Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Dear Electric Slide Creator: Keep your stupid dance!

Have you seen this guy's myspace page? It's crazy. I'm not sure why so many buff men are his friends. ANYWAY - I'm a drummer so I have a good sense of rhythm...and I can dance. And I've been doing the electric slide for many, many years. But, I have never - NEVER seen the dance done as bad as this guy does it on his instructional myspace video.

If you can copyright the electric slide and enforce violations of that copyright, what's next? Copyrights on the robot, the jerk, the wop, the running man, the charlie brown, the snake, the wave, the cabbage patch...where would it end? Wedding ceremonies and family reunions would cease to exists the way we know them today!

Ok. I've given this craziness enough time.

And if they do any sort of line dancing, you'll see the electric slide, danced to that horrible, horrible song of the same name. (It's electric!...boogie woogie woogie....)

I remember them talking about buying friends on MySpace on an old BOL episode.

The year is 1989. The scene is a dive bar in Silver Spring, MD. There's a dance floor. There are a couple dozen people - all ages of men & women - in the joint. A buddy and I were there are the end of a long day of sight-seeing in DC. We're nursing frosty adult beverages.

A song comes on the jukebox. Every other customer, and I mean every other customer, in the bar - without a word being spoken or prompting of any other kind - stood at the first notes of the tune and walked to the dance floor. They formed organized lines and began synchronized moves.

We were freaked to point of wondering whether we were in the middle of a cult and we had stumbled upon their secret handshake, so to speak. We were too shaken to ask any questions.

It was many years later before I ever heard the song, Electric Boogie, again, but I recognized it immediately. Eventually someone was able to educate me about line dancing, and the Electric Slide, specifically.

I enjoyed telling that story for years from the perspective that I was once surrounded by a bunch of scary people. Now I enjoy telling the story about how ignorant I was. Good times, good times.

-Alan