4. Hit the Floor (featuring DJ Kool)
One of the biggest joys of being an adult is when a mortal fear you had as a child becomes something you love. As a kid, I was terrified of roller coasters. Though I’m sure the height, speed, and screams played into it, the seat of the fear was something more existential. The stomach-drop feeling you get when plunging off a lift hill is a physical sensation, but I think I was more afraid of what that feeling represented—the idea of being strapped into a runaway train completely out of my control, a ride I was powerless to stop.
A coffee table book called Roller Coaster by David Bennett fixed my fear. It presented roller coasters as objects of reverence and fascination. I learned the history of railed amusement rides, from LaMarcus Adna Thompson’s Switchback Railway at Coney Island to Bolliger and Mabillard’s Mantis at Cedar Point—a stand-up roller coaster I had seen but never ridden on family trips to the Lake Erie park. I still have this book. Writing this, I was looking around my office for it and realized that it’s literally right in front of me, sandwiched into the stack of books holding up my laptop. I love that it’s part of a pandemic workaround that’s become permanent, my lip service to work-from-home ergonomics. I love that it’s squeezed between The Riverside Shakespeare and Everest: Mountain without Mercy. I love that it's right here.
I just opened it, and the pictures are still wonderful. The Cedar Point photographs are my favorites—Raptor, Magnum, Gemini, Iron Dragon.1 I think this was what really did it—these beautiful photos of rides I’d seen but been too afraid to approach. The book made them elegant and alluring. I was hooked. To this day, there’s nothing I won’t ride.
I risk reacting to “Hit the Floor,” the fourth track on Macho Man’s debut rap album, like a desert wanderer who just stumbled upon a stagnant but nonetheless life-saving puddle, but this might be a good song. It’s the first real R&B beat on the album, and damn if that’s not a cool glass of water after the hot, sandy wind of terrible rock guitars we’ve been hearing until now. It’s immediately catchy, and I get up for a catchy song.
The featured artist on this track introduces himself as “The Legendary DJ Kool.” If you’re like me and doubted that anyone willing to work on a debut rap album with a former wrestler who never really struck it big outside the squared circle could have possibly earned that title, give him a Google. Even I had heard of DJ’s Kool’s famous single, “Let me Clear My Throat.” Kool has cut several charting albums and has been in the industry for decades. I’m not sure how much Kool contributed to the music and lyrics of “Hit the Floor,” but it’s clear that there’s finally a professional in the studio. Kool is good. I mean, look at this hook:
East coast, west coast, everybody worldwide, get your hands in the air.
Hit the floor.
Right side, left side, inside, outside, this side, that side
C’mon, hit the floor.
On paper, this is trash, but you can tell that Kool’s heart beats with the tempo of a dance track that will get a room bumping. He bounces through the poorly written hook, and I’m half-convinced that this song is enough poppy fun to have sparked a 90s dance fad that just missed the mainstream.
Wisely, Macho takes a backseat to Kool for much of the song, and you glimpse what might have been. Macho’s a much better hype man than emcee. He punctuates Kool’s verse with his trademark “yeahs” and “uh-huhs.” Later in the track, DJ Kool does his signature rhythmic cough you’ll remember from “Let Me Clear My Throat,” and Eric On-The-Boards splices in Macho’s “Oh yeah!” It’s campy and fun. Had I remembered this song at the time, it would have cracked the playlist at my wedding.
“Hit the Floor” reminds me of how much I fucking love dancing. Dancing is another of those things I feared as a young person but came to love as an adult with a little more confidence and a lot more alcohol. I won’t apologize. It’s exactly dumb little songs like this that tickle my nostalgia that get me to hit the floor. It’s a clumsy, ridiculous mashup—a good metaphor for how I look when I’m out there.
One of the biggest bummers about being an adult is that what you fear are probably things that you’ll continue to be afraid of, and likely things that will, at some point, happen. After seeing grandparents live through dementia, I fear losing touch with reality. I fear all the clichés of old age coming true. I fear not getting the chance to get old. I fear losing those who right now seem impossible to lose.
It’s spooky to me that Macho Man, gone now for over a decade, isn’t out there somewhere recording a podcast, or managing new wrestlers on Monday Night Raw, or cutting a second rap album. We’ve got everything we’re going to get from this man. There’s a lot that’s better in his body of work, but I’m glad we got this dumb, wonderful song.
4 out of 5 life-changing books holding up my laptop
Iron Dragon is a suspended coaster built in the 80s. It’s typically the first coaster that recent graduates of the kiddie rides will try. When I lurked roller coaster enthusiast message boards as a teenager, everyone called the ride “Draggin’ Iron,” which I also love.