Old School Friday goes nostalgic this week with the theme of prom, or school dance.
I’m nostalgic, though not for prom. I spent more time at restaurants in D.C. or Baltimore (depending on the year), than I did at the prom. I wasn’t lacking school spirit, but I was more interested in a night out in the city. I made it to prom by 10PM junior year, but senior year it may well have been closer to 11:30PM. It becomes more difficult to recall as time goes by. No, my nostalgia is for old blog posts, and that is where I was reminded of my song choice this week.
The first song I ever danced to in public was posted in the very first meme I did as a blogger. Written on June 4th, 2005, and titled You Asked For It. This was before I really started to post about Darfur and had readers leave because I destroyed their “peace of mind”, before I started getting long religious emails telling me I was cursed, back when I as still at blogspot, still Alice, barely had a reader, and by the looks of it was a snotty little brat in need of a punctuation class.
I think Pia might have started reading me on that very post, though I don’t think Doug had appeared yet. Mojo was here then, Wombat too, someone named Jack Burden had tagged me, he no longer blogs. I had comments from someone whose blog was called Stalka Kahn, her real name was Katherine, she lived in NYC, as did I at the time. Stalka Kahn is gone, but what a great blog name. Someone named Jenn, who now has a home school blog, was there too. I was reading “Beyond You and Me”, A Novel in Blogress, an erotic novel I’d say. I read her until I got too busy with school, but I did enjoy it that time. Enough with the reminiscing.
The song Mony Mony, originally by Tommy James and the Shondelles, was the first song I danced to in public. I was at the end of 8th grade. I had just started school here in this country. The version we danced to was Billy Idol’s, I’m petty sure now. I’m posting both to cover my truth in blogging bases. I will also admit, that despite the tender age we (I) were not above the Hey hey! What what? Get laid, get fucked!, or for the more dangerous the Hey mother fucker, get laid, get fucked, commonly sung loudly in bars, but in eighth grade muttered softly beneath the breath and hearing of the chaperonage — someone’s mother, or an algebra teacher. They didn’t use the sheriff’s department until high school.
FYI, Mony is sort of an acronym for Mutual of New York Building.
“True story: I had the track done before I had a title. I wanted something catchy like “Sloopy” or “Bony Maroney,” but everything sounded so stupid. So Ritchie Cordell and I were writing it in New York City, and we were about to throw in the towel when I went out onto the terrace, looked up and saw the Mutual of New York building (which has its initials illuminated in red at its top). I said, “That’s gotta be it. Ritchie, come here, you’ve gotta see this.” It’s almost as if God Himself had said, “Here’s the title.” I’ve always thought that if I had looked the other way, it might have been called “Hotel Taft.”
Source: Crystal Blue Conversation.
I work tirelessly to find you some of the most insignificant minutia out there.
And by the way, that jacket Tommy James is wearing is called a Nehru Jacket. Created in India in the 1940s, their PM wore one, possibly the first one. The look was appropriated by the West, as a fashion statement, in the late 60′s or early 70′s. The west was taking notice of foreign cultures, partly because the Beatles, Stones, and other pop icons, had gone on the road to study and get stoned with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Legend has it that getting high was part of the course work. I wasn’t there, I can’t say for sure. They don’t have coursework like that anymore.
OSF sponsored by Conversations With Marva and Mrs Grapevine
Do you have a school dance or prom song dear to your heart?
Come on, admit it.
Peace
I love your memories of the people who read you – the paths you crossed.
You write wonderfully btw.
.-= Jonathan´s last blog ..Almost Las Vegas =-.
Some paths still crossing other long deceased…it’s all a journey, so many type of journeys we can take these days.
Very nice. Actually, I wasn’t around yet either. Here’s a school dance song/memory. In 8th grade I asked the shortest girl in school to dance and Free Bird came on- a slow dance almost 8 minutes long. That was my first bad back.
.-= Doug´s last blog ..Noumenon =-.
This is why I like blogs, and wish I could sit around all day reading them. I just spent 8 minutes listening to “Free Bird” – live 1975 on you tube. I know less about Lynyrd Skynyrd than other bands, but now I want to name my first born, or your first born, Lynyrd.
That blog post was before my time. I like the Debaser reference, and the Un chien Andalusia Explnation.
Interesting how he got the title for the song, and the minutia is awesome.
I don’t remember my first dance, but it was something from EN Vogue I think.
You’re right no course work like that any longer. The jackets look hot and hard to wear.
.-= jacob´s last blog ..Asian Invasion =-.
En Vogue ..interesting Jacob.
The jacket looks quite different in the original white cotton form. We bastardized them in Polyester.
Mony Mony ALWAYS makes me want to move! Love it!
