Not Really a Debate, but Whatever...

Well, Moxie asked what the best dance scene in a movie is. Kinda vague. So here's the parameters I'm setting. I'm throwing out the dance movies. Half the time the actors in those aren't really actors, they're professional dancers with a teleprompter. Next, I'm limiting it to one style of dance, because sorting out weather a well done jazz dance beats out a well done waltz is too much work. So I'm picking Tango. I'm also limiting it to movies that saw a major release in the US. Finally, I'm basing it on my entertainment, not technical correctness.


So here are the best tangos in film history.



The most recent is the Tango shared between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. What makes this dance interesting are two main factors. One is the authentic music. The Assassin's Tango by John Powell is a wonderful piece that I actually keep in my music library. The second factor that makes it great is the styling. It's not a dance, it's a battle. The animosity between the characters is palpable. Combine it with some good acting, and you've got a very interesting scene.



In 1993, Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston performed a tango with paso doble elements, and a lot of special effects, in Addams Family Values. While there's some decent footwork, the dance itself isn't the centerpiece, it's how the dance illustrates the characters, and fits within the Addams Family framework. It's macabre, yet romantic, and also endlessly hilarious.




Scent of a Woman had Al Pacino play a blind man. But apparently he had better vision on the dance floor than anyone, including co-star Gabriele Anwar, gave him credit for. It's interesting how the dance starts out haltingly, as each dancer takes measure of the other, and eventually turns into a very passionate and impressive dance as they trust each other more.



In Never Say Never Again, the somewhat misguided 1983 remake of Thunderball, Sean Connery and Kim Bassinger share a tango, portraying 007 and Domino, respectively. it's a somewhat uneventful dance, but it's Sean Connery.

The Last Weekend.

In more ways than one.

On Friday I met my friends at American Dream Pizza for our usual pre salsa meal. American Dream's latest claim to fame was Obama's struggle to keep their pizza in his mouth. :) The pizza's good, and it's the only place I've found that's willing to put salmon on a pizza. However, the part of the place I like best is the Crowbar.

I found the Crowbar on my 22nd birthday, having no clue about it's connection to American Dream. It has a back alley entrance, and a wrought iron overhang sign that screams old school dive. It looked as good a place as any to finish off my birthday. We staggered in, and it was... surprisingly post modern. However, the bartenders are actually good, and they serve ten different varieties of the Kamikaze. Plus, you can have good pizza, and good booze at the same time. Yum.

However, I digress. We had pizza, and I had a kamikaze. We talked and ate, and laughed at the connotations of the combinations of Tristan and Willow's names once they get married, the names of other people, the fact that my mom wanted to name me Raphael, and as always, time passed. We soon found that it was nine o'clock, and meandered our way to Platinum.

Latin X kicked off, and I drank far too much. Unlike the Crowbar, the bartenders at Platinum are... less than proficient. However, I used that to my advantage. They run a deal that before 11, well drinks cost $1. I managed to convince them that a caipirinha is a well drink. Essentially 3 shots of rum for one dollar! Hot damn. I had 4 of them, and wound up buying rounds for the whole table. I threw in a couple of Vodka and Tonics, and I was unusually drunk, on less than $15.

The hilarious moment occurred when I was talking with Tristan about our experiences in the military, mine in the Army, his in the Marines. As he regaled me with tales of a Marine SGT who was too dumb to live, Chris walked up, and slapped me on the shoulder, and caused me to spill my drink. Oh, well. I switched the drink to my other hand to avoid further traffic from disrupting my alcoholism. Twenty seconds later, Bill walks by, and hits my other shoulder, causing me to spill more of my recently relocated drink. Tristan cracked up. I chugged my drink down, to prevent any further problems.

I drank, and danced, and talked. I tried to find Simona's camera to take some pictures. Someone beat me to the punch, and the camera disappeared for about 2 hours, and Simona got all overprotective of it when it was found. C'mon, I'm trustworthy...

