Little Dancing Men

It's been windy here recently. Windy enough that yesterday, as I was carrying a huge stack of booklets I'd just picked up from the copy store, the receipt was ripped off the top of the boxes and sent tumbling across a very busy street. Normally, I would just let it go. Yes, blatant littering is one of the things that makes me want to jam sticks in people's eyes, but I was standing in the middle of said busy street at the time (jaywalking in a pause between an onslaught of cars) and carrying a 30 pound box. But the copies were pricey and I need the receipt for reimbursement. I dashed back into the copy store and plopped the box on the counter, hurriedly babbling about the receipt, and dashed back outside and across the street where I could see the paper fluttering near the gutter. Only, as soon as I crossed, the paper wasn't there any more. I was about to panic, when a very nice woman at the nearby bus stop walked over and handed me my receipt, covered in tire marks. "It looked like this was important, so I grabbed it for you!" she said. People in Denver are nice. Maybe people in New York are nice, too, but I don't think any of them would be standing around in one place long enough help in this sort of situation.

I've been watching the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance. Don't jude me! Besides Twin Peaks night, its the only television I have to look forward to all week now. And you know I have to look forward to something. Last week there was a contestant who was overweight, and they kept using him as a teaser in the commercial breaks like, "Get ready for some hilarity!" So the guy goes on and he's...fine. Like, he's nothing spectacular or anything, but he doesn't embarrass himself. In fact, he's rather graceful for how large he is. The dancers in the audience also seem surprised and give him a loud round of applause, which totally pissed off Nigel. He stops them and says to the contestant, "That's condescending. You know they're only cheering for you because you're fat. You know that right?" The guy nods, somewhat tearfully. Nigel just keeps going on about how the guy isn't a good dancer and it makes him mad that people would react that way because they are just making fun of him because he's so fat.

It was terrible! I mean, I understand what he is getting at, but why be so blatantly mean? Not judge mean, personally mean. Plus, I don't think it's entirely true. I think people clapped because they expected the contestant to be a joke. They saw his size and thought he would be really bad. But when he was a little graceful and actually did some nice leaps and stuff, their expectations were blown and that excited them. Sure, it had to do with his size, but they wouldn't have applauded like that if he had merely been predictably shitty. It made me furious. When this guy came out, I noticed Nigel didn't say, "You know they're only cheering because you're wearing a gold mask and doing a made up dance, right? It's insulting is what it is." No, he put him though to the choreography stage. (Which, to be fair, was really funny.)

This week, there was a tiny man with scoliosis, and everyone LOVED him. He did a dance like a little windup robot and the way the judges reacted, you would have thought they'd never seen those silver spray painted statue people in Times Square. He was novel, but of course didn't pass through to the Vegas stage. But when he came out for judging, Shane told him he was working on a movie and wanted him to be in it and said there was a 95% chance that he could get the guy in the movie with a featured dancing part. Wha? Did this guy just win the entire competition? Because I'm pretty sure a starring dancing part in a Hollywood movie is about the highest level you can achieve as a dancer. I mean what's Benji doing? Accompanying his sister to auditions? Man. I'd take the movie deal and then sit back with my pina colada watching all those suckers who did make it through. And then I'd be all, "Man, sorry you got 4th place, but it's all cool at least we have movie deals, right? Oh, yeah I guess that's just me. Honestly, I haven't even been watching the show because I've been busy with the movie I'm in. That they're paying me for. As a dancer."