Top Ten Things I Look Like when Tap Dancing

10. Recent graduate of Al Gore School of Looseness and Flexibility (bottom third of class)

9. The Incredible Dancing Anvil

8. Radio Controlled Human (controller held by monkey)

7. A guy hypnotized to obey all instructions from a mean but internally arguing committee

6. A sad man who has Tourette's Syndrome from the knees down

5. Jumpin' Extremely Weary Jehosaphat

4. Length of pipe standing on end; pregnant

3. Spasm, the Steel-Toed Sloth

2. Godzilla at a hoedown

And the Number One Thing I think I look like when tap dancing...

1. The Anti-Bojangles

Fear of Dancing (Deluxe Executive Edition)

while Annette and I were in Vancouver, British Columbia, celebrating our wedding anniversary, Annette said she wanted to find a night club with good music and just dance the night away. In the past, that would have been my cue for depression: you have to give your girl whatever she wants on your anniversary, even if she asks to do something you hate. But after several weeks of dancing in front of a mirror with lots of other beginners, I now think I can handle it. It even sounds like fun.

So that's why a cab drops us off in front of The Roxy on Halloween. Crowds of costumed club-goers jam the streets, awash in neon lights from the hot spots, restaurants, and theaters. After I pay the driver in unfamiliar twoonies, the cab pulls away, leaving us in a happy mob composed of zombie brides, vampires, sexy kittens, fairies, witches, and even a guy who is a box of facial tissue. His torso is enclosed in a box. One giant white tissue stands out of the box, just like in real life except that his face is poking out of it. Large friendly letters on the box say, "Blow me!"

Because it's only 9:30, the rope line outside the Roxy is short. Bouncers in full military camo, including face paint, check our I.D., then let us follow Nefertiti and Pharaoh into the dark. Inside, a live band is just striking its first chords as I pay the cover charge. A large video wall proclaims they are The Surreal McCoys. Partiers have already filled the place, and we have difficulty finding two seats. Eventually, we get established to one side of the stage, right next to the bar, and I can check the place out.

Halloween has taken over the Roxy. Colored lights flash in all directions, highlighting cobwebs and chains of lit jack-o-lanterns. A mirror ball spins in the ceiling, and the band glitters under strobes that alternate with colored lights. The crowd shifts and I get my first good look at the band, who have chosen a religious theme for their costumes. The bass player looks like a priest in black, with a Roman collar. The girl singer wears a nun's outfit, but cut shorter than any nun would ever wear it. A Hassidic rabbi with a resplendent fake beard plays keyboards and fronts the band, while on lead guitar, wailing away, the Pope somehow manages to keep his miter on. A pillar blocks my view of the drummer, but he moves while thrashing and eventually I discern that he's Jesus. Metaphorically, I suppose it's fitting that he sets the tempo.

The Surreal McCoys take fiendish glee in their blasphemous get-up. Red lights bathe the stage as they sing "Highway to Hell." They move on to "Like a Prayer," and as a special duet between the nun and the priest, "I Touch Myself." Excepting the one time I saw Spinal Tap live, this is the loudest band I have ever heard, so loud that I can't actually hear any detail. They're really tight. I think.

Heavy foot traffic at the bar behind us, and the fact that no one is accustomed to their costume, treats us to an endless stream of unintentional scratchings by wings, pokings with pitchforks, and people backing into us while getting out of the way of a pimp or a thunder god. After each song begins, I gesture to the dance floor, to show Annette my willingness to dance. Uncharacteristically, she keeps shaking her head no.

Gradually I realize, the crowded dance floor looks as if a hyperactive child decided to play with all his toys at once, in a shoebox. Frankenstein stumbles into an Indian chief while trying not to get jabbed by a demon's wing. One guy dressed up as a floor lamp has to continually replace his jostled lamp shade. Everyone out there is bumping into everyone else. It doesn’t look like much fun.

And the crowd has grown. If we get up to dance, we'll instantly lose our seats. Meanwhile, a girl on my left simultaneously ignores me while leaning on me as if we were born from the same litter. The legal drinking age in Canada is 19. This young crowd really doesn't know how to handle its liquor.

After a few songs, the band gets even louder. The bass vibrates the place so hard, our weak rum-and-cokes begin dancing across the counter. Annette gives me a Marital Telepathy look, and we leave. No hard feelings; it's a quality club, it just isn't for us. When we push our way back into the night air, I realize what a psychic bombardment the loud music dished out (although, through sheer will power, I prevented the bass guitar from turning my spinal fluids evil). I'm relieved to get my ears out of there. Plus, I get credit for offering to dance, without having to actually dance! I'm feeling pretty good about life.

"Now what?" Annette asks.

"There's plenty of clubs around," I say. "Let's try another."

