pigeon

safety dance? huh? never mind

“And you can act real rude and totally removed, and I can act like an imbecile”

I was in the basement with the industrial-grade fluorescent lights and the chess-board floor, plunking away on the piano as usual. My stepbrother, BD, about whom I haven’t said much here yet, who sometimes lived with us and sometimes not, depending on what cycle of tumult his life was in at the time, wandered in as I was playing a particular rhythmic riff on an octave, bouncing back and forth like a pong sound effect.

“Safety Dance?” BD asked me.

It was; that was what I was emulating, having heard the song on the radio, or the video on MTV and getting it stuck in my mind. But no — I couldn’t just be a normal person doing something so common as to try to emulate a popular song. I was too artsy and brooding for that. So I pretended not to know what he was talking about. “Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Why did he not push the issue? Did he think I really didn’t know what I was doing? Or did he just not want to deal with my weird kid bullshit? Short attention span, nothing to do with me? Was I the only one overthinking it? Probably — do you ever wonder if the other people featured in your unaccountable vivid memories also remember the same moments, with you as the other person? My brother once told me that the people you dream about are almost 100% guaranteed to dream about you sometimes too. It’s just statistics! he insisted. Are pigeons the same way?

The half-concealed bit is that I was disappointed. The moment had flown by and I sensed I had missed an opportunity for a little bit of connection. Obvious Epiphany #234985: being cool and aloof makes you lonely, one micro-avoidance at a time. But it was too late. Maybe a time-travel version of me could have gone back and said, Yeah, it was The Safety Dance! Goofy song, right? Haha! But that version of me couldn't — was too committed to the bit. The role I for some reason thought I had to inhabit.

Anyway, I just now played the “official” video and I didn’t hear that octave bit anywhere in it. Now that’s weird. Is it possible it never really was The Safety Dance, and all these years I just thought it was because BD said that? It’s always a little disorienting to find out the source of one of your most unwavering facts was just as completely fallible as you or anyone else. Maybe there’s an extended version or a dance remix or something? To be honest, I always also remembered it as being a Devo song, but I have no idea which one.

I’m going to try to find out for about maybe 5 or 10 minutes, and if I don’t find it, I’m gonna give up and let it lurk unmolested in the foggy forest of forgotten history.

YESSSS!!! It’s the extended club mix! Order is restored to the pigeomatic universe.

That’s all I got tonight, y’all. I’m tired. Just remember: “guilty pleasure” is a dumb conceit. Like what you like. Play whatever dumb shit you want on the piano. Harold and Maude said so too. Damn, that was a good movie.