Club Daze

Saturday Night

It's Saturday night and that means Mark and I will be going to Spinner McGee's.  On any given Saturday we might be joined by Curt, Randy, or Dan. 
My roommate Louie hardly ever comes with us.  He has a girlfriend and I don't think a dance club is really his thing anyway. Sometimes Mark convinces Erik to be our designated driver even on nights when Erik doesn't feel like going out.  Mark can be persuasive.  Erik's nickname is P.F. which stands for passion fruit.  I never did find out how he got the nickname.  But, Mark usually calls him P.F. 

Mark likes Spinners because it's the closet thing he could find to a dance club in Iowa.  Joe's Knight Hawk, the local college bar, has a small dance floor and music but it's not a club.  Spinners has a big dance floor and a great sound system.  It has strobe lights and a disco ball and even a second elevated dance floor close to the DJ booth. 

Ask Mark where he's from and he'll answer "Chicago."  I don't think he actually grew up in the city or attended prep school there.  I'm fairly sure he grew up in a small community an hour or two from the city.  But, he did spend a lot of time in the city and loves it dearly so I guess he can claim it as his home.

We almost always take Mark's car to Spinners.  I suppose we use his Oldsmobile Cutlass because it's big enough to hold us all comfortably.  Plus, it has a cassette player so we can listen to music on the way to Cedar Falls.  Mark is the alpha male in our group.  He's the leader so it seems natural that we always take his car.

Meeting Mark

I returned to college halfway through my sophomore year.  It was January 1988.  I missed the first semester because I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I thought I was going to transfer to another school but that didn't work out so I decided to go back to Wartburg when the second semester rolled around.  I moved into a different dorm with a guy I didn't know because I had few housing options since I'd missed the first semester.  I was nervous about returning to school and about living in a new dorm.

My roommate's last name was Lewis so everyone called him Louie.  He was nice enough and I got reacquainted with some old friends and even made some new ones but I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed out after returning to school midyear. 

All the guys on my floor seemed nice enough.  The RA was nice.  A couple of guys had a sign on their door that read:

Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. 

I seem to recall watching Jeopardy! most afternoons in someone's room with a few other guys from my floor.  When the show was over we'd head to the cafeteria for dinner.

When we returned from dinner each evening, Mark from the room across the hall would always crank up the volume on his stereo and play the same song.
He'd leave his door open and turn it up loud so the whole hall could hear.  I liked the song although I wasn't familiar with it.  I found out later it was "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order.  What a bizarre title for a song, huh?

I was passing by Mark's room one day after class and he happened to have his door open.  He tried to strike up a conversation with me but I was such a quiet person I didn't have much to say.  He said he remembered us being in a leisure services class together the previous year.  Then I remembered him too.  Mark had taught us some basic breakdancing moves.  I think he taught us the arm wave and a few other rudimentary breakdance skills. 

When he tried to start a conversation that day I might have seemed aloof or perhaps just shy.  But, I guess he sensed something in me he liked because we eventually became friends.

One day after class I put my AC/DC cassette in Louie's stereo and cranked the volume.  I was really getting into it and playing air guitar and banging my head.
I looked up and Mark was standing there and I almost died on the spot from embarrassment.  Evidently he'd walked in unannounced and caught me in the middle of my air band routine.  I thought sure he was going to make fun of me but he just smiled.

"I guess you're ready for the weekend, huh?"

"Yeah," I said quietly.

We went to Joe's together a few times after that.  I think we even took his car there sometimes even though Joe's was easily within walking distance.  One night he was ready to go home but I was talking to my new friend Laura who I'd met at a party recently and kept telling him to wait a minute.  Another time I remember walking back from the parking lot in freezing cold weather.

"I know it's probably freezing out right now but I could be naked and it wouldn't matter because I can't feel a thing," I said.

He thought that was pretty funny.  I'd had a little too much to drink that night and was feeling kind of numb and oblivious to the weather.

Occasionally Mark and I would take a drive in his Cutlass.  One day when I opened the passenger side door and got in I was humming the melody to "Wishing Well" by Terence Trent D'Arby.  I'd heard it on the radio a lot around that time.

