A Club, Circa 2004

“Do I have to change my name? Will it get me far? Should I lose some weight? Am I gonna be a star?” – American Life, Madonna

The dance moves in twists and turns, bodies angled far from parallel to the multicolored floor below, the disco ball spinning wildly above. In the far corner of the club stands the venerable bar, nearly lost amidst the gyrating bodies, flashing lights, and hectic pace of a Friday night in the city of angels. A pulsing remix of Madonna’s “Stupid” blares from the eighteen gigantic speakers spaced liberally across the expanse of the room, its echoes shaking the floor in starts and stops like a rolling wave slamming into shore. The crowd is of a mixed age so often seen in clubs across California. There are balding men in suits with no ties, wedding band lines a telltale reminder of what they would like to forget. Interspersed with these characters are high school girls with fake IDs that fool no one, yet somehow they have invaded the space and claimed it for their own. Along for the ride are high school boys with even less professional-looking identification proclaiming them to be doctors and lawyers when they can’t even grow a beard yet. Next to last comes the twentysomethings with their J. Crew and Isaac Mizrahi blouses, a-line skirts, and glaring make-up. The final group are the older women with dead eyes and shifty feet, who stand in the corner adjacent to the bar knocking back drinks like sailors on leave. They are not mothers, but spinsters whose time has passed, reminding the balding men that they too should not be here. Yet both groups remain, desperate to prove that they still belong. The twentysomethings glare at them as if to say, “We’re here now so you don’t have to be anymore,” while they also think of a way to let security know that the youngest set does not belong either.

On the clock above the door the time reads “12:31” but it lies. The ancient timepiece ceased to run three years ago and no one has even noticed. The time is actually 2:12 in the morning, a time when kids and parents are asleep, oblivious to the thriving night scene in the city that never gives in to exhaustion. First to leave the club are the high schoolers, each of them desperately trying to think up some excuse that won’t leave them grounded for the next 20 years, each of them so drunk that they cannot think of said excuses. They stumble out with their arms around each other, barely keeping in their alcohol. How they got served is anyone’s guess, but judging from the extra bulge in the barkeep’s pants pocket anyone searching would find the answer easily enough. Next to head out of the door are the older women, seemingly whipped into submission by the choice of music and the lack of interest generated by their ample cleavage and short skirts. They have expired, and it looks like they have just realized this sad fact. Also with new realizations are the balding men who have lost more hair while they were trying to keep up with the youngsters. These men stagger out just like the high schoolers but they are not drunk. They are worn down and need to recover. It will probably take them the rest of the weekend to emerge again from the cocoons of their warm beds. Their wives, of course, will not allow this. The twentysomethings finally relax, letting their hair down for the first time all night. As Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” incites a head-banging urgency among their ranks, they begin to move to the beat, jolted alive by what they never want to be and what they swear they never came from. Oblivious.

Sam