Zombies and Line Dancing

Brea and I took the trek up to College Station this weekend to attend an after hours after party. After eating and boozing in a restaurant and a pub, we joined the rest of the group in a night club that tried to look like a country dance hall, but played a mix of top 40 rap music in it’s playlist This is nothing new, we’d both seen it a hundred times in clubs and tourist bars (that’s what I call bars you have to pay admission to) before. T hat night ended with Brea almost decking some broad in a conversation over music (Brea: these songs are stupid they’re all about cheating and money and cars people don’t have. Woman in bar: well what else is there to sing about?) The creme de la creme though, was when the line dancing started. The whole place looked like it was doing one big choreographed nightmare… Brings me back to my first experience with it…   It was like 2003 or maybe 2002. I was talked into going to this birthday party at a local bar/club. Well, I wasn’t really talked into going, you see there was this girl who sat in my cubicle row at my job at the time that I wanted to seal the deal with. She was cute, bubbly, talkative, a little too good to be true, but I knew she had a flaw, mostly because she was so into going into this local bar/club. The place was not my cup of tea, as a matter of fact, no self respecting punk rocker would be caught dead in there…. but hey, she was cute right? So I go to this party   The first thing about this club I notice is that, well there’s a dress code, I can’t stand dress codes. I didn’t like them in school and I damn sure don’t like them in my adult life. Why should I have to dress to someone else’s standards to drink or try to get laid? It makes no sense. I am a fan of getting what you pay for, if I pick someone up in a bar, you kind of want to know what you’re getting into. That means, I don’t think I should have to put on slacks, tuck my shirt in or not wear a cap backwards.   Bars are a beautiful thing. They are social gathering places. Every band I have ever had has been thought of and recruited in bars, most great revolutions have come from bars, hell the podcast was created after a night out at a show… so why would I bother to go to a place where I have to change my style of clothes and actually pay to get in? As PT Barnum said… “There’s a sucker born every minute”   So I pay my way in, before looking for the birthday group, I stop at the main bar. It’s a nice looking place (it better be for the price I paid to get in) so I saunter up to the bartender who is a good looking gal in a bikini top, and ask her for a Guinness. She laughs “We don’t serve GUINNESS here sir, this is a country bar.” So, I say “OK can I get a Lone Star?” she laughs again. “No sir… this is a nice bar.” Turns out “nice country bars:” only serve Budweiser, Bud Light or Miller Lite… in other words… shitty beer. So I ask for a Jack Daniels on the rocks. She says… “nothing to mic it with?” “No ma’aam… I’m a a man”   I finally get to the party area. They are all there… people are actually surprised to see me… things are going ok. The girl I was talking about was there. She says hello, we talk and drink, I finish mine and have another… letting the alienation I feel either settle for a bit, or drink until I don’t care…   Then… It happens.   There’s this song… it comes on. All the girls squeal like banshees and run onto the floor. Some guys do to… and they all start dancing. Let me rephrase that…. they all start dancing the SAME. I swear I feel like I am in the ending of “Encino Man” and  I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I’m looking at the party, the tables are almost empty everyone is on the dance floor and doing this horrid dance. They girl I was talking to… she doesn’t look so attractive to me anymore. No one in the bar does, and this whiskey starts to taste like poison. I fear for a second, that a spotlight is going to come on me, and I will have to solo… yes… that’s what’s going to happen… the beat will stop the spotlight will shine, and I will have to exress myself a la Corey Feldman in dance. So I left. Didn’t say a word. I have a habit of doing that at bars when things go awry.   Flash back to present: There is a dude who has been buying me and Brea drinks all night, he’s a cool cat, likes his motorcycle and calls himself a “country bumpkin”. After my 4th Lonestar… and this second line dance the fella looks at me and says “I’m not much of a dancer really, but this line dance stuff is bullshit” I like that guy. We make sure to get him a shot. This is actual video of the zombies we saw Saturday Night…