"Okay, we can listen to that a little later.  But, first you have to hear this other song," said Mark.

"Are you serious?  You have that cassette in your car right now?" I asked.

"Yes, I do," said Mark laughing.

I couldn't believe he just happened to have the cassette that contained the song I'd been humming and was just now rising in the charts.  But, first Mark wanted to listen to "If You Let Me Stay" off the same album.

When the song got to the chorus Mark joined in and then I joined in too.  We were both blaring out the lyrics "if you let me stay-ay-ay-ay-ay."  You might think that two dudes singing to a song together would be embarrassing but it wasn't. 

"Man, we killed that song!  We rocked it!" Mark declared.

On another occasion while cruising in his Cutlass we were listening to "Big Ole Butt" by rapper LL Cool J.  The narrator in the song keeps leaving one girl after another because of their fine derrières. 

To wit: 

Tina got a big ole butt
I know I told you I'd be true
But Tina got a big ole butt
So I'm leavin' you

I think Mark was concerned about whether I understood the song or not because he said, "You know he means big butt in a good way.  He's talking about a full-figured, curvaceous, shapely, sexy woman." 

Okay, he didn't use those words exactly but I told him I understood what he was getting at and what the song meant. 

As I recall, Mark preferred a nice rear end on a woman.  Erik was a leg man.  I said I liked a woman with a pretty face which I think amused Mark.  A pretty face?  Kind of lame, huh? 

Mark kept telling me I needed to come with him to Cedar Falls and check out this place called Spinners and finally one night I did.

Spinners

I don't recall who went with Mark and me to Spinner McGee's (aka Spinners) that first time.  We drove his Cutlass and took a few shortcuts he knew to get to University Avenue.  Spinners was close to College Square Mall.  We got carded at the door and paid a cover charge to get in.

Spinners was a lot bigger than Joe's.  It had two bars.  It had a pool table and some games tucked away in one corner.  It had two dance floors.  A private party room hidden behind a darkened window overlooked the dance floor.  Free popcorn was available by the pool table. 

One of the most interesting attractions was the blackjack tables located in a room near the smaller bar.  The blackjack was perfectly legal because patrons played with scrip money.  I think the scrip money was called Spinner Bucks.  Patrons could use the scrip to buy Spinner McGee's t-shirts, jackets, drinks, and even use of the private party room.  Mark wanted to win enough Spinner Bucks to get the Spinner McGee's jacket but it took a lot of scrip to get the jacket.  I don't think he ever collected enough scrip to buy the jacket.

 

Our group sat close to the dance floor my inaugural night at Spinners chatting   and having a few drinks.  Then Mark did something I hadn't seen many guys do in my lifetime.  He got up and boldly walked over to a girl and asked her to dance.  She smiled and soon they were on the dance floor dancing.  And, man, could Mark dance.  This wasn't the kind of awkward dancing guys might be seen engaged in at a high school dance.  He really had some moves.  And, every now and then he would lean in and talk to his dance partner.  Who was this guy?

After a couple of songs he returned to the table.

"You have to teach me to dance," I said.

Mark just smiled.

We went to Spinners on a weekly basis after that as I recall.  Emboldened by Mark's example I too would ask some girls to dance.  I tried to mimic his dancing.  I probably looked ridiculous but I was having a blast.

He did teach me a few "fake" dance moves.  Make a fist with both your hands and place one above the other and pretend your holding a broom handle.  Now move the make-believe broom handle in a circular fashion in front of you.  Congratulations, your doing "the broom." 

Or, pretend your drying yourself off with a towel.  Hold each end of the towel and vigorously dry yourself off.  You're doing "the towel." 

He did teach me one move he actually used that he called "the slide." 

Mark introduced me to a few adult beverages I wasn't familiar with.  Occasionally we drank Colt 45 malt liquor.  He mentioned another brand of malt liquor called Olde English 800 (aka 8-ball). 