I decided to have a Mint Julep for my final drink. I talked to the bartender, and as usual, he had no clue how to make it. As I walked him through it, this exchange occurred...

"Add Bourbon."

"Which kind?"

"What kind do ya'll stock?"

"We have Irish, Tennessee, Kentucky..."

"NO. Just use that bottle of Jim Beam."

Irish Bourbon? I died a little inside when I heard that. I also cried a little when he strained the mint out of my drink. What the Hell. No tip for you.

As usual, time passed, and before I knew what was happening, the lights got turned on, and Simona kicked us all out. Talking with Nate on the way home, he and Dave invited me over to La Conga for late night Mexican food. At 2:35 in the morning, La Conga was packed. I'd love to see their hourly business estimates. While we were devouring our burritos, we were joined by Roger and Alana, and a couple of Roger's friends. After the food was gone, we went to Nate's house, and danced a little bit more. Dave, being our resident Hawaiian, showed us some Maori dances, and Nate and Alana showed off their rumba skills. I danced a little casino with Alana. Fun was had, and I didn't wind up home until 4:30.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday sleeping. I woke up at 1, and dragged myself over to the TV to watch the Belmont Stakes. This was supposed to be Big Brown's triple crown victory lap. As I was watching the warm ups, I was bouncing around on a football message board I frequent when bored. In an off topic thread about the Belmont, I called Da'tara winning. Take that!

Saturday night, well, Sunday morning technically, Mike IM'd me, demanding food. He swung by, and we hung out at his place, as he ordered pizza. Pizza Pipeline said that it would be about an hour for delivery. We figured it was a Scotty-esque overstatement to keep us from getting our expectations up. 55 minutes later, our pizza arrived. Wow. Mike had gotten his hands on a leaked copy of Beast With a Billion Backs, so we watched that. I wound up passing out on the couch.

I woke up at about ten o'clock, and none of Mike's roommates really cared about the giant curled up in their living room. That just goes to show what kind of house it is.

After shaking off my grogginess, I fired up their 360, and played some Halo 3. That's my one regret about going with a PS3. MGS4 completely outweighs it, but I do miss Halo. I love the mythology of the game, and the soundtrack is glorious. I might buy that soundtrack. When Mike woke up, we played some Metal Slug 3. Old school, nintendo hard games, designed to suck the quarters out of you pockets. I went through 39 continues. At 50 cents a pop, you're looking at damn near $20 gone, to beat 5 levels.

After ordering another pizza, we hunkered down to watch the NBA Finals game 2. That game went from a massive blowout, to inexplicably becoming a game at the end. That just goes to show, you really only need to watch the 4th quarter of an NBA game.

I wound up getting home at 10:30, and went pretty much straight to sleep. A good end.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Four day weekends are always a good thing. But, sometimes they get a little long. I don't have classes on Friday, so life is good.

Thursday kicked off with inviting some friends up to Strega, the new bar that opened up on the sixth floor of the new condo complex down at the end of second street. It's a great place, good ambiance, good drinks, and comfortable seating. They actually stock Cachaça, and they can make a decent caipirinha. I was shocked. I had a caipirinha while waiting for CJ to arrive.

I wound up waiting for about a half hour, because CJ somehow got lost. Not sure how he puled that one off, it's on top of the only building taller that three stories other than Reser and Gill. It's kind of like not being able to pick me out of a crowd of midgets. However he made it eventually, and brought his girlfriend, and our mutual friend Brian.

We got another round of drinks, and I had a Gin and Tonic, while CJ ordered something with Strega's special liqueur, which tastes like a liquefied alcoholic breadstick. We talked for a couple of hours about work, the future, spectacular bike accidents, spectacular rafting accidents, injuries, and other things. Maybe I'll write about some of those later on.

