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2001-09-01 / 12:32 p.m. ~Fatboy Slim is Fucking in Heaven: A Tribal Dance Frenzy~ No, it's not me gratuitously using the word fuck again, it's from "Heaven", on the "You've Come a Long Way Baby" album, the album I've played out, the album I taped and listened to in my car so many times I'm surprised it hasn't disintegrated. But I always wondered when it got to that track, Track 3, does he mean he is having sex in heaven, or that he is fucking in HEAVEN!? Wait, he is in heaven, like REALLY in heaven, in a state of bliss. The free weekly had run semi-large ads promoting the Fatboy (Norman Cook) Slim show, and in these ads, run since the Area:One Fest I think, it said the show started at 8:00. So I was agonizing just a bit over my wardrobe choice, not sure which show I'd go to, that or Smashmouth, not sure where I'd end up, if not simply back home, therefore not sure at all how much trouble to go to, etc., and thinking that I was running late, ish, for either show. Not much trouble, just my button-fly 501s and my Rosie the Riveter tshirt, "We Can Do It!" Yeah, me the 48% gay feminist! Okay, I buy my ticket, no one is there, as in very few people, at all, but I've bought it, I've committed to the $36, and I try to go on in, but the security dude is being an ass, really very sarcastic and just plain rude, and I show him my ticket and he says something about around 8:30 or 9:00, and I am telling him it said 8:00 in the paper and I ask what it says on the ticket and then look for myself�and the ticket says 10:00. Interesting. There will be someone else playing too, one of the milling about security dude people tells me, but acts very evasive when I ask who, because it turns out he is clueless. On to the park, wherein it is strangely quiet, and I actually found free parking, and I realize it's over. They really did mean 5:30 for this show. And perhaps Smashmouth was "featured", but they were gone now. A hot night, but I wander, sit by the fountain, take my time, walk back to my car and drive, and I'm still early for the Fatboy show. The doors to the seating area aren't open, we're wandering about, and it's smoky. I get a Bass and watch people. Club kids, many scantily clad females, one of whom cannot seem to stop dancing to the music playing already. Once inside and I'm thinking of the shows I've seen here, the Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta (was it Pirates of Penzance?), Jimmy Cliff (distortingly loud), The Cult (I won tickets, took my brother for his birthday), Edie Brickell and New Bohemians (they were amazing!), Chris Isaak (or was that at the FOX?), but it's no longer Center Stage, now it's Earthlink Live. Corporate sponsorship is ruining everything. The theatre looks the same, a half bowl of seats, stadium style, but none on the floor tonight, just a raised platform in the center, and a DJ spinning, two turntables, a box of records. I don't know who he is, but I like the music. People come in, go out, I find a seat, I'm watching, and it's like being early at a club, no one really wants to be the first on the dance floor. But two girls. The one who couldn't stop dancing outside by the bars, and another, and she's dancing for another girl who sits and watches. I want to dance. The rhythm is amazing, snippets of congas or bongos, and it's fast, and the DJ is bald and white and rarely shows expression or acknowledges we're watching him, and all I can think is how odd, how very 21st Century that a bunch of people paid $36 to watch a guy play records on a platform in the middle of a dance floor in an old theatre. Someone sits in front of me, says the DJ is Digweed. And, I do know who that is, his spinning was featured in the movie "Groove". I never learn if she's right. I just know I want to dance. Another Bass, and the bartenders are so pretentious, the girl in a furry bra and leather pants with fur at the bottom, a chain around her middle, and I want to tell her how hot she looks, but she knows already, and the first beer she poured me she said was her first, and I wonder if she means of the night. The guy is gay and looking at the boys, so I have to stand immediately in front of his field of vision, look him directly in his eyes and ask for my beer. Early, before the doors had opened, a girl was throwing up in the stall next to me in the bathroom. It seemed too early for that so I assumed she's pregnant. Women at work throw up frequently, lots of pregnant women. Midway through my second Bass, the unnamed DJ occasionally throwing his hand in the air, punching at the beat, a holler from someone who made it to the dance floor, a few more people, the Asian club girl who wants her boyfriend to dance with her, and she starts and stops dancing so many times, but I just want her to keep going. And I have to dance. So I do. I've danced in clubs by myself before, and it's no problem, another 21st Century anomaly. There are security dudes surrounding the DJ platform and the one walks in front of me over and over, but I barely move and sometimes I flail him with an arm or two, but I don't care. He is oblivious to me and I dance behind the platform and in front of the raised stage. More and more people are dancing now, they're on the stage, and