He also introduced me to Long Island Iced Tea (LIT).  A Long Island Iced Tea is typically made with vodka, tequila, rum, gin, triple sec, and a splash of cola.

It's kind of embarrassing to admit but some weeks we went to Joe's on Wednesday and Friday and hit Spinners on Thursday and Saturday.  I guess you can do that when you're young.

Sometimes Spinners had dime draws if you came early in the evening.  Ten cents for a glass of beer is pretty cheap.  Later in the evening the prices went back to normal but I was already feeling pretty good by that point. 

Sometimes they had best tan contests or best booty contests.  Booty = butt.  Some guys I knew from college and some other dudes got on stage shirtless one night and danced a little bit to see which male was the hottest.  No, I did not participate. 

It wasn't uncommon for us to stay at Spinners until the very end of the evening.  They almost always played the same two naughty songs at the end of the night.  That's how you knew it was closing time.  One song had to do with a part of the female anatomy and the other song used the term mother f*cker.

Sometimes we raced from Spinners to a convenience store to buy more beer and maybe some chips and dip as if we hadn't had enough beer already.

Cassettes and Mix Tapes

Eventually I bought my own copy of Introducing the Hardline According to Terrence Trent D'Arby.  I also bought a copy of Mr. Magic's Rap Attack Volume 4 mainly because of two songs on it.  The cassette contained "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa and "It Takes Two" by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock.

Mark also made some mix tapes for me.  Mark had mentioned this genre of music called house music.  House music originated in Chicago so of course he was familiar with it.  He'd taped some music from WBMX and WGCI. 

"The station with more d-d-d-d-dance music, B-M-X!"

He also had a lot of music of his own.  It wasn't all house music in those mixes.  Later in life I would learn that some songs were R&B, new jack swing, freestyle (aka Latin hip-hop), Hi-NRG, Italo disco, and dance-pop just to name a few.

By the way, music being played at a club called the Warehouse in Chicago in the early 80s had a new sound.  People liked this new sound and started calling it "house" music, as in the music you would hear at the Warehouse.

Some of those early Chicago house songs use the word "jack" a lot.  Jack your body! J-J-J-Jack your body!  Jack me till I start to scream.  Jack it all night long.  Don't make me jack.  Jacking is a term used to describe the way the torso ripples when it moves to the beat in house dancing.

Jack It All Night Long - Bad Boy Bill
Jack Me Till I Scream - Julian "Jumpin" Perez feat. Connie V
Jack To The Sound Of The Underground - Hithouse
Jack Your Body - Steve "Silk" Hurley
Time To Jack - Chip E
Jack The House - Femme Fion
Don't Make Me Jack (Tonite I Wanna House You) - Paris Grey

 



Some of my favorite freestyle songs are:

Don't Stop the Rock - Freestyle
Point Of No Return - Expose
Come Go With Me - Expose
Two of Hearts - Stacy Q
Yo No Se - Pajama Party
All Night - Trinere
I Can't Wait - Nu Shooz
Fascinated - Company B
Catch Me (I'm Falling) - Pretty Poison
Tell It to My Heart - Taylor Dayne
Head to Toe - Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
Let the Music Play - Shannon

Bobby Orlando is credited as one of the founding fathers of Hi-NRG dance music.  A Bobby O song I liked called "I'm So Hot for You" was on one of the Mark mixes.

The Blue Mercedes song "I Want To Be Your Property (Street Latin Wolff Mix)" was one of my favorite songs on one of the Mark mixes.  I think I hummed part of this so often that my younger sister soon knew the melody. 

The Scene

A lot of female singers were charting in the mid to late 80s.  Janet Jackson kept telling me "I miss you much."  Samantha Fox was telling me "Naughty girls need love too."  Paula Abdul was asking "Straight up, now tell me.  Do you really wanna love me forever?"  Neneh Cherry was telling me "No moneyman can win my love.  It's sweetness that I'm thinking of."  Karyn White was telling me "I love the way you love me."  Jody Watley was telling me "I'm looking for a new love, baby."  Pebbles tells me "If you want to ride in my Mercedes boy there are so many things that I'm gonna do to you."

