Last week was long. I had a tough week at work, and my girlfriend Becky had a long week studying for the GRE and putting together graduate school applications. So last Friday, we—and especially me—put away a few drinks to help forget the week’s many trials.
The drinks made the long, cold walk down to Caroline Street, the center of Saratoga Springs’s nightlife, almost tolerable. We went into the City Tavern, which is five stories tall and has a bar on each floor—the perfect cure for a long week. We made our way up to the fourth floor, where there’s a DJ and a dance floor. We’d been there about five minutes when Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” came on. Instantly, what had been a sedate dance floor was bouncing and writhing. Everyone—but especially, the women in the club—started singing along and dancing—the way you do to a rap song with a catchy but indistinctive beat—bobbing heads forwards and backwards in a sort of rhythmic motion, like the movement of a chicken walking across a barnyard looking for some grain.
The chorus of “Crank That” revolves around one phrase, “Superman dat hoe,” which is repeated a couple hundred times. Right after the first verse, Becky turned to me and said: “Do you know what that is? Superman?”
“Uh … a comic book character?” (At the time, I was convinced that the lyric was “Superman down low”—and yes, I know that doesn’t make any sense.)
“Crank That,” is one of those songs with a simple, catchy beat, a mellow steel drum in the background, and unintelligible lyrics. I’d heard the song before; I’ve even rocked out to it in the car; but I’d never really listened to the lyrics. Becky’s question suddenly made me realize that a flying white man who wears his red briefs over a blue spandex suit is a highly unlikely subject for a rap song. I told Becky I didn’t know what “Superman” meant.
This next bit is not for the squeamish.
According to Becky (and confirmed by Urban Dictionary), “Superman” is when a man ejaculates on a woman’s back while she’s sleeping, and sticks a sheet or light towel to the mess. In a couple hours, when the semen dries and becomes crunchy, the sheet or towel is glued to the woman’s back, and when she stands up—voilà—a cape, just like the real Superman.
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