Disco Inferno 2008, Latina Cougars and Ecstatic Behavior

Since I'm single and don't have to answer to anybody, ecstatic behavior has become my MO. The trend continued last night at Disco Inferno 2008. Circus Disco in Hollywood hosted a classic 70's disco night, and when I heard about it over a week ago I couldn't resist. When I was in college, a club in Dallas hosted a disco night every Sunday. My friends and I bought bellbottoms, polyester shirts, and afro wigs and became regulars dancing to the beats of Barry White, Gloria Gaynor, and Donna Summers. Sunday became my favorite day of the week. Clubs nowadays are known for their 80's-themed nights, but I hadn't seen a place advertising disco only in forever. Like 11 years to be exact. I felt like a searcher for the Grail who'd finally succeeded.

Why do i like disco so much? It's just pure fun. Up-tempo. Ridiculous. Sort of like me. It's also an ancestor to house music with its constant, repetitive beat and I love house music. The beat, the beat, the beat...it echoes your heart when you're excited about something.

As preparation, I downloaded a disco album and danced around the office on Friday listening to my ipod. However, when Saturday night came around, I wasn't exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. A hectic week coupled with crossfit that morning had wrecked my body (AMRAP in 20 minutes, 45lb KB thrusters and 400 m run; thanks Stanwyck!). As the hour drew near, I drank two cups of coffee and donned a cowboy shirt with a big fuck-off collar that I purchased in 1996, my junior year of college. I bought the shirt for Halloween from a thrift store for 1 dollar. I went as a cowboy. As a joke. Who knew that 12 years later it would look so good on me?

Three other peeps were brave enough to confront Disco Inferno 2008: my co-worker Teresa, her boyfriend Omar, and fellow crossfitter Chris Sherwin. We all wondered what the fuck we'd gotten ourselves into. the very large venue with multiple rooms was pretty empty at 10:30. The disco room was trippy. It felt like we'd traveled through a worm hole and arrived at a high school reunion for people who graduated in the 70's. Older Latino peeps were sitting at tables as the old DJ spun some approximation of disco on a stage. We proceeded to the bar very quickly. Before we lost our nerve and fled from the club screaming like Japanese citizens in a Godzilla film.

I drank vodka and tonic. Then i switched to vodka and red bull because my legs were like spaghetti and my eyes heavy. When we went back to the disco room, the middle-aged Latinos were dancing. Hellz yeah! We joined them. I whirled and twirled and pointed like John Travolta. Compared to the Latinos, who were generally a little heavier than I, I was like a spastic. A dervish. A tornado of disco. We were the hawtest group there. Sherwin told me that a group of Latina cougars was watching me. But I didn't believe him. He always says that some chick is looking at me. I wonder if he is blind as well as deaf. Nonetheless, I was feeling drunk and silly and I went with it, and told him that my goal was to freak-dance with half the cougars in the club. I failed miserably. I didn't dance with a single cougar because I couldn't get past the fact that they were almost all bigger than me, with love handles and tummies that poked through their tight, shiny dresses. I have become a body fascist.

I kept waiting for the music to get better. I thought the DJ was saving all the classics for later on when the dance floor would be at its most crowded. The obscure disco music continued. My patience waned. My sobriety gone, I began to get angry. I was afraid that I would have to contain Sherwin at some point in the evening, because he gets all rugby from time to time, but it was I who needed to calm down. I started to yell at the DJ perched up there on stage, all high and mighty. "You fucking asshole!!! Where's the goddamn classic disco??? I waited 11 years for this shit!!!" Luckily, because of the music, no one could hear me. Or they pretended not to notice. Then I began to fire middle fingers toward the DJ. Both hands. He was ruining my night. Luckily, he didn't see me. Was I wrong to get so angry? If you wait a long time for disco and find a place that advertises classic disco and you pay 20 fucking dollars to get in, is it wrong to expect classic disco and get angry when it doesn't materialize? It's false advertising. Bad business practice. I want my 20 dollars back.

By 1:30, I had given up. Omar and Teresa had left. Sherwin and I left too. I decided on the drive home to retire from disco dancing. You can't re-live the past. I tried and failed. Disco, like romance, was dead.

A few other interesting visuals from the night. The Santa Monica Boulevard off-ramp from the 101 was home to a homeless man with a sign which said, "I won't lie. I need a beer." Inside the club, an Asian girl did crazy shit with a hoola-hoop on the dance floor. Why are Asians so weird? I got run over by a guy in a wheelchair on the dance floor.

and oh yeah. Sherwin passed out in his car and somehow ended up lost at USC the next morning.