Artists like Bobby Brown were performing in the new jack swing style mixing rap, dance-pop, and R&B.  "I Want Her" by Keith Sweat was the first new jack swing song to reach #1 on the R&B charts.  Some claim this song inaugurated the new jack swing era.

"Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" by British R&B band Soul II Soul has elements of new jack swing.

Janet Jackson had us all dancing to her Contemporary R&B sound.

Michael Jackson was still around and so was George Michael.  George Michael released a song called "Monkey" in 1988 that I really enjoyed.

Whitney Houston was wildly successful as was Paula Abdul.

Don't forget Prince and Madonna!

INXS achieved international success.

"Pump Up the Jam" by Belgian act Technotronic is an early example of the hip house genre and is considered by some to be the first house song to be a hit in the U.S.

Everybody loved "Pump Up the Jam".

Pump it up a little more
Get the party goin' on the dance floor
See, 'cause that's where the party's at
And you'd find out if you do that

Some fun hip hop (rap) songs were being performed like "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa and "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina" by Tone Loc.  Young MC sang a fun song called "Bust a Move".  I liked "Wild Wild West" by Kool Moe Dee as well.  "Me So Horny" by 2 Live Crew was a fun song but was deemed scandalous at the time because of the explicit nature of the lyrics.

Oh, and New Kids on the Block were charting as well.  I'm just saying.  "You got the right stuff, baby."

Joe often had a DJ or live music at Joe's Knight Hawk.  But, even when he didn't he still had music playing over the sound system. 

Some songs I may have heard at Joe's: 

Naughty Naughty - John Parr
What I Like About You - The Romantics
Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash
Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer
Simply Irresistible - Robert Palmer
What You Need - INXS
Need You Tonight - INXS
New Sensation - INXS
What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy) - Information Society
Boom Boom - Paul Lekakis
Let's Go All the Way - Sly Fox
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead or Alive
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Just Got Paid - Johnny Kemp

I remember hearing "Naughty Naughty" as a freshman and thinking it was a really cool song. 

"Boom Boom" by Paul Lekakis always seemed to me like an appropriate song to hear at a college bar.

Boom Boom Boom
Let's go back to my room
So we can do it all night
And you can make me feel right

"Let's Go All the Way" by Sly Fox isn't actually about sex but it still made smile whenever I heard it because I was in a college bar full of horny young adults.

I think some of Joe's cassette tapes were probably made by Mark.  I would guess he almost certainly got "Bizarre Love Triangle" from Mark.

New School Year

The next school year Mark moved into an apartment off campus.  His buddy Curtis from Chicago decided to spend the school year with him.  Mark went to classes and Curt went to work. 

I liked Curtis.  He was cool, friendly, and funny.  He liked to use the word proper.  He didn't use the words fresh or fly which were popular synonyms for "cool" at the time.  If he liked your haircut he said it looked proper.  If he liked your shoes he said they looked proper.

Proper basically means awesome or cool.

Fresh means very good and highly approved. 

"Yo, I like that haircut!  You look fresh!"

To be fly is to be cool, amazing, and awesome.  Fly means cool, in style.

"Yo, those are some fly shoes!"

Curtis tried to explain house music to me.  He loved house music.  He wasn't really into rap (hip-hop) like one might expect a young African American man to be.  He loved dance music.  I asked him to teach me to dance like I had Mark.

One evening he was trying to teach me to dance.  It was all in the hips he claimed.  He showed me how to pump my hips just ever so slightly.  But, soon I was thrusting my hips as though I was making passionate love to some imaginary woman.

"Whoa!  Not that much!"  Curt scolded me.
 

 

Curtis introduced me to the music of Betty Wright and Eazy-E.  We both really liked "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock.  It was a hip-hop (rap) song which usually wasn't Curt's thing but it also ended up being a dance club hit which I suppose explains why Curtis liked it so much.  Whenever it was being played at Spinners Curtis would get this excited but frantic look on his face as he quickly searched for someone to dance with.

