, clutching drinks that slosh dangerously close to expensive DJ equipment, and dancing like the aforesaid Egyptians or as near as we can figure it, based on the hieroglyphs.
Michael Jackson has since died but people were breaking it down for realz when DJs Spike & Caitlin played “Beat It” and oh but did the the yowling commence when the synthesized strains of “Thriller” filled the air. A huge 80s icon is deceased but I wonder if people this age will ever stop thinking we are somehow smarter, cooler, and possibly less mortal, just because we grew up with glitter in our knitwear, eating exploding candy and knowing how to moonwalk.
But my problem is I think too much, so whenever the night threatened to be spoiled by thinking, I just made an effort to…stop. Dancing like an unhinged marionette while an Arctic-tinted fog spews out of smoke machines is a great cure for it. They’ll kick you then they beat you, and they’ll tell you that it’s fair…!
