Last night, while hanging out at Spy Club with soon-to-be-celebrated animator Jeaux, we ended up chatting with folks like Sean Patrick Morrissey (who earned his nickname because of his "November Spawned a Monster" dance moves and multiple requests for "Boyracer"), Dia, Scarlett and others. During the course of conversation, it was agreed that the pinnacle of post-2000 clubbing occurred during the era of the Go Go Box Whore.
The Go Go Box Whore (GGBW) is a friend of mine who, way back when Bang and Beat It were brand new clubs, used to come with me to my gigs to help load in the records. Back then, GGBW loved to dance. One night, after he spent four straight hours on the go go box, I said, "Dude, you're a total go go box whore." The next week, he arrived at the club with a white Stanley with "Go Go Box Whore" scrawled on one-side and "GGBW" written on the front. Henceforth, for nearly two years, he wore a different Stanley every club night, always with GGBW on the front and some odd slogan on the back. ( "More energy than Edison" during the brownouts, "Never Slept with an Intern" during the Gary Kondit scandal, "Get Well Liz," from when I had my car accident.) In his Stanley, GGBW would outdance even the professional go go girls, pantomiming Tom Jones' cover of "Mama Told Me Not to Come" and Erasure's "Love to Hate You" while random clubgoers brought him water and he wrung sweat from his shirt.
Much to our surprise, our little inside joke became popular. The Yahoo Group we started in his honor, basically just as a means of chatting with our friends from the former AOL Britpop Room, swelled with members. One night, Melissa arrived in a Stanley that read "Go Go Box Groupie." Soon, another girl began to regularly sport one proclaiming her love for both the GGBW and her regular spot on the stage with the slogan "Right Stage Whore." After 9/11, one girl made GGBW an iron on (which I think I still have because he went into retirement shortly thereafter) of an American flag and the words "United We Go Go Box."
Oh, I could tell you the whereabouts of the GGBW, but will refrain so as to preserve the integrity of the myth. (He was doing quite well when I last spoke to him a month or so ago.) I am almost certain that there is no way we could cajole him out of retirement, but the GGBW will always live in our hearts as a symbol of the days when ordinary people could become legends just by dancing to Blur as if the good times would never end.