Dance Party Recap and Memoir Snippet

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: Erasure All in All: The Berlin Wall

Dance Party Recap and Memoir Snippet

Our second “I Have to Work Tomorrow ‘80s Dance Party” at the Cat Club in San Francisco is in the history books, and oh what a party it was on November 6. Even if San Francisco was suffering a collective post-World-Series post-Halloween hangover, enough people showed up to fill the dance floor at an hour that, had they still been in college, they would have spent contemplating a late afternoon snack.

It made the paper.

Wrists were stamped. But only if you were over 21. (Hahahahaha)

Badges were distributed.

Right ‘round was spun.

The video screens overhead displayed a curious mix of ’70s horror clips which segued into ’80s soft-porn pictures. Or as Maureen put it, “Oh. We’ve gone from gore to whore.”

A book was won. (Congrats to new Midlife Mixtape reader Praveen, and thanks again Touchstone Publishing for providing the copy of Billy Idol’s memoir!)

All in all, great night…stay tuned for the announcement of the next one, which should be sometime in February-ish. Should we all bring our Valentines? Or just dance to this?

By the way, here’s what I read at The Basement Series last Friday. It was a fundraiser for LitCamp’s scholarship fund, and the topic was “What I Did for Love Not Money.” We were given a strict rule of one page, which I exploited using margins and font sorcery. The piece is adapted from my midlife music crisis memoir-in-progress, from the chapter about seeing New Order play again when I was in my forties.

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When I got to college in Philadelphia in the mid-eighties, I was razzle-dazzled by the number of clubs and activities in which I could partake, so much so that I took leave of my senses and joined them by the armful. I rowed crew for about six days until I realized that the two-mile run to the boathouse to start practice was not some wacky hazing ritual, but the daily warm-up for the real workout. I played women’s hockey for as long as it took at the introductory meeting to recognize that possession of a ticket stub from the Women’s Figure Skating Compulsories in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics was not sufficient training. I was in the Women’s Marketing Club for exactly the minimum time it took to ethically give the organization a permanent berth on my first post-college resume.

Then I found the Penn Union Council.

With its bland, generic name, “Penn Union Council” sounded like it could have been anyone doing anything. But it served a very specific purpose: to provide free student labor to the bands that came on campus to perform in the red brick Gothic Revival Irvine Auditorium.

For each show, a team of PUC volunteers was hand-picked to arrive at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning and stay until the last amp was put away on the equipment truck after that night’s performance.

In between, we swept the stage, wiped down the tables in the dressing rooms, prepared meals for the band and its roadies, and ensured that the artist’s rider was carried out to the letter in terms of beer brand, candy preference, and honey selection. Anything that the band, the band manager, or a person who even appeared to be traveling with the band asked us to do, we did immediately and without complaint. In return for that subservience, we were given a free tour t-shirt and a backstage pass that enabled us to sit in the orchestra pit, right at the feet of the musicians, when the show started.

I couldn’t believe that every student at my university wasn’t clamoring to give up a free Saturday to join this magical organization. I served chili to Tracy Chapman, cleaned up all 10,000 paper cups left by 10,000 Maniacs, and engaged in second hand smoke inhalation backstage at Jimmy Cliff. My club-joining days were over: it was me and the PUC, forever and ever, amen.

Whenever a new show was announced, it signaled a nervous jockeying for position among the members of the PUC hoping to get the nod to work that day. There were enough volunteers that the student PUC managers could be choosy, and I’d failed to make the cut before. The managers wanted students who revered the headliner musicians but could, you know, like Frankie said: Relax.

So when word got out during the first semester of my junior year that New Order was coming to campus to play, I had to dial my actual enthusiasm level way, waaaaay down before attending the meeting where volunteers would be chosen.

My determined nonchalance must have fooled someone, because on that December morning in 1986 I was up at six a.m. to prepare for my day of crewing their show. I knew from experience I wouldn’t have much time to freshen up all day, which explains the outfit I wore out into the early dawn. You can actually see elements of it again every year, worn by sixth graders on “Eighties Day!” during School Spirit Week.

Black knit skirt over black leggings Long white blouse pinned at the throat with a rhinestone Granny brooch, and cinched at the waist with a wide belt. Fake leopard fur jacket nabbed from my mom’s closet during Thanksgiving break Earrings that reached my shoulders Black knock-off Doc Martens a lid-straining application of eye makeup And high, high hair buttressed by Aquanet in the blue can

Oh, and something the kids don’t have to worry about: a prayer that I wouldn’t get mistaken for a hooker.

Within a year I’d graduate, take a consulting job, invest in suits and what a friend termed “presentation to the board” earrings. I regret none of it. I just wish I’d had the foresight that morning to know that, because of the day about to unfold, I’d spend the next twenty-five years at concerts trying to maintain a connection with that fresh, audacious, high-haired girl I’d never be again.

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