Do I Do (rant)

Damn.
I was over at a buddy of mine's house catching up and randomly watching TV. And this video came on. Now I don't know if I have NEVER seen this thing before. I do think it is more that I have not seen it in a really long time but all conversations ceased and I was captivated by this video.
I suppose I'm still reeling from Michael Jackson's Motown performance and the dynamic of people actually dancing and getting into the 'party' of it all. I love when Stevie is in the midst of the dancefloor and all the people are dancing around him. If you catch some of these people they are gettin' it! We don't really dance like this anymore.
Seeing the people dance reminds me of being younger when my mother would go out and party with her girlfriends. They would dress up, and actually DANCE all night. I'm sure they drank, I'm sure they posed a bit, met guys, but the primary focus was to dance. I suppose she is where I get that from. I say almost every time I go out that I'm trying to 'shake my ass tonight'. I don't care so much about drinking, who's there, and what people are wearing. I love to see people getting down.
It brings up the way people danced. It's modern dance but more than modern dance I look at it as 'Free Form'. Moving to the rhythmic patterns, the syncopation and making it work together. My mom came out to one of my nights when I dj'd in LA a couple years ago and she and I got on the dance floor. She was doing some simple moves that had me trying to emulate her. It made me feel then that she still has it and that we as the second and third generations are losing it. To me, the last real era of good dancing was the golden age of hip hop. Everyone was doing the Troop, Roger Rabbit, RoboCop, Running Man, Cabbage Patch, cats were Housing in that era and in the mix of the choreographed dance steps people still got loose on their own.
Now, you get to the club and all everyone does is Freak's. If they're not Freakin' then they're posted up with a drink or in a circle breakdancing (or watching some asshole clog up the dancefloor while HE breakdances).

What am I saying? Overall I guess I feel like we've gotten too complicated yet we are dumbing down as all the new technology and messages come across the airwaves, video and computer screens that have us focusing on what THEY want us to pay attention to. I feel like we have relinquished our power, gotten away from who we are and who we are supposed to be. We don't have time to dance anymore. 'I'm trying to go to the club, drink, see/be seen, and take someone home and do it again tomorrow.' I feel like we're searching for something these days. I cannot put my finger exactly on what it is. Maybe it is family, community, love. Maybe all this new technology and other ways to stimulate one's self has gotten us away from life's simple pleasures. And while the computer, internet, and all these things are really amazing, we have not learned how to make the adjustment. Maybe we have not learned how to incorporate it into the simplicity of living. I'm convinced life, as complex as it is, really is not that complex. There are some baseline values and inherent things embedded in our DNA that we need and want. All this other stuff is posing like it can get us to our inherent wants/needs when it really cannot. It just confuses things. If we could get back to baseline and burn away all the dross in our lives I believe a lot of people would have peace (read: stability) in their lives.
...and be able to dance like these people again.




... back to the video, I could watch this over and over. It is a beautiful video. I love to see Dizzy getting down too (3:30).