The Soapbox Archives:
It was at my very last gig where I tried playing a new Rod Stewart song (again, many years ago) that I thought was reasonably danceable based on the rhythm, though it was not of the usual genre (aka "disco"). I got a very bad reaction; some girl came up to me and said "What is this [expletive] shit?".I don't think I ever Dj'd a party again during my high school days.
Fast forward many years and I found myself in a similar situation where I found a song that I felt was awesome for dancing, though it was for a Cha-Cha. What was so great about it? It was a song with a great rhythm and a lot of energy, event though the band was considered "punk rock"; it wasn't one of those old songs done by big bands. I'm talking about Smash Mouth's Walking On The Sun. One of my ballroom friends didn't think it was a Cha-Cha song, but I remember hearing it for the first time at the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia and thinking, "this would make a great cha-cha song". Getting new people into dancing isn't all that hard if you can get them to dance to music they already know.
I had just watched the movie, Skiptrace starring Jackie Chan (I'll watch any movie with Jackie Chan in it). There was a wonderful sequence where Jackie Chan was singing. I'm not sure the rest of the movie was all that remarkable, but it was a Jackie Chan movie.
However, that led me to a video for a movie called Chinese Zodiac. Jackie Chan sang in that one, too, but this time I found myself moving to the music. It was the first time I was motivated to dance to a song sung in Chinese; it has great energy. Tell me if you think it'd be a good song to dance to (probably WCS).
I have a "Mug of Infinite Coffee" or Endless Cup of Coffee from Bruegger's Bagels. You pay about $268 for the cup and it entitles to "free" refills of coffee or soda for the rest of the year. If you buy it in November, you get November and December as well as the whole of the next year. I'm guessing it pays for itself after two months and that's if you get only *one* cup of coffee a day.
At Bruegger's in Bedford, I used to have to go to the counter to get my coffee. One of the benefits of that is getting to know all the staff. At the new building (same location), they arranged it so the customer would do his/her own refills and they put all the coffee dispensers near the door. We never go near the counter anymore. Besides not getting to know the new crew, we also don't have the opportunity to make an impulse purchase while getting the coffee we've already paid for. The endless mug off coffee is suppose to get us in the store but if we don't have any reason to even look at the menu, we won't think of buying something else.
How stupid (for the business) is that?
Other dance organizers should learn from this. Even after 21 years of service, this website still has relevance and a lot of dancers do use this website to find out where to go dancing anytime. Dance organizers should make sure to take advantage of this to promote their events to thousands of people every week.
As one dance organizer said, it's not that this website is reaching a lot of dancers. This website is reaching a lot of new dancers. This is important as people leave the dance scene.
Local West Coast swing dancer, Rose Bartolini, passed away over the weekend at home surrounded by her family. Visiting hours will be from 4:00 to 7:00pm in Southborough on Tuesday, the 28th, and services on Wednesday at 11:00 am. If you notice local people posting a picture of a rose on their Facebook pages, you'll know why.