Another round of drinks came in, and I had a Vodka Martini. It was the Vodka Martini from Hell! First off, Strega has huge cocktail glasses, double size. Second, it's alcohol and more alcohol, pretty much just four straight shots of Vodka and Vermouth. To top it off, the bartender didn't add enough ice to the mix, so it wasn't cold enough. It was just brutal. I struggled to put it down, and gnawed on the olive like it was going to save my life. It was rough, and things went downhill from there.

Someone got the bright idea to swing the conversation to politics right before we left. We proceeded to spend the next hour and a half standing in front of the entrance arguing. I hate arguing politics with my friends, because we're inevitably drunk at the time, any argument involving drunk college students inevitably breaks down to someone just yelling slogans. This particular argument ended with CJ's girlfriend telling me to get cancer and die. And she's normally such a cheerful little girl. That kinda killed the mood, so we went our separate ways.

Friday I woke up with a brutal hangover, which I usually don't suffer from. I chalked that up to the Hellfire Martini. I studied a little, read a little, and drank a ton of water.

After cleaning up, I met some friends over at the Fox and Firkin for some pre salsa dinner. Rob was flirting with the hot, pierced waitress., Nikki. I talked Milspeak with Tristan, the former Marine, while Chris taunted me about having Tara consume her sandwich faster that I devoured mine. Hey Chris, after doing the one minute challenge at Ft. Benning, I take my time with food when I can. Deal with it. I had a Cordon Bleu sandwich that tasted great, and a pint of Black Butte Porter. Erin taunted me about the fact that I look somewhere in the vicinity of ten years old in my facebook picture, and Nancy said she didn't believe I was old enough to drink. Jeez, when it rains it pours. Nancy ordered this inhuman brownie, that was covered in whipped cream and walnuts, and two scoops of Neapolitan ice cream. She distributed spoons, and the 12 of us there devoured it.

At Latin X, things kicked off as usual. I grabbed a Vodka and Tonic from the bar, and settled down. I saw a tall nice looking girl, and asked her to dance. "I don't know how to dance, I'm warning you!" Normally any girl who finds herself at Latin X without learning salsa says that, but they know enough about rhythm and dance in general for me to work with them. With this girl, I should have listened to her. I would describe it as dancing with a cannonball. When I led her in a direction, she flung herself that way. No control at all. I locked her up in a closed dance for the safety of everyone around us.

The next embarrassing incident happened during a meringue song. I looked up at the tables, and called a girl to come down and dance with me. She came down, and right before she got to me, her friend, whom my friend Sam had asked to dance, shot him down, and dragged me onto the dance floor. Awkward, awkward, awkward... Sam proceeded to ask the girl I had asked to dance, so they danced, and we danced, and things kind of evened out, but it just felt awkward. I made it up to the girl I originally asked on the next floor, but I just felt a little out of control the rest of the night.

I wound up going home earlier than usual, at 1. I just wasn't into it as much as usual. I hit the rack, and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

I spent most of Saturday just feeling drained. I don't know why, but I didn't like it. I laid around the house, watched TV, made a blog post, but generally did nothing important.

On Sunday, Joe called me up, and we went over to McMenamin's for some drinks. The pool tables were locked down, so we went to Tailgaters. There weren't very many people there, and it was karaoke night, but the pool tables were free, so we played three games. I took the first two, but I couldn't sink the 8 ball in the third.

As we were playing our second game, some guy came on, and just murdered "Dirty Laundry", by Don Henley. It was awful. Not in the so bad it's good type, but the so bad it's terrible type. Somewhere in Texas, Henley is rolling in his grave, and very confused, seeing as he's not dead yet.

I got a couple of hours to kill before I go to a party to watch the hockey game. The Flyers are gone, so I don't really care about who wins, but I promised Joe I'd make an appearance, we'll see what happens.

Salsa, Hockey, and the birth of an alcoholic.

Well, it's been a fairly eventful week for me.

