Bring On The Dancing Girls

Regular readers will know that I love music. Some readers may even now that I in the past I have attempted to actually move my body in time to music, usually surrounded by people laughing at my uncoordinated efforts to keep time.

At the weekend I will find myself at a party where at some point in the evening I shall be asked to dance to a song I despise by the love of my life, Mrs PM.

Refusal is not an option so I will have to humiliate myself to the sound of whatever tripe the DJ decides to torment me with.

I hate dancing – that is the truth.

It wasn’t always like this.

When I was young and stupid, I thought I was the world’s greatest dancer.  I thought that “He’s the Greatest Dancer” was written about me.

In fact, I was more like a “Discotheque Wreck"!

I was born after the days when a man had to humiliate himself by asking a woman to share the floor with him in, holding her as they swept around the floor dancing a foxtrot or a waltz.

And I say thank God for that!

I was hopeless as an adolescent and young adult when it came to women. I was one of those spotty little twerps whose nervousness was almost a visible entity in its own right.

And I was ugly and thin with mad hair that was enough to scare away any females – even female baboons. My chat up lines consisted of the words:

“EURGGH!! MEURGGGH! Can I ERRR have a snog?”

This usually ended up with a minor bit of female contact – her hand slapping the glasses off my face!

When I was eighteen I found three things that I thought would help me on my quest; night clubs, beer and dancing. Sadly, as safe as they may seem individually, when combined on a Saturday night with an idiot like me, chaos ensued!

My dad always told me about how he would just ask a girl to dance. It involved walking up to a lady and asking her if you could put your arms around her and actually move your feet in a certain way in time to the music!

That terrified me!

The difference was in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s that people didn’t do that anymore. A man just danced on his own until a woman approached and fell for his wonderful techniques. At least that’s what I thought.

Usually I would go to a night club, with my best clothes on, having bluffed my way past the meathead bouncer on the door, and wait on the edge of the dance floor looking at the women dancing around their handbags each of them yearning for the good looking guys (which I wasn’t) and hoping they would be swept away like a princess being rescued by a prince.

I considered myself to be that prince – every single time I went to a club.

Would I woo here with my charms? Would she swoon at my good looks? In my mind’s eye I saw her almost collapsing in sheer delight as I stepped onto the dance floor like John Travolta before showing the entire night club how a man should really dance to “Night Fever”.

The truth is, in order to pluck up the courage to march on the floor, I had to drink a lot of beer. My addled brain then convinced me that I was Danny Zuko in “Greased Lightning" and, as my mates watched in absolute uproar on the sides of the dance floor, I would strut my funky stuff in front of every vaguely good-looking woman in that small well-lit area of humiliation.

It was worse than that. I was utterly convinced that all women were drooling over my body as I danced in front of them. I was so stupid that I even played hard to get by swinging my shoulder and turning away from a woman as she stared in utter disbelief at the acne-ridden drunk chimp wobbling next to her.

On other occasions I found myself almost alone in a pissed stupor, gyrating in a deeply disturbing way with a gurning phizzog that I thought said  “Bring on the dancing girls” but in reality had a similar effect to a skunk spraying the entire dance floor with its rancid stench.

It was only when a female friend at university told me how I really looked that I began to reassess my dancing skills.

“You look like a scarecrow who has just wet himself,” she told me cruelly. “No woman will dance with that! Even me – and I’m your friend!”

It was like a slap in the face.

Thankfully, she kind of taught me how to dance and over the next few years, I improved massively! Sadly, I was still a mess but at least I was vaguely in time and didn’t lurch around ogling all women in the vicinity like a colossal pervert.

I actually started to enjoy the music and voluntarily walked up without being pissed and on a lot of occasions with actual female friends who were willing to enjoy the music with me without fear of me turning into some kind of leering drunken animal.

In fact, I have even found myself dancing and surrounded by six very attractive women. The sad thing was, they were all friends who wouldn’t let me off the dance floor because the song playing was “Man! I Feel Like a Woman" and they found my total embarrassment absolutely hilarious.

