Party Rock

Good friends can help to turn guilty pleasures into regular pleasures.

The first time that I came to this realization was when one friend told me that he practices his dance moves in front of a mirror at home. An interpretation of his explanation is: You gotta try out new stuff and make sure that you're not dancin' like a buster. Since that day, I've had no problem jamming on the one in front of the mirror to make sure that my moves are crisp when I bust out the robot at a club.

While attending a wedding this weekend, another friend reminded me that guilty pleasures are nothing to be ashamed about. This post is my thanks to him for reminding me that life is too short to not dance your face off when the latest one hit wonder comes on the radio.

First, let's talk about the guilty pleasure; while traveling in Europe, the latter part of the weekdays were spent in a hotel room doing work on the computer. Generally, I would turn the television on in order to have some background music and in France there is a channel that continuously loops over the top 20 songs on the radio. Among these songs is Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, and it is a true gem. I seriously cannot get enough of this fantastically terrible song, and the video perfectly compliments the song. Over the course of the trip, I estimate that I saw the video and heard the song at least 100 times. I often found myself bopping to it in my helmet, while some other perfectly good song was playing in my headphones.

Fast forward to the line at the open bar at a wedding in Greensboro, Georgia this weekend. The heat is sweltering, and my friend and I have both just watched our friends tie the knot. Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Moll have been married for no more than ten minutes, and my friend Chris and I are separately thinking about how we're going to blow the doors off the reception. The ensuing conversation goes like this:

Chris: "You know there's going to be some Party Rock tonight."
Me: "What? Wait... did I tell you about this?"
Chris: "Tell me about what?"
Me: "I love that song. I seriously can't get enough of it. Are you sure we didn't talk about this yesterday?"
Chris: "That song is my jam."
Me: "Did you already make the request to the DJ?"
Chris: "Not yet. But it's going to happen."

At that point, the gentleman in front of me had received his drink and it was my turn to order. With a smile on my face, I got my drink and proceeded to do the things that people do while waiting for the wedding dinner to start. This is relevant because it had given me enough time to forget the conversation and that my song was going to play. Now, I know what you're thinking: "If you love the song so much, how could you forget it? Your story is inconsistent. I'm done reading your wordy post." The simple answer is: "Gin martinis."

As the story goes, shortly after dinner, the DJ gets on stage and starts playing some music and all of a sudden I'm back in the game. I just bought some new Bostonian shoes, which are classy enough to wear to a wedding, but light enough to get ridiculous on the dance floor. I've been to more than a couple of weddings, so I know that the DJ usually plays the music that he wants to play and gets to the requests later. With that knowledge in mind, my Dance Alert Level is Yellow.

Now, the rest of what happens is a bit of a blur, not because of the gin martinis, but because of the ludicrous speed of the sequence of events. We're about two songs in to the DJ set, and I'm spewing some nonsense to someone about something, and all of a sudden I hear the beat to Party Rock Anthem drop. Dance Alert Level just went plaid. To say I was in a state of unpreparedness is completely understating the situation.

Things are moving in slow motion at this point. I look for Chris and we make eye contact and he nods to me and breaks left away from the dance floor instead of to the right towards it. I thought to myself, "What is going on? Does he really not like this song? Did he just say that because he somehow knew that it is my guilty pleasure?". I admit now that I hang my head in shame at not having recognized his actual intentions.

One of the bridesmaids had broken her foot and was in a wheelchair. Chris, being the genius that he is, grabs the crippled girl, rolls her out on the floor and proceeds to include her in the dance. Also, another bridesmaid came out on to the dance floor. Incidentally, this isn't the first time that I've danced with a girl in a wheelchair at a wedding.

For the next two minutes, the four of us are dance gods.

I had seen the Party Rock Anthem video so many times that I was fully prepared to re-enact it on the dance floor, which I did for a about 20 seconds. When I came up for air, I saw Chris and the two bridesmaids had formed a conga line, and I immediately jumped on the back of that train. Shortly after the conga line ended, the functional bridesmaid stepped off the floor, leaving Chris and I standing on either side of "Wheels" and Chris started that thing where you hold hands and send the wave from one person to the next. After a couple rounds of that, we went back to freestyle dancing, which was probably the best dancing by guests that occurred that night.

After the song ended, we got off the dance floor and I had trouble walking across it because the whole floor was absolutely annihilated. My friend Sara was shaking her head laughing at us because she was in shock from the spectacle that was our dancing. They had to bring out a new dance floor so that the rest of the people could enjoy the evening. In fact, we were escorted to the dance floor for the rest of the night to make sure that we didn't get too crazy again.

Looking back, it's clear that this incident is the perfect storm of my two guilty pleasures: practicing my dance moves at home in front of a mirror and Party Rock Anthem. Without my friends sharing with me the fact that they also enjoy these things, this awesome experience never would have happened.