Analog by Night

I’m sorry if your generation doesn’t have anybody like Carlton Banks. Before mine there was Maynard Krebs, whom I get a little bit, and Carol Burnett, whom I get, and before that Jack Benny, whom I LOVE (of late.)

But my generation had Carlton Banks, among others. Except that I was just a tad too old for him, and wasn’t really into it then, but looking back it’s kinda funny. I mean, other kids were watching a lot of Fresh Prince, but I wasn’t. The problem was Will Smith. I had been into RUN DMC LONG before Will Smith and so his attempt to cash in on his goofy-ass rap style, with a cappuccino sitcom was embarrassing.

I was watching Different Strokes, and Jeopardy, Cheers, Mash, Three’s Company. See media in KY is almost always about 5-10 years behind. I watched Three’s Company a lot. Perhaps my relationships with women can be summarized nicely by Three’s Company. Take that where you want.

Here’s the thing. I saw this clip of Carlton Banks today (the one linked to above) and thought, “Oh yeah I remember that; vaguely, and it’s funny.” Does that make it part of me? Can I claim that? I don’t think so. I mean I’d love to, I’d love to be able to say how hilarious it was then and how I tried to do the dance, but I didn’t.  

The closest I ever came to ridiculous dances is the surely one of the greater humiliations in my history. I will take it out of the box for you.

I guess my sister saw me laughing at Martin Short’s character Ed Grimley one day and loved it, or laughed at it.  Of course I must have been about 10, and was probably working kinda hard, or harder than usual, to win some local approval, so I did the dance.

Sorry about that last link, it was the first one I found that actually had the dance in it.  

I guess it became pretty popular with locals, so somehow my family and I agreed that I should be Ed Grimley for my first middle school dance. It was a halloween themed dance and I needed a costume.

So I got there and realized that, because I was dressed up like an ironically goofy character, fucking nobody got it.

“Spencer you look like a nerd. Are you a nerd?”

“No. It’s Ed Grimley! You know, ‘don’t be mental’?”

“Who? What?”

“Ed Grim- ugh. Yes, I’m a nerd…”

At least I wasn’t The Raisin. My friend RP dressed up like a California Raisin and crapped himself. Like thirty minutes into the whole thing, guy gets the trots or something, and can’t get the costume off. Of course nobody is able to help him out of it and, well, he crapped himself.  I just remember him coming up to me, preceded by that smell, and him telling me what happened.

Here I was with my pants hiked up to my tits, suspenders over a green and black checked flannel shirt, with my heavily jelled hair, pulled up into a HIGH point at the front of my hairline. White socks and penny loafers. But fuck, that poor guy was trapped in a bad of shit painted like a character from a commercial for the California Raisin Advisory Board for most of the night. His pain easily dwarfed mine.

 If I can find the picture of me as Ed Grimley I will post it. Yes, I still know the dance. No, I will not do it for you. I also do not know what happened to RP. All I can say is that I hope he is getting laid 5 days a week.