Watch me do a Happy Dance

I am a happy boy.

I am also a total nerd/dorkasaurus, but you know that about me already, don't you?

This afternoon I met Matt. As in the number-one, original recipe, Dancing Man Matt. I'm sure I've shown or at least talked about this super freak guy to many of you before (I even have a link to his blog below), but for those of you new to His Awesomness, this is a guy who traveled around the world, took video of him dancing in front of Machu Picchu, elephants and Antartica, then spliced it all into a video and became internet famous for it. Then Stride gum company decided to sponsor him and sent him on another around the world trip, and he made another and even better video, and now, after a year of dancing on David Letterman and the Today show, is travelling around the world making yet a third video. I hate him so much that I must be in love.

But this time, instead of just dancing alone, he has been inviting people to dance with him. This is where David and I come into the picture, as his personal back up dancers. To be fair it wasn't just us, there were about 40 or so people that showed up. We met outside Union Station to sign up (and get free Stride gum!). There is a documentarian following Matt around, as well as a couple of reporters who were interviewing him and some of the other dancers. And there were some interesting fellow dancers. David wanted nothing to do with the reporters, but I said "Relax, we are way too boring for them to bother with", and I was totally right. One guy with crazy grey hair wore a big homemade Cat-In-The-Hat hat, and they loved talking to him. I heard him going on about how "Matt trancends the oneness that is all of us, reminding us that war is bad", and on and on and on. Another kid was rhapsodizing about all the things Matt represents, how he pulls cultures together and reminds us that we are all in this together. And hey, if he does all those things for you, then awesome. Personally, I get the feeling he is just a guy who likes to travel and dance and make fun videos, and I have a lot of fun watching them. But I'm just a simple guy with simple pleasures. At least the other dancers gave some interesting footage for the documentarian to use.

For my part, I was very excited/nervous about meeting Matt. I've been following his blog for over a year, and he talks about how awkward it can be meeting fans, and I didn't want to be annoying, so I got right to the point.

Me: "Hi, you're the Dancing Man! You totally rock!!"
Dancing Man Matt (who Totally Rocks): "Well you totally rock too!"

There were a bunch of people behind us to sign up, so, happy with his generous compliment, we moved along and bided our time. Bode our time? Whatever.

After they had everyone (old, young, nerds, jocks, quasi goth, parents, children, the whole spectrum), we walked over to this big fountain, behind which you could see the Capitol Building, and shot a couple of different videos there. It was really funny when we did a practice take the first time, and when Matt started dancing to get us in "the zone" we couldn't help it and broke into applause. lol He does the same dorky dance, which is basically his trademark at this point, and it was totally sweet to see live. When we took the video there was one lady tapping, and a couple of Europeans who seemed to be raving, but most of us just took Matt's lead and danced as badly as we could. All, of course, to the music in our minds. Then we walked a mile or so down the National Mall and took another video with the Washington Monument behind us, just so he would have some options come editing time. We were all dorks, and it was just a lot of silly fun.

After the dancing was done and my time had been well-boded, he was taking pictures with people and we asked him if we could get some video of me dancing with him, and he agreed! I was very impressed at how good a sport he was about everything, being the center of attention of a bunch of crazy nerds must be exhausting. I can't believe how many people asked him for a photo, and then once he was posing took like five minutes to figure out how to use their own cameras, but he never complained or hesitated. Or when we were walking to the different places and people would be like "Matt, so we could walk up this street three blocks and then over to to the Mall, and if the Mall is blocked off with fences I know this great spot..." and he would listen patiently and say "We scouted ahead this morning and know exactly where we want to go." Or one girl who out of nowhere yelled, "Matt! How about your next video could be naked dancing!" And he just smiled and said "Uh, Ok." At least the girl had enough sense after that to say "Now he's thinking, who invited that girl??"

I also learned a bit of gossip. He was in Africa and met up with Matt Lauer, who, by the way, I've heard is extremely charming and attractive in person, and this comes from Kathy Griffin herself, who I go to for all of my celebrity gossip as I'm sure she would never-ever lie, anyway Dancing-Man-Matt met him and Today-Show-Matt totally was embarassed to dance, and it took Al Roker to shame Today-Show-Matt into it. Now that sounds like good television.


Anyway, so I got a bit of footage of Matt and I dancing badly in front of the Capitol Building, which makes me forever happy. I'm trying to decide if this means I have to make another dancing video just so I can use it. But in any case the three of us got a photo. The new video has a tentative release date of June 21st of next year, so you are going to have to wait before I try and tell you where to look to see us (but you see from the photo we tried to dress colorfully). And of course there is also the possibility that he gets way better footage in Moscow and Zimbabwe and doesn't use our clip at all, but we'll all just have to wait and see.

I even took the day off from work to do this.

Happy, happy dork.