the music is amazing, and we're all together, everyone doing their own thing, and I have to switch to water, stumble out for a thirst quenching, make my way back and it's fevered, it's getting intense. Then the waters part and Mr. Fatboy enters, surrounded by bodyguards and he is our God, he is the man who will take us farther, and he is not quiet like the other DJ, and we don't know who that one was, and Fatboy, Norman, is also bald, and smiling and he looks gay, it's striking, my gaydar says, Hey, Fatboy's gay, and he smiles and waves and he is so happy to be there in that spot, and the music hasn't stopped and we're applauding and dancing, and sweating and there is a snippet of "Music" by Madonna and that is so cool because suddenly I am in love with Madonna. Two girls dance in front of me, and they both have their club clothes on, little halters and skirts, and they are dancing with each other, and a boy comes up to them, is shaking their hands, trying to introduce himself, but he's a loser, I can tell, and I think how he would never go for me, in my lesbian tshirt, and I'm dancing behind the one girl, getting off on watching her move. I like the way some of the men dance too, but they're mostly with women, so I don't look too much, mostly I am just feeling it, and I'm in a groove of sorts, and there's a name for it, but I can't remember, it's where you find it, your focus, and you zone, and you're inside the rhythm, it's inside of you and you keep moving, arms, hands, hips, legs, feet, head, all moving in sync, and you could barely stop if you wanted to. It feels like a tribal ritual, the way we're all moving together, the way every person there seems to be on that floor, or on the stage, and there are gay and straight and club kids and two guys in wheelchairs and someone slips on spilled beverages and falls and gets up and we all keep moving like some giant thriving dance machine. I find that place, that groove, over and over, but Norman switches his beats a lot, and there is some distortion because he is louder than the last DJ, so the melodies are obscured, but I think I hear a bit of songs from "You've Come a Long Way Baby". There is a camera on him and a large projection screen above the stage - every so often he holds up an album cover, he'll show us what he's playing, and he's like a little kid proud of his record collection, all smiles and dancing, and it's fucking great! The girl who was dancing for her girlfriend earlier comes up to me and hands me her glow wands, and I'm dancing with them, moving them around in the air, but I realize my left hand cannot move with the right hand. I am not glow wand ambidextrous, and I want to give them back, but she says no. And she is dancing with me, but we move differently, and she tries to introduce me to her friend, but I can't hear her at all. I think she says "roommate" and the girl waves in a silly way, but maybe she said something else. She asks me if I came alone, I don't know how she really noticed, but I say yeah, and she thinks that's cool. Her smile is beautiful and I think if she kissed me I would kiss her back. I notice her halter is transparent and I can see her breasts as she dances in front of me. Then she is dancing with another girl, and this one has on a "wife beater", but it's pulled up and tied, and she is writhing against a guy and then all three are dancing together, and then the wife beater girl pulls up the shirt more and the glow wand girl is maybe kissing her breasts, but I really don't care, because I am inside the groove. The security dude is loving it, he watches them with a huge smile on his face, and looks at me, and I raise my eyebrows and shrug my shoulders, like "Yeah, some people are like that, just wacky" and I keep dancing. I reach a bad point though, and I have to drink water or I will die. I've been dancing for hours, quite literally, maybe three hours, and we are in a tribal dance frenzy. It is a techno tent meeting, and we are as a spiritual one. But I need water. I'm soaking wet, my sleeves pushed up, inhaling water at the fountain. Back inside I sit. My feet hurt, my Birkenstocks have cut into my feet, the ankle straps. My knees hurt. I watch the lights, the people, Norman on his platform, smiling, dancing, spinning, the images on the projector screen, the people on stage, but I can no longer move. Still, I'm amazed, and this was the best dance party I've ever been to, the money spent not even a thought. Norm plays some spoken word snippet, but it's not a snippet, it's long, and it's this guy talking about us, the spirituality of what we're doing, and the Jesus of Techno, us throwing our hands in the air, praising the Jesus of Techno, and how we're all one big dance spirit, and he's right. Soon it's 2:00 in the morning, and I'm danced out, finally, mostly due to the wrong shoes, the wrong clothes, the lack of water, and things wind down, Norm signs off, the music keeps going, he waves and waves, and loves us, loves us club kids, loves to make the beats, and people are reaching his hands to touch him and he touches back. He's the Jesus of Techno, he's our God. Home, a shower, and to bed with wet clean hair, my knees feeling broken. Cost of the War in Iraq
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