DanceNet: Past Editorials from the DanceNet Webmaster

As per the request of one of the DanceNet readers, here are copies of the past ramblings of the DanceNet Webmaster.

January 3, 1999:
I was talking to Brian at Jitterbug Jane's December 26 dance in Wethersfield. It was interesting because Brian (the guy aiming his butt at the camera on the Hartford Swing page) apparently knows shoes; I think that's what he does in real life. He had mentioned that he heard from other dancers that Bleyers shoes tend to flex because they didn't have a toe cap and other features. He liked mine which are the two-toned Georgio Brutini brand of shoes (street shoes) that I bought at Queens in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Queens doesn't do mail-order. I was wondering if anyone had seen the Georgio Brutini brand of shoes selling in the New England area, and also if anyone else had comments about the Bleyers shoes (which seem to be the most popular shoes bought/sold for swing dancing, probably mostly from The Dance Store website.
Regarding the addition of new sponsors, I had asked Craig Ball of the White Heat Swing Orchestra to become a DanceNet sponsor only after he indicated how much business my website (or his webpage) sent to him. Actually, his reaction was amusingly stronger than that. :-) I wouldn't have wanted to ask someone to be a sponsor if my website hadn't help them. Naturally, this is only one factor in deciding if I want someone for a sponsor, but if you are going to use the services of one of my sponsors or someone who has a page on this website, please let them know you heard about them on this website.
Someone asked an interesting question. One woman, I guess, had her hair in a ponytail (I love ponytails on women. :-) ) and during a dance, her partner moved into position while she did a spin and he got whacked in the face with the hair (not that this has *ever* happened before). Her question to the general population is for suggestions as to how she should do her hair to avoid this problem. If you have comments (not necessarily suggestions), please write to me and I'll post some of the comments. Now, my comments: I think it's the guy's job to make sure that he doesn't put himself into that position. If she hits him, it's his fault. The guy should not make the woman feel as if she should change her hairstyle to accomodate him ("you look fine, dear."). Gee, I'm not even married. :^)
January 10, 1999:
Thanks to Tim for letting me know that I can find the two-toned Georgio Brutini shoes at Teddy's in Central Square. I like those (my) shoes because they look like street shoes so they look good with my nice clothes (like my tux or for performances). Tim says they're very comfortable; I like them because they feel secure and they hold my feet in place (it doesn't stretch). Unfortunately, Teddy's will be discontinue carrying the GB shoes and replacing them with StacyAdams shoes which the store owner thinks is a better deal.
Bleyers are available from Teddy's in Central Square. Rick from Poughkeepsie suggested buying Bleyers "tight" because his experience says that the leather uppers stretch a lot; six months after he bought them, they were not snug enough but he loves the soles. The Teddy's store owner said that he's been selling the Rock 'n' Roll shoe, but wants people to check out the Charleston model soon.
The store owner of Teddy's (forgot his name) seemed interested in getting people to let him know what they want so he can try out a sample of them. The selection seems pretty good and I would suggest stopping by to see what they have.
I got to see Bombay Jim and the Swinging Sapphires this past Friday. This is an excellent swing dance band and they're local! Jim Porcella fronts an assembly of great musicians and they're fun to dance to. I hope to see them around at local dances.
Benson's Gripe of the Week:
I was at Kens on Tuesday (particularly since Marie was dj). At one point there was about 10 feet between me (and my partner) and the nearest dancing couple. I can't believe this other couple manage to dance over and kick me. Should I start getting paranoid? (The guy who kicked me is someone who should have known better.)
Dancers' Gripe of the Week:
A very attractive young lady at this past week's IC dance was complaining about guys who are either hard of hearing (possible, I suppose) or who completely ignore a woman who says, "I'm just a beginner and I don't know very much about swing". These guys then try out every move in their repertoire, leaving the beginner dancer frustrated and with a very sore arm because they were yanked through so many moves. If you ask someone to dance and they say they're rank beginners, please consider the possibility that they might be telling the truth and take it easy on them. If you do a move that they don't know, don't do it again; try something else. Leaders, your job on the dance floor is to make sure your dance partner walks off the with a smile on her face, having had a nice time dancing. Making her comfortable and moving with the music is more important than showing off how many dance figures you know. We want these beginners to come back to the next dance!
January 17, 1999:
Are there any dancers in the insurance business? Some dance venues (current and future) are looking into liability insurance for their businesses and was wondering if they could all get together to arrange some umbrella organization through which they could get coverage for their events. I think USABDA does this now. If you think you can help, please let me know.
If you are a dance teacher and you have your own website, please let me know if you post a new schedule. I do not make any effort to check out everyone's website because there are too many other things to do, including typing in all this material for the website. If those venues for whom I host a webpage (sponsor or not) have new information, I will know about changes and will announce them on the What's New? page. If you have your own webpage, I can only announce new information if you tell me about it.
Right now DanceNet On The Web is done on a computer that is set at 1024x768 at 16-bit color. For me the colors are clear and the pictures are viewable. The pages are done with the intention of looking appropriate on a 800x600 monitor. I do have the capability to test this website on 640x480 at 256 colors (8-bit color) and will probably do so at some point. If you have any problems viewing this website, please write to me and tell me what kind of computer you are using.
January 24, 1999:
I was really bummed. I had gotten all the way to Friday and all I had for my weekly editorial was a lame gripe against a lindy hop couple who managed to dance all the way across an empty dance floor to kick another couple.
Then I went the Roxy.
