Dry Humpin' In The Dark

The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music ~Agnes de Mille

Wonder how ol’ Agnes, an esteemed American ballerina and choreographer, would view Jacksonville’s indigenous dance, a down and dirty dry hump performed on a filthy dance floor? What the Polka is to the Poles, what the Lambada is to the Brazilians, the Fishin’ In The Dark is to the residents of Jacksonville.

The Fishin’ In The Dark caught me by surprise. I was ready to blow off some steam on a Friday night and agreed to join my friends at the Tarheel Opry House. Tucked around the corner from La Mirage titty bar on a deserted back road, the Tarheel shares a parking lot with Alexander’s, Jacksonville’s self-proclaimed “premiere” nightclub. In Jacksonville-ese, labeling a place premiere simply justifies a 20 buck entry fee and bisecting the club with a velvet rope as a meager attempt to create a VIP lounge. But I digress; that is for another blog post. I pulled my vehicle to the east end of the parking lot, amid the mud-splattered American model trucks and Jeeps adorned with cute little bumper stickers of Browning deer heads forming hearts.

After handing over my cover charge, I noticed an index card taped to the front desk proclaiming “Please leave your knives in your vehicle.” Charming. I half expected Patrick Swayze to be standing at the bar, arms crossed but ready to rip my throat out Roadhouse style if I stepped out of line. Instead, I spied several geriatric rent-a-cops ambling through the crowd, pausing to chat with pregnant women sucking down longnecks and smoking cigarettes (pre-smoking ban days here, obviously). Bellying up to the bar, my friends and I ordered a round of shots that was quickly vetoed by the steely blond iron maiden bartender. She didn’t have the ingredients required to make our sissy ass shots but promised whip up something good to get the night started.

Around midnight, they unfurled an American flag up on the stage and a fiddle player began his rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”. Look, I am as much of a red-blooded, all-American patriot as the next guy, but I find it hard not to laugh at a bunch of drunk boots attempting to stand at the position of attention, thumbs aligning with pant seams, eyes straight ahead, after shooting Jager all night long. Especially when they start cheering “America! Fuck yeah!” in a seemingly un-ironic manner upon the close of the national anthem.

It was then that I heard the first chords of one of my favorite songs. “Fishin’ In The Dark” by the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band has always held a special place in my heart. It is a cheeky little ditty about a guy taking his girl fishing… except it isn’t really fishing that he is concerned with… at least in the traditional sense. I always appreciated the sly yet innocent double entendre of the lyrics. And it so happened that I had found a repeat dance partner that night who happened to be standing right by my side at the song’s start. A mutual nod confirmed that indeed we would be taking a turn on the dance floor to this song. We sauntered hand-in-hand to the dance floor, me preparing to do the traditional two-step this song demanded when…



HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? I had been momentarily distracted by my dance partner’s blue-grey eyes that I hadn’t noticed a fucking orgy had broken out on the dance floor.

The two-step is just way too classy for Jacksonville. Men were sprawled out on the dance floor with women gyrating above them. Men were dry humping women. Sisters were doing in for themselves by gathering their friends and squatting in pairs four or five deep over one another. People were sixty-nining, throwing legs over shoulders and going to town. I fear that some would have a souvenir of that night nine months later. Seriously… there was straight up baby-making going on that dance floor that night. Those not participating in the debauchery were arming their cell phone cameras and whooping to their friends about how they couldn’t wait to upload the footage to Youtube when they got home. It looked like we had walked on to the set of Caligula. My dance partner and I nervously eyed each other, wondering if we should really go to third base within a mere twenty minutes of meeting each other. My friends, being no help at all, egged me on and flat out dared me.

When in J-Vegas, do as the J-Vegans do. Don’t judge. I still blame the Iron Maiden bartender and those non-sissy shots.