Dwayne Perkins from Comedy Central & NBC's Funny Blog. Amusing Musings

Dance circles are a phenomenon of the highest order.  Like: a single person singing that  somehow turns into a full blown sing along,  people running when they hear gunshots, or strangers stopping to look at a guy on the ledge of a high rise building. Whether they’re saying “jump!” or “don’t jump” it’s still an organic unplanned gathering of people with a single focus.

A while back I had the pleasure of being the catalyst for the most rare form of dance circle.  The “something from nothing”  dance circle that forms instantly when people in the room weren’t even dancing. I had a co-conspirator in this endeavor.  Although neither of us really conspired to have a party breakout around us.  I was in Portland at the Bridgetown Comedy festival.  All the shows were done for the evening and all the strange people who do stand-up and the even stranger people who follow us around were standing around talking and drinking.  Music was playing but it was being treated like white noise.  One of my good friends and biggest dance rival, Baron Vaughn happened to be there.  Baron is the only comic I can very begrudgingly say can dance as good as me.  The last statement really hurt but I think it suggests growth.  Anyway, Baron and I were not dancing.  When in Portland…

Then a really good song came on.  Baron, who’s also Black, and I locked eyes.  It seemed the dance off we’ve been threatening to have for the last few years was about to really go down.  We started pop locking and within 10 seconds a massive circle had formed around us.  I think I know what it’s like when a revolution breaks out or a riot or anything else that was bubbling under the surface but just needed an inciting incident.  Baron and I doing our best “re-run” dance sparked a movement.

I think Baron and I shared another unspoken agreement.  We both became a little uncertain about the implications of two of the only black guys at the festival being in the middle of a dance circle surrounded by hipsters.   Not sure of the implications, we agreed, without words, that the dance off would have to wait.  With a wave of his hand Baron invited the others to enter the circle.  What had been no dancing was suddenly, within half a song, a room with everyone dancing. A full blown party.  Baron and I, our work being done, actually dipped out of the party shortly after with the party now in full swing.  I didn’t need to see the party through.  I knew it would jump for the rest of the night.  Bridgetown,  you’re welcome.

Flash mobs, while impressive, are planned.  They’re not a simultaneous action agreed upon by many people without a word being spoken.   Wedding receptions don’t count either by the way.  A dance circle at a reception is obligatory at this point.  It’s basically planned but everyone acts like it just happened.  Kind of like Justin Bieber’s meteoric rise.  Phenomenon’s don’t have marketing plans.  All Baron and I had was Electric Boogaloo and a dream.

Some other blog entries about Dancing:

Dances for Wolves

Ain’t No Party Like a Dubai Party…

Icing Like Tyson

So I was cleaning my place.  Trying to reduce and clear space by reorganizing and throwing things away.   What really happens in the aforementioned scenario is I move a bunch of stuff from one place to another while getting nostalgic about things I forgot I had and of course determine that I absolutely need.  Don’t worry, I don’t qualify for an episode of Hoarders.  I don’t think.

I came across my cassette tapes.  I still have a small boom box that plays cassettes so I can justify keeping the cassettes.  No hoarders for me.  Sure, I can find most of the songs on amazon or youtube but the tapes hold another memory that can not be duplicated.  Maybe converted to digital but not recreated.

Back before people tried going viral on youtube they would sometimes record themselves singing and cracking jokes.  It wasn’t something you thought would land you on the Today show.  No, it was enjoyment for enjoyment’s sake and the target audience was you and yours.  Anyone remember recording on cassette tapes?  I found one that had a young me and my even younger siblings and cousin on it.  This was even before their voices had changed.  We sang popular songs into a portable radio then played it back to the last place we left off.  That’s it.  Entertainment has evolved.  Or has our imagination devolved? The happiness and fun that we were having is still clear after all this time. Even if the analog recording isn’t.  Quality family time and we didn’t have to go back and count how many views we had.

Now we think everything that is even remotely interesting to us should be shared with the world.   I can see the irony in that last statement given I’m writing this blog about something remotely interesting.  But at least I know it and I didn’t recruit the help of a cute cat or an adorable baby to get my point across.

Check this Blog on when parenting gets overrun by documenting

Video Killed The Parenting Star:

Also, my family has thrown our video into the ring for viral consideration.  This is a video of me surprising my mother in nyc with a visit from Los Angeles. It currently has 7 views.    It’s sweeping the nation.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr-5QEMm-lY&feature=plcp

I recently wrote a blog about how my 1st computer wasn’t on the Internet. That’s unimaginable now.  Like how before refrigeration people had blocks of ice delivered to their homes.  There use to be an ice delivery guy!  I’m sure in every town the ice guy had an ice related nick name:  Iceberg Irving, Chill Bill,  Drew Breeze, Frigid Phil, Brain Freeze McGee…  People probably danced in the street when “The Ice Guy” pulled up with a truck full of cold. Kids raced behind the truck screaming “The Iceman Cometh…”

Times change.  Things cooled off for the Ice men.  And computers became connected.  Now, even your local hard drive seems at risk to go the way of the ice man.  Space is so abundant and connections so fast that the new model threatening to become the norm is all your data being stored on a remote server.  This scares the bejesus out of me.  Before you think me an alarmist consider the marketing strategy used to implement these servers.

The powers that be have decided to call them clouds.  The Cloud.  Not,  a massive server in a room somewhere in Wisconsin.  No people need to think of their storage as being magically stored in the sky.  What else is in the sky?  God.  A server sounds practical and business minded.  The Cloud, sounds like some benevolent being in the sky who’s kind enough to store all your pictures and music.  Now we all know that Cloud is a euphemism for server but will our kids know this?  It seems very big brothery to me.  To call a computer anything other than a computer is a mistake and the 1st step in making man subservient to computers.

