My dancing skills were enough to make the ladies swoon back in the day. The ladies being my mom, grandma, a few cousins and Aunt Sue.
My mother used to make me do the "Robot" as a little boy whenever we visited family in the small town of Taft, Texas, a couple hours south of Houston. The family would wrap up its multiple conversations on my mother's cue. She would hush them all, rearrange everyone in a circle and call out to me as I awaited my unexpected introduction.
"Joey!"
"What, mom?" I played dumb.
"Come in here and do the 'Robot' for Uncle Dale and Aunt Sue," she ordered.
"Aw, mom," I would whine in my ultra-cute 5-year-old voice, promptly followed by, "OK."
My sister then hauled in the Panasonic hi-fi boom box, set it on the coffee table, and looked to me for approval. With a nod, I told her it was time to press play and allow Chic's "Good Times" to take control of my 3- foot body.
I suddenly began moving like a metal-head humanoid gettin' his groove on. I popped my limbs in perfect rhythm; I tilted my head at an awkward angle; and I even waved to my adoring fans in the style of Johnny 5.
"Oh, he's gonna be a heartbreaker," Aunt Sue assured my mother.
This love affair with my peeps went on for the duration of "Good Times," or until I noticed my family becoming disinterested with my cuteness, in which case I reverted to my impression of then-President Jimmy Carter to hold their attention.
"Hello evrabody. My name Jimmy Cotta, and I like peanut butta."
The fam ate it up — the impersonation, that is, not the peanut butta.
My affinity for bad impressions not withstanding, I was most content growing up when my happy feet were doing their thing. Saturday afternoons at my house were my family's dysfunctional version of Solid Gold, Dance Fever and Soul Train all mixed into our own bad variety show. We played records (vinyl), taped our own karaoke contests (before there was karaoke) and entertained the neighbors at deafening decibels.
But it always came back to the art of dancing. We perfected the Bump, the Tango, the Texas Two-Step, the Cotton-Eyed Joe and, of course, the Robot. It was what got my sister and I through the rest of the week.
As the years went by, dancing was our little slice of liberation, an escape from our parents' divorces, from the back-and-forth of their custodial tug-of-war.
To the sounds of K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Blondie and Grandmaster Flash, my sister and I spun each other in dizzying circles. We joined each other arm-in-arm, twisting our bodies around. We shook our hands, our feet and our heads until everything around us was a mushy blur.
We danced our cares away.
All within the comforts — and confined space — of our living room.
I can only presume that if that living room sported a laser show and a sound system like Club Freedom in Tempe, we may never have left the house. I would likely be featured within the pages of this magazine as one of the finest dancers ever to grace the arts community of ASU.
By now, I'd be Bojangles reincarnated, Baryshnikov in his prime — or, at least, Patrick Swayze in that one dance flick.
That's not to say that I'm not pleased with how things turned out. I've just realized — as 2,000 dancing fools make their way to "Kind Fridays" at Freedom every month, many of them glow-stickin' their cares away — that the best things in life never seem to last.
My dancing skills peaked around the time of the Roger Rabbit and the Running Man. Bell Biv DeVoe and MC Hammer ruled. Gumby 'fros and fades were all the rage.
Ah, the good 'ol days.
Today, the dance floor is the domain of wicked DJs like Sasha and "Humpty" Vission, Paul Oakenfold and Tempe's own DJ Radar. They've all spun at Freedom, and they'll spin there again, in between gigs at some of the most illustrious dance clubs in the world.
But for how much longer, no one knows. Freedom owner Steve Kushnir is in the process of selling. And with his ownership may go the ingenuity and foresight that made Rural and Apache much more than just a stop light on the way to campus.
So, enjoy it while it lasts. This is one revolution — in a long line of cultural revolutions in this state gone much too soon — that will surely be missed.
For those who love their Freedom, these are the "Good Times."
Reach the writer at josef.watson@asu.edu.
