Oddly enough, Mike marvels at the goofy Halloween Line Dance I made up called the "Monster Mash". I will tell the story in more detail later on, but briefly, at the 1992 Halloween Party, Mike showed up early for that night's H-Party.  When he entered our biggest room, he gasped when he saw 100 people busy learning the Monster Mash.  After the class was over, Mike was curious if I had charged money for this event.  I grinned and said sure, I had charged each person ten bucks.

Mike turned white!  He was stunned. You see, Mike tries to make money the old-fashioned way. He tries to earn it.  Gimmickry is against his nature.  That explains why Mike couldn't believe grown men and women would pay $10 a person to a charlatan like me to learn how to dance like a spastic.  Pay money to dance badly?  Mike could show people how to do that for free!   His exact words were something like, "You mean you can get people to pay $10 to learn how to look bad at dancing?"

Mike still believes my Monster Mash is the most amazing scam of my career.  I know that deep down Mike is trying to pay me a back-handed compliment, but mostly he delights in finding new ways to insult me.

Like Tom Easley, Mike possesses a unique sense of humor. These two men have opposite styles.  Tom picks on himself a lot, but Mike picks on everyone else. In particular, he likes to needle me. If Tom is Rodney Dangerfield, then Mike is Don Rickles.  He torments everybody!

In particular Mike likes to tease his girlfriends.  For example, Mike claims that any time he wants his girlfriend to go home, all he has to do is turn the stations on his TV until he finds a basketball game. He praises the dawn of cable.  No matter what time of year, he can always find a basketball game.  According to him you can count the minutes till the women leave on one hand. I honestly believe Mike would have no social life if he wasn't a dancer.

Mike has some interesting views on global warming.  He believes the Earth should be defoliated and paved with streets and parking lots. He thinks we would all get where we are going a lot faster plus we wouldn't go anywhere since every place would look the same. He believes this would help traffic congestion immensely.

Mike has always felt sorry for my daughter Samantha because there is a chance she might turn out to be stupid like me. Fortunately, he reminds me she can always teach dance for a living.  Back in 1994 when Sam was 3 years old, Mike was nice enough to teach her many new words. Mike and I like to watch Basketball together. During the Rockets-Knicks World Championship Playoff series back in 1994, Mike and I watched every game glued to edge of our seats.  Mike gets excited sometimes and like to say things to express his feelings.  

Sam couldn't have cared less about basketball (I think Mike's theory re women hating B-Ball is probably correct), but she enjoyed our company. Sam would usually find a corner of the room and go to sleep while we were watching.  But obviously she stayed awake long enough to increase her vocabulary.  One night when Mike and I were watching the game, Samantha climbed into my lap and asked, "Daddy, is that scumbag Patrick Ewing playing tonight ?"

When Sam's mother heard that, she nearly threw Mike out of the house!

I have already pointed out that Mike possessed excellent dance ability. He loved the music and loved the dancing. He picked up material quickly. Not only did Mike have good leads, he had one particular strength that lady Whip dancers love: he had perfect timing! 

Mike should have been the Man in Demand, but oddly enough a lot of women did not want to dance with him.  Have you ever seen anyone Moonwalk a Whip Basic? 

That's right - Mike would throw in these bizarre Break Dance motions without any warning.  The women would either be freaked out or embarrassed in some way.  Mike was just too weird for their tastes!

Fortunately there a few women with a sense of humor so Mike wasn't entirely lacking for dance partners.  As he improved, Mike was asked to enter some low-key Whip contests. Every Sunday at a dive called the Four Palms, there was Whip dancing to a live band called the "Soul Brothers". The joint was off of Telephone Road. It actually had a sign on the door that said, "Check your guns and knives at the door" (compare that to SSQQ's "please turn off your cell phone"). The Four Palms had a low-key "sign up and enter" Whip contest every week. One night on the spur of the moment Mike decided he would give it a try.

Well, Mike did fine by his standards, but in the eyes of the old-timers he didn't do very well at all. As usual, Mike preferred to dance the Whip his way. This included anything from his background from Break Dancing: head rolls, jerks, twitches, body waves, Robotic arm movements. The get-down-and-dirty old timers had to look away in horror and disdain.

Mike continued to develop his dancing. Mike found a new partner named Debbie Anglin who meshed a little better with his style. Debbie toned Mike down a little, but had the sense to copy a few of his pet moves as well.  Not only was Debbie smart enough to match wits and insults with Mike, she was a pretty darn good dancer herself.  Debbie was the best dance partner Mike could have possibly found. 

MIKEY AND ME

This story is of course about Mike, but I might as well admit I am a bit of a rebel too.  How else could we have become such good friends?  We did some pretty goofy things together.  For example, back in the Eighties we liked to dance together.  I would dance the 'follow' and Mike would dance 'lead'. 

I can't honestly say I was poetry in motion, but I enjoyed the compliments I received for dancing a credible 'follow' at this difficult dance.  Although we did it strictly for laughs, I found the experience very helpful in understanding how to follow.  The experience of 'following' actually made me a better teacher.