As we push our way down the street, a P. J. Harvey concert lets out, with hundreds of people pouring onto the street. Metro buses and school buses are dropping off more costumed revelers. Suddenly Vancouver is as densely populated as Times Square on New Year's Eve. Annette takes my hand and I turn sideways to weave through the throng, trying to push through in a way that allows for Annette to take high-heel tiny strides.

We struggle to the ice-blue neon of the Skybar. The bouncers wear tuxes and there's an expensive masquerade ball inside. We're underdressed. We pass. We walk for blocks, playing Three Bears with the clubs. This club's too low-brow. This club's too crowded. This club's too expensive. Which club is Just Right?

Eventually we walk our way out of the crowded part of town. We find ourselves passing a five-star hotel, The Fairmont, with doormen in formal uniforms opening the car doors of arriving guests. "Let's look in here!" I tell Annette. "They're bound to have something going on for Halloween."

Inside, we cross a marble floor under a glowing chandelier and find they have a lounge called 900 West. We can hear a live jazz quartet finishing "Route 66" and beginning "Straighten Up and Fly Right." Tasty. When we get to the lounge entrance, though, I feel intimidated. This is one classy joint. All the tables have overstuffed Masterpiece Theater wingback chairs. The thick carpet and the chairs feature classic Victorian flower-and-vine patterns. The subdued lighting glows discreetly from behind classical sculptures. All the patrons wear suits and ties, or gowns, while Annette and I are wearing jeans. It looks like every table is spoken for. But when a table near the back clears out, Annette and I sidle in and take it.

I look around. Asians at the table next to us wear refined clothes that shout "wealth." At other tables, the median age appears to be 65. I feel like I snuck from the kids' table to the grown-ups' table and it's just a matter of time until someone notices and sends me back.

But when the server arrives, she's friendly. I ask her if they have any single-malt Scotch older than twelve years, and she pushes an entire menu toward me. Holy cow, they have so many high-end Scotches, the menu categorizes them by what part of Scotland they come from! Suddenly I am very happy to be here. I order Dalmore 15 and Annette orders a gin martini, knowing that a tony lounge like this will definitely get it right. We order the fromagerie, an assortment of cheeses hand-selected by the chef.

Over the next half hour, Annette gets happier and happier. The combo, lead from a grand piano by a black gentleman in a leprechaun-green suit, dishes up all the songs Annette's parents listened to in her childhood. Alcoholism filled her house with drama and conflict, but during the rare peaceful times, her dad played Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, and Fats Domino -- songs which, by association, have awesome Feel Good power for her. The volume and mix is perfect. Our server brings us some free munchies, so now I know they won't kick us out. I feel very distinguished with my single-malt Scotch, and I extravagantly order a 25-year-old. No one is jostling us. I got away with not dancing. This moment, glowing in soft light, is dee-luxe.

I hear happy cries from the front of the lounge. A few well-dressed, white-haired folks enter. Half the place seems to know them. One white-haired guy, in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, unaccountably carries several empty martini glasses, dangling them upside-down from his fingers. He looks like a cross between Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Thurston Howell III's wealthier father. Everyone wants to greet him, slap him on the shoulder, squeeze his arm, and peck the cheek of his wife, who wears an off-the-shoulder gown with a gilded wrap. We speculate that maybe a company has had a retreat here and just found out he lead them to a very good quarter.

Meanwhile, the band gives the low-key treatment to some gospel tunes. The white-and-Asian patrons, largely unresponsive until now, gradually start clapping to the beat of "Amen," and even singing along. Thurston Howell II, white hair and all, raises his arms higher and breaks into a funky little slough-foot shuffle. He dances his way from the far end of the bar to the table on our left, deposits his empty glasses, and pulls a young woman to her feet. They start dancing that box-step thing that some people know, where once in awhile the woman spins around. I don't know how to do that. I took a lesson once and left half-way through in embarrassment. But this old conservative-looking guy totally cuts the rug. We immediately wonder how he spent his youth, because this is one funky Chairman of the Board.

The band leader finishes the gospel set and moves smoothly into some proto- rock and roll: "Blueberry Hill," "Rock Around the Clock." Another few couples get up and do versions of ballroom dancing modified to fit the music. This all strikes me as very funny. I've never seen The Man try to get down. It's as if the stuffy society people in Three Stooges and Groucho Marx films got all the joke lines. Compared to the raucous night clubs, or the screamo music my kids favor, this "rocking" is very gentle. But the smiles of delight are every bit real.

"C'mon, let's dance!" Annette says.

A thrill of terror shoots through me. No fair! I thought the threat of dancing had passed for the evening! And in these posh surroundings? With these ritzy people who are barely letting us stay? I don't know any ballroom stuff. I'll look like a barbarian.