Monday was Cinco de Mayo, as you know. I had a fun night of mexican food and Dos Equis out at the bars. However, I spilled some of my Jose Cuervo onto my modem, and knocked it out of commission for several days.

On Wednesday, I got a replacement modem, and went out with some friends to the Salsa Dance at Oddfellows hall. I wore my Boondock Saints T shirt. It was a hit. Almost too big of a hit. I felt like a manikin, simply the vessel upon which the shirt was mounted. It peaked when Tara dragged me out onto the dance floor, exclaiming "I must dance with that shirt!" Jeez. I'm up here, stop staring at my chest ladies! :)

Then on Friday, we had the usual Latin X night festivities. We started out at McMenamin's. It's usually not that crowded around 7:30, So when we showed up, we found ourselves in the irritating position of having every table being occupied by one or two people, so we couldn't get a table. Faced with the choice between eating outside or not getting seated for an hour, we got the tables outside. Thankfully, the weather was good. In the end, it was a good think. We were expecting 8-10 people, we wound up with 15. Sweet, yet potentially problematic. but being able to expand to other outdoor tables fixed the problem.

Once we went down to Platinum, it was the same old story. There was alcohol, dancing, music, and fun. Tori said she was going to whip me at pool. But she failed to show up. Guess I win by default.

I just have one question. Why do women insist on wearing shoes that tear up their feet? Is that extra inch really worth the blisters and mangled toes? And if you're going to, why can't you put some moleskin on beforehand?

Saturday night, one of my friends from bravo company turned 21. So I escorted his drunken parade throughout the bars. We spent the bulk of our time at Clods. I had a Vodka and Tonic. Being a bit of a jerk, I ordered him a cement mixer. Being a much bigger jerk than me, Chuck got Joe a British Liposuction. The British Liposuction is the worst drink I've ever encountered. It consists of a shot that's one part gin, one part Worcestershire sauce, and one part lard. Yes, lard. Joe took that shot, then puked it back into his shot glass, and booked it to the bathroom. I didn't see him for about 20 minutes after that. Afterwards, he came back, looking a few pounds lighter, and downed my cement mixer, and enjoyed it. That's how bad the shot Chuck got him was.

After we got sick of drunken frat boys and country music, Joe wanted to go to Tailgaters, where we would have to deal with drunken frat boys and rap music. I convinced him to go to McMenamin's on Monroe so we could play pool. Unfortunately, there was a line for the pool table, so we headed out. Some random guy bought joe a shot before we left. No clue who he was.

So we were off to Tailgaters. You could hear the bass from outside. Rap Music... Check. Our party had dwindled down to three people, Joe, myself, and one of Joe's friends, a former Army supply tech. The parade of CAC cards to the doorman. Yippee. We put down for the next pool table, and ordered some drinks. When I went over to the bar, this guy looks over at me. "Wow, you're really tall!". Yeah, he was truly a marvel of observation. I got some change to pay for the pool table and headed back to the table. "Look how tall that guy is!" Captain Obvious strikes again! Three fights broke out while we were there, all promptly crushed by the bouncers. Pretty rough considering there was fewer than 30 people there. Drunken frat boys... check. Whatever.

I brought the quarters over, and we played a game of cutthroat. I was playing pretty well, and got the other two down to 1 ball each, while I still had 4 active. Suddenly, Joe, who had hit a scratch on nearly every ball, knocked down 3 balls on one shot. Unfortunately, they were the 12, the 14, and the 15. All I was left with was the 11. I promptly eliminated Joe, but Joe's buddy knocked me off.