I would prefer to forget my prom…and yet, this post comes up…::sigh::
.-= Marvalus´s last blog ..Old School Friday: Prom! =-.
That is fit for a dancing queen that is for sure Marv, I can even dance while sitting on my chair to that one.
I can’t remember first dance music. I didn’t go to many events that had dancing as the primary activity. Hey Ya
was played at our prom at least 5 times. Honest.
Loved the old post, and the history/minutia lesson.
.-= jake´s last blog ..Favre =-.
oh ya, the old hey ya, that was a biggy for sure.
Doug had been around since February and began reading you probably in late June as I talked about you so much
We (more than me and Doug) loved you for destroying our peace of mind
And come on a blogger named Alice Cooper? (As I have the sense of humor of a six year old still find that funny)
My comment was so brief and something I must have just began reading you
.-= pia´s last blog ..My Facebook rules =-.
Yeah, that Alice cooper thing was not intentional, as a matter of fact it was a reader who brought it to my attention – once I came out of the closet as cooper.
I can’t be certain but I think I first danced–in public–to “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe or “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon.
So I guess it should come as no surprise then that both those songs are on my iPod.
Wow, this felt like confession. (And really, to call anything I’ve ever done “dancing” is a big stretch.)
.-= Bone´s last blog ..The time I boycotted ESPN (for one day) =-.
whoa, REO Speedwagon, I just clicked on that song, nice hair, Poison I can see.
I remember a lot of Madonna songs, it was probably one of those. Love the memories, the history, and even the minutia.
I was around then, I probably read that post, but it has been a long time and my memory isn’t what it used to be either.
Good stuff both, and filed under not your average old school friday.
I think there was a lot of Madonna playing during my time as well, she never goes away.
I remember a lot of Madonna too, and she was already old when I started dancing. “Get The Party Started” – Pink. Big song for dances, and the prom.
.-= kait´s last blog ..Eileen Fisher =-.
Yup on Madonna, she’s insidious for sure, and bless Pink. I love her.
Like you said, there’s only a few of us old-timers still blogging these days. And our numbers dwindle with every passing month. Sigh.
As for school dances, I don’t think I ever danced at a single one. I went to a few, but it was always in groups and we almost always cut out before anyone could rope us into dancing.
Then there’s horrible memory of my 8th grade dance which I’ve written about more than once…
.-= mojo shivers´s last blog ..I Want To Keep This Feeling, Deep Inside Of Me, I Want You Always In My Heart, You Are Everything =-.
I do not see you as a dancer, even if you wanted to dance I can see you not dancing. On principle.
Think I saw Billy Idol up in Montreal with a fellow hockey fan I met in Boston (yeah, she was (still is) female ;-) )
Didn’t make it to my senior prom (we had no junior prom) due to illness. Everything about it was Stairway to Heaven so I didn’t miss much. Old, over-worked 70′s tunes just weren’t my bag then. Stairway continues to be one of my least favorite tunes of all time.
.-= sauerkraut´s last blog ..Cheerleading coach Tommie Hill earns Asshat of the Week Award =-.
I think they should have just sent us all out on the town, all that work for a Prom, face it Prom’s time has ended.
Do you have to be a show-off.
I thought is was about money. That’s pretty depressing.
ha, ha
Awesome memories. :) And a great OSF pick too.
Thanks Shae.
I know Pia, though i haven’t been to CD in a while. And Beyond You and Me. A very, very, close friend. I still have the original manuscript. I helped with editing. I can’t tell you how many hours we spent on the phone haggling over syntax and punctuation–yes, Punctu-frickin-wation. See? You’re not the only one.
I’m from Annapolis.
My High School reunion is later this month. Can I sleep on your couch?
I started blogging in ’04. I used to move my friends links into a place on the sidebar that I called ‘The Boneyard’ when they stopped blogging. I finally removed it when I realized that the Boneyard was three times longer than the active links.
I still miss my old friends, Grave Digger (yes, Z really was a grave digger and posted about who he was burying in his village, beautiful pictures as well), Jay’s Party, Vader Grrrl, and Kevin, who managed a strip club–not nearly as hot and sexy as most men would think, a lot of b*tching, and cat fighting, jealous boyfriends beating up drunk, grabby patrons. I just wrote a post about my unintentional derailment of our writing forum in those days (not posted yet).
Great writers. Fantastic stories. Good friends in the blogosphere and real life. Most of them have moved on. I was saying in comments recently that sometimes I don’t know quite where I fit in anymore.
Maybe I need to find my own ‘Darfur’ and drive the rest of them screaming, with their fingers in their ears, from the blog once and for all? But that’s so hard to do. I have to admit that I have an addiction to the train-wrecks that spring up between bloggers. It keeps me coming back again and again.