We probably danced together once or twice a month.  As I improved at dancing the girl's part, Mike and I developed quite an act.  We thoroughly enjoyed shocking people at our studio parties.  When we danced the Whip together, I would occasionally pretend to be sexy and move my hips.  Mike would of course play along.  The new people would gape in horror.  They had heard the rumors about 'dance teachers' and their worst fears were being confirmed.  Fortunately when they saw the old-timers laughing and screaming, they realized it was all in fun.  We really did make complete fools of ourselves.  Fortunately, I think I own all the copies of pictures where we danced together.  Thank goodness for that.

One night in 1987, Mike and I had the unusual experience of getting thrown out of Cooter's, a local hot spot.  On Tuesday Nights, SSQQ used to head over to a club on Richmond named Cooter's for Whip practice after class. One night a couple people dared us to dance the Whip at Cooter's. There weren't any signs posted, but I knew we were crossing a line.  Nevertheless Mike and I decided to give it a try. We attracted quite a crowd. People thought we were a riot including many who were not with SSQQ at all.  Practically the entire club came over to watch.  Curious, the Bouncer came over to see what was going on. He was not amused.  Maybe he was envious of how cute we looked together.  Without a great deal of discussion he gave us an unceremonious heave-ho. If I remember, he got our attention and just pointed to the door. About 20 of our friends left in protest laughing hysterically. The people who stayed clapped for us on the way out.  This remains the only time in my life I was ever thrown out of a club. Mike gets me into more trouble!

You know that old saying about 'don't criticize till you've walked in someone else's shoes'?   Two weeks later Mike and I were fooling around dancing the Whip together at the Halloween Party. Suddenly I realized I can't dance with Mike anymore!  Something didn't feel right.  All these people were laughing at us, but I felt lost.  Something Mike was doing felt weird.  That is when I made the big mistake of looking at his feet. There he was doing the Charleston again.  I was too rattled to keep my feet going, so I had to ask him to stop and start over.  I was so rattled! 

Another one bites the dust.  

The crowd roared.  They loved watching me screw up more than anything else I did.  Well, they got their money's worth that night.  I was destroyed. 

October and November are favorite times for the State Whip contests.  Just a couple weeks after the Halloween Party, I was dancing next to Mike during intermission at the State Whip contest when I heard some familiar words.  Mike was dancing with some woman who had just had a panic attack.  "What are you doing; I can't watch your feet!"  I looked at the woman more closely.  Oh my gosh, that when I realized Mike was dancing with a lady from Dallas who was a two-time State Whip champion!

Even someone with her vast experience had managed to lose her concentration.  A lady Whip dancer losing her Basic is like a Priest forgetting the Lord's Prayer.  That should give you an idea how weird Mike is to dance with.  But what can I say?  I have little doubt if Mike danced with the Priest, the Priest would mess up too.  Mike has that kind of effect on people.
 

Despite all the teasing, there was once a moment in time when Mike was in total awe of me.  Mike still has a hard time accepting the night when I managed to swindle my students out of a thousand dollars.  He could not believe I actually had the nerve to charge people big bucks for the privilege of learning how to look terrible when they dance.  Nor could he believe all the people who willingly forked over the dough!  Did I give them some funny Kool Aid?   Did I hypnotize them?  

Mike was baffled.  And Mike doesn't like being baffled.  I think Mike was a little offended that someone as dumb as me could pull off a scam this good. 

How did I do it!!? As smart as Mike is, this incident perplexed him.  He has never been able to figure out how I pulled this off.  In fact, it still bugs him to this day.  When Mike and I sit down to watch some Rockets Basketball, the conversation invariably returns to this strange incident at some point. 

Shortly after we started, Mike Fagan came to the studio early to help us set up for the party.  He was already suspicious.  Mike wondered why the parking lot was so full of cars.  Those people had to be somewhere!  Eventually Mike wandered into Room 1. He stopped at the door and watched in amazement as 100 students practiced the precise footwork of the Monster Mash such as the Monster Stomp, the Igor Shuffle, and the Frankenstein Twist. 

It was all Mike could do to restrain himself.  For one thing, the students looked pretty silly dancing the Monster Mash. But it was harder to hold back the belly laugh when he noticed how seriously the students were taking the instruction. They were living and breathing on my every word.  One man asked me how far to turn his toe in on the Frankenstein Twist.  From the corner of my eye, I thought Mike would rupture. 

But at break time Mike discovered I had made $1,000 for teaching the Crash Course. He hadn't realized I charged MONEY to learn this dance. Now he nearly went into shock. His mouth fell open in astonishment. His eyes became glassy. Those were the days when he was a lowly, under-paid junior faculty member.  Based on the pay scale of the Eighties, $1,000 was nearly two weeks of work for Mike.  He was fit to be tied!   

What Mike didn't know was that the huge numbers were a one-time aberration.  Mostly it was just curiosity and the chance to get in the mood early. I am sure if most of them had a clue how goofy the dance was, the numbers would have been non-existent.

And to be honest, I was pretty surprised myself at the number of people who came. I hadn't expected to have anywhere near this many people show up, but Mike Fagan had no way of knowing this. I fooled him into thinking I got 100 people on a regular basis. 

One more thing - we haven't charged people to learn the Monster Mash in years. I started teaching all the Line Dances for free during the week before the party long ago. But I have never told this to Mike.  I let him continue to believe I make $1,000 every year for teaching the Monster Mash.

Do me a favor - Let's leave it that way. Please don't tell him. It is the only thing Mike respects me for.