Shake, Shake, Shake...Shake Your Crutches

© 2003 Dan Sherman

I have a new hero by the name of Drew Cummings, a 50-year-old teacher who is suing the "American Idol" show for age discrimination and violating his constitutional right to have his musical talent dismissed by a caustic weenie who can probably sing as well as an anvil. Cummings showed up at an "open" audition for the TV talent show in Miami, but was denied a chance to perform because "open" apparently refers only to people who remember the "Cold War" as a ski trip that went badly for Justin and Britney.

How dare "American Idol" put boomers down just because we're old enough to not only know what a "Chia Pet" is, but to sprout hairier growth than one in our noses requiring a weed whacker?

Just as Cummings is feeling Old Father Time (played by Dick Cheney in a Jedi costume) poking him in his rear with a scythe, I too feel Time pushing me closer to premature old farthood: I ignore ever larger denominations of money on the street because I don't feel like bending over, and I recently bought a pair of shorts with an elastic waist that was size "W" for whale.

I might as well just lie down in the grave of the unnamed boomer and have the "American Idol" judge bury me with my bell-bottoms, Led Zep eight-track tape and bottles of Hai Karate aftershave.

Another sign of impending adult diaper eligibility is that the music I grooved to when I first earned a paycheck is now a museum exhibit to be laughed at by teens with more artwork than the Louvre on their skin. The Experience Music Project in Seattle, a museum funded by Microsoft bazillionaire Paul Allen with some change he found in his sock drawer, just opened an exhibit called "Disco, A Decade of Saturday Nights." Okay. Dig the grave NOW!

A news article states: "The exhibit attempts to offer an intelligent, rooted history of a music form that was - and still is - widely dismissed by critics as anti-intellectual drivel that existed solely to put feet on the dance floor."

Yes, lyrics like, "We're gonna boogie oogie oogie 'til you just can't boogie no more" won't bump "Hamlet" off any college reading lists, but on Friday nights we went out to get down, not apply for Rhodes scholarships. And two of those "feet on the dance floor," as K.C. and the Sunshine Band pulsated from the speakers proving white guys CAN boogie, were MINE.

I remember being a "wet-behind-the-ears," "newly-minted," "still green" moist half-dollar-shaped lettuce leaf - no, I mean advertising copywriter in Boston, when on Friday nights we'd leave our IBM typewriters behind and head down to the disco where we would check in our brains and trade our working stiff uniforms for John Travolta jumpsuits.

The article is right when it says, "disco was a music of escapism." I'd walk through the disco doors like Dorothy landing in Oz, leaving the monochrome Boston behind me and entering a dazzling world of colored lights, sparkling mirrored balls, and guys in Nehru jackets wearing enough gold chains to circle the globe. I was completely enveloped in a fantasy where the only required action was boogie oogie oogieing and shaking your booty, which I believe were the same thing.

Did I listen to the lyrics? Ha ha! I was only concerned with finding a disco diva whom I could do "The Bump" with out on the floor, which was about as close as you could get to reenacting a blue movie with a perfect stranger while fully dressed in polyester and surrounded by a million of your closest friends. We also did "The Dog" - a sophisticated dance I can't describe because there may be children reading.

But now disco is in a museum, and I guess I should be too.

GUIDE: "This is the Scribeasaurus Danosaur from the Discozoic era. Put on your protective eyewear. Those flaming red polyester pants, neon blue shirts, chunky platform shoes and glittering medallions were worn by the Danosaur in an prehistoric courting ritual which, when accompanied by a warbling mating call emitted by the shaggy creature Rodus Stewartus, loosely translated by cryptologists as "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" were designed to hypnotize female members of the species into giving out their home numbers."

I realize that appreciating disco is like appreciating phone sex: It's easier to like if you were there in person. Now, as the Rodney Dangerfield of music trends, it gets no respect. However, I say it DEFINITELY helped me "Get Down Tonight."

And I know I still could. If I don't have to get down too far.

Read all of Dan's columns at www.danshermanonline.com

I'm with ya Dan, right there with the other play-that-funky-music white boys (and girls). After four years of peace and love (for which we actually got degrees), the real work world was just a little too...well...real. The first time I walked into Studio 54, inhaled the second-hand 'popper' fumes, and hit the dance floor, I knew I had found exactly the right mindless, pulse-thumping antidote to the grown-up blues.

In fact, it was such a potent force that last year, we threw a dance party for all the old farts we know and whaddaya know---the dance floor was bumper-to-bumper with stock brokers and soccer moms throwing off our chains.

As for American Idol, I accidentally got hooked on it and am currently rehearsing my number for the senior version. I was thinking of doing "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."

Here's a link to the story about professor Cummings and his lawyer... a Mr. Kramer, whoÊhave files a discrimination complaint against American Idol.

AND get the MP3 with Drew himself singing "We're In This Love Together."

what makes me madder is that many of our generation actually embrace other music than just our own era. not only do most of us know music from way b4 our time (glen miller, etc.), but i could knock 1/2 of those 20-30 year olds out of the ballpark by knowing their own music such as pearl jam, 3rd eye blind, godsmack, etc, etc. better than they. why do they think our generation is so outdated? it was ours and the one right b4 ours that "invented" rock and we r very multifaceted. i believe the years we went to school were truly years of learning knowledge and not just getting an "education" as today where degrees r basically bought. do i sound like an angry baby boomer. oh yes, and i think that they r jealous that we refuse to age and let go.