Unc: Here for It, #367
Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet?
Hi!
What y'all know about wearing orthopedic shoes at the clurb?!
What y'all know about dropping it low but keeping your arch support high, okay?!
What y'all know about breaking a sweat but not your ankle, huh?!
Me, last night.
This all started very innocently. I was out with some folks and it got to be around midnight and but one member of the group is like a divining rod for a good time and she wasn't done.
One minute, I was idling on the sidewalk, casually observing her checking Uber and the next minute I was being extraordinarily renditioned into the back of a black van.
Now, I love all my little British spy shows--Black Doves, Slow Horses, The Night Manager, The Day Manager, The Middle Manager--so I'm prepared for this kind of thing to happen. But when we arrived at the club, a dive-y longstanding Philly dance bar called The Dolphin (also the name of a British spy show), I realized I was in trouble.
I dress fairly cool, but I am under no delusion. I am unc. I'm not pressed about this. I, in fact, have nieces and nephews! But unc does not belong in the clurb!
First of all, I was wearing a trench coat I got in Italy (yes, that could be a brag, but also sometimes the truth sounds impressive. I can't help it! I'm addicted to honesty! Selectively! When it serves me!)
I was also wearing the most god-awful ugly chunky orthotic shoes you've ever seen in your life. But my friend paid my cover at the club (a reverse ransom!), so in I went.
Let me explain the shoes. You see, my feet hurt because I be running around in your mind all day.
I don't really need to go into the physiology of it, but I realized last year that a lot of the body discomfort I was feeling was because all my shoes, except my Birks, are cute but ultimately functionless. I am also cute but ultimately functionless, so who is driving the bus?
I looked into footwear options that weren't going to give "Obama on the campaign trail" or "running the marathon this morning" and I found this company, Vionic, that makes a wide variety of shoes, including the aforementioned absolutely hideous, incredibly comfortable white sneaker.
[I originally put a picture of it here but I had to remove it because, out of context, it will absolutely impact your impression of me as a cool, beautiful person.]
The thing is: a hideous, chunky shoe is exactly what Gen Z and Gen Alpha are wearing nowadays. Everyone's wearing these huge pants and something that looks like home insulation on their feet and either a crop top or a one of those parachutes from a kid's birthday party at a soft surfaces gym. No in-between.
I could trick the youths into thinking I am young and cool by wearing these big ass sneakers. And no one would know that these particular ugly shoes are Pop-Pop 3000s and not whatever it is they're wearing.
Now, I used to go to the Dolphin all the time back in the day, the day being Obama-era America, which, chronologically and emotionally, was 1,000 years ago. When I used to go, my favorite night was a throwback night where they played remixes of Motown songs.
Last night was also a throwback night... to 1999.
Specifically, they were spinning hip hop from 1999 and the early 2000s, aka the exact music I was throwing it down to when I first started going to the clurb.
What's worse, every single person in the packed club except our group was still yet to be born when these songs that I knew every word to came out.
But who cares! I'm up in the clurb in my Meemah Supremes and feeling excellent.
My goodness gracious, do I love a shenanigan. I wasn't there at the clurb to meet anyone or to do anything but bump it to Eve and Mary J. Blige and Lil Kim and Fat Joe and other people who have since been cancelled. I love to dance and you don't have to be under a particular age to be allowed to do it and with my stealthy, fugly shoes, there were no consequences beyond my pride and, honey, who needs that?
When I went to start this post, I was looking for images to go along with it and I googled "old guy at the club" and this is the first link that popped up.
Obviously, I clicked on it, wondering what these 70- and 80-year-olds had to say for themselves.
Beloved, almost every person they interviewed in this article was my exact current age.
You know what, though, good for them. It's a privilege to get older. It's a privilege to go out and experience life. It's a privilege to hear songs that you actually recognize on the dance floor. (Call me when they start blasting Celine Dion at the clurb, honey. I'll be out breaking it down in my Mall Walker X's)
If it's unc behavior to dance it out, enjoy myself, and then wake up the next morning feeling great, then unc I shall be!
This week on Asking Eric
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up in the clurb in my Meemah Supremes and feeling excellent,
Eric
