80's

I went out with a friend for her birthday on Friday night. Dinner first, then a local club. Every couple of weeks, the club hosts an 80's band and they always, always draw big crowds. We'd talked months ago about going to one of the shows and, luckily, the timing worked out so that we could go the night before my friend's birthday.

Now, I lived through the 80's. I wore leg warmers. I had a red pair with stripes and polka dots. Even tassles. A cream-colored pair. Hot pink. I had a pair of parachute pants from Chess King. A net shirt that I wore over a ripped sweatshirt. A pink Members Only jacket. I was one well-dressed sixth-grader, let me tell you. Probably the only time being an only child ever paid off for me was with respect to clothes--I had more than I knew what to do with.

So this club really made me laugh. Some people dress up. And they try. They really do. But their impressions of the 80's are so off the mark that I wanted to go up to them and give them a good shaking.

Lots of side ponytails. Which, yeah, I don't really remember so much. Side ponytails, to me, either means Napoleon Dynamite or Elizabeth Daily in Valley Girl. Really, they'd be much better off, realistically speaking, wearing those hideous banana clips. Or the barettes with the ribbons woven through them. With beads hanging off the ends. Oh God, I was such a fashion victim.

Another thing: rainbow-striped socks. Really, so many of these girls looked like the guest star on a very special episode of Family when Buddy brings home the neighborhood retarded girl for dinner because the school bully was picking on her. Or like, you know, that girl from Napoleon Dynamite. Which was filmed in Nebraska or Kansas, not the 80's.

But, anyway, we go. And let me tell you, what a freak show. First, there's the guy (I think) who was all of 4'11" and looked and acted like Jack Black's younger, more frightening brother. And his tongue was pierced. Don't ask me how I know this because it might give me acid flashbacks and I might have to be hospitalized. He was dancing next to the birthday girl and rubbing his butt up against her leg, due to his height impairment. I bravely and graciously moved her out of the way, since it was her birthday, and took the catbird's seat next to him. I then gave him the dirtiest look I could muster--which he was really too drunk to recognize. Luckily, my heels were of a height as to expose only a few feet of myself to his "dancing."

Then there was the Shirtless Wonder. He'd apparently had a bunch of beer poured on him and, as a result, took off his shirt. He then proceeded to use it varyingly as a lasso, a rally towel or a flag. I think he was going for the Billy Idol look in the Rebel Yell video, but failed utterly. At one point, he hit the birthday girl upside the head with his wet, soggy shirt. When we looked back at him in horror, his friend said, "Be afraid. Be very afraid." We were.

My favorite was the 250 lb. guy with the muscle shirt that read "Pump" on the front. He had on a black curly wig with a bandanna and Elvis sunglasses. I think he was trying for the Captain Lou look, but had failed to tape rubber bands to his face, a la the Cindy Lauper videos. I was hoping his shirt was a Hypercolor shirt, but it didn't seem to change colors when he started to sweat. Other than, you know, being darker.

The band took off after a rousing rendition of I Love Rock 'n Roll and the lights came up. The dance floor was quickly cleared of dancers and only the crushed and broken plastic beer bottles remained. The floor was coated with a thin sheen of liquid. One spot was red in color, where someone had either spilled Mountain Dew Code Red or something a bit more sinister on the floor. That's one thing that never changes over the year--the look of a good dance floor gone bad.