Confessions on a Dance Floor

There are some men who spent their youth breaking dance floors into pieces. They are the ones at the center of the circle, the interpreters of mood and feel for the crowd, pharoahs of physical expression. I am not one of these men.

I get my drink and my two-step on, find myself a nice quiet spot and I watch the game be played. Bembe in Williamsburg reminds of an old-time juke joint packed to the rafters. No room for idle chatter, no space for styling and profiling. Either you dance or you stay out of the way. I did a little of both. Minding my business leaning against a column on the lower level, a Columbian girl kept bumping my ass with her own. Next thing I know my hips are on her waist, the sounds of Afrobeat and Latin-infused house controlling us more than our own inhibitions. The dude she's there with, a Napoleon Dynamite look-alike who's worse dancer than me by far seems to enjoy watching us. It's easily 100 degrees down there. I am baptized in my own sweat. I am thinking of how I used to do this every weekend.

But this is different from then and there. Here no one asks me the usual questions about what I'm up to and when the next book is dropping. There is no in-depth discussion about Sean Bell or Barack Obama or the fact that Mars is buying Wrigley's for 20-something billion. It's just us and the music, our own versions of time standing still in favor of the DJ. And though he's choppy and somewhat unfocused, though there's too much latin and not enough soul, I give myself to the night in a way that I haven't in a long time.

I only have one drink, a vodka tonic that the obviously gay bartender overloads with a wink. It sweats through me. Thus my perceptions are completely my own. Like George in the classic play, "Our Town", I both lived the moment and see myself living it, t-shirt soaked through as the collective of women I've come with are in their own worlds all around me.

Seda is covered in metal belts that make her the original jingling baby as she moves nonstop for hours while some plant themselves in chairs, obscured by the thick crowd. Others find their way to significant and the beginnings of like. When the Colombian girl does speak to me it's in Spanish. With the time and place I guess she takes me for a Dominican or a Panamian. But the words mean nothing. I'm just something to grind on. And that's all good with me.

After that it's the diner and then back to the Clubhouse for Spades and a viewing of Bee Movie. The sun is up when I ride home, trying to remember the last time I pushed it this late with a crew this large and wishing that I did it more often. But now it's back to the kiddies. Vacations end far too quickly.

I'm glad that the Atlanta Public Schools have banned T.I. from speaking on their property. While so many are cheering for the fact that he's catching such a light sentence for something both extremely stupid and serious, I don't think he deserves to ever stand before a group of kids to tell them anything, particularly in his hometown. Stupidity pays an even lower wage than crime does. And the open ears of the generation behind me need some outlined examples to go by.

I'm disappointed in Jay-Z stooping to dropping a diss record against a basketball player no one cares about. Dude, you're pushing 40. And since you're so political these days, drop a verse about Clinton or McCain before you start running around sounding like Lebron's little homie when it's supposed to be the other way around.
Despite my feelings in Friday's blog I'll be wearing black to support Sean Bell today.

Part of me wishes I could have stayed on that floor forever, time standing still on a Saturday night. But all breaks come to an end. I've been on mine way too long. Now it's time to get back on my grind. Out.