I mumble something about we can't, we'll block people's view. The answer sounds phony even to me. I am doubly aghast: at the fact that I was blindsided by this, and at the fact that there are still places where dancing in public terrifies me. I thought I was over it because I was willing to dance at the Roxy. But in this setting, redolent of rules and exclusivity and power... aw, man....

It is still just a few oddballs dancing, with most people sitting. I start rooting for inertia to overcome motion. But 900 West has a missing wall where it opens onto the hotel lobby. Out of nowhere, four couples dressed as if they materialized from the 1930s or 40s start swing dancing, taking up the whole lobby with cool Lindy Hop moves.

Now almost everyone in the lounge is getting up to dance. The atmosphere has changed from restrained sophistication to all-out happiness. The band looks amused and puzzled, as if they've never seen white folks do this before. Finally I give in to Annette's wish. I sigh and say "Okay." She says, "I knew even you couldn't hold out forever," and we stand up and dance. Well, she does; I awkwardly step from one foot to the other with no idea what to do. The swanky lounge now has a dancing bear.

One of the older men, longneck beer in hand, dances to a stop right in front of us and cheers, "Let's see your moves! Show us what ya got!"

I couldn't be more mortified. The only thing that could be worse is if they trained a spotlight on me and announced my name. "I got nothin'!" I respond. He looks disappointed, and dances off. I assume he's thinking, Kids today got no spunk.

After I watch him go, I turn my attention back to Annette and see that, as her hips groove back and forth, she is wearing the most beatific smile imaginable. I have rarely seen her more serenely happy. My eyes eat up that smile. It speaks entire sermons to me: it reminds me (and my exaggerated worries about how I'm coming off) that no one is watching. And if they were, they could certainly never match the critical harshness I level at myself. The smile says, maybe if you just dance, you'll get over yourself and have fun like me. When someone is that happy, anyone who tries to stop them is automatically wrong. So, good husband that I am, I give in. Hesitantly at first, then with increasing abandon, I enjoy myself. Annette and I and the bluebloods dance into the morning, until the band wears out.

Every geek knows that, according to Frank Herbert in Dune, "Fear is the little death." And geek or not, everyone knows the best way to defeat a fear is to do exactly what you're afraid of. In my case, that meant dancing in Thurston Howell II's parlor. I highly recommend it. Sometimes when you think Thurston and Lovey will have the help throw you out, instead, everybody joins the dance. ##

Fear of Dancing

last Tuesday when I landed on my left foot and something said twang, it meant it. I limped the next day, and the day after, and even a third day. At times during the week my leg felt numb in the knee and ankle joints. The sensation came and went but by the following Tuesday, I had to admit with heavy heart that I couldn't tap dance. I stayed home and missed my sixth lesson, a victim of foul Lord Hop.

It gave me time to think, though. I was wondering what it is about dancing that scares some of us so much. Most of the guys I know manifest a deep dread of the dance floor. It's not particular to my generation, either; I have male friends in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties, all of whom start pulling at their collar like Rodney Dangerfield if the threat of dancing in public looms.

In fact, a few years back the company Christmas party was held in a hotel ballroom featuring a large dance floor. My two closest co-workers eyed the dance floor all through the meal as if it might conceal trap doors, pop-up laser turrets, and hidden shocktrodes. What they were really thinking was, After dinner my wife is going to make me dance. This threat hung tangibly over the table for much of the meal. Sure enough, we each wound up dancing with our wives. But not until we got a few drinks in us. Why does it require several cups of courage to do something as simple and joyful as moving to a beat?

That particular night, once I got out there on the floor, I could spot at least two guys who danced worse than me, so I relaxed. And with a buxom dancer for a wife, I can feel confident no one is looking at me. So I tried to be a good sport and let Annette have a good time. But when we finally returned to our table for a break, my buddy hissed indignantly, "You've been dancing for six songs!" From this, I learned that the wives were grading on the curve and I was ruining it for the other guys, who hoped "two songs" would be a passing grade.

Another friend at work, Corey, is a dedicated video gamer. Corey admitted to me that he tried (and enjoyed) Dance Dance Revolution in the privacy of his own basement, but only after drawing all the curtains and closing all the doors. I asked him the other day what scared him about dancing. He answered, "I never like to be seen doing things I can't do well. I'm the type that, if I were going to take dance lessons, I'd practice in my basement beforehand so I'd already be good when I got to the lesson."

That probably sums it up for most guys. There are lots of reasons why we fear dance, but the Prime Reason is, None of us want to be made fun of. Maybe the issue is that simple. (Well, not to Corey; he also said, "It's boring! It's repetitive! When I dance with my wife, after two or three songs I feel, There, that was fun but I'm done now. But once they start dancing, women never want to stop!" I'm unqualified to discuss this topic, since I have been known to dance for six songs. My co-workers inform me that this makes me a woman.)

