The year Michael Jackson saves Christmas at the prom

I've never seen a white guy dance like that.

I've never seen a white guy from Iowa dance like that.

I've never seen a white guy from Iowa who plays the banjo in a "psychobilly" band (The Mayflies) dance like that.

See the guy in photo, the short one on the left? Last night, he and his band played at Cranky Pat's (good food, live music = Erin loves it). I've blogged about the band before, and they're still OK.Talented, but not really my thing, but our friends were there doing sound, so we stayed. After the band stopped playing, though, our friend Tim put in The Essential Michael Jackson, and it was on.

On like the leather (pleather?) pants the short guy had on. On like the fuzzy slippers he had on. On like ... well, it was on. He was down on the ground, spinning on his shoulders, then up doing the moonwalk, then down again, to Michael's '80s golden era.

The whole thing was exactly like that scene in every teen movie that has a prom in it, where everyone's standing around, clapping while the underdog or the nerd dances in the middle of the circle, watching in awe that some (in this case, banjo-playing) guy can move like that, and suddenly your whole perception of life just changes, and you're like, "Aw, maybe that nerd isn't so nerdy, and there really is a Santa Claus!" and then you start dancing and a voiceover finishes the boring plotline and then zooms out and the credits roll.

It was exactly like that, without the tuxes and tacky decorations.

And it was all because of Michael, pre-creepy stage. Awesome. Only in Wisconsin (or Ohio, or the Midwest in general, I suppose) can you be so surprised by a moonwalking banjo player.

My friends can dance, too. I had no idea. Did I dance? Uh, I may be acclimated to Wisconsin, but it's going to be a while before anyone catches me dancing without having something to drink first.



(Photo: Band photo from The Mayflies' myspace.com page)
(MJ Photo: From some Web site where everything was written in Japanese. I'm sure it's totally legal.)