Mark and Curtis were homeboys seeing as they both came from the Chicago area.  Homeboy basically means an acquaintance from one's own town or neighborhood.  But, it can also simply mean a close friend.  Variations of the word homeboy include homie, homes, home slice, and home skillet.

For instance, one might ask a friend, "Yo, what's up homie?"

Mark said it made him feel good when Curtis introduced him as his homeboy. 

"Now you're my homeboy," Mark told me once.

I heard stories about Mark and Curt's younger days.  Mark's Dad was brave enough to drive a bus to inner city Chicago to pick up some kids and bring them to summer camp.  Mark's dad was the camp director.  Curt was one of the Chicago kids Mark met at camp.  They became close and had quite a few adventures together as teenagers.

Some guys were threatening Mark at The Taste of Chicago festival one year and Curtis came running to the rescue with punches flying.  Unfortunately, Curt smashed into a table in the process.  As Curt lay on the ground, Mark told everyone to get the hell away and they did.

Mark went to Curt's house and frantically told them that Curtis was hurt and at the hospital.  They looked at him like he was crazy and told him to calm down.  I guess Curt being in a scrape wasn't exactly a huge deal to them.  Curt showed me the scar on the inside of his mouth.

Curtis got mugged one evening in Chicago at gun point.  Curtis told the guy he could have whatever he wanted.  The guy demanded his money AND all of his clothes.  Curtis had a money clipped hidden in hi boxer shorts.  Nonetheless, a bus driver wouldn't let Curtis on the bus wearing only his underwear.

The guys mentioned Rush and Division streets and a club called Mother's.

Mark gave Curtis a ride to Chicago during the school year when a relative passed away.  Randy went with them as well.  I could have went along but I decided I needed to study for a test.  Big mistake.  I missed out on Chicago, partying, and rib tips.


I also met and began dating a girl that fall.  She made it clear she didn't care much for my dancing.  She said I danced like Mark which to me was actually a huge compliment. 

She didn't care much for Mark and thought he had too much influence over me.  My retort was always the same.

"If Mark had that much power over me I would have dumped you a long time ago because he's been telling me to drop you since the day he met you."

Our gang still went clubbing on a regular basis although now we had Curt in tow.  Sometimes before going to Spinners we'd go to another bar called Mr. Bo Jingles (Bo's).  Bo's was located in the College Hill Area (i.e. the hill).  We'd have a drink there and talk and then head to Spinners.  Mr. Bo Jingles had a dance floor too and you only had to be 19 to get in.  It was close to the University of Northern Iowa campus and it seems like it would have made more sense for us just to stay there.  But, I guess Mark liked the big club feel of Spinners. 

One night we were walking toward Bo's and Curtis spotted a pretty girl on the sidewalk across the street.  He ran across the street to her.

"Excuse me.  Aren't you Miss America?" he asked. 

She just smiled and said she was not, in fact, Miss America and kept on walking.

Sometimes after leaving Spinners we would race over to some dorms on campus known as the Tower Complex (i.e. the towers).  We were just having some fun and looking for some cute girls.  Mark and I walked through an open dorm room door once and joined a little party.  I guess we weren't too annoying because one of the girls gave me her number and said we should come back and party with them again sometime.

Our standard uniform for clubbing was usually a cardigan sweater, a button-up shirt, dress pants, and loafers.  During warmer months we probably wore short-sleeve button-up shirts or polo shirts.

One night I told Mark I didn't want to go out.  He wasn't having it.  He looked through my wardrobe, picked out some clothes, and laid them out on my bed.  I gave in and went out that night.

I hope you're not imagining Mr. Rogers when you hear we wore sweaters often.  I assure you we looked good.  We were a stylish group.  I'm not saying we always dressed like that when clubbing but that's the outfit I remember the most.

On just one occasion our group went to a gentlemen's club (strip joint) called The Golden Dolphin in Waterloo where we watched some exotic (topless) dancing.

What can I say?  We were horny college boys.

