One of my specialties back in the day was partner dancing. When you’re at the club people would come and go. You might see Bowie, you might see Debbie Harry, people would come in and out. There was this one woman who was super famous in the community whose name was Toni Basil. Mainly because she was one of the original lockers and also because for years she had been the cheerleader for street dance in all its forms. So people were always asking me, ‘you know who that is, that’s Toni Basil, that’s Toni Basil, go ask her to dance. When you’re 19 you’re so full of yourself so I said, If she wants to dance she’ll come over and ask me to dance. And one night she did. She came up and said, you’re the guy who dips the girls. And I’m like…thoroughly full of myself. I’m like… yeah, I’m the guy. It’s so ridiculous when I think about it. I was this whole kind of pompous… this was your whole life. Like the club guy Tony from Saturday Night Fever. Everything else is just a shell of who you are. But who you are at the club means everything. So I said, yeah, I’m the guy and she said do you wanna dip me? I was like, ok. Well, I dipped every bobbie pin out of that woman’s hair. She was screaming in my ear. I rag dolled her all over the place! It was so surreal. It seemed like the rest of the club went into slow motion. After the dance she says to me, I do this show, I want you to be in my show and I want you to do exactly what you just did to me on the dance floor in my show. Are you interested.
