I have not ranted about anything in a while. I don't know why; it just hasn't happened. However, it is wedding season, and I have been to quite a few recently, and I must vent my frustration at one incident that occurred at one such wedding.
I hate when people don't think. I know I do it at times, but it is much more frustrating when the lack of thought is a planned out idea. Case in point: I was recently at a wedding where two people of lesser intelect thought it wold be a good idea to bring on some "schtick." For those of you unfamilliar with this term, "schtick" in this case refers to thought out forms of entertainment usually meant to be humerous. In other words, it could be amazing and hilarious, or pathetic and disasterous. Case in point:
By this particular wedding, these two mental midgets thought of the terrific idea of dumping 50 gallon bag of styrophome peanuts on top of the choson and kallah.
Hilarious!
Amazing!
Why didn't I think of that? Probably because I have an IQ higher than that of a shuffleboard disc. I assume that this is what the choson and kallah thought as well, judging by their reactions of bewilderment during and following the incident.
However, the story does not end there. What do you think happened after those peanuts were dumped? Of course! The people who dumped them out went and got brooms and dustpans and proceded to clean up the mess they made. Then the Middle East Crisis was solved, the Clippers won the NBA title, and Elvis came and sang Ben Bag Bag.*
Of course none of these things are true, and in fact, it would have been more likely for any of those three things to happen before the two styro-jerks would think to clean up their mess. What actually happened was that I went out with a friend, found two brooms and a dustpan, and began cleaning up the mess.
I am not trying to make it seem like I am perfect. As many of you can probably guess, I had a great time trying to sweep up the mess from under the feet of the still-dancing group of people. It was made trickier by the fact that due to the peanuts on the floor, and thus a tremendous lack of friction, many dancers were subject to sliding accross the dance floor. This included one almost disasterous and hilarious incident of a colision between a boy and a cameraman-holding step-stool.
Evetually we gave up trying to sweep the mess up because people kept stepping into our pile, so we left it, and the mess was evetually swept up by the grounds crew who had to pause the wedding for a rain delay. The point is that these people did not think their schtick all the way through. In fact, they didn't think about it at all. It wasn't funny. It had no point. It was unsafe. They didn't take responsibilty for their actions. Oh, and it wasn't funny.
If you are going to devise a wedding schtick, please do me a favor. Think before you do it. Ask yourself "what is the point of this?" If the answer is "because I want to," don't do it. Whew, that was tiring.
*Other things that would happen before the two guys would have cleaned up the mess:
Carot Top at the Appolo
Snow in Pheonix
Mike Tyson in Cambridge
Bridge from California to Hawaii
Mel Gibson in Tzitzis
Winter Olympics in Tehran
Switzerland fighting a war
George W Bush on "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader"
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Speaking of Dancing...
Here's a great rant from Jughead's Hat about wedding shtick:
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Well deserved rant. Now if they would only ban out of existence those aerosol cans that spray out the long plastic strings. Nothing like spending money to get a sheitle done and coming home with neon green plastic strings stuck to the sheitle.
ReplyDeletenice rant...i was at a wedding last summer. i think both the bride and groom had done some work with MDA. for shtick, one genius decided to draw blood from another genius. all for "shtick" with real needles etc. of course it did not go right and the second guy was bleeding all over the place, including a little bit on the bride. after a solid 10 - 15 minutes of this horrifying shtick, someone forced them to leave the dance floor and i think call hatzolah. i generally HATE shtick, i hate those stupid arches and actually refuse to make them or bring them to weddings. the next thing that we can do away with at the clowns that juggle with fire. TOTALLY not necessary, if you want to perform get a job with a circus, don't work the wedding circuit.
ReplyDelete" and Elvis came and sang Ben Bag Bag "......
ReplyDeleteFunny stuff!!!!
And kudos on the rant.
Sadly, we are not exactly living through the "Age of Personal Responsibility"......
OK, I totally understand the point, and agree that in general, something that is difficult to clean up shouldn't be used as shtick.
ReplyDeleteBut, I was at that wedding, and at least give these boys the benefit of the doubt. The styrofoam peanuts were an inside joke. It wasn't like they thought, what could we use that will make the biggest mess...
Should it have been done, probably not.... It was unfair to the maintenance staff.
On the lack of friction thing, that dance floor was so slippery to begin with that I actually think it helped....
ProfK - I always thought those were so dumb. Do they really add "fun"?
ReplyDeleteAnon - Wow, that's just idiotic (the Hatzoloh thing).
As for the fire... I don't mind those, if only because it certainly is entertaining on the one end, and they are usually far more careful and professional and clean up after themselves. Obviously people who have no clue what they're doing should not.
G6 - Sadly, no... :(
ReplyDeleteS - I think the most important point you left out was that the people who performed the shtick should have been the ones cleaning up! More than anything, I think that was Jughead's Hat's point.
i hate those stupid arches
ReplyDeleteWell now, that's personal opinion. I agree about shtick that is stupid/makes a mess/dangerous/annoying to other people/etc. But as for things like arches, or signs, or anything else - some people like that, some people don't, but that's different than something that is actually affecting other people negatively (like giving them more work to clean up, or is just plain dangerous).
Most people's Shtick is kind of irrellevant.
ReplyDeleteI admire the juggling. That takes real skill. (Then again, I go to a school with an active circus club, and I think Cirque du Soleil takes to to an artform.)
BUt otherwise- nothing much to be seen.
A proposal- why not just make designated shtick time and have people write up verbal shtick. Skits. Anything smarter than what I generally see. (The smartest was making fun of one of my cousins who was becoming a mohel..they performed a fake bris on a doll- the worst was a different cousin...someone ate toothpaste and mouthwash...Would you want your future wife seeing that?)
Most schtick out there implies that you only the person on a surface level. Worse- that you and your close friends are only surface people.
If you are planning a wedding- designate someone you both know well to make a time for the shtick- and have the shtick cleared in advance. It will prevent silliness such as this.
In the *Other things that would happen before the two guys would have cleaned up the mess" part you listed "Snow in Pheonix"
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it is spelled Phoenix.
2nd: It has snowed there
"We don't get much snow in Phoenix. Although you may have heard about snowball fights taking place, and snowmen (and snowwomen) being erected around town on March 11, 2006, the official weather for Phoenix happens at Sky Harbor International Airport, and there was no measurable snow there. In the higher elevations surrounding the Phoenix metro area, at around 2,000 of elevation and higher, there was snow.
Here are some photos of snow submitted by About Phoenix Visitors. The last time we had snow in the greater Phoenix area was on December 6, 1998. The snow was in the northeast part of the Valley. It still didn't officially count for Phoenix, however, because there was only a trace of snow at Sky Harbor. The last time there was officially measurable snow in Phoenix was in 1937."
I knew someone was going to say that. For those of you who take everything literally, yes it has snowed in Phoenix, but if that's what you're focusing on, you completely missed the point.
ReplyDeleteEzzie- you're right. That's what I meant when I said it was unfair to the maintenance staff.
ReplyDeleteAlso, at the same wedding, someone did the fire shtick, and briefly set the floor on fire. He either didn't notice or was too busy getting to the next thing, because it was the chosson himself who stamped out the fire!
ReplyDeleteMel Gibson with Tzitzis... LOL.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right, they should have planned on cleaning up their mess. I was at a wedding recently wherere the shtick was understated and cute. There was a fire hat!...
Personalized shtick is usually cute and very funny to the chassan and kallah. It's the dumb, generic shtick done by people who are not really close to the the parties that is not so appreciated. As the marrying people get older, the shtick usually leans more towards the personal and very funny (in my experience).
ReplyDelete