perfidy

N.B. Revised extensively on the advice of commenters including my wife, who is more wise than I.

I am a man of many peeves, so many that I don't have pets. I'm more like a peeve farmer. And the "white person clap" is the first among them.

"What?," you ask? Well, I'll tell you! The white-person clap is when one claps one's hands on the first and third beats of a measure of music, no matter whether it's the 1812 Overture-- where it is almost appropriate-- or "Funky Drummer"-- where it's just not. The net effect, when such people inhabit an audience alongside more soulful people clapping on two and four, is that claps occur on all four beats of the measure as the two traditions collide. Ugly, ugly, ugly, and decidedly unfunky.

This time of year, PBS' programming is nothing but wall-to-wall music performances punctuated by reruns of The Vicar of Dibley. The same-ness of the performances is both stunning and discouraging. From the dude with the frizzy mullet and the white piano to former members of Elvis Presley's band with special guests, every single audience is the same: uniformly anglo, trending older, and uniformly unable to distinguish weak pulses from strong ones. 

Here's what happens every time: the big show finale comes... the house band kicks into some ridiculous arrangement of Proud Mary featuring The Canadian Brass... the band is tight, the backbeat is heavy on TWO and FOUR, and 1500 white people in boat shoes begin swaying back and forth and clapping on ONE and THREE like it's goddamned Lawrence Welk.

I swear to God, every time I see this shit it makes me crazy. We've had sixty years... sixty fricking years... of Rock and Roll... of TWO and FOUR - these people grew up on Little Richard, Elvis and Aretha... and they still can't find a backbeat. The JB's might as well be a polka band! The MG's might as well be Peter Paul and Mary! What the hell is so hard about feeling one TWO three FOUR?

It's not even like people are being asked to feel funky shit like "bom rest CHICKadika bom bombom CHICKadicka." Leave that to the pros. It's "boom CHUCK boom CHUCK boom CHUCK boom CHUCK." That's four on the floor, people, you grew up with it! There are no excuses! What the hell?

Jesus Christ! &*%! @?^!!!!

*panting*

The December Award for Inadvertant or Vertant Perfidy goes to... PBS, because I can. Stank you very much.

[wik] Duane, on my crosspost at Blogcritics, notes the following:

Traditionally (and there is a tradition here, oh yes!), the white person's clap consists of clapping on the 1 and 3 beats of a 4/4 meter, when the natural emphasis is on the 2 and 4 beats. You can see that in large audiences when a bunch of dorks are one beat out of sync with the music, so the net effect is that there are clapping sounds on all four beats -- the dorks (about 1/2 the crowd) and the rest (the eyerolling other 1/2) contributing equally. Quite maddening. Who are these people? Why are they mostly white? I used to blame Lawrence Welk and the polka, but now. I just don't know.

I don't know either, Duane. Maybe there's a vaccine?