That night I made the big mistake of taking the three Quaaludes (I spelled qualude wrong but it is in the spell check, can you believe that) on an empty stomach way too early. The line was moving slower than a Friday rush hour summer traffic jam on the LIE. You see they spend hours checking ID’s of the many many underage little hotties trying to gain entrance with all kinds of phony or borrowed ID’s. And here I was getting all tingly and ready to hit the dance floor in a buzzed out disco frenzy. Feeling that woozy confidence and quite debonair I start chatting up the nearest attractive female on line. “Like to dance…..lets dance when we get inside…..live in the city?” I would sometimes go out on my disco odysseys with a buddy or two but what I really liked was flying solo. The flexibility was exciting and you never knew where the night would take you. No worries about if your friend didn’t hit it off with the friend of the Jersey girl you were trying to get better acquainted with or anything like that. Also I had nightclub attention deficit disorder meaning if I didn’t like the crowd or the ratio of men to women was terribly offset with the usual way too many guys I would be off to another club leaving my friend saying, “leave, we just got here”. This was especially true when doing ludes and drinking, when there was a few hour window of opportunity for maximum disco nirvana before you wanted to just lie down and pass out with your shoes on. Seeming like hours later I finally make it to the entrance and get frisked by the huge shouldered bouncer at the door. Already almost an hour and half since I took the pills I’m already getting sleepy eyed and feeling dizzy and slightly nauseous. But when I hear Rick James’ “Super Freak” knowing it’s a song I can really groove to, immediately energized I charge for the dance floor and go for my first attempt in a long night of “wanna dance” approaches . The performance of these dance mating rituals was quite a sight to behold. Often the dancing was intensely sexual enabling partners to show each other how great they would be in bed. At the entrance was a long futuristic looking wire mesh surrounding a huge dance floor, I guess for atmosphere and maybe to contain the frenzied dancers. I think at this point they still had the orchestra which would alternate sets with the DJ’s. As much as I liked the swinging jazz band I couldn’t wait until the DJ would take over and play something like “Don’t You Want Me Baby” by the Human League so I could head back to the floor. Swing dancing was not my thing. The tops of the long art deco bars were white frosted glass neon lit from underneath. The bar itself seemed to emanate this weird sci fi white glow that looked really cool after few drinks. Like you were in some kind of disco dream world roaming around in the glow of New York nightlife. Then on each side of the massive room were the parrot cages. Real live parrots, two per cage in two big lit displays on each side of the room. I remembered the parrots to be in just in open cages. I wondered how it was possible they could survive a night after night of smoke, loud music and human BO. Often drunk club goers could be seen yelling at or taunting the poor parrots. Well they were a novel conversation starter. I read on a disco blog recently that the parrots were actually in air filtered glass booths protected from the disco masses. I wonder if the society of cruelty to animals ever looked into the emotional well being of the parrots having to go through so much disco partying. Maybe they liked it.

The huge cavernous space was a perfect place to utilize my hit and run dance floor strategy. You see in a small club or lounge with a small area for dancing you go up to your perspective dance partner and ask “wanna dance,” “No thanks”. Now everyone in earshot knows you’ve just been rejected. Obviously you can’t just walk up to the next group and ask one of them “do you wanna dance”. Although in certain cases when intoxicated enough I have been known to just go down a long line of females asking each one to dance until I got a positive response. That numbers game has been championed by disco sleazoids forever. But in a club as big as the Red Parrot after getting rejected a few times in one corner you simply jog over to another quadrant of the football field sized dance floor and start all over. I remember trolling around the sides of large oval floor where small groupings of women would be positioning themselves to either accept a dance or continue talking with their friends. I remember one spot along the side on the right as the Filipina corner as large groups of Filipinas would congregate there.

Well, it’s almost three thirty and the dance floor is finally thinning out. In my groggy assed state it all seems rather surreal at this hour. Why did they always play the really annoying “Saftey Dance”at this point in the night.Got three phone numbers and my legs are tired from a long night of dance floor maneuvering which includes my sort of new wave version of the sixties dance “the slop”. Still pretty buzzed I decide to walk back to my Upper West Side apartment and maybe stop at the all night pizza place on Broadway for a slice of heartburn delight that really hits the spot right before passing out in my bed. Very Film noir. Just another Friday night.