I have two sisters. One of them, in particular, shares a very similar humor to my own and was key in sparking many of the laughing fits I had this summer. Between viewings of Charlie the Unicorn, the George Washington rap, and Jon Lajoie singles, we rocked out to Electric Six, the whimsical Detroit group with a penchant for illuminated codpieces and scantily clad Lincolns. If there is any song that represents often oddball occurrences of the year’s hotter months, it’s “Danger! High Voltage.” This catchy ditty, with guest vocals by Jack White, is perfect for a dance party for any time of the year:
I started moonlighting at a mall clothier about a month ago. It’s a semi-high-end store for women that you don’t need a flashlight or a gas mask to enter. I’ve only worked at two fashion retail stores before and each have tested my auditory patience: one played a continuous, 45-minute techno loop with subliminal messaging, the other let me choose from a selection of “world” music probably purchased in a cruiseship gift shop. Someone asked me what they played at my current gig and my initial reaction was “gay music.”
Gay music?
This knee-jerk statement was based largely on some of the tracks in the queue being some of the tamer staples I had danced to at the legendary ManRay in Cambridge, MA. Many a sweltering night with a waterbottle full of emergency martini was spent dancing the shit outta that place with my good friend Hoosteen, a bunch of twinks and a handful of drag queens. There was a lot of standard club fare there, but there were the cliched differentiations that separated the gay club from the straight club, and it wasn’t just less bronzer and hair gel: RuPaul, Heather Small, ABBA, Gina G, [recent] Cher, Madonna, and the otherwise nameless category of music with a decent beat that carries an uplifting message (or whose melody would suggest so.) Strength, making it, overcoming, and your basic Christian-values-without-all-that-God-shit swirled together over a “phat” bassline that would go well with a sleeveless t-shirt, skinny jeans and plastic bracelets.
That kind of music.
But wait one fucking second: I work at a retailer aimed at WOMEN. Working women. And not even young women. Women who are in the peak of their post-divorce lives. Women who need shirts to match their botox. We are not a cute store, gay men would not even dare to try and get a cute tee here. And that is when I figured it out: gay music is cougar music.
Linda Bollea from E! Online
Every lyric that invokes a sense of pride, a sense of perseverance, is what a coug longs for: a groove that insinuates that even if the boobs her ex-husband bought her didn’t save their marriage, it’s ok, because she will overcome. The kind of song that can make her look in the mirror and not see an almost-senior-citizen wearing animal print and looking totes whack but a lady in her prime looking fierce.
Related note: I want to punch whoever created that annoying stereotypical twee-gay kid on Glee in the face. Can we move on from this fairy/twink shit? How about some mothereffin’ bears in this piece, huh? I.e. My good friend Barleycorn is gay. Sure, he listened to Britney Spears and sang along to her “Womanizer”–when he was shitfaced drunk, riding home after a unitard hipster party, in the middle of Baltimore, while spitting Japanese candies at pedestrians. Does he stick it to other men? Yes. Does he listen to ABBA? Absolutely not. If you want to impress this man and get a taste of his frank and beans, you better pony up the Tom Waits, Dylan or some Spoon. Otherwise, you can smoke someone else’s pole. Oh, and while we are at it, Glee, I want some super old bitches making out with young dudes. Someone call Elizabeth Taylor. Jesusfuckingchrist.
….Anyway.
So here is the track that shall forever cement my experience of steaming, selling and sauntering in my mind. Behold Keane’s “Spiralling” and work it grrrrrrrrrrl:
PS: OH HELL YES, DADT<<purposeful slash!! Congrats to the USA for moving in the right direction, for once! Now I want all the gay military kids and their cougar moms to celebrate to #13! Woot! 😀
Upon hanging with some of the elders in my family, I learned a few new stories from back in the day. One particular tale regarded my gpa’s first gig: shoe shinin’. He had a little setup in an old timey Brooklyn barbershop right in the front of the store. I was aware of his high school job as prescription slinger at the local druggist, but I had no idea of his shoeshining ways. According to legend, his setup was prime because he could work even when it was raining–this made him a foot above the rest of the kids in his hood.
The following song is a tune that was popular during his shoeshine stint: “Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy.” The whole Chattanooga scene is no stranger to music, i.e. Glenn Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”, and each homage is pretty catchy. “Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy” has been done countless times over again, most popularly by Red Foley in 1950, but this version by Tommy Duncan is the peppy advert revered by GPT. Here’s the kinda country, kinda rock-n-roll ditty that kept it poppin’ from TN to BK:
A Piece In the Air 