A Brand New Day

The Wiz

An encore!

I am ending my set on a high note! With a message of freedom for all! I love “The Wiz.” I love it, I love it I love it. Diana Ross at her finest, Michael Jackson before he became what ever the hell he is now, Lena Horne, New York City as the land of Oz. I remember when I first saw it as a kid. Everything’s going great, the music is fun, the dancing is fabulous, it’s all pretty age appropriate (it took me a few years to understand that the “poppies” were hookers, but I digress).

Then at the big scene where the wicked witch Evillene is flushed down the toilet and all of the workers in the sweat shop are freed, it suddenly got very, very . . . sexy. They pull off those freaky costumes and strip down to almost nothing and it’s a big screen full of half-naked Alvin Alley dancers. Even as a kid, I knew it was kind of hot. No! It’s about liberation and the beauty of the human form! Black is beautiful and all that (it was the seventies).

This crappy little video does not do it justice. I recommend renting it and watching it on the biggest screen you can get, turn it up as loud as you can without pissing off your neighbors, take off your clothes, fashion yourself a loin cloth, get up off the couch and dance! Freedom and partial nudity for all!

Tilda