The girl on the step in front of me is twerking so hard that every time she makes her butt clap, my face gets pimp slapped by a jiggling cheek. I’ve tried blaming it on the angle of the steps that are causing her derriere to be right in my eye line, but I’ve never been good at lying to myself. I’ve tried to put it all on her and tell myself that no human without a medical history of epilepsy should be shaking that hard, but considering that I’m a fan of discotechs I’m finding too much fault with that theory.
As invalid excuses flow through my head, I realize that I must take it for what it is: there is no reason for me to be this close to her. That is on a small scale, on a grander scale, there is no reason for me or the other sixty other girls that are elbowing, stepping and dry humping each other as we try to climb the grand steps that cascade from the stage to grab hold of Theophilus London to be doing so.
Of course it’s a fire hazard and Theophilus’s manager telling everyone to get off the stage certainly adds to the cause, but I’ve got my own personal reasons for being completely against what I’m doing. Primarily, because I’m ignorant of Theophilus London’s music. Before tonight, I had heard of it in bits and clips being played by my hipster friends, but it was a bit too nouveau for me to get into.
So, the questions begin with why? Why am pushing my way up a set of stairs that weren’t made with Jeffrey Campbell shoe owners in mind and completely putting my safety at risk? Why am I trying to be a recipient of a Theophilus London shirt that is ten times my size? Why am I yelling “swag, swag” and the horribly ordered “girls, girls, money” ? and last but not least: Why am I yelling “THEO I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES”? It seems as if tonight, I left my brain at the ticket sales booth that I’ve taken a break from, my heart at the bar and my soul is the only thing left and it’s having the time of it’s life mindlessly dancing off beat to songs that it doesn’t know the words to. I like to think of the night of Art Nouveau’s three year anniversary, the night I almost became a groupie.
There was a time when cheerleading wasn’t considered a sport, but after waves of girls trying out for squads across the nation sprained their vaginas attempting mid air splits, that was quickly changed. And if spreading your legs, cheering the men on and looking cute is considered a sport, then why can’t being a groupie be amended to be a sport too. From my three hour experience as an almost groupie, a lot of respect for the lifestyle grew within me. Let me tell you something: it takes dedication and a high level of self-manipulation to convince yourself that an artist is giving you the eye when they’re wearing thick, black ass ray bans. And it takes even more dedication and determination to convince yourself that the “You’re Amazing” that they just screeched into the mic was addressed to you when there are about a hundred sets of vaginas and peginas in the room.
But if I walked into the Art Nouveau three year anniversary party wondering what a groupie was, then I walked out with the perfect answer. They’re just girls that got too caught up in the music, lip syncing to songs that they didn’t know the words to and worshipping men that whose fame might soon pass away. They got too caught up in the moment. Groupies aren’t the trailer trash, absent father, waitress mom having sixteen-year old’s that old school MTV movies portrayed them to be. They no longer wait outside of tour buses, with sweat out curly perms, wearing crucifix crosses jassembled with pearl as the finishing touches to outfits that would make Momma Madonna proud. Shame on old school MTV for making them look so weak.
These days, they’re birth control patch wearing, Snapped and Women Who Kill TiVo’ers, bra burning girls who have the audacity to stroll into packed stadiums and dance their ass off all off beat as if they’re the only girl in the room…hell in the world. Groupies are no longer girls who fill the fatherless void in their lives by becoming the prey of famous men. No, these days, they do the preying with jordan spizikes, gucci belts, snap backs and the over use of the word “shwag” being at the top of their checklist. Groupies are no longer the low-self esteem girls of the eighties wearing thick slabs of eyeliner paired with too big Wonder Bras. No, these days they’re over confident, so much that they’ve succeeded in convincing themselves they’re the only girls in the world. Cydni Lauper was on to something: girls just want to have fun.
