Studio B, in their tireless efforts to bring our community together through good-clean-fun, hilarity and entertainment, held another town dance recently. The theme was 'Eighties Night' and it was wicked excellent.
As in most dress up occasions, the brainstorming, acquiring of outfits and getting ready for the event was nearly as fun as the event itself. Not that coming in costume was a requirement, but because it’s Maplewood/South Orange it just become a dress-up event. Because we’re a silly people sometimes and don’t care what people think-- and that’s a good thing.
Folks Googled Commodores and
Culture Club videos to see what the extras were wearing then either went to
Forever 21 or borrowed from Border-Hoarder friends who never throw anything
away. I loaned out my Pat Benetar
concert T-shirt that I bought with my own babysitting money at the concert as
well as my Journey concert tee—both with baseball sleeves; both excellent. I also loaned out the faded mom jeans
with the overlapping patches that were a staple of my wardrobe for years. We didn’t call them “Mom Jeans”
then. They were just the style. Seven inches of zipper rising high to
hug the waist, they were an abysmal cut, which we then pegged at the
ankle—sometimes with suede boots, sometimes with tube socks. Yes, I had saved some leg warmers and a
few particularly wide, boxy tops.
A typical medium sized shirt back then was 3 ½ feet wide and stopped
right at the belt line in order to show off your happenin’ shiny belt.
I had a belt epiphany the night of
the dance while getting ready. I
remembered the blue eye shadow and frosty blue eye-liner. I had spent hours following the eye-shadow
contouring instructions in the pages of Seventeen Magazine and it all came back
to me as soon as I saw the shimmery robin’s egg color. I remembered to fluff up my hair so
that it was Jennifer Beales big then tie a scarf in it in a bow at an angle. That was a no brainer as were the
striped socks that I wore with pointy ballet flats. But certain things came back to me in waves of
recognition. My ah-ha moment hit
me a few days earlier when I remembered the 4 or 5 watches I used to wear
simultaneously. I was particularly
proud of that nugget as I strapped them on to overlap each other, one Swatch at
a time.
As I was finishing up, I grabbed a
belt to buckle around the waist of my mini- skirt and then, as if prodded by
ghosts of Prince videos past, I reached for another belt. “Right!” I thought, “Two belts; one
lower at a diagonal!” It was there in my brain’s deep storage the whole time,
the muscle memory of putting on two belts to go into the city to sneak into
Limelight; to dance the night away.
The Eighties Night dance was lit
like a prom back then, or more aptly, someone’s basement rec room party on
homecoming weekend—super dark. The
Women’s Club dance floor itself was vast downstairs giving the hundred or so
folks that paid the modest admission of $10 plenty of room to move. The light show was killer, giving
dancers just enough light to nod respectfully to the brilliant array of outfits
dancing nearby, but still keep them safely cloistered in the dark so that they
could really go crazy. There were
rubber bracelets, shoulder pads and a hats worn at the very back of the
head. There were horizontal
stripes and spandex pants and a dead ringer for Joan Jett resplendent in black
leather. There was a big guy in a
football letter jacket with a rattail about 10 inches down his back—his nanny
had sewn a pinchful of hair cut from a wig right into his own—and there were
loads of guys in alligator shirts with their collars up—sometimes sporting two
shirts at once. Alex P. Keaton
would have been proud. There was
one guy who found a “Top Gun” zip-up-the-front flight suit on the
internet. Due for a haircut
anyway, he asked for a close one that morning, and together with the dark
aviator sunglasses made the night complete.
I hadn’t danced that hard since
Studio B’s Disco Night. We threw
our bodies around the room to the music so hard that everyone I saw the next
morning dropping their kids off at school was sore. We giggled over stiff necks and sore hamstrings and my ribs
hurt for some bizarre reason. But
at the time it was as if I couldn’t help myself; I was possessed. I remembered my parents pushing the
dining room table out of the way after dinner parties and dancing to 45s of
Rock Around the Clock and how insanely sweaty and happy they all
looked—laughing and shouting all the lyrics. That was us—silly, sweaty and insanely happy. We shouted every word—every syllable
hit squarely and long note held for the exact right length—to every song for
three hours. Transported back in
time, we were our vague selves but from so long ago. I wouldn’t know how to even talk to that person now, were I
to meet her in some sort of time-rift sci-fi amusement park ride. But I loved to dance then and I love to
dance now. That much we still have
in common. That and an enduring
love of dressing up, not caring if I look silly, and a deep abiding love of the
music of my youth and the crazy fun folks in this town.
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