You’re our boy, Blue: Disco Legend Zeke

By Deanna Rilling

Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009 | 12:37 p.m.

He’s got more moves than a game of chess. The ladies flock to him and he’s a regular on the Vegas club circuit. He’s also 67 years old. Meet Disco Legend Zeke, aka “Blue” to fans of Old School. And you may have see him with his ZZ Top-esque beard grooving on the dance floor every week.

The Weekly first spotted the geriatric gyrator on the patio at Pure nightclub one Tuesday night, boogying around to house music courtesy of Joey Mazzola. Was he a club-goer’s parent who was dragged along for the night? Did he get lost trying to score the early bird special at the Country Kitchen Buffet? Or was this just one hella cool older dude out to party?

“Oh, that’s Blue,” smiled Pure nightclub manager Travis Donovan when the Weekly inquired. “He’s here all the time.”

Turns out “Blue” is a local Las Vegan that has been a fan of clubbing on the Strip for years. With Donovan’s help, we tracked down Blue to get the story behind this senior mover and shaker.

“I love to dance,” says Blue, aka Disco Legend Zeke. He moved to Vegas about 17 years ago after periodically vacationing in Sin City with his wife and living in numerous places including Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, New York and even Amsterdam. The self-described inventor not only keeps up with the youngsters on the dance floor, he’s also hip to technology and says he has 103 different websites he manages, including destination-fun.com and bikinibreak.com, which he started after partying it up one Spring Break in Lake Havasu.

“I think I visited a few clubs when we were making our little trips up here, but I didn’t really start being a regular of course until I was living here,” he says. Light was his favorite hot spot for a long time. Zeke never had much of a problem getting in despite being a non-traditional partygoer. “At first, I had to pay to get in a few [clubs], but they still let me in at the head of the line just cause I’d be nice and beg,” says Zeke. “My secret is I just give a lot of love to the security guys. Most people seem to treat those guys like they are part of the furniture. People really respect being acknowledged as other people and somehow that’s always worked for me.”

For fans of the movie Old School, dubbing the older gentleman “Blue” after being surrounded by college-age clubbers seems obvious. But it was a reference he didn’t get at first. “I had this incredible powder blue double-knit shirt and whenever I’d go [to clubs], they’d say, ‘Oh, Blue! Let Blue in!’ And I always, always wore that shirt.” When his favorite duds became a bit ragged, his wife had found him an equally snazzy shirt, but in an orange hue. The first time he wore the orange shirt, the staff still called out for “Blue” to come to the front of the line. “I said, ‘No, no. I’m not ‘Blue’ tonight. Tonight, I’m ‘Orange,’” Zeke says. They explained it had nothing to do with his shirt color, but the character in Old School. “I had never, ever seen it,” he says. “The next day we bought a copy of Old School and watched it and I just said, ‘Oh, yeah. It’s kind of me.’”

As far as “Disco Legend Zeke,” this clubber (who prefers not to go by his real name) adopted the name Zeke when he used to own a general store. “It was named ‘Zeke’s’ and it was easier to change my name than it was to paint the sign,” he laughs. The “Disco Legend” came about after tourists—mostly Australians for some reason—would come up to Zeke and show him cell phone pictures of himself. “They’d say, ‘You’re a legend in my country,’ and I said, “Wow, thank you.” But I’d hear it over and over. ‘A legend in the discos,’ and I put that together.”

So what gets Disco Legend Zeke’s feet moving? “A: it’s got to have a beat and B: there’s got to be something interesting going on on top of the beat, not just ‘thumpa thumpa’ for an hour,” he says. His favorite DJ is Vegas’ Frank Richards and loves taking home mix CDs.

He admits age has caught up with him a little bit as far as his party schedule. “I actually have cut way down from the old days,” he says, “I used to go out every night and I just need more sleep than that … I’d start out at Light then go to Drai’s and dance at Drai’s until nine in the morning, 10 in the morning.”

Zeke says while he’ll occasionally have a cocktail or bring and out-of-town friend along, he’s usually flying solo and just out to go dancing while Mrs. Zeke is at home. “She falls asleep at 10 o’clock.” He adds, “In fact, we’re not married anymore, though she’s just moved back so she’s a girlfriend right now. I call her the XMZ—the Ex Mrs. Zeke,” he jokes.

Typically, you’ll find Zeke at Pure on Tuesdays, and again on Fridays and Saturdays before hitting up Jet as well. “I always park in the valet over at the Mirage,” he says and then walks over to Caesars. “I can’t figure out how to park at Caesars Palace,” he laughs. Occasionally, he’ll also stop in to The Bank, which replaced Light a few years ago.

“I used to go to the Palms to Rain,” he says. “I haven’t for a long time only because it’s another drive. You can’t walk there. I kind of like the center of the Strip clubs.”

Zeke adds another favorite spot is the Carnival Court. “That’s a great place,” he says. “I recommend it to people—especially guys that are looking to pick up other tourist girls. It’s a great meet other people kind of place, especially tourists on tourists,” laughs Zeke.

Zeke doesn’t show any signs of slowing down on the dance floor and his interest in clubs is unwavering. He says perhaps he’d like to own his own club someday, though he admits he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. But mostly it comes down to the dancing. “I dance because it makes me feel good,” Zeke says. “It makes me feel connected to the universe.”