Can We Kick It? Yes, We Can. Just Not Too Late.

I was running late on a recent Friday night, so I hurriedly threw my hair in a bun, spritzed my wrists with perfume and my pants with Downy Wrinkle Releaser before hopping into my Uber at 10:45pm. Realizing my phone’s battery level was hovering dangerously around 20 percent, I asked the driver if I could borrow his charger so that I had enough juice to request a ride home at the end of the night. About 15 minutes later, I hopped out and walked towards the Golden Ratio in Uptown Oakland, where the bar’s doorway framed a dark room filled with silhouettes and disco lights.

“What the hell am I doing?” I thought to myself, as I handed my ID to the security guard, marveling at how I just hustled to be out at 11pm. “Wait…do I still got it?” I wondered, a tad smugly. Q-Tip’s “Vivrant Thing” thumped as I paid the $10 cover charge.

I was meeting my friend at So, So Anxious, the monthly East Bay throwback dance party that was created to let people around my age — I just turned 40 this year — revel in the nostalgia of going out in their 20s. Having just left my third decade, I’ve recently rediscovered this not-so-secret life hack, one that’s especially useful for anyone over the age of 35: report to a dance floor. No, not your living room. Not your kitchen while you make dinner. I mean an actual dance floor with a proper DJ, some big ass speakers, a modest crowd, and a bar nearby. 

Why? Because somewhere along this strange and exhausting journey of adulthood, there’s a chance you’ve forgotten how good it feels. Going out dancing might not be something you’ve necessarily outgrown – it could be something you just stopped doing.

Nostalgia, but make it a night out

Inside the Golden Ratio, the floor was dotted with clusters of elder millennials and Gen Xers. The self-consciousness that followed us onto the dance floor when we were younger seemed to not be present. There was no posturing, outfit judging, or creepy leering. Instead, there was gray hair, sensible clothing, and even — I spotted it out of the corner of my eye — a woman wearing, unapologetically, a crossbody strap for her cell phone.  

So, So Anxious was celebrating its 11th anniversary, a milestone that Josh Lee, or DJ Gold Gills, one of the party’s resident DJs, says is a feat. We chatted earlier in the day, shortly before I needed to take a nap in order to go out that night. “We’ve gone through the pandemic and we’re still here…a big part of So, So Anxious’s story is our longevity.”

Established in 2015, So, So Anxious was most known for its huge, feel-good 90’s and early 2000’s R&B dance parties at Oakland’s now-closed Starline Social Club. The ballroom could fit hundreds of people — usually in their late 20s and early 30s — who were hitting that sweet spot of going out: old enough to feel like adults, but young enough to still be able to stay out late. 

Then COVID hit. The party, whose name is inspired by Ginuwine’s song about being horny and whiny all at once, returned in 2023. Nowadays, its night parties are much more low key compared to its heyday. But So, So Anxious found a new stride after adding a GenX/elder millennial-friendly format last year: summer day parties at Emeryville’s Prizefighter, which end at a very reasonable, hangover-evasive 9pm. 

The day parties, in particular, have been a “resurgence” for So, So Anxious, according to Lee, breathing new life into its longtime mission of making the Bay Area body roll and revel in much-needed nostalgia. They play the kind of songs you remember listening to during the most tender parts of your teenage and early adult years, long before streaming music corralled everyone’s music tastes into algorithms. 

Lee has been a part of So, So Anxious since 2016, and he likes to say that the event series – first founded by his fellow born-and-raised Oakland friend Brien Mo – was the unofficial blueprint for all the throwback dance parties we see flyers for today on social media. What made So, So Anxious unique during the 2010s was that it brought R&B slow jams to the dance floor: “It was that stuff we listened to in middle school, high school, in our bedrooms, or in our cars…All of that stuff we heard at our school dances, we wanted to relive that.” 

Dancing like we’re 17, leaving like we’re 40

Fast forward to today, it feels like everyone’s trying to appeal to this same group of people by using a powerful one-two combo selling point: nostalgia with practical adult sensibility. It’s not hard to find a party in the Bay Area that’s been specifically designed around the particular idiosyncrasies of being a GenXer or elder millennial. There’s one in San Francisco for fed-up, burnt out moms, a morning rave for the sober and health-conscious crowd who prefer green juice to alcohol, and another that caters to gender expansive folks who want to dance and still get a full eight hours of sleep. 

But for my kind of elder millennial, a dance floor worth putting some eyeliner on has to evoke a very specific kind of fun — one that’s hard to come by these days. Like being able to sing every single lyric on the top of your lungs with your friends, or hearing collective cheers of recognition when a beloved song comes on (think: the strings intro of Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up,” that 15-second slow wind-up that lets people hike up their skirts and squeeze in a quick stretch before…well, backing that azz up). And the fun absolutely has to be void of the parts we don’t miss, like strangers randomly grinding from behind, or throbbing pinched toes in too-tight high heeled shoes.

