Posted on July 15, 2008 - by Lance Ong

Clubbing Theory: Formula for Success

Welcome back!

by Guest Author: Ong Eng Wen a.k.a Squeakus Maximus

For the first time ever, I went clubbing. (You see what I mean by them being a bad influence?) This is my take on Clubbing:

I have thus deduced that Clubbing holds three essential rules:

Visual Deprivation: All clubs are darkly lit. This serves two purposes. Firstly, everyone looks good when it is dark. This is especially true of girls, of whom one might otherwise pick out critical flaws, such flaws as crooked teeth or bad complexion, in better light. Secondly, darkness enhances the efficacy of the laser light shows (the source of psychedelic stimuli) and UV flashes (which highlight white tube tops and G-strings and thigh-grinding.)

Audio Deprivation: All clubs play music at least at the human threshold of pain, and many well beyond that. Furthermore, most music is played with deep base, such that it is more felt (especially in cavities like the chest) than heard. Couple this with the fact that the brain’s organ for balance is a delicate sliding layer of crystal located in the ear and presto! Instant loss of balance.

Alcohol: Alcohol is to the mind what alcohol is to the body. It may be bad for you in the long run, but it is fun as hell trying to get there. Alcohol also affects how the brain interprets images; crooked teeth are straightened, bad skin smoothened, thick waists slimmed, broad shoulders softened, and flat chests mountain-ed.

These three components ultimately lead to one hell of a good time.

And a killer hangover the day after.

The Two Ways of Dancing

In Zouk, there are three areas to dance. The first is Zouk proper, or Zouk main. This place is fairly large, with lots of vertical space and a dancing platform (which looks like a pyramidal stack of cubes) in the centre. People are paid to dance on them, because no sane Singaporean would. Bar top dancing was illegal until only recently, you know.

Zouk proper plays Retro on Mambo night (Wednesday), which also happens to be Ladies’ Night, even though men somehow equal the number of women. Retro calls for more fanciful moves, and stylistic gestures. Since Retro is mostly love songs from the ’80s, there are a few simple rules to follow:

1) When the song says ‘I’, you point to yourself.

2) When the song says ‘you’, you point to your dancing partner, or a stranger, or someone on the platform.

3) When the song says ‘love’, ‘heart’, ‘my’, ‘emotion’ or something equivalent, cross your hands over your chest, at the heart.

4) When the song says anything else, scrunch your shoulders up a little and push your hands free and away from yourself. Lean back a little with your head.

Once in a while, Zouk proper will release clouds of dry ice into the crowd. This is very fun, since if you were standing right in the blast zone like me, you wouldn’t be able to see your hand in front of your face.

This is fun up until the point where a dry ice pellet pelts you in some place sensitive, like between the shoulder blades. At this point, your arm involuntarily whips out and smacks the nearest person on your right, who happens to be getting jiggy with his girlfriend. What follows is an immediate Evil Eye, answered by subservient apologies.

The second place is Zouk Phuture, which is much smaller. It is rectangular, with a bar lining a length, and a DJ at a breadth. The only exit is the entrance, and once it is past 00:00 am, and you are still on the dance floor, you can forget about coming out.

Zouk Phuture plays R&B and Rap, which would explain why everybody inside is either 1) Horny, 2) Angry, or 3) Horny and angry. These songs involve expletives, racial discrimination, the search for racial equality, vulgarity, the objectification of women, girl power, and foul language. Did I mention that they swear a lot too?

Although one would expect more fanciful footwork and a style closer to the ground with these songs, the opposite is actually true. This is because Phuture has twice the people of Zouk proper crowded in half the space. Drowning is a very possible hazard. The lack of space simplifies dancing in Zouk Phuture:

1) There is no space to breathe, let alone move. Hence, one’s motion is limited to the vertical. By planting your feet and bending up and down at the knees, one creates the illusion of movement and hence dance.

2) There is limited upper body space, so there will be no fancy movements like in Zouk main. Males instead use one hand – preferably the master hand – to cover the crotch, while the off hand to guard the rear. This is to protect against any unwanted rubbing, especially against other males’ unmentionables. Females have more options, since they have more areas to protect. However, since the front door is in a more defensive position, they tend to guard the balcony and basement. The exceptions – and mind you, there are – to this are usually when the crotch is not recessed. However, most males and do not wish to rub against such individuals, unless they are drunk, incredibly stupid, or get their kicks in a strange way.

3) There is no need to fret if you are not jiggy with the R&B and Rap genre. Every time a new song starts, simply raise your hand, ring and middle finger bent or curled at the knuckles, and sway it sideways at the shoulder, like a metronome or an inverted pendulum, even if you do not recognise the song. Most bystanders – who are posers like you, anyway – will believe that you are a very happening person and feed off your energy. ** Note: If you do this for every single song, people will quickly recognise you as a poser.

4) Since most people’s shoulders are wider than their heads, there will usually be space for neck rotation, bending, nodding, and rolling. This in Pop Culture is termed ‘Head bashing’. All the soundtracks in Zouk Phuture have heavy base, sounds so low they are felt more than heard. All you have to do is find the underlying rhythm. Nod your head when it is a steady beat. Bend it sideways when the beat is a repeated pattern of fast and slow beats. Roll your head around when the beats start slow, and progressively become faster and faster.

5) Every once in a while, especially when the song playing is one you do not recognise, and which does not excite your friends very much, it is very classy to stop all movement, whip out a cigarette, and smoke in a state of detached catatonia. Give a ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ look. People will think that you are extremely cool, ignoring a song like that. Once you are done with the cig, stomp on it and just wait one more song out, after which, burst into a state of frenzied head-bashing. Other people will think that the song must be one of those ultra-new and super-cool songs that they, in their mundane pitiful lives, just haven’t heard of yet, and they will, so as not to look un-hip, act as if they know the song too and dance like crazy. This has a domino effect, and soon the whole dance floor will dance to this über-cool soundtrack.

Eng Wen can be contacted at squeakusmaximus@gmail.com