The Supply Tech decided to bolt afterwards, but Joe wanted to stay until closing, and I had promised Neil I'd get him home in one piece. so Joe and I played another game of pool, and I soundly crushed him. I've gotten a little better with practice. With 45 minutes left to kill, I decided to go watch the few girls who were left dancing. One of them waved at me, so I called her over. Feeling in a generous mood, I tried to set Joe up with her. I wanted to get her to go dance with Joe, but instead she simply offered to buy him an expensive drink if I'd buy her a cheap drink and dance with her. But I didn't want to leave Joe high and dry on his birthday. It's kind of awkward getting a girl who's hitting on you to go hit on your friend. But Captain Obvious came to scuttle that problem. He started hitting on her, not letting either of us get a word in edgewise. Finally, she looked a little squeamish, and I gave him a glare. He looks back at the girl. "What, are you dating him?" And proceeded to start to interrogate her about our relationship. After about 15 seconds of that, I got sick of him. I got his attention for a sec, "Shut the fuck up, go away, and let me talk to her!" I didn't push it any farther, because I knew the bouncers were on edge, and would have bum rushed me the moment I stood up. Fortunately, Captain Obvious seemed to get the message, and bailed out. Unfortunately, the girl's friend saw her in between a 6'5" guy, and a 6'8" guy yelling at him. She promptly swooped in and took her to the other side of the room, exclaiming, "She has a boyfriend!" That could have ended better. This is why I hate lingering at bars around closing time, the dominance games are so damn annoying, especially when you don't really want to play.

Joe decided to head home. On the way out, I ran into the girl again. She apologized for her friend, and explained that her friend thought I was getting too aggressive, but she knew what had happened. She asked where I was heading. "Home, I've got better booze there." She was nice, but I was too far into chaperon mode to try anything with her.

All I had to do was get Joe's drunk ass 6 blocks, to his dorm. No problem, right? Wrong. Things only got more annoying. We got to the corner of Monroe and 14th street, and ran into this anorexic looking asian girl eating a pita. Clearly plastered. "I'm horny, let's have sex!" She said. Joe, being equally trashed, promptly took her up on her offer, and kissed her. She coughed a half chewed wad of tuna pita into Joe's mouth. As this hilarious spectacle is unfolding, I notice her friend. I don't know if he was her boyfriend, or another poor soul bringing home the drunk, but he made a beeline towards Joe. I grabbed him, gently, but with enough presence that he hesitated. Introduced myself, and pretty much asserted control of the situation. just because I don't like dominance games doesn't mean I can't be the Alpha Male when the situation calls for it. Once the situation was defused, we exchanged drunks, and I proceeded to continue taking Joe back to the dorm.

Joe proceeded to the emotional stage of drunkenness. He started talking about his friend back home who got shot during a drug deal that went south. I quickly told him to change the subject. That brought up some memories that I didn't want to deal with right then. Joe promptly chose about the next most depressing topic. One of the Air Force ROTC cadets had committed suicide that week. I know I give the Air Force a lot of flak, but that still sucks. Fortunately, I got him to his dorm before the conversation could go anywhere else. I trudged home, and fell asleep.

The next morning, brought me playoff hockey action. My Flyers took on their in state rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. My friend CJ, a Sharks fan, who's far more enthusiastic about hockey than I am, came over. He was still in a funk after the Shark's quadruple overtime loss to the Dallas Stars. I was trying to jump start his love of hockey again. We had some drinks (When I told that girl I had better alcohol at home than at the bar, I wasn't lying). I made CJ a white russian, and myself a caipirinha.

The Flyers went down in a blaze of terrible penalties, and we lost our best defenseman to a puck to the face one minute and seven seconds into the game. Wait until the series comes back to Philly. Things'll be different.

Interesting Weekend.

Well, as usual, my Friday night was occupied at Latin X Night, at Platinum, the best Cuban Salsa party on the West Coast. Another habit of mine, is getting together with some of my fellow Salsa dancers and having a fun dinner before we hit the club. This time, our delicatessen was Block 15, a new pub and brewery that had opened recently.

We got thrown into the game room, because the place was crowded enough that we weren't going to get a table for a group our size for a ridiculously long time. But it was fine, we got to watch AFV on the boob tube, and there weren't a bunch of people shuffling around our tables. We were also gifted with an inexplicable visit from the "Birthday Fairies." Even though it wasn't any of our birthdays.

