Jumpin', jumpin'
Amy Schill
Dazed and Amused
One of humankind's most ridiculous conventions, besides the tiring but necessary "Hey, how was your break? … Good, how was yours? … Good … Okay … Bye" exchange, is the nightclub. In primitive times, the term `clubbing' referred to the courting process where the male clobbered the female on the head, dragged her by the hair into the cave and did the wild wooly mammoth dance. Though this mating process still remains for most Jerry Springer guests, evolution has caused most of us to establish more humane social interactions, step out of the cave into the night and shake what our mommas gave us.
Clubbing now refers not to slaying future mates with wooden bats, but to slaying future mates with bad pick-up lines and tight pants.
But the club is not only a place to meet people whom you'll never call, it also provides a sort of escape from reality, where the real world is exchanged for this dark, smoky alternate universe with vomit on the floor. At a club, college students, young professionals and creepy guys named Ray alike can forget their books, meetings and PlayStations to get their hooch or grooves on. The outside world is all about commitments and responsibilities and there is much less dancing. But in the club your only boss or professor is DJ Quad City-Scribble-A-Lot and the only decision is whether you would rather dance with a human being or a pole, on a floor or in a cage. So let's go.
But this magic doesn't come for free, sexy. Your shirt may be shiny, your hair may be gelled and your boots maybe ho-licious, but without the cover charge, your attire goes from skank chic to prostitute faster than a George W. Bush inauguration speech. Most South Bend clubs are 21 and over only, but luckily the only real requirement for admission is a pulse. However, when home over breaks and such you may encounter the 18 and over clubs and thus the dreaded cover charge differential.
Over 21? Well then, you're in luck my friend, because the cover for you is at most three bucks. But if you're under 21 like me, club admission is of course 120 dollars plus your first born.
Minors not only must apply for financial aid just to grind, but are also stamped, banded, poked, prodded and branded with a scarlet "M" to ensure the age-deficient may not partake in any of the inebriated amusements. Because of the club's prodigious efforts to keep their liquor license, club-goers are easily categorized into two distinct groups: the drunken and drugged adults on the dance floor and the leper colony of marked minors in the corner reading Chaucer.
But I kid — playas and hooches know no age in the quest to play or be played. Now the true purpose of clubbing comes out. You are not at that club to drink or dance; you are at a meat market greater than the Graffiti Dance could ever hope to be. Guys are standing around checking out girls; girls are shaking everything available for the stationary guys to see; and that creepy guy Ray is making everyone uncomfortable.
In the dark, dank, mind-altering illusion of the club, the executive can hook-up with the student, the gorgeous with the gargoyle, the girl with the monkey. The monkey was hot, all right? But any fleeting romance will all be forgotten the next day, when, awakening in the ditch by the turnpike, you wonder whether to regret the whole night or go back and try to relive it (except for the monkey part).
So maybe today's clubbing isn't as efficient a courting process as its primitive predecessor, but it's a lot sexier and inflicts slightly fewer headaches. So, put on your animal prints, douse yourself in cologne and dive into the matrix of lasers and meaningless encounters. And if you meet a monkey named Jasper, tell him to stop calling me.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author not necessarily those of The Observer.
Amy Schill is a sophomore English major. Her column appears every other Thursday in Viewpoint.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, January 25, 2001
