GROOVE IS IN THE HEART

Do you remember the summer when you were a kid? It was the time when you got to finally see what you were missing out on all those hours you had been stuck in a classroom all day long doodling on book covers, binders, desks, chairs, etc. During my childhood summer time in Orange County I spent a lot of time at the water park Wild Rivers. You couldn't have spent ALL your time there so when I wasn't eating Airheads candy and sliding down plastic tubes I was sitting in front of the boob tube.

If you were a child of the 80's and even perhaps the late 70's then you probably remember having had a certain choice set of television programming every summer that went something like this: Classic Disney Cartoons, Loony Tunes, Inspector Gadget, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Heathcliff, The Facts of Life, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Quantum Leap, Wings, Saved By The Bell, MTV (music videos... they used to just play music videos all day long), and MTV's The Grind. I'll stop right here at The Grind because that is what it would do to your day.

The Grind would put your TV watching day to a grinding halt. I'm not sure what the order of viewing shows was but I do remember that when The Grind was on there was NOTHING else to watch and it was the most retarded, boring, piece of crap programming EVER. The concept for this show was: Get a bunch of attractive people in their 20's to dress in their best club clothes or swimsuits or a hybrid of the two and have them dance until they had sweat beading up all over themselves. What were we supposed to do with this show? Clear away the coffee table in the living room and challenge these people to a dance off? There was no point to this show from what I can remember.

From what I can recall it seemed as if the people on the show were mostly people trying to make it as dancers in New York or wherever The Grind was being hosted at the time. They all seemed to have their own choreographed moves that were out of ballet school more than out of Napoleon Dynamite's ass (I hate that movie but can appreciate dancing like a 6 year old high on pixie sticks). In any case the dancing was boring and to match, the music was worse. They usually played the hip hop and R&B "jams" of the time but to me the jams have hardly ever been that interesting. Sure, now I appreciate Groove is in the Heart and other such late 80's/early 90's dance hits in an ironic hipster type of way, but back then they made me want to go slam my head in a door.

Lets jump forward though to 2007. The ironic scene kid hipster days if you will. With this ever growing scene shifting towards an embracement of electronic beats, synths, smash em ups and remixes of popular rock songs it seems as if a show filled with kids dancing is once again called for. Only this time it shouldn't be filled with the "jams" of the time that so happen to correspond with whatever 10 music videos are playing on TRL. Instead this dance show could be a venue for the hipster kids to hear their favorite smash or remix of that indie band they love so much. Who doesn't want to see kids dressed as french freedom fighters dancing to Le Tigre every afternoon? I know I'd actually volunteer to go on TV dressed up in some brightly colored vintage clothing and dance like I'm in a WHAM! video to the latest LCD Soundsystem track. So yeah... bring back The Grind except throw the word Grind out the window because no one wants to see people rub their crotches on other people's crotches on TV anymore. The Grind is over peeps. It's gross and it's not dancing. Instead we'll call it whatever DJ Steve Aoki Kid Millionare comes up with because most likely he'll be the resident DJ on the show. Perhaps Dance Your Pants Off with DJ Kid Millionare will work.