Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

2005-03-21 - 11:25 p.m.

I just found out this may still be done, so I thought I�d explain the secret origin of the �underwear dance� done to New Order�s �Bizarre Love Triangle� at CTY. I can�t believe it�s persisted this long and I don�t know whether I should take any pride in having co-created such a dorky ritual, but here goes:

In the summer of 1988, I was at the Center for Talented Youth nerd camp on the campus of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. One night early in the summer, my dorm was petulantly refusing to go to bed when our Resident Advisor called �lights out�. My best friend was blasting �Bizarre Love Triangle� and I insisted to our RA that he should dance with us cause there was a party going on! He was not amused and told us to stop bouncing around, get undressed, and go to bed (or some such). Hmm.

We decided to begin to get undressed by dropping trou but remained dancing. Thinking back, I can only imagine the horror our RA must have experienced. A hall full of annoying 14-year old boys dancing around in their boxer shorts. Eventually we got worn out or tired of being irritating or maybe the song just ended, and we went back to our rooms to bed.

Every weekend night at CTY, there�s an outdoor campus dance. Partially this serves as an outlet for repressed early adolescents to grind and cop feels, but partly it�s a formalized social ritual. Actually the format was becoming more formalized and solidified at that time, but certain songs were becoming part of a �canon� (which has presumably changed over time) that was played at every dance. �Bizarre Love Triangle� was such a song.

When it came on at that Friday�s dance, my dorm started cracking up in laughter and dropped our pants as we had a few nights before. In retrospect, our female friends we were dancing with could easily have been disgusted by the boys acting immature. But they were not and joined us in pants-less revelry. Don�t underestimate the appeal of removing clothing at that age.

The �underwear dance� was repeated on Saturday and the next weekend and the ones after that, quickly spreading to other people on campus. Apparently it spread to other CTY locations and was being done at least as late as 2001. It morphed and expanded to involve swinging one�s pants around the head. This eventually proved problematic in the wallet-chain era, as people were getting hurt by errant heavy chains. CTY administrators may have banned it, I don�t really know the details.

So that�s the origin. I certainly can�t like claim credit for something that thousands of kids contributed to over the years. My friend who was playing �Bizarre Love Triangle� is still very close, is now covered in tattoos, and works as a Wall Street lawyer. I�m lightly pierced, graduating college at 31, and can�t exactly dance anymore. But I suspect we�re both secretly still dorks who just want to bounce around in our underwear.

� 2005 Geoff Gladstone

previous - next

Sign My Guestbook!
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!