Apr 2 – Not So Shocking

What is something that shocked you when you were younger that isn’t so shocking now?

Without tooting my own horn, I was a pretty switched on kid – there were a lot of things that would have shocked others, but didn’t really phase me. I was quite aware of my surroundings, the people within and what was going on with them.

I look back and think about things that probably should have shocked me, but didn’t, and then I think about how the same thing would affect somebody else. For example, I’ve talked about how I first watched Rocky Horror when I was like, 7 or 8 or something. Granted, I didn’t necessarily understand it at the time, and I knew that there was something wrong when I got into trouble from Mum for watching it, and she said I was banned from watching it again… but then not so long afterwards, mum ended up watching it with me.

And again.

…and again.

…and again, and again, and again…

Seeing as how everybody is so precious about what their children watch, and people get completely hysterical about this, just the concept of a parent allowing their child to watch something so… controversial would send many parents into a fit. Have you seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Would you let your 8yr old watch it? I guess if we’re going to start talking about censorship and age-appropriate content, then we could open an entire can of worms and talk about all kinds of things like violent video-games, cartoons, language, sexual references etc etc… but I’m not going to – my brain isn’t ready for that today. I’ve had a ginger tea and two pieces of cake, that’s enough excitement for one day. *lol*

Other than that, there are of course other things back then, like horror movies for example – they would terrify me back then, and now I re-watch them and I think about how terribly made they were, and how the special effects were soooooo bad.

Maybe I’ve just formed an outlook from a very early age that nothing is shocking to me anymore… I just take it for what it is. Art. Creativity. Statement. Attention., etc.

 

Daily Prompt: Let’s Dance

In my earliest memories of dancing, I’m under my auntie Nancy’s dining room table, (which had been pushed off to the side of the room), watching my mom, dad, aunties, and uncles all dancing on the hardwood floor to a never-ending stack of 45 records, dropping one after the other. I remember foot-high stacks of 45s all around the record player. The song that I remember playing most? Twistin’ the Night Away by Sam Cooke. Every time I hear that song, I remember auntie’s spontaneous dance parties. What are your earliest and fondest memories of dance?

 

My earliest memories of dancing, are of me as a child. There isn’t one that stands out on it’s own, however, I just remember that most of the time when I was a little kid, if I wasn’t outside playing, I was inside dancing. I distinctly remember when I discovered music video shows like Video Hits or Rage and seeing music videos for the first time, and I would bounce and twirl around the lounge room like an idiot. As I got older, that became a staple of my weekends. I would usually be awake on a saturday morning at 6am in time to watch the following 4-5hours of cartoons, and then after that, I’d spend another 3-4hours watching music videos. It got to a point where I couldn’t stay over anybody’s house on a Friday night if it meant I couldn’t watch Video Hits the next morning (unless we were playing video games, then I really didn’t care).

I remember a couple of times I slept over at a friends place, and they didn’t have a games console, so I got mum to set up the VCR to records a full three-hour video of music videos, and then when I got home, I’d spend the afternoon watching that. Sometimes, if for some reason it wasn’t on, I’d pop the same video in and watch it again – I clearly didn’t mind.

Music and dance became a very important part of my life from a very, very young age, and even to this day, they are just as (if not more) important to me.

I also have memories of when I was a little kid, and I got a Cabbage Patch Kids tape player. I’m pretty sure that the first album I got on cassette was by The Bangles, and some friends of mine would come over, or I’d take my tape over to their place, and we’d put on the music and dance around the bedroom, or the living room, and lip-sync our little hearts out, putting on ‘concerts’ for whoever would care enough to pay us any attention.

Now that I think about it, I realise that I was perhaps one of the campest children in the history of… well, ever purely because of that fact. I LOOOOVED The Bangles. I think I kept that tape on repeat, until one day it got stuck in the tape player and had to be cut out. I remember when that happened, and I cried and cried and cried because my mum couldn’t buy the tape anywhere.

I remember when I was a bit older, probably about 7 or 8, and I got Paula Abduls album ‘Shut Up And Dance, and I had been doing private Jazz lessons at a local dance school. We had been working on a routine to one of the songs on that album, and I was so obsessed with it. I think that was the next cassette that I kept on repeat. It was also the first album that introduced me to the sound of ‘remixes’ and I recall being completely fascinated with how they could take a song, and make it sound so different.

Ah, the innocence of youth!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/prompt-dance/