The Bar-Mitzvah Era

I left Brian alone in my apartment while I went downstairs to work for awhile in the gallery. When I came back up, he was smirking at me like he knew something. “I looked at your Bat-Mitzvah pictures,” he said. Oh, the horror! There is a certain point in any relationship where those pictures become fair game, and you can laugh at them comfortably, but that’s also usually the point where you are practically going to the bathroom with the door open.

I realized I had not looked at them in quite a while myself, and when he left, I pulled out the album and tried to see what he might have seen. I realized quickly, and delightfully, that he could have never seen what I see: this time period was so self-contained, with its own language, fashion, music, and code of behavior. It was a time period where every weekend in our heavily Jewish ‘hood, there were sometimes two or three Bar or Bat-Mitzvah dance parties on any given Saturday night (parents waited with agitation in the driver’s seat of their cars, our chauffeurs), and it was simultaneously a time when we were discovering the opposite sex, and coming to terms with our desire for them, and when everyone was trying so desperately to be “cool,” but no one really knew what cool was yet. It was also Miami, so we were discovering all of these things, for better or for worse, to the soundtrack of 90s Miami Booty Bass, a musical phenomenon that never really caught on in the rest of the country– fast beats and dirty lyrics (which our parents never really noticed because they couldn’t understand them, which explains why they were fair game at the parties) by the likes of the 69 Boyz, 2 Live Crew, Uncle Luke, Splack Pack, Freak Nasty and 95 South (a reference to the highway that is Miami’s main artery). There were dances to match, most of them with names like “Vibrator” and “Hydrolics,” the former being a vibrator-esque ass shake, with knees bent and spread far apart, hands on knees (another variation of this dance was the same ass motion, but the girl on all fours on the ground, and crawling somewhat), and the latter was a squat motion that went up and down from the ground in fast succession, with knees falling open in the up position and together in the down. Basically, it was just sex, but in a dance. And we were 13, and none of us had ever had sex, so it was the best thing ever. I remember talking to my friend Alex Sigal, a year younger than me and in the midst of the two-year Bar-Mitzvah circuit as I was leaving it, a week after his Bar-Mitzvah (which I could not attend because I RSVP’d to another one first). We were at synagogue for Yom-Kippur, of all places, and I asked him how it went. “Oh, it was amazing!” he said, all lit up, “There were like three girls dry fucking me on the dance floor!” Yes, we were all becoming “men” and “women,” thanks to 2 Live Crew.

I’ve decided to embrace this time period, as opposed to being ashamed of it. After all, I think the Bar-Mitzvah era was one of the formative years in all of our lives. So, without further ado, a guided tour of some of the highlights of my Bat-Mitzvah album. (Click on pics to enlarge. It’ll be worth it.)

Let’s start off easy:

Things to note in this picture: 1. The look on my little sibling’s faces 2. How dark my lipstick is, and my bleached bangs 3. The cheesy balloons in the background 4. Me and Elinor in the same dress, which I think we got at Wet Seal (we had our Bat-Mitzvah together, as this was the height of us sharing a brain). This sort of became our “theme,” which most Bar-Mitzvahs had to varying degrees, as the party was at a club called Doubles. That was as far as the theme went, two of us dressed alike at Doubles Club, which is kind of lame, or kind of cool, because themes were usually lame.

There was a sexiest man contest:

I remember all the moms went crazy over number three, but I don’t remember who won. Also, please note the woman in a golden sequined vest in the top photo. She was one of the hired dancers with a company called “Platinum Gold,” which was the “coolest” party group to have at your Bat-Mitzvah. They were a demand that Elinor and I were not willing to compromise on.

All the girls ogled, but especially our friend Aimee:

There was lots of breakdancing:

Lots of grinding/booty dancing:

Lots of slowdancing (usually to something like Boyz II Men):

The above picture is one of my personal favorites. I am dancing with Joseph Rodriguez and Elinor is dancing with Jordan Niefeld, who I believe she had a serious crush on at the time (I can say that now, because she’s married.) Look at both of our faces…What is going on there? What are we looking at? We were truly of the same mind…

More slowdancing:

There were gaggles of 13 year old boys trying to act hard:

There were too many silly dance party giveaways:

And there was a lot of time spent on the dance-floor:

…which, as I said before, has something to do with sex, I think.

And, of course, the obligatory exploration of what my mother was wearing:

Pictured here, with her hairdresser, at the morning service at the synagogue in a suit with snakeskin trim, and black lace.

And here at the party (with Elinor’s mother, Aviva, to the right of the two of us) in her signature leopard print.

It all went pretty smoothly. There was a stare-down between the Hillel Community Day School Boys and the Hebrew Academy Boys which threatened to turn physical, but, of course, never did. Other than that, everyone had fun. Actually (and I don’t mean to toot my own 13-year-old horn here) some would argue that it was one of the most fun parties of the year. I mean, look at this dance floor:

I’ll end with the “crazy pic,” which every person who has ever had a Bar-Mitzvah has one of. It is the part in the night when the cheesy middle-aged photographer gets all the kids who are not too cool for a picture together for a group photo. The last one is always the one where he says “Ok! Now get crazy!” So, I guess this is our best attempt at that. It just looks like a lot of open mouths to me, but there is some crazy…Check out Aimee, as seen earlier, to the right of Elinor and I: