Ask Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I need some serious assistance in learning how to club dance. Not really an issue here in Durango, to be sure. But when I visit friends in the bigger cities, they always want to go dancing, which means some place with a DJ and electronic dance music and blacklight wrist stamps and people (so many people) much younger than me. How on earth do I participate in the madness?

– Two Left Club Feet

Dear Stumpy,

The older I get, the longer it’s been since I’ve danced in a club. But I remember from back in the day there being two kinds of club dancers: the kind Beyonce? (or, let’s be real, M.C. Hammer) hires to dance on stage with them, and the rest of us, who gyrate aimlessly and maybe sometimes imitate the other dancers to try to fit in and then it becomes a way to make fun of everyone else at the club without them realizing it because good god do we all look ridiculous. Try that?

– Un-cha un-cha un-cha un-cha, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I’m all about supporting artists. Artists make the world go round. I love them and I love what they do and I love that they exist. But, isn’t there a way to support them without buying their crappy art? You know the ones I mean. A musician has a $15 CD, and you’re the only one who stopped to listen, so you feel obligated to buy it so they don’t go home and OD. What’s another way to support them without, you know, supporting them?

– Starving Arts Supporter

Dear Priceless,

There’s the old maxim, “Buy an artist’s stuff and they’ll eat for a day. Teach them to sell their own stuff, and they’ll go hungry forever.” Seriously, if you’d gone broke supporting artists and couldn’t do it anymore but still wanted to support them, I’d be building your pedestal right now. But to think artists are doing it for the money? Get outta here. Applaud them. Follow them on Instagram. Tell your friends about them. But don’t slag them in the local newspaper. Or else you’ll start putting art critics out of business too.

– One star, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

God, I am so proud of the children of today. Seeing so many students participating in the climate strike, locally and internationally, I have actual hope that they are going to change the world. Greta Thunberg may be as important to us humans – maybe even more important – than MLK or Gandhi or Mother Theresa. Am I right to think so? Or will this movement evaporate like so many glaciers?

– Proud Parent

Dear Sideline Supporter,

We’ll know they’ve made it when Shepard Fairey paints Greta. Just kidding. (Mostly.) I think you’re right, though. These young people are our second-to-last best hope – the true last hope being us, if we listen to them and join them. Even if we just imitate them, like other dancers in the club, we’ll be gyrating and boogieing in the right direction.

– Save the Earth, Rachel