Sadly, I have never evolved and the simple basic moves I used way back in my twenties are still the moves I would use now – and probably will use when Mrs PM drags me onto the dance floor on Saturday night.

And people still laugh at me!

"Who's that goon?"

I hasten to add, that all the night clubs I have mentioned above are your normal everyday disco type place that play dance music.

When I have ended up in a rock club, the story is completely different.

Regular readers will have gathered that I am a bit of a metalhead and when a favourite rock song appeared in such a venue (and I am not talking about token rock songs like “Living on a Prayer”, I am talking about air guitar shredders), I leapt onto the dance floor like a man possessed and shredded my air guitar as if I am Kirk Hammett, Ritchie Blackmore, Joe Satriani and John Petrucci all rolled into one.

The difference in this case was that there were few if any women on the dance floor and I was surrounded by similar drunk headbangers and one hundred percent engrossed in the music.

I don’t do that now – in fact I haven’t done it for a while. There have been occasions though – and here they are, including my impression of Slash!

"OH OH OH OH SWEET CHILD O' MINE!!"

Let’s hope they play “Paradise City” by  Guns’n’Roses on Saturday.

That’ll teach Mrs PM to drag me on the dance floor!

The Anarchist

I have a flaw.

Actually, I have many flaws but there is one in particular that sometimes annoys me but most of the time makes me feel truly alive and gives me a buzz unlike any other.

I am a bit of an anarchist.

The targets of my anarchist streak are those who have been granted a tiny bit of power and have tried to abuse it in order to control me.

A good way to illustrate this is the saga of “Dave versus the Night Club Bouncer”. Thankfully, I rarely visit such establishments these days but in the past I have many encounters with certain meatheads who have been given a little power and feel it necessary to abuse innocent people like me.

Okay , I’ve not always been innocent but at the start of the encounter I have usually been in a happy frame of mind and therefore tolerant of their power trip. It almost as if the fake tuxedo has turned them into an unreasonable henchman, whose ego has been inflated by a tiny bit of authority that they simply do not possess in their normal lives.

I can tolerate bouncers who are friendly and are genuinely there to stop trouble. What I hate and detest are those who, for some reason, do not like the look of me or cannot take any sarcastic banter from me when they question my suitability to enter their establishment.

A bouncer would, of course, beat the shit out of me if my behaviour were worthy of being forcibly removed from the premises; I have never let it get that far. My purpose has always been to point out to anybody in the vicinity (usually other punters waiting to get into the night club) how stupid the rules are and how the bouncer is in fact on a power trip, having been granted a miniscule amount of authority.

That’s really what my anarchist streak is fighting against – people who have been granted a small amount of power and abuse it in order to control me when they have no right to do so.

One bouncer, for example, once told me that I was overdressed.

Can you believe that?

How can you be overdressed for a shitty little night club?

This meatheaded moron was standing outside a nightclub dressed in a tuxedo and refused to allow me in because I was wearing a shirt and trousers instead of a T-shirt and jeans.

“Look, mate,” I said in a reasonable fashion. “I’ve just met my mates for a pint and on the spur of the moment we thought we’d pop to this club because we heard it was great. Come on – look at me? Do I look as if I’m going to cause trouble? I’ll just sit at the bar and chat with my friends.”

“You’re overdressed!” was his curt reply.

“Really? And why are you wearing a tuxedo? Aren’t you overdressed?”

“It’s not about me; I let in normal people. You are not normal; you are overdressed.”

“I tell you what – it’s the first time I’ve been refused entry because I’m overdressed. You’ve just let in three women wearing fantastic dresses and shoes but you won’t let me in because I have a shirt and trousers?”

“You’re overdressed.”

“And you, my friend, are an idiot. Look at me. I’m a scrawny bespectacled spotty little kid who is more likely to run away from a fight than start one. What possible harm could I cause sitting in a dark corner with my mates?”

“You’re overdressed.”

