Marathon Mondays

By Nikki Lane

I’m not a huge fan of clubbing, mostly because of my inability to booty dance, the fact that I don’t smoke and I refuse to pay that much for drinks. But I have been known to pop into some “Indie” dance clubs in Jacksonville and bust some old school moves before running out the door, holding my breath, dodging cigarettes and trying not to punch the obnoxious kids.

So you can imagine that I was a bit timid when I was told of Marathon — a local Monday night dance club that was started by Flagler students.

“When we would go dancing occasionally in Jacksonville, we would see the sheer volume of St. Augustine, Palm Coast and even Daytona kids driving up at different points during the week. So we wondered: Why not something closer? Why do we have to drive 40 plus minutes every week just to go dancing?” said one of the club’s founders Justin Brozanski. The other is Marc Stone, and when asked what the driving force behind opening the club was, the duo responded “Capitalism and Luke Skywalker in a Jeep.” The club had its opening night on March 6.

On that evening we got to the spot at 10:15 and there were only about three people dancing. So we attacked the dance floor in front of the DJ booth. The music started off slow and safe with The Rolling Stones and The Monkees. Twenty minutes later and the place was hopping.

The DJ played everything from The Pixies to OutKast. The dance floor would convulse in a grand mal seizure to “Bombs Over Baghdad” and then sway easily to the next song. The highlight of the night was the dance contest (a staple feature of every Marathon night) that was held to the musical stylings of Sir Mix-A-lot.

Marathon was a great time, a way to relieve the stress that Monday tends to bring.

Marathon is located at Fusion, north on U.S. 1, and will be going on until the end of the school year and then will start again next year when students return. The dancing starts at 9:30 p.m. and goes until 1 a.m.