The Apartment

Mark had one rule about moving in and out of a place.  The stereo is the first item you move in (so you can start jamming music right away) and it's the last item you move out.

I liked Mark and Curt's apartment.  They occupied the second story of a house.  They had a separate entrance.  I think Mark might have even tutored a girl living on the first floor. 

The apartment was near two convenience stores which was nice if you wanted to make a beer or snack run.

The only artwork or decorations I recall the guys having was a poster featuring Chicago sports legends Michael Jordon, Walter Payton, and Andre Dawson.  No posters of bikini-clad women.  Just some athletes holding a basketball, football, and baseball bat.  Even P.F. had a sexy poster of Samantha Fox.  But, not these guys.

Mark was definitely a big fan of Chicago sports teams and of the University of Illinois.  He loved the Fighting Illini.

 



Mark had the bigger bedroom and Curtis the smaller one.  They had a small bathroom, living room, and kitchen.  It was quaint.  It had charm.  They had a sort of bar dividing the kitchen and living room areas.  I seem to recall some of us playing a poker game at that bar one night.  I don't recall if they had a table or not.  They might have had a small one. 

The boys had an old-fashioned tub and no shower.  So, they attached some sort of handheld shower hose to the tub faucet and used some metal wire to rig up a shower curtain. 

The tub filled with ice served as a container to keep the beer keg cold when the boys hosted a party for the Luther-Wartburg basketball game that year.  Quite a big rivalry existed between the two small schools.  Mark knew some girls from Luther who came to the party and stayed overnight at the apartment as well.

During the afternoon we drank beer and played drinking games before the basketball game that night.  We all came back to the apartment after the game to party some more.  I think my older sister was even there visiting.  I ended up talking to an Asian girl from Luther at the party for quite some time. 

I spent quite a bit of time in that apartment that school year.

Mark the DJ

Mark had been a DJ at Joe's Knight Hawk from time to time since his freshman year.  Sometimes he played music at other venues as well like house parties or the rec room on campus. 

He had a lot of music and a lot of equipment.  He had an Onkyo stereo, a pair of large floor speakers, and a boom box.  He'd use the boom box and a pair of headphones to cue up a song on a cassette while his stereo cranked out a song for the crowd in the bar.  At Joe's he didn't have to use his own speakers.  He was able to patch his stereo into Joe's sound system.

In Joe's bar there was a slightly elevated seating area that overlooked the dance floor.  Mark would set up his stereo on a table by the railing that ran along the elevated area.  He would be directly looking over the dance floor so it worked perfectly.

I often went with him when he was playing music at Joe's.  I would sit in a chair next to him and be his copilot.  I didn't really do anything except keep him company.  Early in the evening he'd play some nice music but when the crowd showed up he'd start cranking out the good stuff.  It was fun to see the dance floor fill up.

Not everyone liked his music.

"Why don't you stop playing all this black music and start playing some progressive shit?" one guy asked.  I think our buddy Randy told the guy to f*ck off.

"Why is he playing this crap?" one woman asked me.  I just pointed to the dance floor which was packed with college students.  She wanted to hear some Guns N' Roses.  They were wildly popular at the time so I suppose it was a legitimate request but I told her it wasn't going to happen.  Mark would never have spent his money on heavy metal music like that.

One evening some college girls asked him to play a song off of a Spanish music cassette they had.  He tried to find a way to nicely explain that he wasn't going to do that.

Some people wanted to hear country music by artists like Randy Travis.  He told them to bring in a tape and he'd play it.

I wish I would have known more about music then and perhaps I could have given him a tape to play that would have impressed him like "Blue Monday 88" by New Order perhaps.

Occasionally he would play a slow jam.  Sometimes he even played a slow jam and stepped onto the floor to dance with his girlfriend.

I have to admit it felt very cool being friends with the DJ and sitting there by his side while he magically put together the right combination of songs.

Senior Year

Mark was living on his own in an apartment during our senior year.  Curt was back living in Chicago.  Mark had a girlfriend at that point.  Sometimes I would go to Spinners with them or with my friend Michelle. 

