The P_lace

Saturday afternoon in the mid eighties, anyone who is anyone is busy playing Racquetball before their hot night out with their wives, dates,whatever. My father was no exception. Every Saturday he would take me to the Faunce Corner Racquetball Club for an afternoon of manly activities. There I would pass the time frolicking around the courts, play a game or two, hang in the lounge, the locker room etc. Truth be told- I mostly stared at naked men while pretending to conduct tours for groups of older women who had never seen naked men before. Mind you; these "older women" were invisible and mere figments of my imagination so it was just me looking at naked men and making comments about them in my head and under my breath. Yes it’s true, gay as the day is long, what can I say.

My favorite part of the afternoon was after we showered, went in the whirlpool, dried off and got spiffed up for my mom. My father would treat me to an Orangina and microwave nachos while he drank beer with his buddies before having to be home at 6pm. The men would talk about sports (all I knew about sports was I liked to wear baseball hats and funny foam fingers) jobs, money - I didn't pay attention. I was usually hypnotized by the giant rear projection television in the lounge showing aerobics while I munched away soaking in inspiration for dance routines I could try out when I get home. It was Saturday night after all and that meant my parents would go out, my sister would be in charge, we would have pizza for dinner and my favorite television show would be on Kids Incorporated .

I loved Kids Incorporated more than I loved the movie Cinderella, and let me tell you that was an awful lot. I would dream about being on the show and it was my life ambition and goal to some day be on Kids Incorporated and performaning at "The P_lace". Since I was a true fan I knew that "The P_lace" was really the “The Palace” but the “a” burnt out over the years and the place got rundown. Thankfully the soda jerk/ manager character revamped it 80’s style and brought in a group of singing kids. There was even an episode about an older woman who used to hang out at “The Palace” and her revisiting her past- I think it included flash backs involving 40’s style swing dancing and Martika as the old woman young again.

I was unaware that this was a set at the time and in my fantasy I was hired to sing and dance for groups of bright young things whilst they watched and sipped ice cream sodas; there just HAPPENED to be a camera there making a TV show. I would constantly tell people I wanted to be on the show (by people I mean my mom and grandma) and in every episode EXCEPT the Halloween episodes, it was too scary. I loved this show so much that my sister and our friends would often play "Kids Incorporated". This usually took up a whole afternoon and involved pulling out our dress up trunk, making up dance routines and performing for one another to Olivia Newton John or Madonna.

I still remember one particularly dramatic solo choreographed for me by my sister to “Hopelessly Devoted” by ONJ- the big move was me doing a push tuck and roll onto the floor to the lyric “you pushed my love aside” then grabbing my head to “I'm outta my head, hopelessly devoted to you”. I loved Olivia and my sister.

The first incarnation of this "game" I was made to be "The Kid" for our routines. In case you can not remember, or more accurately drank/smoked that memory away- "The Kid" was that little gay acting boy that would lisp about crushes on girls to the older brother character "Mikey" later replaced by "Ryan" (god I loved Ryan) and sang an amazing rendition of "Some guys have all the luck" while pouting about his latest crush on a mystery girl (aka Ryan). Playing “The Kid” meant no dressing up, no fancy dances, standing still while the girls did all the fun moves, and singing songs I did not like. I soon put a stop to this and demanded I play a different character. We had Gloria/Martika (my sister), Renee and Stacey (family friend friends who were blonde sisters in real life too) I didn't want to be "The Kid" and was too young for Ryan so there were not many options left for me. I finally decided we should create a story line where a mystery girl comes into the group and wows everyone with her amazing talent and they let her in. Now who would play this EXTREMELY talented mystery girl... who....?

Why your's truly of course!

I insisted that I get to have as much fun as the rest of the girls, wear gowns, make up like and do the sexy girl boob shimmy ala Pat Benetar “Love is Battlefield”(even though my father saw me do this once and winced "Don't do that...EVER again"). It was agreed that it was a good idea, a solid plot line and "mystery girl" was born.(Thank god my sister was cool with me always copying her and these friends loving me so much because really- some bad shit could have come out of this activity and a LOT of making fun). I finally got to spin in something other than the Christmas tree skirt (see Chestnuts Roasting), do the "costume changes" between our little routines, put on too much blue eye shadow and shake my ass like nobodies business. I pranced, I danced, I laughed, I squealed freely with no parental judgment (although I am sure they would have loved it). I thought there was nothing better than sashaying with the girls in our dank basement sporting my sister’s glow in the dark dance costume... well until I got beat up for that behavior.

The show eventually sputtered to a stop after two years and so did our game. The network shifted the time slot too many times so dedicated viewers like myself had no idea when it was on anymore.The final nail came when Disney bought it and took it off network TV. At that point I had outgrown the show but not my love of jazz hands, pop tunes and spinning in skirts (will I ever outgrow that? OK skirts, yes. Pop tunes, maybe- jazz hands NEVER). I would still visit the racquet ball club every Saturday, stare at naked men, eat nachos and get in trouble for swearing but somehow Saturday nights were never the same without all that singing and dancing.


NOTE! I was looking for the Soda Jerk/Managers name on wikipedia and I learned that one of the show's two creators has the same first and last name as my father- VERY weird and funny!