See, people would be weary of putting personal data on a server somewhere in Oregon but The Cloud, you can trust.  The cloud would never use your data in a sinister manner.   I’m pro technology but unchecked technology is the beginning of every science fiction novel for a reason.   Science fiction writers thought the ubiquitous eye in the sky would come from a totalitarian government.  It might come from the private sector with the public’s approval.  We may willingly march our way to an Orwellian World.

I’m not saying don’t use the cloud.  I’m saying back your data up on your own hard-drive and call it a server for crying out loud.  Leave the clouds for staring at on warm summer days.  “Hey that one looks like a server!”

I ate a habanera and then tried to do an interview.  It went a little something, like this:

http://youtu.be/Eq230aQqGnw

I’m sitting on a plane to London with my Ipad in airplane mode and it occurred to me that back when I got my first computer, it was always in airplane mode.  The world was my oyster, as long as the pearl I needed was on my tiny hard drive.  I was just a stand alone node, a planet unaware of the larger universe and how I fit into it. This was back when PC really meant personal computer.

It’s amazing how convenient and life changing I thought a stand alone computer was.     Now, I consider a computer not on the internet to be a small step up from a calculator.  Back then, I had some games, a generic word processing and a spreadsheet app back when they were called programs.  I would type in programs from a book and make a balloon scroll across the screen.  I was doing it! Back then I thought I was cooking with gas but I really had a tiny twig flame going.  The Chariots of Fire moments gave way to the rise of connectivity.

A nod to all the people like me who were enamored with computers even before they fulfilled their promise.  I could be more fire and brimstone about the implications of all this connectivity: loss of privacy, loss of real life interaction, carpel tunnel, easily accessible depravity.

I suppose all this was written in the stars just as the next wave of computing is inevitable. So when blogs are automatically RSS fed into your eyelids just remember that you can’t stop progress but you can still have choice.  The right to choose how to treat yourself and others and the write to scroll your eyelids until you reach something worth reading.  Like, my blog for instance.  The mode of delivery isn’t as important as the spirit of consumption. Consume wisely.

Past blogs on Technology:

There was the the I used my smart phone in the 99 Cents Store

And, we’ll always have the time my computer decided to take forever…literally

And who could forget the elderly woman who decided to finally join the computing movement.

There is a small percentage of my associates who would tell you that I’m always on time.  A very small percentage.  The fact that there are any is a small miracle and a testament to how much I’ve improved on punctuality.  Still even when I’m on time it’s usually the result of a lead foot, a few ran yellows and a sprint from my car.

PERSON I’M MEETING: You’re all sweaty.

ME: Yeah, it’s hot out there huh?

PERSON I’M MEETING: It’s 60 degrees.*

ME: I know.  It’s a real scorcher.  The important thing is we’re both here…on time.

Living in LA where 5 minutes late is considered on time really helps.  I find that if I leave with just enough time and try to make it up en route, some nonsense will happen to make me a little late.  Similarly, if I leave hella early with a lifetime to spare, just enough nonsense will happen to make me arrive just on time.  It’s usually smooth sailing if I leave with a reasonable amount of time to spare.   I think it’s God’s way of telling me to “cut it out.”  Don’t be an ass and leave with no time to spare but also don’t be the other kind of ass who leaves an hour before they need to when they’re going 15 minutes away.

So the other day I found myself trying to turn a 25 minute drive into a 20 minute drive.  Not impossible but not easy in the City of Angels and gridlock.  It was midday and I caught a nice low traffic patch.  I was coasting my way to being on time and I didn’t even have to cut off a suburban family of 6 in a white suburban.  Then came the oddest case of the aforementioned “nonsense”.   A cop car passed me and put on his lights.  Was he really going to sweat me for going 5 miles per hour over the limit? (well 5 mph over the limit when he passed me.)  Then the cop car began to drive in an upside down “S” pattern going across all three lanes.  I thought this odd but I kept close waiting for my chance to make a lowercase ‘l‘ pass his S.  It wasn’t to be.  He waved me off and signaled for me to slow down.  A line of cars soon formed behind him on the highway.  It looked like a bunch Nascar drivers, who had all lost their sponsorships, following the pace car.

We held a good quarter mile behind the cop car.  This was completely wrecking my dreams of being on time even though I left late.  Then I could see the cop had slowed traffic to help a lost cat.  I think it was a cat.  Hard to tell from where I was.  It could’ve been a large ferret or an adolescent aardvark.   Touché God.  I clearly didn’t deserve to be on time but a ferret on the highway, God?  Oh it wasn’t a ferret?

The cop gingerly drove next to the nondescript animal trying to guide it off the road.  I guess he didn’t have his anti-rabies kit so picking it up wasn’t an option.  Is there no aardvark setting on a taser?  Sorry animal lovers but a random animal on the highway is usually roadkill.  I’m sure tasing it would be acceptable to keep a city of 6 million running smoothly.  Plus, How do we know the ferret wasn’t trying to commit suicide.  Maybe the cat had nothing to live for and thought what better place to blow through all nine lives than a highway.

The feline suicide intervention caused me to be what I already was, late.  Add depressed cat to the list of reasons to leave on time.

*60 degrees is of course in Fahrenheit.  For my metric readers that’s about 15.5 degrees Celsius.  (The joke was that it actually wasn’t hot.