So, So Anxious pretty much checks all the boxes for me: the music is so good, and everyone understands personal space and wears comfy shoes and clothing. 

I know this because I went out dancing at two of their events in the last month. I went to the day party, held at Prizefighter’s outdoor patio, for my friend’s birthday, and rallied a few other people to meet me there, where we bought each other rounds of drinks even though the dance floor never required them. It was somehow welcoming instead of awkward…in fact, it was even kind of cozy.

Gen Zers have made many Instagram reels and Tiktoks making fun of older generations for dancing with their arms in their air (I don’t really get it, what are we supposed to do with our arms otherwise?) But in this crowd, there were plenty of shamelessly raised arms, along with hopping, ass-throwing, two-stepping and getting low. There were more lubricated knee joints than wall flowers, and I remember at one point, as the crowd was especially popping, feeling oddly proud of this group of mostly strangers — many of them on a much deserved parents-night-out — who I’d been dancing with for the past couple of hours: Look at us, guys. Just look at us!

Lee and DJ Zita deftly spun old-school R&B and hip hop favorites, and sometimes with surprising retro melodies. At one point, Lee mixed the Reading Rainbow theme with Nelly’s “Grillz,” which left the crowd tickled and sentimental.

Sure, you can enjoy the classics on other dancefloors. But So, So Anxious can rouse a born-and-raised Bay Area crowd in a very specific way. At one point, Oakland rapper Dru Down’s “Pimp of the Year” came on – a highly problematic, deeply misogynistic song with a heavy, funky beat. The day party crowd undulated as people laughed, rapping along to the NSFW lyrics.

My friend Olivia, likely the sole person in their 20’s at the party, leaned over and asked me: “Who is this?! I like it!”

“It’s Dru Down…this song is incredible, but don’t look up the lyrics,” I shouted back, over the speakers. 

Lee says moments like this, when “problematic but classic” songs come on, epitomize the magic of So, So Anxious, which often draws a very particular crowd: socially conscious progressives who grew up loving songs with questionable messages, but now know much better.

“Our parties are the biggest and really hit when nonprofit leaders, educators, community organizers, movement leaders come out,” he said. “Our dance floors are like a safe space for folks to let go and remember who we used to be when we listened to this music…it’s part of this escape, but you’re still with your conscious community.”

Lee is experimenting with the idea of merging the conscious community even more deeply with So, So Anxious by pairing its nighttime parties at Golden Ratio with nonprofits, turning them into benefits where portions of the cover charges goes towards the organizations. To that end, the 11th anniversary nighttime party I attended was also a fundraiser for the California Youth Power Fund, a nonprofit that Lee leads, which helps fund youth-led organizing across the state.

“I'm constantly pivoting and trying to figure out different stuff to keep the party alive,” Lee said. “I have refused to let it die.”

As a 42-year-old father, he says that even with all the demands of adulthood, So, So Anxious and deejaying will always be an important part of his life.

 “I can't really give up DJing even if my capacity is stretched because it's kind of the one space where I can play such a significant role in just seeing joy…and finding spaces for joy in this era can be a little tough.”

Gray hair, don’t care

It was perhaps that same sentiment which kept me on the dance floor until the very end of the night at Golden Ratio. As it approached 1am, the crowd had cleared and a few people lingered on the sidelines, chatting. But my friend Angela and I weren’t quite done yet. We were the very last ones on the floor, cracking each other up while we tried to sing and rap along to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “Crossroads” (an impossible thing, really), when Lee transitioned the song to Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing”. 

And then came my favorite part of that ambitious late-night outing: a dramatic lip sync, where we mouthed every single passionate word, pumping our arms to each syllabic emphasis. To everyone else around, we probably just looked like two forty-something-year-old women who were either over-served, or had too much bottled up angst to release. But as we belted the song at each other, I realized what felt great about being on a dance floor. It wasn’t just nostalgia. It was the rare permission to be completely, gloriously present.

For the four minutes and 50 seconds of that ballad, I couldn’t care less what I looked like, who was watching, or what my next obligation was. And even if it was just temporary, it was enough to feel exuberant. 

I can’t remember the last time I felt like that.

So, So Anxious takes place every 4th Friday at The Golden Ratio (1517 Franklin St, Oakland). The daytime summer parties take place on the 2nd Saturday, and there are only two left this year! The next daytime party is on Sept. 12 at Prizefighter (6702 Hollis St, Emeryville). The So, So Anxious resident DJs are DJ Gold Gills, DJ Zita, and DJ B-Style.