Makin Love in Da Club…..

My daughter is the “clubbing” age.   I am not. As a person who loves to dance though rarely has the opportunity, I remarked to her that it must be so fun and that she gets the chance to dance her booty off at least once a week. What I heard next was shocking:

“Why don’t you come with us dad?”

So many thoughts went through my head at that moment, though, primarily the fact that I turn 50 this year.

50 year-old dudes don’t club.  Or do they?

I could not believe that my daughter would actually allow her FATHER to go with her to da club…..Sup bitchuzzz??

“Please come with us dad, that would be so fun! I am so excited if you come! Don’t get my hopes up if you don’t really want to.”

Wow, that made me feel really good. Really, really  good. She REALLY wanted me to go.

The other day in class I asked my students to answer the question, “what floats your boat?”  Truth be told ANY new experience floats my boat. I absolutely love trying things I have never done before, from parasailing in Hawaii to clubbing in Hollywood. If I’ve never done it, I’m generally down.

She said there was a club she had never been to before called Das Bunker. Apparently it was an “industrial goth underground” (huh?) club in downtown Los Angeles.

Ok. Cool. Let’s do this.

We arrived at 10:45pm, well past my bedtime. But, hey, you only live once. And nothing a Red Bull and half can’t cure.

As we arrived, it was my daughter and her friend who were the ones more or less freaked out. Turns out the underground was on the second floor. It was goth, thus many looked like the walking dead and some were wearing gas masks, which made sense as one never really knows when some accidental tear gas might go off. And who will be laughing THEN?

The music was, hmmm, uh…. I think the official name for the genre is hypno-techno-pulsating-futuristic-loud-noise -though carried a nice beat. Apparently this particular club was nothing like the ones they were used to. Since I had essentially never been to a club before, particularly one such as this, I did not know what was “normal.” I was good.

In fact, the “stranger” it was, the better. The Sammy Hagar meets Heath Ledger meets Triple H dude making an ass of himself on the dance floor hardly stood out in this place. I was completely free to move to the music in any strange way I felt fit. It was “Saturday Night Fever” meeting “Flashdance” meeting “Footloose” meeting “You Got Served” all converging as they met little to no coordination.

Did this old man make as ass of himself? Hardly.

One young lady even came up to me and said, and I quote, “You are awesome!”

And I responded like anyone would else would. I said, “thank you!” as I proceeded to  do a “jitterbuggy” meets “80’s new wave arms over the head move” meets a “baby don’t hurt me” head nod, making my way back to the center of the dance floor.

Funny thing was, my daughter and her friend hardly danced. Apparently they did not “feel it” in that atmosphere.  As one who thinks the homeless man crawling on all fours, acting like a dog while biting people on the ankles within the Venice Beach drum circle each Sunday afternoon is beautifully rediscovering the art of play we adults have lost, I felt it. But I can be weird that way.

I must confess that after about 2 hours of nonstop movement I had enough. I liked the music, really I did, though it has about a 2 hour expiration date on my psyche; same goes for the accordion.

What’s the point of this blog? I earnestly believe the day we stop discovering, trying, experiencing, learning, playing while challenging ourselves to saunter into the great unknown, is the day we begin to press down to the floor the accelerator pedal of death.

Not sure when, or even if, this old man will frequent a club again. Yet all you have to do is ask.