Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

I spent the weekend in sunny Luddington, Michigan, at the wedding of my dear friend Michelle and her new husband Rob. (You’ll remember Michelle as the gal who is responsible for your favorite blog’s name. Without her, you’d probably be reading my second name choice, timmysblogismorepowerfulthangalactusthelivingtribunalandthemadtitanthanoscombined.net.) It was a delightful weekend. Since I’m not really great at expressing mushy feelings of gratitude and joy, I’ll let it suffice to say that I have them and will instead give you my thoughts on some of the extraneous, though still noteworthy, elements of the trip.

# Firstly, the beer. As soon I showed up, I tried an IPA brewed by the Jamesport Brewing Company, which operates a great brewpub in downtown Luddington. It was very tasty! Although probably not so tasty that I can remember its charms four days later. So oh well?

What I DO remember is the beer on tap at the wedding: Oberon, a summer beer produced by Bell’s Brewery down in Kalamazoo. This stuff was great: a little heftier than your usual wheat beer, with a slight orange taste at the front of your mouth, a little bit of spice in the back, and a sunshiney essence in every sip. I can’t stop raving about this stuff. (I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that this excellent beer AND America’s Greatest Hero, Derek Jeter, hail from the same town. Just saying!) It’s distributed primarily in the Midwest, unfortunately, although Nick, the Official Philadelphia Correspondent of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun, reports that he’s seen a sixer of it at the store down the block from him. Lucky guy!

# On occasion since I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve presented you with a few great ideas in action. Here is perhaps the greatest one I’ve ever come across.

It was an outdoor wedding, so there was a fancy trailer hitched out back with a men’s room and a ladies’ room. Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun know I have the bladder of an infant, so it wasn’t long before I was in there, making use of the facilities. Once I was done, I go to reach for the flush, but there was no handle. Hmm? I look around, and I see that attached to the bottom of the toilet is a pedal. A foot-flush pedal. So I pressed it, the toilet flushed, and I was good to go.

The question is, why doesn’t every toilet in every public place have one of these!
The entire bathroom microbe safety system is predicated on two hopes: that people don’t whiz all over themselves, and that everyone washes their hands. This obviously isn’t too much to ask, but people routinely fail on either, or both, counts. What the foot pedal does is eliminate one of the major grossness vectors: if everyone is pressing with their feet, their hands are free to not be engrossened by a flushing handle. The handle on the door to the bathroom is still and issue, but you have to admit, eliminating any contact your hands have with any part of the toilet is a big plus! Let’s get these installed in every bar in town!

# Have you ever heard a song, but for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out the name? Maybe it’s on a commercial or in a movie, and you don’t have an opportunity to find out what the title is. I’ve had one for years. I remember seeing one of those TV-order oldies compilations one time that included it, but I never caught the title. Then I would hear it in some random movie, and it would bug the hell out of me. Infuriating.

I’m at my table, enjoying some appetizers, and the awesome country music band that Michelle’s folks found performed my song. I’m thrilled, obviously. Once they’re done, the singer asks “Does anyone know the name of that song?” And immediately, I hear someone say “‘Sleepwalk,’ by Santo and Johnny.” Yes! That’s it! Give it a listen, and you’ll immediately recognize it.

# I took some pictures, also, which I wanted to include in this post. Of the IPA I mentioned earlier. Of Lake Michigan (you can’t see the Wisconsin side from the Michigan side! It’s a lake!) Of a sign from a Tea Party Republican Congressional candidate. Of the Luddington High School wrestling team t-shirt I bought at a fundraiser. But Wordpress isn’t letting me put them in this post! Your loss!

Anyway, congratulations, Michelle and Rob, and thanks for a great weekend! (They’re two of my precious readers, so I know they’ll see this. That’s part of the bargain, guys: if you feed me steaks and beer, you’ll get a post about your wedding. I do what I can.)

This most recent crazy wedding dance video is simply fascinating to me, for reasons that I’ll explain thusly. (Sorry for only including a link; the jamokes who posted this vid have lamely disabled the embed function.)

1) First, the facts. For those of you who haven’t clicked on the link and watched, we’re talking about a video of a wedding ceremony in Minnesota, where the 80s-shaded wedding party all dance down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever.” The video was posted last week, and has proceeded to accrue ten and a half million views. People love this thing!

2) Second, the incredulous reaction. Ten and a half million views, for ANOTHER kooky dance-centric wedding video? Not to put

too fine a point

on things

but as a viral trope

the “quirky couple does an eccentric dance at their wedding” video

ranks somewhere between here and here. I understand that this latest installment puts a new twist on an old favorite (the dance took place during the ceremony! Not the reception! Innovation!), but the spirit is generally the same. As a society, are millions of us still able to be captivated by the same tired viral tricks? One of the benefits of the Internet, in this writer’s humble and myopic opinion, is its ability to deliver us fresh, original content (you know, like a magic show for a chimp). Has the wedding dance video become like, the procedural drama of viral video? The mindless, thought un-provoking pablum that we sit through because it’s familiar, simple, and comes to us at regular intervals? I think we can do better. (Like more chimps in human clothes!)

3) Getting your wedding party to perform a choreographed dance is alright. Would anyone else have been more impressed if this couple had decided to make a professional dance crew their wedding party? You know, turn it around a bit. Eff your friends, we want a good-looking dance. I might be the only person on the Intertubes thinking this. Fine!

4) I read a blog called Hipster Runoff. Carles, the weird and anonymous and I-hope-he’s-just-a-satirical-genius-because-the-alternative-is-terrifying writer of HRO had a fun post about this very video. Here’s a money quote:

Life is very hard for most white people, because they are ’so ordinary.’ Their expectations of ‘how things should feel’ are constructed by watching 80s, 90s, and 00s cinema. Mainly movies like bromances, romantic comedies, comedies, and miscellaneous ‘bad ass movies.’ They just need life to ’seem like a movie’ or something. Seems like average white people don’t understand the insignificance of who they are as ‘1 person’, and don’t accept that they are just part of a larger white mass. They fight against this feeling of ‘being ordinary’ by trying to construct meaningful moments that seem like they are ’straight out of a movie.’

Do with that what you will. Especially the quote marks.

5) Speaking of links, here’s a follow-up about the famous couple’s travails after the video became a runaway Youtube smash. Apparently, they were played like small-town rubes. Sad face. Also, feel free to click through for that rundown of wedding video celebrities.

6) The song in the clip is “Forever” by Chris Brown. If you’re like me, you probably said “Hey, this sounds familiar.” If you’re also like me, you don’t listen to the radio and aren’t really paying attention to the music in dance clubs, so you couldn’t possibly recognize the song from there. But if you’re like me, you watch a ton of TV, and you watched this video and were like, “Hey! It’s the gum commercial song!” These people danced down the aisle to the Doublemint jingle. Incredible.

7) Interesting choice of song to play a wedding for another reason. Lest you forgot, Chris Brown is the guy who did this, then this, and then this.

The whole thing is fascinating! Right?!