Once the meathead realised that other people in the queue were laughing at him, his reaction changed. The look on his face evolved from one of  blind stupidity to an air of aggressive thuggery as he slowly realised that his power was being threatened by a clever little anarchistic geek wearing glasses.

The only way he could reinforce his power was to use violence. That way he could control the rest of the queue out of fear.

Fortunately for me, he was a moron and the synapses of his acorn brain were slow to realise this, giving me and my mates ample time to make ourselves scarce before he turned into a raging meathead.

It’s not just bouncers that rile me.

One encounter I had was with local councillor in a car park. I had gone on a shopping trip and parked my car in a “Pay and Display” car park. The idea is that you park your car and pay for a ticket in advance. I guessed that my shopping trip would last three hours so I purchased a ticket for that length of time.

I overestimated the time. I managed to buy what I needed in just under an hour.

I arrived back at my car just as another guy was parking next to me. I was in a generous mood and as the guy was about to buy his ticket, I said:

“Hi mate. Listen, I’ve still got two hours left on this ticket. You can have it for nothing. It will save you wasting your money.”

Unfortunately, I was overhead by a rather posh and pompous arse who marched over and intervened.

“Excuse me,” he bellowed at me in a voice reminiscent of a teacher I hated at school. “Do you realise that I am a councillor for this town? You cannot give away a ticket like that. “

He turned to the guy to whom I had offered the ticket. “You need to buy your OWN ticket.”

He turned back to me with a look of authority that soured my mood. I had been happy and now the anarchist inside rose up like a demon.

I was livid.

“Er – excuse me,” I said in a voice that I hadn’t heard since being an obnoxious little teenager. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

I turned back to the other guy. “Do you still want the ticket? It’s free.”

“DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?” bellowed the pompous arse.

“Yes,” I replied. “Talk to somebody who gives a toss.”

The other guy considered his position and was slightly intimidated by this jumped up little Hitler.

“It’s okay; I’ll get a new ticket," he said with a smile.

“Thank you,” said the councillor, enjoying his victory.

I was enraged. I launched into a tirade about overpriced car parks and pocket dictators, questioning his authority and his opinion about his inflated authority.

“The whole point of having rules is to follow them,” he replied in a condescending voice. “If everybody flouts the rules then there will be total anarchy.”

“In this case, the rules are created by greedy idiots,” I said. “Being a councillor doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do or try to quash my generosity. You have ruined the day for two people. “

I shook the ticket at him.

“Oh – and by the way, it doesn’t say “not transferrable”. So you're wrong. And rest assured that if this situation arises again I will GLADLY give my ticket away to whoever I bloody well want to."

I asked for his name but he refused to give it to me.

I left the car park with mixed emotions. I was angry that my good deed for the day had been ruined by a pompous idiot on a power trip, but I was delighted with myself for standing up to his dubious authority.

Although this councillor was undoubtedly a more intelligent man than your average meathead, he was the same at a basic primeval level, i.e. he had been given a little power and was trying to use it to control me.

In my opinion we should all allow the anarchist within us to breathe a little fresh air. I want everybody to join me and stand up to these petty minded fools who use the tiny bit of power they have been granted to enforce their will on the general public.

Say no to councillors.

Tell bouncers they are idiots.

Go into the “10 items or less” queue with 12 items.

Sneak sweets into cinemas who stipulate “only food bought in the cinema can be consumed”.

There is more to follow on this touchy subject but in the meantime I simply want to ask:

Who’s with me?

A Recipe For Disaster

In the past, on this blog, I have tried to give you the impression that I am an intelligent guy.

That is true – but at the same time I can be a bloody idiot.

How do you make a so-called intelligent Plastic Mancunian into an idiot? There are many recipes; here’s one of them I used a long time ago:

INGREDIENTS

One sober young Plastic Mancunian.

One ridiculous set of clothes that are fashionable only in the eyes of the Plastic Mancunian.

One mirror.

Two other sober young friends of the Plastic Mancunian also prepared in ridiculous clothes.

One ATM card.

Several pints of fine English ale (or lager if none is available)

One Friday or Saturday night.