One by one, we shuffled over to the bar, and placed our orders. I bought a pint of their Nebula Oatmeal Stout, and ordered a Barbecue Burger, which they said would be brought to me in the game room. I got back to the game room, and my friend Rob saw me fumbling with my debit card, beer, and receipt, trying to cram it back into my wallet. Rob was amazed that I somehow had gotten my card back. Apparently, he was somehow conned into opening a tab. Despite the fact that he doesn't drink. Here's where the meal got real entertaining.

The waitress comes in with a Barbecue burger, and asks who ordered it. Rob, Tristan, and myself all simultaneously say "I did!". Eyeing each other warily, we wrapped our mind around this oddity. But to be fair, it was a really good burger. It sounded much better than the "hand spanked" turkey burger. We gave Rob the first burger, because he ordered first, and the rest of the food came in one quick burst, so other moments of weirdness were averted.

After we finished eating, we went over to Platinum. As usual, we got there a little early, and I helped set up. Simona was having some trouble formatting the projector that splashes giant pictures of previous parties on a wall. Being as it hangs from the ceiling, I can work with it easier than others can.

Afterwords, Rob and I played a game of pool. I'm not a great pool player. Rob's easily better than me, but he was a little off his game, so I managed to take him down to the 8 ball. To be honest, I'm just glad I didn't wind up bleeding during this game again. I guess I'm getting better. I went over to the bar and got myself a rum and coke, and Mike challenged Bill and me to a game of Cutthroat.

For those of you who don't know the rules to cutthroat, the idea is you get three players. You divy up the balls between the three players, high, middle, and low. The goal is to knock every one else's balls in. Whoever has the last ball on the table is victorious.

I was high, Mike was Middle, and Bill was Low. Mike's a pretty good player. I sank one ball and Mike sank three. Then Bill ran the table on us. Turns out Bill helped pay his way through college playing pool. I never had a chance.

I drank some more, talked some more, and generally just waited for the night to ramp up. About 9:30, I get a call from Mercer. He wants me to come over and hang out before the NFL Draft. I love football, and the draft is practically a holiday for me. But I was already entrenched here. So I passed on the offer, I was going to hang out with them during the draft, so it's no big deal.

Tori showed up, and tried to get me to play another game of pool. No thanks, I'm putting my masochistic side away for the night. So we talked a little, and drank a little. Then there was a real surprise. Mercer's girlfriend, who I never had pegged as a salsa dancer showed up with some friends. I waved her over, and introductions were made and pleasantries exchanged. So she introduced me to her friends, Chelsea, Ashley, and Kira. Apparently they were taking Mike and Simona's class at OSU, and dragged Shevelle along for the ride. It's great that she was willing to get out and try something new. So I got her started, and taught her the bare bones of how to dance salsa.

One by one, I danced with each of them. They each had their strong points, but I enjoyed dancing with Kira the most. She was tall, had good rhythm and experience, and was insatiable when it comes to dancing. Even when I was tired, she was ready to go. I was impressed.

Mike was DJing the night, so that meant a lot of meringue, timba, and reggeton. Shevelle was real meek. She spent most of the night sitting at her table. So I started setting her up with some of my friends who I know are skilled, yet understanding leads. I hope she had fun and comes back next time.

We danced into the wee hours of the morning, until Platinum decided to kick us out so they could go home.

The next day rolled around, and so did my hangover. But I pay it no mind, for Saturday was the first day of the NFL Draft! That magical day that sees every football team born anew, in preparation of the rapidly approaching football season. I had my hopes that the Eagles would revitalize their red zone offense through a big bodied WR. With that dream fluttering in my head, I called up Mercer, and caught a ride over to Jon's apartment to watch the magic unfold.

