Tuesday, February 10, 1998
Do you dare to dance?
SEX Westwood elders force strict ordinance on restless college
students
It is with great sadness and shame that I recount a grievous sin
committed in Westwood the other night. I can’t even begin to
imagine what the perpetrators were thinking as they engaged in this
heinous crime. The establishment in which the act occurred was
cited for condoning it and the participants now languish in
guilt.
The crime, my friends, is like no other. It consists of
pulsating and throbbing and moving uncontrollably. It is the
essence of sex; it is an ancient mating ritual. And it is something
that Westwood homeowners will have none of: It is the grave misdeed
of dancing.
Westwood has an ordinance against dancing. It was violated last
week by a business trying to make a little money and promote a lot
of fun. So don’t dance. Don’t even think about tapping your foot to
the beat. Moving your fingers? Bobbing your head? Uh-uh. Flamenco
classes? Unrighteous.
Dancing is a bad, bad thing.
Back in the ’80s, while we students were collecting Garbage Pail
Kids and playing Operation, Westwood was happenin’ turf. Frankly,
it was hip. After an outbreak of violence, Westwood residents
decided to clean up the place. Enter the Westwood Specific Plan, a
400-page document which outlawed everything fun, including dancing
and billiards. Fifteen years later, Westwood residents still swear
by that plan, having replaced their bedside Bibles with the no-fun
business document.
The Westwood Specific Plan was developed by Westwood homeowners,
not by students. I don’t know why they would want to include
student concerns anyway. There are only 20,000 of us who live in
Westwood. We only work, sleep, eat and breathe here for four or
five years. And when we leave we’re replaced by other havoc-causing
miscreants. Damn students!
Damn us! Damn us even more for wanting to have a good time!
Forget about the fact that UCLA students have nothing to do in
Westwood but go to the movies. Forget that we’re bored out of our
minds half the year because we can only eat at In-N-Out so many
times before vomiting at the mere thought. Forget the massive
number of people who don’t have cars or haven’t the luxury of
driving to Hollywood to go clubbing. Who cares?
Sucks for them.
College town? Nah … who needs it? It’s better to just complain
about the drunk and stoned youth of America than give them
something safe to do nearby.
Of course the most logical reason for the no-dancing ordinance
is to keep Westwood alive. As businesses go under and vacancies
spot the once-lively streets, it’s clear that the only way to
increase the village’s popularity is to leave Christmas tree lights
in the trees year round and build colorful mosaic block things.
These mosaic block things are especially important – they serve the
purpose of absolutely nothing. Or perhaps they are the latest model
of soapboxes and we can all get on top of them and speak freely. I
doubt that. It might disturb the Westwood homeowners a little too
much. How dare we disturb their peace? How dare we be loud?
How dare we be young? They have a right to live in their
bajillion dollar homes in peace. They have nowhere else to go. They
are completely mistreated by the callous and rude students. So no
dancing!
What strikes me as even more amazing is the fact that people
actually took time out of their busy and important Westwood lives
to complain about the dancing. They must have gotten in their best
black Gucci garb and spied on the disobedient college students who
have more fun and better sex lives. In a jealous rage they ran home
and called up their local Westwood Village leader to say, "They
were dancing!" Tattle-tales.
I admit, however, that the dancing might have hurt them very
badly. I can imagine all sorts of emotional and psychological
damage that occurred when the residents heard about the sultry
goings-on. I guess when you have nothing better to do than to be
preoccupied with harmless movements, dancing becomes a foremost
concern.
After all, we evil students are out to make trouble. Our secret
desire is that Westwood will become dangerous and dirty. I myself
have attended a few secret meetings where we conspire to invite all
the drug lords and gangsters and racists and other bad people into
the village to toilet paper yuppie mansions. Some of us have vowed
to reincarnate the old Times Square right here.
And the rich Westwood residents gasp in horror! For it is only
the wise and wealthy who know what’s best for the village: why, a
new grocery store, of course.
Dancing has become a focal point, a cover-up, an excuse to be
mad without dissecting the real age-old dilemma: Grown-ups hate
kids. Grown-ups don’t like it when kids have fun. They ground their
own kids so they can’t have fun, and they’d rather drop dead than
allow someone else’s kids to have fun.
This ancient ideology goes back to Elvis. When Elvis and his
pelvis were gyrating adults into fury, the kids dug it. They loved
rock ‘n’ roll, and it made their parents cringe. Elvis didn’t OD,
he was lynched by a bunch of overprotective parents who weren’t
about to let some beautiful and talented man undermine their
authority! Today, the same people who made it to second base in the
back of their parents’ cars to the sound of Elvis’ lascivious
lyrics are telling us not to dance.
To justify the no-dancing clause, Westwood residents invent
highly noble and equally ridiculous excuses. First, they try to
prevent random people from driving through their neighborhoods.
They seem to have forgotten that a street is a street. As long as
it’s not a private road, a street is public property and anyone can
drive down it. Anyone. Me. You. Elvis. Certainly an army battalion
might disturb the peace, but a few more cars on the weekends
shouldn’t hurt anybody who can manage to stay up past 8 p.m.
Another one of their complaints is that dancing might bring
undesirable people to this section of town. They prefer the
prostitutes and pimps to stay far away from their upper class
lives. Plus, everyone knows that dancers are rejects and misfits
whose only purpose in life is to bring the criminal element into
Westwood. That dancing-is-a-creative-means-of-expression spiel?
Nothing more than a myth purported by mafia club owners. Only bad
people dance. There’s no way dancing can be thought of as
innocent.
The pushy stage mothers who force their 5-year-olds into dance
class? They’re preparing them for a life of crime.
Moreover, dancing might lead to touching. And touching leads to
sex. And Westwood residents don’t want anyone having sex if they’re
not.
Yes, I see Westwood working its way back to glory. As long as
nearby residents continue nit-picking about momentous issues like
dancing, success will come again.
In reality, the demise of Westwood lies in the creation of the
ridiculous, elitist and self-serving rules that Westwood residents
implement to keep themselves and their precious lives in the
sheltered bubble of suburbia. Would they rather have a lively,
thriving town or the desolate remnants of one?
If Westwood residents are looking for isolation their problem is
not Westwood, but living in Los Angeles which is one of the least
private places in the universe. If seclusion is what they desire,
they should migrate to Antarctica. No one will bother them there.
And polar bears don’t dance.Pfeffer sincerely hopes that the
anti-dance team is only a vocal minority. E-mail her at
[email protected].