I have another reason why public dancing makes me uncomfortable. I introduce this reason with a joke that is funny only in the "you had to be there" sense:

Q: Why do Baptists forbid having sexual intercourse while standing?
A: It might lead to dancing.

I grew up in an evangelical Baptist church. You have heard about evangelicals lately. They're the activists who live in the red states, and re-elected Bush as part of a faith-based initiative to drive Democrats to suicide.

You might be wondering, What do evangelicals teach in those churches of theirs? My answer: nobody knows. Oh sure, every denomination has an official doctrine it endorses and systematically teaches. But at any given church, what the head pastor believes will usually vary from the official denominational stance by at least a little, and maybe by a lot. Next, each person in the congregation sees God through a complex personal filter made of family tradition, culture, superstition, psychoses, past experiences, errata (for example, thinking that "God helps those who help themselves" is in the Bible) and perhaps, just to add zip, genuine revelation. Each one of them adds their individual spin to the pastor's individual spin. The collision of all these ideals synthesizes into some Organic Whole. That whole is what the local congregation actually promotes. Whether they like it or not.

This Organic Whole is hard for any individual to shape. It stands in defiance of authority, and often stands in defiance of reason. It might use the pulpit pastor as a mouthpiece, but it also might use a Type A personality who started a home Bible study on the side and invites only the members he thinks are spiritually cool. An uneducated Sunday School teacher might invent a doctrine on the spot while teaching a room full of second-graders, thus adding to the Organic Whole. The Organic Whole can result in a church giving up in disgust on the denomination that founded them. So what will you learn when you attend your local church? It depends on who you listen to while you're there.

I don't think the Baptist church I grew up in officially opposed dancing. I can't remember a single sermon or Sunday School class on the topic. But somehow I learned from the Organic Whole that dancing was to be avoided. And finally one night, someone who was possibly operating on their own hook came right out with it. I am not making up the following.

I was at Hume Lake Christian Camp in the summer before entering tenth grade. Hume Lake gathers together several church youth groups at a time, and our first night there, hundreds of us teenagers watched the short film they showed us. Using pseudo-scientific vocabulary and a stentorian voice-over, the film explained how amplified bass guitar sets up sound waves that resonate in a distinctive way with your spinal fluid. These vibrations of your spinal fluid affect your nerve endings and inhibitions in a way that make you (…wait for it…) evil.

Yes, the voice-over actually used the word "evil" while showing us a freeze-frame of a dancing teen girl. Her hair was flying and her expression looked pained. My friend Jack and I snickered when the announcer said it, and laughed ourselves sick all week as it became our favorite inside joke. We injected it into every conversation. "Sorry, my spinal fluid was making me evil, could you repeat what you just said?"

Hume Lake had religious services every morning and evening, and our church sent us there for an entire week. The house band played folk and bluegrass, which by implication was Not Evil. But they had an electric bass guitar. I thought Jack was the height of wit and daring when he showed the electric bass to the camp director and, in deadpan sincerity, asked, "I play a little bass and I want to stay out of trouble. Could you show me which of the notes are evil?"

But the camp director had the last laugh. Convinced the question meant he was getting through to today's young people, he involved Jack in an excruciatingly dull theological conversation for 30 minutes, with Jack trying to get away for 25 of them.

So. Dancing and rock music were evil. Buck the system, and dull guys in ties would turn their mind-numbing powers on you. They won every argument by the simple expedient of exhausting any teen who contradicted them. The tongue is mightier than the attention span.

When you grow up in a culture that discourages dancing, does not model it, and expresses itself through music that has no beat, by the time you're old enough to dance whenever you damn well feel like it … it's too late. You don't know how! This has contributed to my fear of dancing, even until now. [Note to hair-splitters: if you're thinking, "Technically, hymns have a beat," fine, you try dancing to "How Great Thou Art" or "The Old Rugged Cross." I'll watch.]

At age 19, I was a shipping clerk at a Christian television station run by one of those religious TV couples with improbable hairstyles. The CEO's elderly mother struck up a conversation with me, sweetly asking my name, what I did at the station, and so on. When she learned I was married, she asked what my wife did. I said, "She's a dance instructor." Her face collapsed in sorrow. "Oh," she sympathized, "So she's not a Christian?"

Apparently dancing is the criteria God will judge us each by. When we die, we form two lines as we await His judgment. Signs overhead will label one line "Boogeying" and the other "Non-Boogeying." If you're thinking, well, to play it safe I'll just stand in the non-boogeying line, think again. You'll be standing next to the Hume Lake camp director and the guy who did the film voice-over. I'm going to get in the other line with King David, who "danced before the Lord with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). I can't wait to see what happens when I slip him a pair of tap shoes.

Until that day, I kinda wish bass guitar did make me evil. Then I could dance without a shadow of guilt. ##