Monday, September 28, 2009

and you can dance, for inspiration (bonus video: NSync and Maggie May! )

Mr. Curry and I have influenced our children's musical taste which I am so grateful for in the last five years of a barren mainstream music scene, where you have to go deep to find the good stuff. Dakota at 15 now loves Queen, Van Morrisson, Van Halen, Beastie Boys, Sublime and Al Green along with Slightly Stoopid, Snoop Dog, Rage Against the Machine and Operation Ivy. Lola loves Miley Cyrus AND Michael Jackson. Ian is into Operation Ivy, ACDC, Rancid and Sublime- similar to Dakota but likes more harder rock. Other people are proud that their kids win soccer games or get straight A's. I'm proud of this!


I love music and always have. One of my first memories is sitting in the back of my parent's car, my Dad driving, Mom staring out the window, and Double Dutch bus playing on the radio ' it's the double-dutch bus comin' down the street ' hells yes. I LOVED that song! And Beast of Burden, I remember that song playing on hot summer days as a young girl, and hearing it all over again with new understanding as a woman in my twenties, and then last week, singing it out in the car on the way to drop Lola off to school. ' kick me out, on the street, kick me out, with no shooooes on my feet '

My Grandma Elizabeth listened to classical music, and through her I evolved a passionate and enduring love for Mozart. I loved rock, rap, disco, pop, techno, alternative rock, I loved music, sweet music. And Then- I discovered dancing.

I had always known that I loved to dance. As pre-teens, my best friend Julie and I set up the boom-box on a wooden crate outside and had dance-off's in front of the boy we both liked. ( He picked her, he liked her, much to my irritation ) As a teenager I made up dance routines like every red-blooded American girl, and in the 6th grade, music and dance changed my life:I had my very own Napoleon Dynamite.

The end of 6th grade camp was near, and the talent show loomed large- everyone was excited. Not me. I had few friends and was picked on occasionally. I felt unliked and definitely unloved, in addition to stupid and ugly. Oh! The joys of middle school! A well liked girl had a dance routine set up with two other girls, but the day before the talent show, one of the girls had to drop out. I happened to be hanging out in the rehearsal room when this went down, and I happened to offer my services. Dance? Dance, I said. So we practised, and the beat was on. I went to bed, sick with fear.

The next evening, throngs of 6th graders milled in the camp auditorium, took their seats, and watched the acts, one by one. I waited with the other two girls, tights and leotards on, makeup in place, hoping not to vomit or pass out before I finished. The lights dimmed. We skittered out onto stage, froze in place. The lights bloomed, hot and fierce, and the music rang out loud and clear: You Must Be My Lucky Star, Cuz You Shine On Me Wherever You Are... Madonna at the height of her powers. I rose my arms, and danced the hell out of that song. I could feel the energy of the room shift, as if I had magical powers, and slowly all the faces in the audience turned toward me, following me across the floor, teachers and students. I worked it, I moved, I had rhythm, I didn't vomit. Or faint. No, instead I rocked. It was the greatest moment of my life! The music stopped, and applause broke out, thunderous and staggering, beautiful to my ears.

I leapt off stage and was surrounded with faces and hands, shaking patting poking clapping, ' Oh my God you were like, awesome! ' ( This was the 80's. I live in California. ) Boys were looking at me with new eyes. I sensed I had tapped into some kind of sexual, kenetic power.

I never looked back.

I went dancing every weekend for years. During that time I was asked to go home with an entire bachelor party of men and be their private dancer, I was asked to work for Budweiser beer as a dancing rep. in clubs, I was asked to be in a highly shady ' music video ', proposed marriage to a number of times, called a bitch countless times when I refused to grind with some drunk guy ( thank you, endlessly, Mr. Curry, for each and every time you faced some Marine twice your size, drunk, and pissed off at me ), and groped more than any young lady who is not a Amsterdam Red Light Worker should ever be. Not one of those moments came close to giving me the spectacular rush of joy that my 6th grade camp dance off did.

( I was also in the NSync video ' Dirty Pop ' right before I became pregnant with Lola. That was pretty cool, I have to admit. If you watch it, I'm the one in the cowboy hat and blonde braids next to Justin.)






Lisa Page Rosenberg said...

You are rad.

Brandi said...

That's so cool that you were in a music video! Wild...

Simply Mel {Reverie} said...

You are an incredible writer, and you can dance like nobody's business? Damn, you are the jackpot!

David Wagner said...

Nice post - enjoyed reading it. I wonder if everyone has one of those "moments"... I had one as well, but I wonder if everyone does...

Anyway, thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

So awesome that you've influenced your children's music taste - nothing worse than mainstream repeptitive bad music!

Haha that Madonna break out dance you did sounds awesome! What courage you have doing that in your teens!! So cool!

P.S. Double Dutch Bus and Beast of Burden are two of my top 10 favourite songs! :-) Awesome!

Anonymous said...

oooohhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
love
yolanda

this wheel's on fire said...

So much amazingness here...Lovelovelove

Vashti said...

Love the kids choice in music! Joe and Jesse are also picknig up on our music taste....caught them singing to Van Morrison yesterday, they know most of Crazy love! So So So proud!

Lisa said...

Wow fascinating and wild. Cool too.

Lydia said...

To respond to David Wagner's comment, I had one too! Something like that is really a marker in your life...
Now, where in the heck are you in this vid? I watched it twice but it's really fuzzy quality and I can't find you. What time on the meter do you appear?

My 16-year-old nephew is lead singer/guitar in a rock band. And I'm soooo proud so I absolutely know what you mean!

Mwa said...

Great stuff!

My son is a disco queen (Abba, Queen and Mika).

Izabela said...

wow your love to music and dance sound like me, but I never did anything more than dancing in front of the mirror or dance nights out... now I started again when turning 32 after like 6 years of not moving at all... and I absolutely loving it... but still in front of the mirrors ha...
love how you write
Izabela

Badass Geek said...

When I was in the dating world, good taste in music was more important to me that religious or political values.

Ms. Moon said...

Maggie- You ARE the goddess. You should come dance with us- we are all dancin' fools at the church of the batshit crazy. Uh-huh.

Pris said...

Such a neat post!

I'm adding you to my feed on blogger so I can keep up with you!

Laura @ My Thoughts-Uninterrupted said...

I also believe in musical diversity! Very important. So cool that you were in the video!

krista said...

what exact time are you on? i tried looking, too but couldn't see a cowboy hat and braids...too fuzzy. damn!
i never had a breakout dance moment. ever. i'm a horrible dancer.
oh, wait, i did do a paula abdul dance in high school for air guitar. we sucked. it was humiliating.
i don't dance.

erin said...

Video Vixen!
I've seen that video a million times, so in a way...we're like best friends.

Captain Dumbass said...

My six year olds current favourite is Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. I'm so proud of him.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Oh, dear Maggie. The things we don't know about you, girl.

Love,

SB

Elizabeth Bradley said...

Our kids listen to our music too. I guess osmosis has something to do with it. My daughter's a singer, when I watch other people respond to her singing I get all goey.

A dancer and a writer, that's multi-tasking at it's best.

justmakingourway said...

Okay - video? Damn cool.

My two kids (although younger then yours) have a good mix of music going as well. The other night the four of us were at the dinner table banging out the beat and singing, "We will, we will rock you!" It was excellent.

Maggie May said...

prolly the best shot of me is to Justin's right at 1:44ish

Marilee said...

You are my new hero! No seriously...my very first concert was NSync, so I am horribly jealous. Oh right...and I want to be you. =) Love your blog!

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