My sister and I are rarely the most conservative people in a room. That is particularly true when the room in question is located in one of the tiny towns near where we grew up and is full of card tables and $1.5 beers.
Rarely, however, is not never.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, “the kids” were enticed out to a private social club to hear what was billed as a great blues band. Having never been to a “private social club,” we were in.
At the top of a windy little road somewhere in Western Pennsylvania is the Ellwood City Saxon Club. It looks like a social hall of any sort – the type of place where you might wander into a wedding reception or a bah mitzvah. Apparently, people of German descent join the club for many of the same reasons a college student might join a fraternity or sorority …
Non-members can skip the initiation and pay a small cover charge for entrance on show nights. It was just such a night when we popped the $3 and headed inside.
The room we walked into looked much like a church basement (despite it’s second floor address). Tile floor; big, round card tables with that charming “wood grain” brown plastic finish; folding chairs; and a few “serving” windows facing into the room off the adjacent kitchen – the sort of window where one might expect to request a “sloppy joe.”
And, in fact, one of the windows was selling $1 pizza in those squishy, greasy cafeteria-style squares. The other was home to $1.5 beers – a price that seemed to hold across brands and quality.
The show was scheduled to begin in a few minutes, but only two tables were filled allowing us to set up camp right in the middle of the room. The band [Jill West and the Blues Attack] playing this strange room is scheduled to play at Heinz Hall next week – so, when the music started, the room filled up.
Four musicians took the stage for the first number. A strange group in their own right – a mismatched trio of middle-aged men and a 17-year old who out-shined all of them. Definitely a tight sound – they delivered on the promise of a great blues band.
At some point during the second song, the singer wandered up to the stage – a beastly Mama Cass-type she was dressed absurdly in a ballooning green outfit that came to a tight fit around each ankle, just above stark-white hi-topped tennis shoes. She completed said “ensemb” with a ‘do of corn rows and big glasses.
Although her voice wasn’t quite strong enough to pull off serious blues, the band picked up the slack and delivered a great show.
Well, that is, the part of the show I was able to pay attention to.
The real action was in front of the stage.
In the language of those short reviews found on almost everything these days:
A visual abundance.
Almost too much to make sense of.
Truly, one of the strangest places I’ve ever been
Around the third song, the first dancer took to the floor – a mop-haired, 40-something guy doing a complex rendition of the running-man mixed with jazzercise. He was high-kicking and leaping about, eyes closed, intent on his good time. Dad mumbled something about just getting released from a hospital, but, the dancer’s friends looked on without surprise…
As if the marionette moves weren’t distracting enough, the first group of girl dancers were laughing and pushing each other onto the floor. The buzz around the room was that these women were aging Homecoming Queens and the like from the local high schools. Aging at all sorts of different rates – and happily drunk enough to still dance like they were 21 despite rounded stomachs, saggy bottoms and other unfortunate effects of gravity. These local heroes ranged from 22ish to 65+ - quite the set.
The main moves – across all ages - were shaking their butts at the seated audience and thrusting their collective pelvises, often at each other. As they steadily got more drunk, the pelvic thrusting became the only consistent, um, theme.
The women fell all over each other and exhibited the same clumsy moves so many times that a narrative started to build up around the table. There was no choice – these were characters looking for a story:
Ouch! Blue shirt is down again! And, look at that granny-panty bunch on top her slinky little black pants…
Wow – what is striped shirt doing? Is she dirty dancing that grandma? That is sick!
Those breast implants are industrial-grade. I’ve never seen someone do the twist without her boobs moving.
Probably the quintessential moment (or 10 minutes, maybe) of the evening started during a guitar solo. The 17-year-old (truly one of the best guitar players I’ve seen in person) moved out in front of the stage with one of the older men. Almost immediately, “striped shirt” – who seemed to own “youngest,” “drunkest,” and “smuttiest” among the group – ran over to the 17-year old and proceeded to dirty dance him during the solo – thrusting her pelvis up and down each side of him and along his back. She went to far as to squat all the way down to his ankles, using an arm out behind her for support (a fairly complex move for someone who had fallen over twice in the previous five minutes).
The next time I saw the 17-year-old (minutes later), he was sitting at the table next to our’s, eating pizza with his mom and dad.
After the song, the singer, Jill West, announced that someone had left their keys at the bar downstairs and should talk to so-and-so to claim them. Yes, this was a crowd that needed to drive itself home…
By the time we left, the jazzercise man had lapsed into something that looked more like River Dance meets a marching band and the women were so drunk that they were literally falling down two at a time. Just another weekend at the social club, I suppose … generations of Saxons getting drunk and horny together. Ahh, culture!
Maybe I'm a little more than glad not to have witnessed this lovely small town scene. I may have witnessed one or two of my high school buddies in action. Thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Auntie | December 08, 2004 at 08:58 PM