Of Mice and Men

Aaron and I have been hanging out together a lot lately – two weeks ago we ate an insane amount of meat at one of those Brazilian places before facing off in four games of bowling (advantage: Ryan), while tonight we went for sushi (note for next time: bring colored markers) and followed that with mini-golf and skeeball championships (advantage: Aaron).

Last Friday we made an outing to Santa Monica for a crappy Italian dinner and (surprisingly) no competitions. Anyone who has visited Santa Monica has probably been to the Third Street Promenade, which is a pedestrian-only street with tons of shops and a bunch of street performers who range in talent from singers to dancers to a disturbingly hairy bagpipe player. While I ended up giving a buck to two guys tap-dancing to hip-hop music, Aaron’s attention was drawn by a large group of folks watching a guy break-dancing. It took a while to work our way through the crowd to where we could see, but once there I recognized the guy from a night in Hollywood a while back.

“Forget about this guy” was my advice. “He’s just gonna talk about this amazing move, get everyone to clear a path, and then run backwards.”

And on cue the guy started motioning everyone to clear a path, and in a voice that carried across the Promenade the announcement came that we were a privileged crowd that was about to witness an original move, something completely amazing, and something that we would never forget: the Spaceship.

“DUDE, we’ve got to see the Spaceship.” This from Aaron.

And so it unfolded. People waited anxiously. We were told that this was a move that was straight from the streets, that it was something no one had seen before, and most importantly that we should donate generously to the talent that was about to perform the Spaceship. As a hat was passed the crowd grew, with more people gathering to see what was going on. After a couple of minutes the crowd was three or four deep, stretching for about fity yards.

And then it happened – it was time for the Spaceship. He yelled out “Are you ready?!?!”, and apparently unimpressed with the level of enthusiasm repeated his challenge. The crowd was ready, and he was ready to perform. He waved his arms. He jumped up and down. He trotted out to one end of the massive crowd, and told people to stay clear, for their own safety.

And then he ran backwards.

Someone who knows something about dancing might have seen something special; Aaron said it was cool, and I honestly can’t tell if he was kidding or not. But to me, a guy who had done some pretty cool moves earlier finished his routine by covering fifty yards of pavement backwards. And it was called the Spaceship, and he loved the Spaceship, and he loved the fact that he could perform the Spaceship. So even though I didn’t get what was going on, I was glad I saw it. It gave me something to write about in the journal, and some day when we’re much older Aaron or I may re-read this, and we’ll remember the night that we saw the Spaceship performed, and it will be a good memory.