My Routine: CLUB SHELTER NYC

Heaven’s blessing is a place I can go to in the middle of the night and become invisible.  I rise off my couch after trying to watch Saturday night live again. It has always been limp in the middle. That is also where the funniest skit is buried. Someone is getting booed off of the stage on Showtime! At The Apollo.  I have no sympathy for the performer. I grab the clothes that I laid out before I crashed.

There are many layers involved for the sweat.

In silence I dress. In silence I leave. In silence I descend the hole that swallows me into the heart of her throat (watch those steps) …

This time of the morning people actually mind their business. The train is not a festival of eyes or appetites. The train becomes a mat to take a nap on from station to station until you arrive at your destination. WALK.

WALK. FASTER. I become a dodging bullet through the ever-bustling streets of the city and the bodies within it. I have to make it there. Every minute is a song I am missing and every second is my favorite part of the song. I am a heat-seeking, self-guided missile…so walk faster…

You get there…the line is down the block…on special occasions it is almost around the next corner several people deep.

You get to the door, present your membership card and (watch those steps) climb

Higher and higher and higher

Till you get to heaven; there is a dance floor there

The smell is hellified. Someone bottled their sweat and you splashed it all over your body after the shower. THAT is The Shelter. Uninvited funk throughout your clothes, all over your body and you haven’t undressed yet.

Get a corner, get comfortable, get undressed into phase one of your clothes, go to the coat check, ease your mind, get undressed in the bathroom-whatever.

Get a drink- anything to drink. Some nights you want to be nice. Some nights you want to be naughty. A drink is the first step in either direction.

Have you stretched? Get stretched out. Get a friend to help. If you are there alone, stretch for a long time. Once someone joins you, you are going to be ready.

Some nights all of the regulars are there. Captain Caveman, Mama Bird, Queen Mother Peaches, The Chain, The Beast, The Nasty Superman, Fireman, B, Lisa, all the kids in the circle, Jesus, The PT /PW Crew, Dirty Elvis, and a host of other colorful characters surviving a checkered past. There are transient beings including “Couple of the Moment,” “The DJ’s present girlfriend,” and “Visiting New York for the First Time Tourist.”

After your receive euphoria, a dance floor revelation,  Valhalla, or your personal blue heaven, say goodnight, good morning or goodbye to your family-your House music family. We are a community that represents a world, this world, living, if only for a night, in peace and harmony.

You have been armed with a coat of arms, dipped in the music you have always loved and never heard before. Know that you always have a place in this world to be your entire self, uninhibited and strong, or vulnerable and tender. You will always have a shelter from the storm of your troubles.