The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo doesn't stay so successful by not keeping up with the times. So before each of this year's evening concerts, you can watch a bunch of people who work at the rodeo gyrating to the latest real-life Internet meme, the "Harlem Shake."
Last week a 30-second clip of various rodeo folk -- "bullfighters," cowpokes, a couple of older gentlemen in Stetsons, the rodeo's bowlegged-H mascot "Howdy" -- debuted on the big screens above the revolving stage. Pretty fancy footwork, but then the bullfighters at least are used to being light on their feet.
You can't help wondering what the black horse in the middle thinks of all this. The Shake was posted on the rodeo's YouTube channel last Tuesday. As of early Sunday afternoon, it had accrued more than 160,000 views.
The rodeo's "Harlem Shake" joins the scores other distinguished organizations that have put their own spin on the spine-twisting dance craze, including the following:
- Students at the University of Texas at Austin (supposedly the biggest Shake to date)
- The University of Georgia men's swimming & diving team (underwater)
- Soldiers in the Norwegian army
- The Miami Heat
- The Houston Dynamo girls cheerleeding squad
(Some people in the actual Harlem are not amused.)
By the way, Baauer, the Brooklyn-based trap/EDM puppetmaster behind all this "Harlem Shake" madness, will make a Houston stop at Fitzgerald's April 9, thanks to Scoremore Shows, the folks behind the Houston Press's recent cover story "Rap Capitalism."
Kind of makes a feller wonder what might have happened if "Gangnam Style" had hit a few months earlier. Or not. This whole thing is getting way out of hand.
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