Justin Timberlake Memories

Tonight in a bar some Justin Timberlake song came on. I wish I could tell you the title, but I know it only as “that song that embarrasses the shit out of me.”

Back in 9th grade, 14 year old me took a dance class at school. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it on this blog. Anyway, I wish I could make my dear loyal readers proud (at last count there are three of you that I know of….but you never know who I might bump into next at some Shabbat dinner!); I wish I could tell you that I’m a great dancer.

And, wish fulfilled, I’m going to tell you that I am indeed a great dancer. A fantastic dancer.

In my room.

At home, by myself, I am the greatest dancer the world has ever seen. My moves range from the smooth to the silly to the obscene. The problem is that the second anyone else can see me, I can’t dance. I freeze up. I’m embarrassed to even tap my feet to the beat in public. People who might not know me as well would say that I don’t like dancing, based on how they see me freeze up in clubs or at dances. This is a lie. Secretly, deep down, I have to stop myself from jumping on tables and going all out when I hear music in public. Especially if it’s a Mika song. Maybe it’s because I’ve done lighting/stage managing for too many musicals, but I even find myself struggling to refrain from dancing to the PA music in seemingly innocent places, like on the bus or at a pizza parlor or at Aroma. Basically, I’m a closeted Breslover, except with a larger arsenal of dance moves involving my ass.

So anyway, I thought taking this dance class would teach me some basic stuff so that I wouldn’t totally freeze up when I’m around other people. I’d still probably never fulfill my (current) dream of breaking out into a song and dance number in the middle of the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but I figured that there was some kind of healthy compromise I could reach. I figured a Level One class would be filled with beginners, like me, who had never taken a class before and who knew nothing about dance.

Boy, was I an idiot. The people in that class…. Let me put it like this: it was like being in a Level One French class with only native Parisians.

“Beginning Dance” consisted of me, my two friends, and apparently the entire cast of the film “Center Stage.” And my two friends, those fucking traitors, turned out to be halfway decent.

I’ve blocked out most memories of that class from my head, but when I cringe in utter humiliation at the mere thought of being in a dance class as an awkward teenager, clear moments of extreme embarrassment come to the front of my mind. I remember doing an interpretive dance about the creation of the universe (complete with dialogue: “Expand…expand……revolve revolve revolve….wither….wither….wither……..apocalypse. The End.”) I remember doing an exercise with the entire class that involved leaping like graceful gazelle across the wild grasses of the Serengeti. Okay, that’s what it was supposed to look like, and somehow everyone else in the class actually managed to pull it off. I on the other hand managed to look like a polio-crippled elephant jumping up and down in frustration.

I also remember bar exercises that were nearly impossible for inflexible people like me, and I remember doing yoga…..which seemed to induce gas, because I remember letting out farts completely involuntarily every time the teacher walked by. If they were audible, sometimes I would turn and look at the teacher with a look of absolute disgust, hoping I could maybe confuse her into thinking that she was the one who had just ripped one.

But the worst part by far was the Justin Timberlake dance. This was what the teacher really focused on. A dance to a Justin Timberlake song. Needless to say, I was terrible at it. For one thing, I couldn’t remember all the steps—sure, remembering long passages of epic Roman poetry in its original Latin was a cinch for me, but the second you try to get my feet to remember anything besides how to walk…well, you’re in for trouble. And even when I could remember the steps, I couldn’t pull them off. A lot of the moves involved trying to look, for lack of a better word, “sexy.” You know, for example, you can’t just move your ass from Point A to Point B in a straight, efficient line, but rather you gotta put some attitude into it. Or something. Don’t ask me, I’ve never really understood this stuff.

Frankly, the mere thought of me trying to act sexy is appalling enough to turn even the straightest of men gay. As a favor to the general public (and to the one guy in the class…whose later switch to homosexuality I’m gonna go ahead and take personal credit for), I decided that the best thing I could do for the dance would be to do try to be as unsexy as possible. I tried imagining that I was dancing in a church. And also that I was a nun. I’m not sure which church would have played a Justin Timberlake song in the middle of services, but oh well. This is what got me through dance class.

So anyway, every time I hear that song, my head always goes back to 9th grade dance class. That song was the background to all those memories.

When it came on in the bar, I realized that the song would now also be the background to the memories of this night. This song is what I heard when I was interacting with people.

It made me start comparing the two experiences. Here’s Justin Timberlake singing as I stumble my way through dance class way back when. And here’s Justin Timberlake singing as I interact with people in a bar setting. Justin Timberlake and Me, the dancer. Justin Timberlake and Me, the person interacting with other humans.

I gotta say, of the two ……I’m a much better dancer.