YouTube Weekend: Dirty Vegas, Days Go By

This is a great video for a good dance song.It slips in and out of the song a few times to tell the story of a man who comes to the same spot on the same day every year and dances from sunrise to sunset, dances to bring back the girl he lost so many years ago. The pan that begins at about 1:19 always gives me goosebumps.

When this song was out in 2002/2003 it was everywhere. The video was in heavy rotation on MTV; the song was used in a car commercial. I seem to recall a parody of it used as a promo for the Video Music Awards (or was it the MTV Movie Awards) in which Chris Kattan was edited in as the Dancing Man. He danced horrendously, and the subtitled comments of the onlookers were replaced with things like "Oh, my God, is he doing the Robot?" "I think that's the Worm." "Now he's doing the Cabbage Patch!"

This song was out when many members of my department were leaving the company for a competitor. One of our graphics designers left, and we joked about how one of his friends mourned his departure.

He left one day. He said he was going for coffee. He said "wait here, I'll be right back."

And so Ed waits. Waits in that same spot every day. Waits from 8:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon. With breaks for coffee. And lunch. And to use the bathroom. And to have a smoke.

Eventually Ed left too. Most of us left the department, one way or another. There are only a few of us left in that department now. I'm not one of them.

Days go by and still I think about you...