Enjoy Taste

Taste Media is an advertising company in Orlando, Florida.  You may as well indulge and Enjoy Taste !

The Charleston

Let me tell you something, I’m from an age where you didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, ok?  Not only because it’s 2nd degree murder, but because that bathwater, in actuality, bathtub gin!  Yes, I’m talking about prohibition folks. Congressman Andrew J. Volstead’s little gift to us all.

During my bootlegging days, you could find me at the local speakeasy practicing, you guessed it, The Charleston.  Although the Charleston looks like the wild, drunken flailings of gussied-up white women, there is actually a method to the inebriated madness.

I studied the intricacies of the dance for many years.  I was able to do so because my day job was working nights running illegal liquor up and down the Mason-Dixon – tax free!  I kept an impeccable diary back then if you can believe it.  I guess the bootleg whiskey brought out the author in me.

Here are a few simple rules to respect while you perform ‘The Charleston’:

Rule Number 1:  Choose a stern face and hold it for several seconds.  I know this one sounds hard, but it is the basis of The Charleston.  It is not an option!

Rule Number 2:  Pick something in the distance and stare at it.  This will help you forget about your fear of throwing your back out.  You must appear completely disinterested in your current activity.

Rule Number 3:  Search out and pick a fight with an inanimate object.  It is important to understand the meaningfulness of this.  The point isn’t to make contact with the object, the point is to come as close to the object with ferocious kicks and limp, flapping arms without actually touching it.

Rule Number 4:  Drink as much alcohol as you can in the shortest amount of time.  This will, undoubtedly, make you a much more consistent and believable dancer.  At least while doing The Charleston.

Enjoy this short movie clip from Harlem in the 1930’s.  Use critical thinking to point out instances of the rules of The Charleston in this video.

(You may want to mute the audio.  It is distorted and mildly racially insensitive.)

Definition Of A Floor Flusher

Floor Flusher:  (n) 1920’s slang term for an insatiable dancer.

Long before restless leg syndrome was ever diagnosed there was a movie inspired by yours truly called “Footloose” starring Kevin Bacon.  Being more of an autobiography than a cinematic feature film, in the winter of 1984 it touched hearts all over this country.  I remember seeing it in New York City one cold and snowy weekend.  I kicked off my Sunday shoes and sat down to watch one of the greatest cinematic experiences of the 20th century.

Yes, it’s true.  The get-down gods have blessed me and I’ve had an illustrious career as a professional dancer.  I’ve been known to clear dance floors at both public and private parties, been known to cut a mean rug, been known to make elderly men gaze in awe and comment, “That was some kind of jitterbug!”

Standing at a towering 6′ 3″ and weighing in at 163 pounds the way I move when I dive deep into the rhythm of the drum makes the twenty-somethings exclaim, “He looks like a marionette caught in a wind tunnel.”

Yes folks, once upon a time that was me.  Unfortunately it’s time to hang up the old tap shoes.  I’m getting too old for all of those move-your-boogie-body breakbeat down-city dance-offs.  Here is where I shall reflect on a portion of my life that will always bring a grin and/or a grimace to the faces of the individuals who waltzed in and out of my life.

As much as I love dancing, I’d also like to dedicate this blog to the down home and obscure funk and soul jumpoffs that are genetically engineered to react with the human genome in such a way where individuals are blindsided by the boogie down bump-and-grind fever otherwise known as the wiggle worm.

Stay tuned for some how-to videos of some of my favorite spine defying club moves… coming soon!