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Confessions of a lazy clubber By Avner Bernheimer Tags: Friday Magazine, Israel For some years now I haven't been going out to clubs on a regular basis, but instead of just moving on with my life, I continue to torture myself about it. Every week, I turn to the page in the "City Mouse" section of Kol Ha'ir showing the relevant parties, go down the list one by one and tell myself, "Maybe I'll do hip-hop on Monday, maybe dark '80s on Wednesday, maybe Big Boys or Shirazi on Friday," and I always "have to check out that afterparty on Satuday." I don't write anything down in my datebook, because I don't keep a pen in the bathroom, but the information remains in my head and invariably ends up making me miserable. Nearly every day, about an hour before it would be time to go out, my mind gets caught up in an endless loop, debating whether to go, even though it should be obvious that there's no way it's going to happen. At the appointed time, I start scrolling on my cell phone for the names of potential partners, but that is a lost cause, too. And about an hour later, when it's clear to me that I won't be going to any club, I despise myself for being lazy. It's doubtful that the mental torment I insist on subjecting myself to several times a week, every week, really has to do with my great love for the club culture, or with the regret I feel about missing out on this or that deejay. Since, on those increasingly rare occasions when I do manage to leave the house - not before 1 A.M., of course - I find myself on a dance floor crammed with thousands of people, who are flouting the law against smoking in public places, trying to move my foot which, at any given moment, is being stepped on by at least three energetic dancers, one of whom always thrusts his tongue in my ear, because someone shoved him onto me just as he was trying to put an Ecstasy pill in his mouth, and now he thinks that maybe the pill fell as far as my eardrum, and if I would just hop on my right foot for a moment and shake my head, as if I had some water in my ear, maybe the pill would fall out back onto his tongue. It cost him NIS 100, after all. Advertisement When it's 3 A.M., and I've been trying for an hour to make my way out of the club, and to forge a path through all the juiced-up clubbers who've just started their day - I'm filled with envy of my husband, who had the good sense to get in bed at 10 and by now has enjoyed five full hours of sound sleep. He gave up on this scene long ago, and never looked back. I really feel for our friend Asaf, who keeps trying to drag him to a different party each month, only to have my husband look at him with the most sincere expression he can muster and tell him in all seriousness: "Next week." So it goes, month after month, and Asaf hasn't given up yet. If you ask me, my husband would sooner fly to the moon on a magic feather before being caught on a dance floor again. He might write some probing essay about the subject, along the lines of "Electro-House: Dimensions of Freedom and Oppression Within the Nightclub Space," but it would end there. Unlike me, he's completely at peace with his decision. Which is fine with me, by the way. If there's a bigger nightmare than going to a club, it's going to a club with my husband. The moment we pass the doorman, he's already telling me, "I've had enough, as far as I'm concerned we can leave now, but it's fine with me whenever you feel like going. I'll try to get to the bar in the meantime." Half an hour later, when he's still fighting his way toward a beer, and I feel like I've totally subjugated him, I break down and say, "Okay, fine, you win. Let's go." I say this in the bitter tone of someone whose youth has just been stolen from him, but deep down, I'm grateful to him for getting me out of there. What the hell would I do there anyway, for another three hours? Mainly embarrass myself, smile at all kinds of hunks, who I'm sure are dying to flirt with me even though that's never quite the case. Some of them, it'll turn out, are sure that we know each other from somewhere, and so I'll have to explain that if they have Yes cable, they've probably seen me on that series about a bunch of 40-something grumps. Others will have figured me for a drug dealer, because what else would someone my age be doing in a place like this? And some are either escort boys or cruising 22-year-olds - the farthest thing from my type - on the lookout for a sugar daddy. Since age 15, I've lived the club culture. From the Penguin, to Liquid, to the Colosseum and the Dan Cinema in the 1980s, to Elizabeth, Allenby 58 or the iT in Amsterdam in the '90s, to Haoman 17 in the past decade. Three decades, countless musical styles and wardrobes, not to mention dance styles (from the robotic dancing of Tears for Fears, to Vogue and "I've Got the Power," to the spasmodic moves of house), way too much alcohol, and a few pathetic attempts to emulate the Christiane F. model, none of which ended in a rehab center, so I didn't even get a tell-all book, melancholy album or a groundbreaking lecture series out of it. Still, it's hard for me to say goodbye - but to what, exactly? I really feel that I've gotten all I can from it; I really feel that I've done my duty toward this society and I really, really want to put this thing behind me. I'd like to ask for a discharge: I'd like to have party organizer Shirazi or Tel Aviv nightclub personality Uri Shtark, or some other authority in the field, send me an exemption, like the one you get when you are told you don't have to do reserve duty, because I just can't do it on my own. I would so love to receive a very polite letter thanking me for my successful service and excusing me not just from ever coming to the clubs anymore, but also from feeling guilt that gives me no respite when I don't go. I'd like someone to tell me that it's completely fine. To say "You have carried out your duty in the most distinguished manner, and you may now continue onward, wherever the spirit moves you. Go in peace." Bookmark to del.icio.us   The King is dead Archeologists find new evidence for King Herod's tomb site. Al-Hasbara Israel launches Arabic YouTube channel to bypass Arab media.

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