BY KATIE ROBBIANI >LA.COM

For others, pursuing the dream in this ring sometimes means catapulting through hoops of fire, performing like a trapeze artist or a tightrope walker. You must use a steady hand and wise footing to navigate where you land. On April 30, I fell into the freak show at Key Club’s Carnival: Choreographer’s Ball, a monthly event in which knowing where to step is as singular as your abc's.

In line at Key Club I stood behind a mob of cheerful girls who traveled all the way from Japan to see their instructor perform. Break dancers gathered in the designated smoking area while throngs of "So You Think You Can Dance"-ers prepped and free-styled on the fringes of the venue. "Whatcha got?“ their moves seemed to say, as they shamelessly tried to "smoke" the other.

Once inside, a masquerade materialized. In the basement bathroom, it was every vampy stage-mom's dream -- a long narrow vanity filled with two rows of women coiffing and creating their intended personas. Thick mascara, glitter, hair bouffant. The clink of costume jewelry, the scent of vintage burlesque-wear. The bathroom was atingle with pre-show excitement. 

On the dance floor, the funkadelic fervor of the crowd broke as the omniscient ring master directed the spectacle to begin. All eyes fell on the red curtain. I placed myself front row, center stage as the curtain revealed a scintillating array of bare and vibrating vinyl-thonged bottoms. Perhaps the current of Moulin Rouge misogyny that surged from the stage can explain what I saw next. 

I met the wide-eyed gaze of my friend and trusted L.A. ally, Mallory, trapped in a vertical full-body nelson by a stranger. I calmly requested he release her. The stranger replied:  “Hey, relax. I’m protecting her here."  Like a conductor, myindex finger accented every syllable.  

“No”, I said. “You need to let her go."  He did, but not before mockingly cowering from my animated finger. I folded my elbows and resumed my vantage point, close to the stage. With one jerk of the stranger’s head, he drew the attention of the on-stage bouncer who charged at me like a bull. He growled at me to get my “****ing elbows off the stage.” In disbelief, I looked down at my elbows. They were barely dusting the stage. I looked back up at him, and didn’t move. “Did you ... hear me, bitch?” Looming closer to my face, he went on: “I said get your ... hands off the stage, ...!” 

I threw the contents of my vodka tonic into his face.

Leaping from the stage, he swept me up like a corrupt King Kong. For the bemusement of the patrons, a blinding white light, (the venue’s spotlight) enveloped me as I was lifted to the exit. The invisible narrator of this spectacle, (Oz), boomed:  “Looks like someone’s had too much!”, inciting a choral chant of “Too much! Too much!” from the crowd.   

Outside, King Kong snarled as he slammed the door shut. Reaching in my purse to call a taxi, I discovered that I had forgotten my cell. Feeling like a working girl trudging down the boulevard in my heels, I pressed on toward home. I stop at Terner’s Liquor Store on Sunset and Holloway. Tony, the friendly 'tender, looked up at me with concern. Like a balling Lucille Ball, I erupted, spewing: “I’m sorry! I just had a really bad niiiiiiight!" As I approach the counter, I give way to a XXL man, sporting a surveillance earpiece and mic, as he leans in to Tony.

“Sir, is your name Tony?” he asked. Tony nodded. XXL continued, “I have Ms. Jett, outside. She’d like to come in and say hello. Is that alright?” Incredulously, Tony nods. “Yes, yes. Sure. Of course.” I waited a moment, putting a hold on the blubbering.

“Excuse, me. Did he just say Joan Jett?” Tony nodded surreptitiously. Suddenly, I remember The Power of Now and decide to partake in this moment. Joan Jett, petite queen of punk, glides through the doorway. Edgy-elegance personified. Beautiful. Eyes agleam, like during an accidental reunion of long lost friends, she gently called out: “Hey, Tony ... remember me?” as she leans in for a hug. “You look great”, she cooed. 

From exhaustion, I feebly quacked, “May I approach Ms. Jett?” Stone-faced, he nodded. Hand outstretched, I inched closer to shake her hand. 

“Ms. Jett?” I said, catapulted back to 1983, when I was eight years old and watched MTV in amazement as she sang 'I  Love Rock and Roll.' I thought she was a superhero. “I just wanted to say that you’re my hero, and it is such an honnnnn…..”(Cue eruption)…”I’m so sorry, I just really had a really baaad niiiight!”, and gave her a tearful shot of the whole story. The Divinita empathetically placed her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, honey. It’ll be O.K. I hope you feel better."

Consoled by her reassurance and redeemed by my confession, I shuffled away from Terner’s. A kind security officer hailed me a cab. Before laying to rest, I made sure to draw a sketch of Ms. Joan. In the margins I scribbled, “I may have got kicked out but I met Joan Jett!”

Today, I discovered that I “wailed my way” through a reunion that had been 24 years in the making. Ms. Jett and Tony had been close friends in the early 80s, when punk was young and she was a struggling ‘Ambassador’ to the new and radical genre of music. 

“We would always talk, wouldn’t we, Tony?” I heard her say with admiration. In the visionary days when Joan courageously created her independent  label, Blackheart Records. XXL could have hoisted me out at any time upon her directive, just like Kong did down the Strip a few minutes before.

And so it goes, Hollywood managed to sing its own redemption song in my honor that night when Ms. Jett fell into my own personal freak show (Which was, by the way, the hottest ticket in town).

-- Katie Robbiani