Disco Latte!
Its 6:30 AM AND THE FIRST ANNUAL ST. ARBUCKS DISCO PARTY IS IN FULL SWING!
Gloria Gaynor is Surviving nicely as I sip my coffee. I can feel the beat as my head serves as my own personal Disco Ball. It may be 28° outside, but inside – it is cookin’!
A couple of the baristas are moving to the constant tempo and even the manager has a case of Saturday Night Fever. That man can strut!
I don’t know who picks the piped in music, but I suspect it comes in all the way from Seattle. That tells me that somebody on the shores of the Juan de Fuca Strait either danced the night away or has just purchased a closet full of Polyester Shirts and Platform Shoes.
I’m feeling so “70s” right now and that is better than just feeling in my 70s. Disco may have come and gone, but the Studio 54 deviated septums linger on.
People like to dance, they always have, but the music of the late 1960s, while incredible, was not good for dancing. It was impossible to groove to “Four Dead in Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Then Disco was born – just what the Back Surgeon ordered. It was music that got the people to put down the Herbal Tea and pick up the Harvey Wallbangers. When John Travolta bounced down the street carrying a can of paint the World changed.
LSD was traded in for Bee Gees
Here at my corner table my toes are tapping and my arthritic shoulder is saying, “I know that it hurts, but let me do ‘The Move’ one more time.” As I look around the room I can see that the average age of the people on my side of the counter is roughly “Dust unto dust” and any throwback dance moves might easily be misconstrued as a seizure. The old guys in the other corner are getting down and beginning to shake off the cobwebs. The retired chiropractor is smiling. He knows that he might be back in business.
The barista crew is quite young and don’t know the power of “Disco Inferno” – even at 6:30 in the morning when the only pills being popped are Lisinopril and Lipitor.
I think that I might suggest to the Manager that this be a weekly event. Put in a new dance floor and laser lighting system. Turn the volume up to 11 until the windows shake like Kool and the Gang.
All it takes is a song or two to trigger a response that has me in full retro mode. I’m sure that if the music this morning had been “Do-Wop” instead of Disco I’d be talking about Butch Wax and Glass Packs. I’d pull out my comb and try to style my thinning hair into a perfect “D.A.” (Under 50? Ask your parents.).
But they didn’t put on Do-Wop did they? They played Disco.
It may only be late March, but it won’t be long before it is –
Donna Summer!
Gimme some Hot Stuff and let’s all Boogie Down!
Pass the Advil and everybody dance!
Down the Hall on Your Left 