Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto Part 1: Crew Cut

Let me start by saying, I was born to dance. Ever since I got my first pair of penny loafers, I have been thrivin’ and jivin’ on every surface I could lay my feet on. They were my second favorite shoes of my childhood, just after my L.A. Gear: L.A. Lights. Using state of the art technology, the L.A. Gear engineers fashioned an impact sensitive LED cartridge for the heel of the sneaker. My momma got me these shoes because she said I was a little “special” and she needed beacons to let other people know. I’m special and I get blinky shoes, sweet deal. I’m also pretty sure L.A. Lights are the kicks that Chris Columbus wore when he schooled Native Americans in an epic b-ball game to claim the New World. In fact as legend has it, they are forged from the tears of Michael Jordan and woven with mystical threads of MC Hammer’s parachute pants. That’s pretty tough competition.

Holy Crap, it’s like you’re walking on UFOs from the 90’s

“You gotta own the Light if you wanna own the Night”

How could this company go out of business?! This is marketing genius! My favorite part is when she sucks at basketball, and the guy knows his gonna get lucky. My second favorite part is the crappy high five at the end, but that doesn't matter because they are so in the moment.

Update: LA Lights now come in Stripper Flavor

Anyway, the penny loafers come in as a close second. Not only did they look awesome but they also had storage space for two shiny pennies aka bling. Sometimes when I wanted to look extra baller, I would put dimes in them…but that was only on special occasions. When I put on my lime green Donald Duck tee shirt (with matching shorts) and slipped on those loafers, you had better watch out because I wasn’t just dancing, I was dancing in style. Here’s a clip of me in my prime:

Note: My stage name was Nathaniel and my loafers were too gangsta to be shown on Nick Jr.

Fast forward a decade and a half

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So I’m walking around Hanoi with my crew looking to buy a pair of sandals, when we stumble upon a huge building with a large paved pavilion in front of it. There were kids playing soccer, elderly playing badminton, and a faint sound of music enveloping across the scene. After poking around a little, we discover the source of the music was a group of kids break dancing and popping atop the pavilion steps. Now only one thing has changed about my love for dancing: it is now matched with a dangerous taste for showing off. My nerves tickled as I perused the crowd; they were all youngish 14-18 years old, dressed in cool hip-hop attire. My sights were set on their popping leader, a small 14 year old boy dressed in all black…

Probability of embarrassing/hurting self: 80%

Probability that I will suck, but still have my dignity: 19.9%

Probability that I will look awesome and everyone will worship me: 0.1%

Situation Analysis: Sounds like my kind of odds. All systems go,

IT’S DANCE BATTLE TIME!

The music starts and a circle forms. The kid in black starts popping and roboting, and a small chuckle escapes my lips. No sweat.

Probability of just crying when it is my turn: 99.9999%

Probability that I look awesome: 0.0001% in the off chance that peeing my pants looks cool

Updated Analysis: Abort Mission! Abort Mission!

Initiate Operation Save Face!!

I stopped him in the middle of his run and asked how he did some move. I quickly acted like it was all a clear misunderstanding and that I merely wanted to learn the ways of the young master. After some laughs and pictures, I agreed to come the next day to hang out and learn the fundamentals. No one was the wiser, Operation Save Face complete.

The next day, I returned with my language officer codenamed: RoseBuddy. We walked straight to the area where we met the crew the day before, and sat down to watch a kid being videotaped. This kid was the real deal: he was older and more refined, his moves were clean and on beat, he was dressed crazy-funky-cool to accentuate his style, and he was pulling out tricks I have never seen before. He blew the kid in black out of the water. As I sat in awe of this new player, I noticed the crew we were hanging out with yesterday was breaking in the area right next to us. I ran over to greet them and then realized that new kid and old crew were completely separate to the point of rivalry. RoseBuddy and I literally set our stuff directly in the middle of both of them, while I ran back and forth. I asked the crew to show me how to do a break dancing freeze, then I would run to new kid to teach me how to do the snake, then I would run to RoseBuddy to debrief on what I learned. It was beyond awkward, as they began to ask ‘what are you doing over there?’ and ‘so, you like breaking better than popping?’, until they finally started to throw inappropriate hand gestures at each other.

Option A. Loyalty to the breaking/popping crew I met the day before to preserve whatever relationship I could have created in one day.

Option B. Ditching the old crew for the kid that was older, a better dancer, and more styling. Betray what semblance of friendship we had and hang out with the cool kid literally 10 feet away. It would be like flat out telling them that they're just not cool enough.

Option C. Continue to run back and forth until a Westside Story remix breaks out

Hell Yeah, I’m gonna pick the cool kid! Smell you later suckers, you’re old news now. Papa’s got a brand new crew. We finally move our stuff next to the new kid, and hide our faces from the disappointed eyes of the old crew. After some chatting we got invited to meet the rest of the crew the next night at Lenin Statue Park.

To be continued…

Here’s a bonus clip of Michael Jackson using the power of L.A. Gear to break street lights and impress children. Ok I’m done with Michael, I swear.