A Hoedown

Last night in the big white tent there went down a hoedown. Our pregaming for this hoedown consisted of dressing up in what we thought would be the most original and spirited costumes we could find - wife beaters and bandanas. And rolled up jeans. And in the case of an impassioned few, imitation stereotypical southern tattoos inscribed in permanent marker. Barefootdom was almost across the board, although one dude wore work boots and for this I made sure to give him daps. Anyway I and the little crew of floormates and such I have been associating with arrived a little late to the hoedown. What I discovered blew my fucking skull. There was a legit Appalachian band - banjos, fiddles, and an old woman playing the stand-up bass who I kinda wanted to party with. For the people who may know what I'm talking about, the frontman for this group who served as the Big Brother voice of the night dictating the dance moves bore a strong resemblance to that really chill conductor on the Hudson Line train... you know the one i'm talking about? The big santa-type fellow with the huge beard. The beard is definitely key. It definitely made the look of the band that much more authentic. Not that they needed to prove they were authentic - this wurn't no spice girls concert. 

So we get to the big tent and I see just lines of people going at it. And already I kinda feel like I'm a tool for dressing the way I was. I should have gone with the western shirt thing. A No Country/Brokeback combo if you will. Last night made me realize how much of a costume party college can be, especially on a small campus like this. When I come back from T-gives break I'm definitely bringing up some of my more third-party getups. Where else are you gonna wear that kind of stuff? Rice paddy hat? Check. Leather vest? You better believe it. I'm making a list.

I'm also getting sidetracked. I was just standing there to the side wanting so badly to square dance with someone but not being able to just grab somebody. This is also me right after coming from a sex/improv/comedy/educational show, so I was totally telling myself I need to be more confidant take more risks stop being a bitch eht setterah eht setterah. I was thankful when my FYC grabbed be and we just started getting sucked into the mob of people running through rows of people and do-see-doing and swinging your partner and just clapping and hopping around when you couldn't figure out what you were really supposed to do. 

The next big step in the evening was getting into an actual square. That means four couples. You can imagine the darting eyes and the nervous glances that had to be filtered out before everyone got settled. I actually found myself in a group of people I had never met, having been pretty much given the boot when i tried to poke my head through a couple of my floormates' shoulders. But this was good for me in the end. It's hard to describe the feeling of what a hoedown is. Well, actually an imitation hoedown. It was weird. There's obviously the realness of the band and the dance instructions being shouted out. But we're all a bunch of college freshmen in Vermont. I would say a good number of us went to prep schools. We don't know shit about real live hoedown culture. So it was kind of a satirical hoedown [It's weird that hoedown has an "e" in it. I checked it out on wikipedia and it is indeed the right spelling.]. But this is what I learned. This is also where I start ranting.

1) People are way too fucking guarded. So many people are afraid to just let go and be a part of something totally foreign to them. I'm definitely part of that group, but I'm trying to fight it every day. People need to commit to something and not just constantly remind themselves that this is a silly dance during orientation week. Because...

2) I don't know exactly why I'm doing the numbered list thing but to continue that ellipses above, it's because there is a whole different kind of fun to be had out there. We are so jaded and attached to our ideas of what a "good time" is that we reject things that are old-fashioned or unconventional. We're also obsessed with creating our own identity and shaping our own societal comfort zones, but why not look to the past a little once in awhile? They had fun back then, right? Because a hoedown is nostalgic by definition at this point. It's quirky and not something a young person of this generation (generally speaking) would actively choose to do for fun. But it IS and it CAN BE...

3) The music of a hoedown is also really interesting. It's just this simple pulsing bassline with these wholesome repeating riffs, but you can really get lost in it. It's really interesting to zone out to. 

4) Speaking of zoning out, I tried something that kind of relates to the whole guarded thing. While I was linking arms over shoulders with these three other people I had never met and just spinning around to the music, I let my eyes just glaze out. I tried to focus less. I tried to let my body just go with it. And it was a stark difference to the way I usually feel in life. And I don't really understand it very much at this point but as Toby said at casino night, I'm gonna chase that feeling.

5) OH. I was so fucking pissed at one point during this hoedown. The bearded frontman who was probably pushing 65-70 was shushing our bratty asses for a good seven minutes. I could not believe people weren't shutting up!! I felt so terribly. It's so fucking disrespectful to this man and his profession to just keep talking when he is just trying to do his job. And his job, in case you hadn't noticed, was to entertain YOU and to provide a good time for YOU. He's not doing this for his own good. I wanted to run on stage and give those motherfuckers a piece of my mind. Sure enough though, when beardy finally got the instructions out and the dance finished, the applause was tremendous. It was a different kind of applause. For a second, the people who had really been into it released all that energy and you could really feel that there was something awesome going on.

6) This hoedown got me thinking also about a word I so often use: "ridiculous." It's right in the fucking title of this blog. It's totally a defense mechanism though. It's designed so that when you say it, you feel like you're more grounded and centered than all the shit that's going on around you. You = stable and level-headed. Shit happening = craaaazy. Don't get me wrong though. Some things are actually ridiculous. And you could argue that a bunch of college kids swinging arms under a tent with lights around the edge is kind of ridiculous. But sometimes I just want to say fuck ridiculous. I should just go with it. Live in the mooooooment.

Maybe I should go to a rave sometime.