When
nineties retro comes into vogue, the younger edge of '
Generation X' and the elder edge of '
The Nintendo Generation' will
wax nostalgic about, among other things,
the Macarena. And don't act like you don't know.
I remember it was spring and the
mall I worked in was trying to break the
Guinness world's record for longest
line dance. Or perhaps merely claim the
title before someone else thought of it. And thus, all day the
food court and adjoining area had been filled with people in absurd
neon cowboy outfits,
two-stepping rythmically to
Billy Ray Cyrus and
Garth Brooks. I stood at the entrace of
Sam Goody and handed out coupons for such
abominable country music, watching the udulating crowd.
Most of the dancers were
mall-walkers by early morning, and often had to sit down and rest, letting others take their places. An aspiring
Daisy Duke aerobics instructor from the local
country station led the crowd with enthusiastic encouragement and recurring
rhetorical questions: "Isn't this
fun??"
And we - myself and the
high school house dj I worked with - had had nearly all we could take. We turned up
dance music, latter day
grunge, even decent (read: old) country to drown out the noise.. It did nothing save garnering us glares from the legions of
suburban cowboys.
And then.. the beat changed.
A day before, we had hated the
Macarena, hated explaining that the song was more or less
public domain and that numerous bands had recorded it since its popularity spiraled and
here was the version they played on
KUBE 93 and
here was the
tejano version all the
Spanish radio stations played.
But this was different. This was like
a lukewarm shower and a stiff matress after a week on the
Greyhound. In light of what we had withstood in the preceding hours, it was not only tolerable, but it made us gasp in shocked glee. And we started doing the Macarena. And in all the other stores we could see, young
quasi-hip redneck kids were doing the Macarna. The
disgusted and surly employees in the
food court were doing the Macarena, in spite of their tiny accomodations. The mall stopped and the
customers were doing it and the
workers were doing it and Miss Cowgirl
Aerobics Instructor with the cheesy voice looked utterly confused but ecstatic.
The song ended and the
collective silent moan was palpable. Soon after, the
radio station and mall
illuminati packed up and headed back to their beige offices to ruminate on their successful day of
marketing. And we laughed as we locked the gate, because
we all did the Macarena.