I have been spanked like the bad boy that I am!

But, I didn't come here to tell you that.

I came here to tell you that the greatest piece of advice I ever received came out of a clunky wood-grained record-player with optional eight-track. It was "Play that funky music white boy", and ever since that moment I've had disco in my soul.

A wiggle, a giggle and a twist of the hip - alive for only half a decade, and I am groovin' to the nightlife sounds of Abba and the Brothers Gibb!

The AM radio in my parents' 1975 Mercury Montego flashes from on to off in this pre-digital world of DJs and scratched vinyl discs. (Spelled d-i-s-c, not d-i-s-k.)

My parents did not condone the correlation that I drew between their LP collection and the perfect aerodynamic nature of flying saucers.

I am a child of 1976: plaid, bell-bottom corduroys a genuine- artificial-imitation polyester shirt, and the largest collar to have ever adorned the shoulders of a five-year-old.

Cut to kindergarten photo: shocking shades of orange and I remember shaking my four-foot-tall frame to the wakka-wakka-dow-wow of cheaply modified guitars and the eerily soothing electronic sounds of Funkytown.

I was not yet aware of the reason why it was fun to stay at the YMCA.

The logical mind of a post-toddler concludes that it can relate to these men in costumes, because it seemed that they thought girls were yucky too.

Yucky, that is, until Donna caressed my ears with "I Feel Love", and I felt love. Or, at least, I dreamed of climbing those legs that were longer than I was tall.

Tears streaming down my face and I didn't care that the flared, flapping ends of my pants were muddy. "Mommy, mommy - Billy told me that disco 'sucks'."

"It's OK," she said. "He's just jealous that you have something that makes you happy."

Children my age waning to the whining sounds of "Hotel California", dreaming of the day when they would be old enough to become alcoholics or addicts or to just have the look.

I decided a long time ago that I would much rather see my fractured reflection in the spinning surface of a mirrored ball, than in the shattered remains of an emptied bottle of Jack.

'cause I've got all my life to live.

I've got all my love to give

and I've got disco in my soul.