Oh man, this was a truly bad evening. The Crescent City Maulers was just awful (you should have seen the word I was going to use). Everything they played was very fast and the music was cranked way too loud. Their sound man was of the type who assumed that louder was better. It turns out that their sax player can't even sing! (yes, he tried). It was probably the worse time I've ever had at the Roxy. Big Daddy said that they're usually better, but anything would be better than this. The place was packed more than usual because of the dance contest so the faster music didn't help. There were more than the usual flailing arms and legs that made dancing that much more dangerous. I had gone to see if I would like the band enough to buy their CD. Oh well.
I have a question. Is someone actually teaching ballroom dancers that Jive is really swing dancing? There were two couples in the competition who were extremely talented but they were clearly dancing Jive. All I could think of was that opening sequence from the movie Strictly Ballroom where that one couple was hogging the dance floor and blocking the other couples from being seen (that's the way it looked from the dj booth). If this had been a "Strictly Swing" competition, they would have been disqualified since their moves looked highly choreographed.
My pick at the beginning was Sara Fajkowski and her partner Jeremi Karnell as the eventual winners. They were clearly the crowd's favorite as the cheers went up on their appearance on the floor. Dave Cajolet and Kate Mullin came in second with Martin Fréchette & Suzanne Gaudet (one of the super-powered Lindy Twins) coming in third. Dave & Kate, in my opinion, looked much better dancing together than any of the other couples, but Sara has so much raw talent that she makes anyone look good and she did that tonight. However, I think her dancing up at the New England Swing Dance Championships in November was much better (with a different partner).
The judges were Aurelie Tye of Hop To the Beat Studios, Chris Johnson of Fred Astaire of Boston Studios and Ryles, and Jack Lynch who teaches swing at Johnny D's. I was disappointed that Susan Huppe who teaches at the Kinvara Pub on Mondays was not one of the judges. If the people who worked at two of the three preliminary events were judges, then they should have had all three locations represented. I was told that the competition was 2/3 weighted in favor of enthusiasm and costuming. Any confirmations?
It was the earliest that I've ever left the Roxy. The music was so loud that it actually started to hurt.
I must have Writer's Block until I get to vent for the week.
It's nice to see that West Coast Swing is alive and well in Boston. I went to Maxwell Ho's dance this Saturday and it was packed. Yes, I did go to a WCS dance and it was fun. Maxwell is an entertaining host and attracted people from Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York to his monthly event. Maxwell was dancing with some guy from NYC (I forget his name, but he's some "rising star" in the WCS scene and he reminds me of Robert Cordoba) and they both did a "up-close-and-personal" body roll that nearly made everyone roll over in laughter. Maxwell is definitely a crowd-pleaser.
Ah...I feel better now. :-)
January 31, 1999:
Teaching a class is a fairly nerve-racking experience. Judith Sagan and I taught our dance technique class this weekend and we were surprised by the range of experience that showed up. Dancers who had been dancing anywhere between 3 months and 10 years showed up, including one female teacher who took the class as a leader (she could have taught the class). The more experienced dancers wanted a refresher class while the newbies wanted to learn new technique in their dancing. We ran over in the class to 3:30 pm and we still didn't get to do all of our material, though I understand that is normal. We had 42 people in the class, some of whom drove up from the Cape for this workshop.
I want to thank Ron Gursky for letting us use Rugcutters Dance Studio for the workshop. I especially want to thank Ron for generously waiving the usual rental fee so the donations to the selected charities would be bigger. A volunteer from the students, Cynthia Ruzic, picked the two charities out of a hat (well, a cup). The profits from this workshop will go to The Salvation Army and The Boston Latin School Foundation. Thank you to the workshop attendees for their contributions to these charities.
I try to put the best possible information on this website so my readers will be armed with everything they need to know about which dance venues to check out. Unfortunately, I have neither the time, money nor inclination to see every new venue myself to give an opinion and I count on my readers to let me know about what's happening out there.
I just got a length note about the "new" Lake Pearl Ballroom that I forwarded to the Lake Pearl people without the sender's identity. Also, I read some comment about the place that did not put Lake Pearl in a good light. Has anyone else had any experience with Lake Pearl recently?
There had been some new dance venues that didn't pay any attention to the the dancers , except to see them as a cash cow. Those are no longer with us. The existing venues must make sure they're paying attention to what the dancers want, not what the owners think the dancer should want. Thinking you know what's best for the customers is a sure way to go out of business.
One particular on-line dancer has taken on a self-appointed task of letting me know when he thinks I'm getting carried away in my editorials, which is fine, except that I'd wish he use a softer stick before hitting me over the head with it. :-) While he is clearly well-intended, it takes much restraint and wisdom (in very short supply these days) to not reply in the same tone. Email is a very sterile way of communication and it's hard to see the :-)'s (smileys) between the lines. Direct conversation is much more effective, I must admit. Sending inflammatory email, even in jest, has the dangerous potential of being mis-interpretted and causing bad feelings. It's much easier to accept criticism when presented without the emotions and with complete supporting information. Considering that I get a very high ratio of good comments to bad criticism, it's easy to ignore hostile mail as someone who doesn't like me anyways (as some of my readers have suggested that I do). If you're going to hit someone over the head with a stick, consider using a padded stick so they might have time to consider that you're trying tell them something.
As this website reflects the personality of the webmaster, it is viewed in different ways by different people. I have been accused of being biased in my listings (not true; I'm biased in whom I like). Someone else said that I was too neutral and needed to offer more opinions since I've been in the swing dance scene for 8 years and have seen alot and must have alot of stories to share. Some say I'm arrogant while others urge me to "fight" for them. If you have a strong opinion either way, please feel free to drop me a line with your viewpoint or talk to me directly. I'll write about any points that I feel are interesting to my readers (without your name, of course, for your privacy).

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