At a recent dinner party, we listened to my friend Mary’s “Skateland” playlist and heard, among other 70’s gems, “The Hustle.” Fueled by a delicious dinner from the grill and the start of gin & tonic season, we tried and struggled to remember the steps to the iconic disco tune. Unable to call it up ourselves, we resorted to You Tube. We found several amusing instructional videos, several made by hipster millenials, which, along with the gin, proved to us that this was something worth bringing back.
I first learned the Hustle at a wealthy high school friend’s sweet sixteen birthday party, which was held at a strip mall discothèque called the Glass Onion. We friends bought special spandex disco clothes and accessories for the event, which included disco lessons and, this defies reasonable explanation, as many Sloe Gin Fizzes as our underage tummies could handle. Even at that young age, and under the influence of sweet pink liquor, I was able to recognize the fact that our instructor was as smarmy as they come. I mean to be a strip mall disco instructor teaching illegally intoxicated teenagers The Hustle and other line dances was questionable at best.
The passage of time made this a scratch learning experience which found the three of us gathered around Mary’s iPad trying to follow steps with names like “eggbeater,” “Travolta,” and “chicken wing.” Several peeps of tinkle later, we decided that we needed to recruit our larger circle of friends, scheduled to meet for a beach weekend. The group includes a rabid Jazzercize instructor who we thought would be able to teach us all how to bring “The Hustle” back to modern culture.
We seven beach babes set about our task. Our goal was to learn the steps so well that we could create a Hustle Flash Mob at our next gathering, which will include our husbands and fun-to-embarrass kids. After a lot of missteps and more peeps, we pretty much had it down, and a few of us practiced it some more on the beach the next day. It’s likely we will forget the steps before our next gathering, but I doubt we’ll soon forget the laughs we had learning them.
I first learned the Hustle at a wealthy high school friend’s sweet sixteen birthday party, which was held at a strip mall discothèque called the Glass Onion. We friends bought special spandex disco clothes and accessories for the event, which included disco lessons and, this defies reasonable explanation, as many Sloe Gin Fizzes as our underage tummies could handle. Even at that young age, and under the influence of sweet pink liquor, I was able to recognize the fact that our instructor was as smarmy as they come. I mean to be a strip mall disco instructor teaching illegally intoxicated teenagers The Hustle and other line dances was questionable at best.
The passage of time made this a scratch learning experience which found the three of us gathered around Mary’s iPad trying to follow steps with names like “eggbeater,” “Travolta,” and “chicken wing.” Several peeps of tinkle later, we decided that we needed to recruit our larger circle of friends, scheduled to meet for a beach weekend. The group includes a rabid Jazzercize instructor who we thought would be able to teach us all how to bring “The Hustle” back to modern culture.
We seven beach babes set about our task. Our goal was to learn the steps so well that we could create a Hustle Flash Mob at our next gathering, which will include our husbands and fun-to-embarrass kids. After a lot of missteps and more peeps, we pretty much had it down, and a few of us practiced it some more on the beach the next day. It’s likely we will forget the steps before our next gathering, but I doubt we’ll soon forget the laughs we had learning them.