Morsch Uses Two Jokes

Women attracted to men who cut a rug more than those who wear one
Published: Tuesday, October 05, 2010
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

I'm surprised that he references a toupee, since he himself doesn't wear one. This is going to be one of those self-deprecating columns about how Morsch is a clumsy boob and can't dance, spills things, etc. It's also a bit of a shock that he's doing a full-length column rather than a blog post on a Tuesday.

A new study reveals that women are more attracted to men who have a wide array of dance moves, which only reinforces the notion that I should consider myself lucky that I already have a wife.

Or so we're told. Any confirmation that this quote unquote wife is actually real?

Now if women were attracted to men who stomped on their open-toed shoes when dancing, then I would near the top of the list and women would be lined up around the block for the opportunity to cut a rug with me.

Ah, Morsch, ya big galloot! This "humor" doesn't even work in a printed column - imagining reading it out loud and trying to get a laugh. That's two uses of the phrase "cut a rug" so far.

By the way, according to the website wisegeek.com, there are several theories surrounding the origin of the slang phrase “cut a rug.”

That's three. Have history's great humor writers regularly relied on internet research for so much of their material?

The most reasonable suggests that skilled dancers who danced so well that they wore out the carpet were said to have “cut a rug” or “cut a mean rug.”

Four. And DUH.

I could find no slang phrase for stomping on the toes of one’s dance partner, so I can only rely on personal experience here to coin a phrase based on what I’ve heard in the past, something along the lines of, “Hey jerkweed, we’re not making wine here. We’re trying to dance!”

Wow, apparently the people Morsch steps on are even less funny than he is. And that's the second "I step on feet while dancing" joke.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna catch on like “cut a rug.”

Five.

But alas, the older I get, the less I can dance. This would concern me if I was actually able to dance when I was younger.

Not that I didn’t try. There is a color slide of me at about age 3, dancing in my undershorts next to the record player. It appears I may have been doing a version of The Twist, given the contortions of my body, captured forever in that image.

Can I take this opportunity to say how much I hate the word "undershorts"? I've never heard anyone else say that, and it strikes me as obnoxiously archaic.

(Remember color slides? My dad, like all the other dads from that era, used to take color slides of everything. It seemed highly entertaining at the time for adults to get out the projector and screen, turn out the lights, and view slides from the vacation to Pike’s Peak or kids dancing in their undershorts. It could not have been more boring to me as a youngster.)

Wow, that was one long and pointless aside. Gotta fill up that blank space somehow, I guess.

I believe I danced a little bit in high school in an attempt to attract the girls. Given that I was a jock, I at least had a sense of coordination, and I recall one high school dance my junior year where I thought I actually knew what I was doing on the dance floor.

He was a "jock"? Maybe he means he was a "Jacques," like he belonged to a Jacques Cousteau appreciation society or something.

But subsequent dances proved that I was indeed no John Travolta, as evidenced by the bandaged feet of my then-girlfriend.

There's number three.

By the time I got to college, alcohol had been introduced into the dancing equation, at about the same time that Travolta introduced us to flamboyant moves and white suits. That proved to be a winning combination for me in the dancing department as I became adept on the disco dance floor. Fortunately, there were no cell phone video cameras back then and there is no evidence to the contrary, so I’m sticking with that story.

But wait - he's saying that in college, booze and Travolta appeared at the same time and he became "adept" at dancing. Yet when he was a Junior in high school, he had already proved that he was "indeed no John Travolta." So what's the true story?

As an adult, I did once win an American Legion dance hall contest with my first wife. But it was a fluke.

What was, the dance contest or your marriage?

We were living in a remote rural area of southern Iowa at the time and I believe our only competition in the contest were a cow and a couple of chickens. As I recall, our winning dance moves including stepping lightly around that dance floor.

... Okay.

I never really knew how much I couldn’t dance until actual proof was presented to me sometime in the mid-1990s.

Except that dance in your Junior year, when you yourself realized that you couldn't.

We had taken a trip to DisneyWorld and for those of you who have been there, you know that there is always happy music playing in the theme parks while the Disney characters roam the grounds, posing for pictures.

In every photo — me with Tigger, me with Donald, me with Goofy — there I am pointing my index finger skyward, just like Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” Well, at least I didn’t have my finger in my nose when the camera was around. Guess I should have stuck to dancing The Twist in my underwear.

Absolutely disgusting. A nose-picking joke, and another reference to Morsch as a child in his underwear.

Nowadays, my dancing experience is limited to twirling around in a circle with The Blonde Accountant during slow songs and to watching “Dancing With The Stars.” (I am, however, boycotting DWTS because the professional dancers are bigger stars than some of the wannabe jamokes on this year’s show.)

He's referring to Bristol Palin, obviously. One of the many things that bothers me about Morsch's writing style: his reliance on catch phrases like "jamoke" and "knucklehead" and "undershorts." Like he thinks he's famous enough that their use will delight his legions of fans.

According to the study, men who are bad dancers can improve their chances of attracting women if they work on their core body moves around the head, neck and trunk areas. Just to be clear: Women prefer men who can indeed cut a rug rather than men who wear one.

But the study didn't mention anything about men who wear hairpieces. What if a man who wears one also is a good dancer? Where did Morsch make this connection? Use of "cut a rug" number six, by the way.

But it appears at this age I am past the point of worrying about attracting anything more than enough time to work in a nap.

You can't attract time. This doesn't make any sense.

These days, I should stick with what I know when it comes to dancing, which is, of course, wine-making.

"Stepping on toes" joke number four, folks.

From Twitter:

Christine O'Donnell is not a witch. Really, she isn't.
about 14 hours ago via web

Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook." Christine O'Donnell: "I am not a witch."
10 minutes ago via web

Morsch saves his harshest and most obsessive attacks for female politicians. Interesting, isn't it?