With Dancing Comes Knowledge

I went to the Key Club last night for the first time. Little Di and a friend of hers wanted to go see Spazmatics - a group of four High School wedgie candidates; complete with masking taped glasses, suspender pants hiked higher than Urkles, a pager, false buck teeth, a neck brace, plaid pants that flood, and more outrageous stuff from our youth we all wish to forget - that preform 80's cover songs at midnight on Sundays and Thursdays in Los Angeles. The Spazmatics gained notoriety about 20 years and have been performing ever since across America, enlightening young and old minds to songs they'd forgotten and wished to hear again.

Since the Spazmatics didn't perform until midnight, and Little Di and I arrived at 10:30pm, we had some time to kill. You would think that the Key Club, a famous Hollywood nightclub, would have an opening band to entertain the masses, but no, they had a DJ that liked to change the current song every minute or so, throwing off a dancer's rhythm. Like most of the people in the club, we opted to talk over a drink rather than attempt to dance to the ever changing beat. We'd also discovered that the "Hollywood Prom" was taking place at the Key Club that evening.

When we'd first entered the club we were a little shocked to see so many young looking people milling about in prom dresses and suits; some people even had corsages. It was like a bad acid trip; going to a place you don't really want to relive (I mean, who actually enjoyed their prom so much, they'd love to go to another one?), and then wondering if the random guy that comes up to you and asks you to dance is even old enough to buy you a drink first. A little frightening. Most of the people that go to Spazmatics come decked out in 80's outfits: leggings, knitted arm sleeves, scrunchies, stylized ripped t-shirts, etc. - I'd only been to the Spazmatics once before and I never remembered anyone coming in prom outfits.

Luckily one of the bouncers set us straight and explained that the "Hollywood Prom" was just a sales gimmick and that everyone in the club, despite their appearances, was over 21. Well, that was a relief, getting asked to dance by a 15-year-old looking 21-year-old in a Tuxedo printed T-shirt; ahhh, my dream date.

As we were waiting for the main event of the evening to start and checking out the awfully wonderful prom dresses that some of the kids were wearing (wondering if they'd bought them on clearance after the local High School's real Proms ended a few weeks prior, or if they were actually wearing their original Prom dresses), when two girls in scandalous outfits paraded onto the main stage, while one girl hopped up onto the mini stage, with parallel post adhered to the floor, in front of where Little Di and I were standing at the back of the club. The DJ changed the music to a faster tempo and the girls started to dance.

I have to say, it's an interesting experience to watch a late 20's, stick thin Blond woman, wearing a lace white mini skirt tutu with black, barely wider than a thong, panties underneath, and a sequins bra top flip upside down on the parallel bars and start to do the splits. It's even creepier when she puts one foot on the ground, turns sideways, her hands holding the bars, and starts to kick her free foot straight above her head and over repetitively with an almost bored, indifference plastered on her face.

The two girls dancing on the front of the stage had on similar outfits and mostly booty shaked their bodies to the music. They both slid to the floor in splits a few times, but it wasn't nearly as fluid as the girl on the bars. All three of the women were thin, with blond hair and great legs. I couldn't help but wonder how they got their jobs, what the hiring interview was like: "Hi, I'm here to apply for your dancer position." "Yea sure, give me a second to look at you," the Hiring manager responds, "Well, you're a blond, that's good. You seem young enough to appeal to the Key Club crowd," He looks her up and down, "Can I see you dance?" The Dancer just shrugs her shoulders and starts moving to the beat in her head. "That's great," the Hiring Manager says, "but can you do the splits? How do you feel about wearing next to nothing and dancing in front of drunk, horny men?"

I guess to a Dancer, dancing at the Key Club is on a level slightly higher than being a stripper, but not by much, judging by the skimpy outfits and the way all the men's eyes in the club seemed to follow the girl's moves with lust. While Di and I watched the dancers (there was nothing else to watch and I was envious of the flexibility these women had), we were speculating that the one girl on stage with the urber fake boobs was probably doubling as a stripper and that the one on the bars had most likely come to LA to be an actor or work with some kind of dance troop, but ended up dancing at the Key Club (or worse) and after being objectified for so long, became apathetic to everything around her, while the poor remaining girl on stage was fairly new to the Key Club dance scene and hadn't yet become jaded judging by the genuine smile she wore as she moved to the beat.

It was a fascinating cultural anthropological study about the human condition and what people are willing to do for money, no matter the cost to their pride, vanity, or self-respect, watching these women dance. I guess there is something to learn or be thankful for everywhere you go, you just have to open your eyes.