Several expensive pubs in London.

One very expensive night club in London.

A large group of people willing to dance.

One DJ.

One night club bouncer.

Approximately two hours of cheesy music.

Three young ladies who are well out of the league of the Plastic Mancunian and his mates.

Several cheesy chat up lines.

One stupid idea.

One taxi.

One time machine.

PREPARATION METHOD

(1) Using the time machine, transport the ingredients back to 1985. It doesn’t matter if the year is 1984 or 1985 – that should be close enough.

(2) Dress the Plastic Mancunian in the set of ridiculous clothes and stand him in front of the mirror until he believes that he is sex on a stick. This should take approximately two minutes.

(3) At this moment, take the pre-dressed friends and put them and the Plastic Mancunian into the first expensive pub in London.

(4) Soak the idiots in a couple of pints of beer.

(5) When the conversation starts to get silly and the three young men start to turn into idiots, transfer them to another expensive pub in London.

(6) At this point, you may need to apply the ATM card, particularly if any of the idiots have run out of cash.

(7) Repeat steps (4) to (6) for several hours until the three young men are fully matured idiots.

(8) Apply the ATM card one more time.

(9) Transfer the three idiots to the very expensive and preheated London night club.

(10) Apply the ATM card again because the idiots didn’t get enough cash.

(11) At this point the idiots may realise that they are about to make a huge error in judgement. If this is the case, liberally apply more beer in another pub. That idea will soon diminish.

(12) Apply the ATM card again if necessary.

(13) Before reaching the next stage, the three idiots should be well-oiled and may even be rat-arsed. Ideally they should all be able to string together a coherent sentence and understand each other – just.

(14) Place the idiots outside the very expensive night club in London at the back of the queue of people who are willing to dance.

(15) Slowly place the group of people into the night club for just enough time to irritate the Plastic Mancunian. Two minutes should suffice.

(16) Before putting the idiots into the night club, make sure that the Plastic Mancunian has been allowed to exchange words with the night club bouncer.

(17) Do not allow the night club bouncer to mutate into a violent moron – that will ruin the recipe. If necessary subdue the Plastic Mancunian with a diversionary tactic; pop the three young ladies into the night club (though they can be applied later).

(18) Once in the night club, apply liberal lashings of lager. Be careful not to overdo it at this stage.

(19) Mix the DJ, the cheesy music and the group of people willing to dance until the atmosphere is HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!

(20) Take the stupid idea and mix it with the idiot that is thriving best in the lager. The best idea to use is Impersonate the Dancer, whereby one of the idiots tries to exactly copy one of the more bizarre dancers for one whole song.

(21) When the idiot has finished dancing, and assuming he hasn’t been attacked by the target of his impersonation, he must select another idiot to impersonate another dancer. At this point it may be necessary to apply yet more beer and if you have any, some Dutch courage.

(22) Repeat steps (20) and (21) until each idiot has played the game or until the threat of violence has reached alarming levels.

(23) At this point, mix in the three young ladies who are out the idiots’ league (if not added already) and liberally pour in as many cheesy chat up lines to add a little spice. My personal favourite is

Hey Doll. Have you got a license for those eyes?

Nevertheless,  

Fancy a snog?

will do if all else fails.

(24) There may be a few slapped faces at this point but that will add to the pleasure; the idiots won’t feel the pain; they should be totally sozzled at this point.

(25) Continue to cook at a high temperature until the idiots start to wilt or the three ladies resort to more extreme forms of violence.

(26) Now transfer the idiots to a taxi, applying the ATM card for one final time if necessary. There is no need to worry about the three young ladies at this stage; they will have disposed of the idiots in suitable fashion. The three idiots will be saying “Yeerrr my bessst mate!” to each other anyway.

(27) Leave the resulting mess to rest overnight.

When you have finished in the morning, you will have three colossal hangovers, no memory, no cash, no egos and lots of embarassment all nicely wrapped up in the stupidity of youth with maybe a little vomit on the side.