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For those of us gays who live in or near a gay borough like San Francisco or West Hollywood, there is one aspect of our gayborhoods that is so ubiquitous it seems like it’s coming out our pores: the dance remix.
Whether it’s a late night bar or a Sunday morning brunch, everywhere you go, you are guaranteed to have a speaker blasting a remix of something by Lady GaGa or Rhianna or Cher.
Gays will remix anything. We’ll remix a bad country song or a mediocre Madonna song. We’ll remix the melancholy guitar theme to a gay movie in which one cowboy is senselessly beaten to death by homophobes while the other suffers quietly in his trailer. We’ll remix remixes.
Now let me say before you flog me that there is a time and a place for the dance remix. If you are hopped up on uppers and need to clean out your closet, or if you are running from the law in a chase sequence or, oh, I don’t know, dancing, then the dance remix is totally, even perhaps necessarily, appropriate. But there are many situations in which the dance remix is not only unnecessary but offending to my delicate sensibility.
A. Morning. Really this covers quite a lot of ground, but anytime before 12 noon should be the domain of quiet, mid tempo music, not pots and pans. The only pots and pans you need in the morning are the ones used to make poached eggs and pancakes.
B. Clothing store. The dance remix makes me want to move. Moving causes perspiration. Sweaty pits make trying on cashmere dodgy at best. Something more….antiperspirant would be preferable.
C. Acupuncturist office. Pretty much any health care professional’s office should be a no dance remix zone. I’m trying to clear my chi or my colon or whatever.
D. Florist. Come ON. I’m buying flowers, probably for someone who’s in the hospital with pancreatic something or other and it’s all morose and I need a card that starts out, ‘sorry about your…’ I do not need the European import version of the Three’s Company theme playing in the background.
E. Gym. Now I know you’re going to disagree with me here. You’re thinking, ‘the gym is the EXACT place where there should be dance music.’ The problem is, the gym picks the music. My gym thinks it is a dance club. My iPod can barely overpower the remix of that Jessica Simpson song I hate. Silence at the gym please; I’ll make my own soundtrack.
F. Coffee shop. People, I’m trying to write. Seriously. How can I be expected to concentrate with the remix of something from Mariah Carey’s Glitter in the background? I need something intellectually stimulating, something snooty, something full of itself, not something full of high notes and diva runs.
So please, gay business owners, I beg of you, think outside the dance box. How about a little singer/songwriter every once in a while? Would a Beatles album kill you? Can I get some Brit rock instead of Britney? Thanks, I’d really appreciate it.
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written by Anderson A. on January 08, 2009 at 01:32 PM
Brokeback was taking it a bit far, but I must say it kind of grew on me. I'm SO gay!
written by courtney on January 08, 2009 at 04:29 PM
hahaha
I completely agree with the gym thing too!
and dont even get me started on coffee house appropriate music. HA
written by Cassie on January 09, 2009 at 08:03 AM
Well done, my friend. I remember walking in West Hollywood one afternoon after having lunch and having my ears violated by the same awful remix of Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time"
written by justalittlefucked.blogspot.com on January 19, 2009 at 08:30 AM
How about during an an entire 7 hour road trip with friends after a 10 hour work day.
Including the following 2 notorious remixes on repeat:
(Deborah Cox - Nobody's supposed to be here / Whitney - It's not right but it's okay)
There is such a thing as overkill.