He was wearing a black shirt and black pants. Oh, yes, and a pink boa.
That's why I needed to watch Steve Wozniak's "Dancing with the Stars" debut twice. Everybody needs to watch Wozniak twice.
He showed the personal grace of royalty. He exuded the breezy joy of someone who, one suspects, has very little to worry about.
And then there was the dancing.
In an opening act that was effortful, but, at times, reminiscent of a varicose vein on cocaine, Wozniak chased his professional partner, Karina Smirnoff, around the dance floor and rarely caught a glimpse of her exquisite hem.
He got rich. And now I feared he would die tryin'.
But his energy never flagged, even if his grasp of the beat was akin to John McCain's grasp of economics. He admitted that he was fine with the numerical side of the cha-cha. He struggled with the analog parts.
Yet here is a man who is very much in touch with his analog side. In the preamble to his dance, he wore a pink satin shirt as if it had been the uniform he'd worn at Apple. (Does anyone have pictures of Jobsy in a pink satin shirt?)
And then there was the dancing.
While the British judge, Len Goodman, commended the Woz's knee-spin, he concluded that his cha-cha was "a disaster".
However, it was left to the Italian judge, Bruno Tonioli, a man who is also very much in touch with his analog side, to offer a graphic description: "It was like a Teletubby going mad in a gay pride parade."
The judges gave him 13 points (out of a possible 30), 13 more than he needs if he can only muster 6 percent more of the viewers' votes than the other contestants.
The true pink boa in all this is that he can't be eliminated this week. He will dance again next week, after which the scores from both weeks will be tallied. (So I know that if you missed the voting this week, you will be madly at it next.) Even then, the bottom two will dance off for their own survival.
The Woz said he wanted to prove that "nerds can dance." Well, nerds can be gracious. Nerds can smile in the face of adversity. Nerds can ride in on Segways and act like it's the most normal thing in the world.
And then there was the dancing.
