The Soapbox Archives:
This was the second public dance that I had attended, all dressed up in my suit and tie, three months after taking my first swing dance class. The dance was still at the old Church of the Immaculate Conception (hence, the reference to the "IC Dance"). Back then I could/would dance to every single song and I made a lot of friends there over the years. Thanks to Susan Brown who dragged me off the back wall and made me dance with her that first night. Life hasn't been the same ever since.
Hey, did anyone tell you they'll have cake and ice cream that night? I'll be one of the ones scooping ice cream so come by and say hello.
Of course, Roger Weiss also wore a black tux with a red bowtie, but I think I looked better.
I don't think I've *ever* heard a better night of music than what I got at the Boston Swing Dance Network's 25 Anniversary dance on May 12. Dom V's Swing Out Big Band featured some of the best musicians in the area and they played their hearts out. I think that every single song that night was great, good enough to have kept me on the dance floor constantly if I hadn't been suffocating in a tux. I can't remember ever being 100% happy with any band that's played at that dance. There were no distractions; every song was a *good* swing song. Normally a big band doesn't even get called back for an encore and people were clamoring for more.
The evening featured ice cream from Rancatore's as well as cake; I think they forgot to take a picture of the writing on the cake before cutting it up. As usually, crowds from the old days showed up as they called out the dancers who had been dancing there from 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 years ago.
Roger should have this party every year (e.g., the 1st anniversary of the 25th anniversary!)
The dance's attendees included what I consider the official members of the "Corner Booth". We usually go out to the diner after dancing and talk about dancing. Most of the ideas that get discussed in this editorial space come out of our late night talks at the New Yorker Diner in Watertown.
It's gotta suck (and must be terrifying) to run into the chance of ingesting something that, at best, make you really sick, and at worse, kill you, every time you go out to eat. Sure, I'd understand at places like diners that might not have the facilities to cook food separately. There's probably only one grill and they probably can't afford to train their transient employees to deal with food allergies. However, that's no excuse to be callous to people who can't help having serious food allergies.
My friend managed to find something safe to eat, a bowl of fresh fruit. The waitress who took our order was actually nice, but some of the other hired help were idiots. I'd like to say that I've been to Denny's three times in my life and I'm 0 for 3 in walking out of there happy with the service I got (by the way, the breakfast sausages sucked). I must be a real optimist because I keep going back and expecting things to be different.
It looks like this continually requires repeating, even though it's posted on this website and I've written enough times about it.
It's up to the dance organizers to get their listings to me for their calendar. It's NOT enough to say their event is going to happen "every weeK" on the same day. The dance organizers have to write down in an email to me *all* the dates that they know they'll be open. That means actually looking on a calendar (electronic or paper) and checking to make sure there are no holidays or other conflicts that might cancel the event for that night.
Every listing on the calendar comes from an email or a paper flyer that displays an actual date. I don't accept a note saying "it'll be happening every week for the rest of the year". Yes, I could probably automate the calendars where I could check a flag to indicate something that happens every week on the same day or on a particular weekend of the month.
That'd be too easy. So why wouldn't I do that? Because automating the listings means that the dance promoters have even less incentive to keep me updated on their activities. I'm not here to make it easy for the dance promoters; my task here is to get the most updated and most accurate information to the dancers. It's up to the dance promoters who make money off dancing (and dancers) to make the most of anything that will get their message to their customers, especially when it's free and reaches *alot* of people.
Once people start using this website, they're less likely to go to (all) the individual websites to confirm the information they see on this website. Sure, there are last minute changes all the time, but it's the dance promoters' *responsbility* to use all the available resources to get that information out as widely as possible. The readers of this website are much more likely to visit the venues' individual webpages if they note last minute changes on this website (that's why I sometimes use the yellow background in the calendar listings).
Again, if you're a dance promoter and you want my readers to show up at your event, it's your job to get your information to me. If you're a dance customer, tell your favorite dances' organizers to get their information to me. Tell them that you get all your dance information from this website.