It wasn't quite the same as the old days but still fun.

My friend Michelle kind of used me as a wing man.  We would dance allowing her to show herself off.  After we left the dance floor we'd soon be approached by guys wondering if we were a couple.  It's a good thing we weren't or I would have been mad as hell.  Get your own damn woman!

Michelle introduced me to an Asian girl named Flo who I would dance with sometimes.  Flo wore tight dresses or revealing clothing and was hot as hell.

One night a petite blond asked me to dance.  She knew me because we had danced at Spinners one night the previous year.  I think she was a teaching assistant at UNI. 

I never asked Flo or the blond girl out because they both seemed out of my league.

I hung out with a guy named Tom a few times that had transferred to Wartburg.  He was a white guy who really liked rap music.  He was one of those white guys who liked so talk like he was black. 

"Yo!  What's up home slice?"

One night he and I went to a place called The Stein on the hill in Cedar Falls.  I don't think The Stein had a cover charge.  It was large, dark place.  It was a basic, simple place with no frills unlike Spinners.  But, it did have a dance floor and a DJ.

We saw two girls dancing alone.  We decided to walk onto the floor and simply start dancing with them.  My heart was pounding.  Would one of the girls slap me or would they simply walk off the dance floor in disgust?  When we started dancing in front of them they were a bit surprised but laughed and seemed okay with it.

When the song was over the girl I had been dancing with smiled and said, "Thanks for the dance."

Tom really liked MC Hammer and especially "U Can't Touch This."

I guess he impressed Flo at Spinners dancing to it because she then proceeded to ask me if my friend (Tom) might like to dance with her.

If any song was the anthem for those college club days it had to be "Just Got Paid" by Johnny Kemp.

Just got paid, Friday night
Party huntin', feelin' right
Body shakin', all around
No one thinks when I'm gettin' down

 

Check the mirror, I'm lookin' fly
Round up the posse, jump in my ride
Radio rockin', a monster jam
Feel the rhythm, pump up the sound

 

I'm feelin' so good
Don't you know I'm just groovin' to the beat
I'm groovin', groovin'
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Mark once said, "Whoever invented weekends was a very wise person."

Soon we graduated and the fun was over. 

I didn't care for the grunge or gansta rap of the 1990s. 

I rarely ever set foot in a club or bar again.

Today

So, whatever happened to Mark after getting married to his college sweetheart?  He became a minister of course.  Did I forget to mention he was a religion major in college?  And, he became a father too.  Hey, you can be a married Christian man with a child and still be cool. 

I think Curtis settled down and got married as well. 

I don't think too much about those old days.  But, every now and then I remember being young with my brain running on a mixture of optimism, cockiness, adrenaline, endorphins, and testosterone.  I remember thinking I looked like THE shit (i.e. looked sharp and desirable).  The music was pounding, the alcohol was flowing, and everyone seemed happy to be alive.

I have to admit I take some pride in knowing a bit about the esoteric genre of house music.  Perhaps it's not so esoteric any longer.  For example, Madonna's hit song "Vogue" might be considered house music.

It saddens me that no one thought to take any pictures.  Not one damn picture of us dressed up for our night out.  Not a single picture of Spinners or even Joe's.  It never occurred to me to save some Spinner Bucks as a memento. 
 
Thanks to the digital era we live in now I have been able to find a few things that were archived.  Mainly, though, I just have my memories.  That's okay.  I was living in the moment and having fun and I guess that's more important than any picture or memento. 

I still hear a song now and then that takes me back to those days.  I hear "Bizarre Love Triangle" from time to time.  Or, I'll hear a remix of something like "Rock Me Amadeus" and wonder if Mark ever heard that version and if he'd like it.  Or, I'll hear an Italo Disco song like "Sexy Teacher" and wonder if Mark would like it or hate it.  
 
I've very seldom set foot in a club since those days.  One night a few years back I did go to a bar and break out some of the old dance moves and a girl from my apartment building and her boyfriend said I was great.  

But, I'll leave the nightlife to the younger generation now.  Party on!