Hot Stuff

As long as there’s a Castro Street, disco will never die. On one of the rare times I was allowed to take a walk with my teenaged son Robert and his girlfriend, we passed a bar in our neighborhood in San Francisco that was playing “Hot Stuff” so loudly we could hear it from the sidewalk.

“You know―” I started to say.

“Don’t say it, Mom!” Robert broke in. “I don’t want to hear it!”

“Don’t want to hear what?” asked his girlfriend. She was lovely as a purple orchid, with her multi-ringed earlobes and dragon tattoo.

“I was just going to say―”

“All right, all right! You used to dance naked to this in a club! I’ve heard it before! You don’t have to tell the world!” He said this so loudly a few passersby looked our way.

“Wow,” said his girlfriend, in awe of my former profession.

“Not naked, I was a topless dancer. I wore a g-string.”

Robert glared at me with a murderous look. “Do you have to embarrass me every time we go out?”

I’d blown it again. Actually, I was just going to remark that I thought Donna Summer and not Gloria Gaynor was the true Queen of the Night, but in retrospect I think the reference would have been lost on them.