Walks, Talks & Dances Like An American

Our second day in Dublin left Robyn and I to check out the National Museum of Ireland and wander more of the city's streets. By late afternoon, we were understandably dragging. And the previous day's sunny skies had turned to grey, drizzling rain and only helping along our growing fatigue.

We did not have a place to stay for that night because our flight was leaving at 6:30am the next morning. Being self-described adventurous, more importantly on a budget and disinclined to search out an open hostel, we decided to find something to occupy our attention late into the evening--or slum it for a few hours at the airport. Fortunately, the luck of the Irish smiled in our favour and the latter was how we spent the remainder of our time in Dublin.

The Porterhouse: a pub that was warm, dry and serving food. Paradise. It was the eve of Thanksgiving for us, and knowing we would not have eachother, let alone family, to celebrate the next day's Canadian holiday, we decided to celebrate at the Porterhouse. Turkey dinner became pizza and homemade pumpkin pie was replaced with a brownie and ice cream.

A live set, the Glen Baker Band, was playing what turned out to be covers of numerous popular North American hits: everything from Jack Johnson to Neil Diamond. Their energy was a welcome contribution to the Porterhouse atmosphere, and the exhausted morale of myself and Robyn. The dance floor was busy most of the night, occupied primarily by a certain group of people.

My first impression of this handful of individuals that walked into the Porterhouse was that they were different. And when I notice that something is different over here, it usually means I am noticing something that is actually very familiar to me--example being, the squawk of Canadian geese.

This group was different: the guys were wearing ball caps and outfitted in jeans and t-shirts. And the girls were loud. In fact, the whole group was loud. I noticed their overall demeanour was more agressive than I have typically experienced in the UK, as well as Ireland.

I turned to Robyn to point them out, saying "I don't think they're Irish--they're too obnoxious."

This group continuted to grab my attention for different reasons: camera flashes, yelling at eachother, yelling at the band, throwing things, dropping things...and then there it was:

Hollister emblazoned down a shirt sleeve.
South Beach across the front of another.
And the New England Patriot's logo branding the cap of a visor, worn backwards.
Of course. It was all beginning to make sense.

They were American.

They had struck me as different--or familiar-- since the moment they walked into the Porterhouse. And their antics throughout the night, including one liquored American girl staggering into the men's washroom and their terrible dance displays of dance. How undeniably, embarassingly, familiarly American.

One Irish patron even approached our table and said to Tom, a Dubliner we had met the night before and who had joined us at the Porterhouse:

"How many Americans can you pick out of the crowd?"
And so they did spend the next five minutes picking Americans out of the crowd--bringing to mind the phrase: Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Robyn and I helped be demonstrating some obvious Americanisms, a convenient example being the way they danced because it is so similar to the way Canadians dance. I have not felt the red crush of embarassment so strongly as I did that night: watching the spastically goofy dance moves of fellow North Americans.

Yeah, they do that.
And that too.
ooh ...yeah, that one is popular..unfortunately.

At one point I stood up to impersonate a popular North American dance move. It is predominantly a move executed by the guys, and was immortalized in the pop-culture motion picture blockbuster of the late 90s, "Night at the Roxbury":

1. while standing, raise your arms above your head
2. with a bend in the knees, gyrate hips in back and forth motion
3. and at all times, remain irritably close to the person you will be molesting with this move

For anyone still needing clarification: see Ryan Kurzac at the Thirsty Dog.

Not two minutes after I had demonstrated what is possibly the epitome of corn-dog dance moves that typify the dance floors of North America, there it was.

Bombarding through the crowd on the dance floor was Joe America. In his backwards ball cap, brand name t-shirt and Timbaland boots, he landed nearly on top of poor, unsuspecting Dancing Girl and proceeded his own self-perfected version of the Roxbury Rumba.

Oh, wait. She must be American because as the assualt continued she broke into peels of laughter, slowly collapsing under the weight of her All-American boytoy. Unfortunately, sometimes we develop acceptance for those things we cannot change--like the forever hopelessly cheesy dance moves performed night after night on dance floors across North America.