The 1999 Remix

This song was my go to get ready for the action song. Like this is what I'd be listening to when I was wearing my Emporio Armani slacks and my black crushed velvet shirt with the butterfly collar. That was hip, butterfly and black. Glamour was still something people wanted back then, but it wasn't the big hair, shoulder pads glamour of the 80s, it was the glamour that rolled out of a nightclub at 4am, maybe later, and then went to another party after that. Euro in the know through the smoke glamour. Louche sophistication. I wanted to know which party it was that people were going to. The question was full of intrigue and interest for me. What was really happening had to be happening there, at those parties. Because it definitely wasn't happening out on my block, where I lived, and it definitely wasn't happening during my day.

All black was really hip. For like, awhile. And then it wasn't anymore. But this is from when it was. This track was released in early 99, and I'd never heard of Cassius before but I bought this immediately. Every Thursday night I'd load my Cassius cassette into the boom box, press down on the BASS XPANDER big button, and flood my little rented room with dance club. I'd use the bathroom I shared to put the pomade anti-humectant in my hair, lace up my shoes (black, obviously, and with the white leather piping), and head out to dance all night (true) and look for exactly the wrong kind of girl (also true). Cassius got me going. I remember I would even walk to this beat sometimes. Like I had a rhythm in my head that was the same as the rhythm of this song, and I would walk to that pace.

I used to take the bus in from the suburbs, because I would be saving up for my black and cokes and couldn't be wasting no money on no cabs. The bus was far from glamorous, but I figured nobody else would ever know. Until one night when I saw this other big club guy on the bus doing the same thing. That's when I figured out that the club game maybe wasn't as glamorous as I had thought. Maybe all these people weren't movie and music moguls after all. Pretty soon after that I saw the teller from my local bank at the club. And that's about when I stopped going. I realized we'd all been fooled. None of us were living the European glamour life, we were just paying for it.

1999 was also the year I started as a sommelier. It was when I got to try two different wines, 89 Rayas and 89 La Mission Haut Brion, that I was into right away. And then it took me awhile to figure out that maybe the high glamour, big money wine life wasn't my thing either.

Happy New Year, everybody.