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SYLVESTER FOR SILVESTER

Hey, everybody, it’s New Year’s Eve, known as Silvester in Germany!!!  So how should we send off 2020, annus horribilus? 

Before we kick its ass out the door, let’s get some perspective.  I know you think 2020 was the Worst Year Ever, but you would be wrong.  According to Medium, historians agree that 536 AD was actually the Worst Year Ever:

The year began with an inexplicable, dense fog that stretched across the world which plunged Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia into darkness 24 hours a day, for nearly 2 years.

Consequently, global temperatures plummeted which resulted in the coldest decade in over 2,000 years. Famine was rampant and crops failed all across Europe, Africa and Asia. Unfortunately, 536 AD seemed to only be a prelude to further misery. This period of extreme cold and starvation caused economic disaster in Europe and in 541 A.D. an outbreak of bubonic plague further led to the death of nearly 100 million people and almost half of the Byzantine Empire.

So, it could be worse.  Feeling better now?  Feel like dancing?  I hope so, because nothing says “Screw 2020!” like disco.  That’s right.  Reports of its death have been grossly exaggerated.  Disco is back and it’s better than ever, and if you don’t believe me, read this from The Atlantic.  And if you do, be sure to click on the link to the Spotify play list.  I guarantee you’ll be up outta that chair and boogy-ing like it’s 1974 at Studio 54!

Great year, 1974.  I don’t know where you were that year (assuming you were even born), but I was in San Francisco, finishing my last year of law school and waitressing that summer at a Holiday Inn out on the Berkeley Marina.  After cleaning up the salad bar every soul-numbing night, at around 11 pm, my friend S. and I would jump into his elderly Nissan with its misaligned headlights and jet over to the “City.”  Our destination was the Cabaret on Montgomery, not far from the Playboy Club down the street and Carol Doda’s blinking red boobs at the Condor on Broadway and Columbus.  


The Cabaret was notorious.  It was simply the best gay disco in San Francisco and the place to see and be seen, especially if you were gay, bi, trans, Black, or Latino—the musical and cultural foundation of the disco genre.  The Cabaret also had a rockin’ sound system that made you feel the four-on-the-floor disco beat as much as you heard it.  And if you hit the Cabaret on the right night, you could catch Sylvester’s show.
Which brings me to the title of this post.  Sylvester was a beautiful, queer, Black man who looked better in drag than I look on a good day.  He could dance and prance like a Rockette and sang with a band called the Cockettes.  He often appeared as a solo act at the Cabaret and his gospel-trained voice filled the club with his signature track “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” which you can listen to here.  His music was infectious, super danceable, entrancing, sexy.  I highly recommend it for sending 2020 out with a bang.

Sylvester’s Wiki bio is worth a read, as it chronicles life before, during, and after the first pandemic that touched and changed our lives—HIV/AIDS.  He was born in Watts in 1947, the year I was born.  He died of AIDs complications in San Francisco in 1988.  More than a self-described disco queen, personality, and recording artist, Sylvester was philanthropically-minded; before he died, he signed over all of his royalties to Project Open Hand, an HIV/AIDS organization. He was a friend of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay Supervisor of San Francisco; knew Dianne Feinstein, who assumed Mayor George Moscone's office after his and Milk's assassinations (remember Dan White's Twinkie defense?); was a familiar act at gay bars in the Castro District in San Francisco; and performed at the London Gay Pride Festival in Hyde Park.  His star dimmed in the ‘80s when disco was declared dead in the “Disco Sucks” movement, as gays, trans, Blacks, and Latinos who had birthed the style likewise became the object of conservative backlash.

But I don’t want you to read about Sylvester on Silvester.  I want you to dance to Sylvester on Silvester.  Because there is nothing more sybaritic, cathartic, or communal than dancing on a crowded dance floor.  Except this is 2020 and this New Year’s Eve, we’ll each be dancing alone or with those in our Covid bubble in our separate living rooms around the country and around the world—separate but together, now more than ever.  Sylvester’s message is still audible:  Dancing is total freedom.  Be yourself, and choose your feeling.


So pump up the volume on your headphones; put on your Saturday Night Fever clothes; and get up and dance!  I guarantee you’ll Make Yourself Feel (Mighty Real)!  Happy New Year! 

Keep it (mighty) real, and wear your damn mask!

Marilyn 


 

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. Walking in WelliesJanuary 1, 2021 at 5:57 PM

    Great article Lady M. I remember this song and LOVED disco! I think we should bring it back in force!

    ReplyDelete

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