Jon, Mercer, and Brian are all Cowboys fans, so there's some bad blood between us when it comes to football. There was also a Seahawks fan, a Raiders fan, and a Randy Moss fan.

Things got more interesting the closer the draft got to our teams. The Raiders pick at 4 was a foregone conclusion, it was also fantastically stupid. The Eagles came up at 19, and following a report from Sal Palantonio that the Eagles were going to make a catastrophically stupid move, trading up to take tackle Jeff Otah, we prepped the room so that I could safely vent. Opened the door, and moved all breakable objects from my path. Thankfully, the trade never happened. In fact, Otah was still on the board at 19, and we traded down in order to not draft him. Which just goes to show that the media will never know what the Eagles are going to do. I was happy.

That brought up the Cowboys, picking at 22. My Cowboy fan friends wanted their team to draft a corner from the University of South Florida named Mike Jenkins. What they got however, was hilarious. Roger Goodell walked up to the podium, and announced "With the 22nd pick in the NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys select... Felix Jones, Running Back, University of Arkansas."

Before he could even say the kid's name, the room I was sitting in exploded into a burst of noise, movement, and anguish. A beanbag chair went flying and another chair got flipped. Mercer ran out the door that I was expected to use when the Eagles picked, Jon sprinted upstairs, and I'm not really sure where Brian went. Understanding their pain, I went to go pick up the pieces. I found Jon in the hall, with his shirt pulled over his eyes, as if not looking at the broadcast could convince him that what he had seen had not actually occurred. Brian found his way back on his own, but Mercer was still outside. So I went to go get Mercer. He was muttering to himself about how Marion Barber's gonna want 60 mil now, and he's probably right. But with Mercer, I couldn't help myself from toying with him a little. So I brightened his day a little by reminding him that the Cowboys still had the 28th pick. Then I taunted him a little, "And DeSean Jackson's still on the board...".

The Cowboys wound up trading the 28th pick to move up to take Mike Jenkins. And the Eagles, using the pick they got in the trade with Carolina, took DeSean Jackson. Well, that came back to bite me in the ass. Oh well.

I'm not a fan of the Eagles draft this season, but I trust the front office to make the right decisions. It's been a long weekend, and I have a long week up ahead, so I can't dwell on the draft too much.

3rd in the World

Rumbanana, the Corvallis based Salsa group that pretty much is the greatest thing since sliced bread, just returned from the World Rueda de Casino Championships in Munich. Because when you think salsa dancing, the first place that leaps to your mind is obviously Germany.


They took third place, which is awesome, seeing as it's the world championship. They also thankfully took some sweet videos of their performances.



Rumbanana in the first round.



Rumbanana in the 2nd round.



Rumbanana in the finals.


Congrats to everyone who competed. Coming off their second place showing at the World Salsa championships at Miami six months ago, Rumbanana is really cementing itself as a premier dance group.

There's going to be a celebration at Platinum on the 14th. If you're in Oregon, be there. It's gonna be a great way to blow of some steam prior to finals.

A weekend of Salsa!

This was a pretty eventful weekend for me. Things got started off on Friday. I met a few of my friends from the salsa group for dinner at the Tokyo Steakhouse and Sushi bar. For those of you who haven't been there, it's a Hibachi style grill house, with a sushi bar built in. They've got some real good food there. Most of us opted to eat from the grill, but Bill and I decided to have sushi instead. While we waited, the conversation ranged from trips we've taken to other countries, to the hope that enough people register to start up the level 3 Salsa class, to an entertaining little chat between Tristan and myself about the merits of CS gas for clearing your sinuses. The chef came out to cook, and as usual, it was a fun show. Onion volcanoes, juggling eggs on spatulas, throwing food into peoples mouths, the whole nine yards.

The only thing marring the meal was the fact that my sushi took a half hour longer to prepare than anyone Else's meal, for some unknown reason. Even Bill, who ordered more sushi than I did, got his food before I did. I guess they had a tough time killing the salmon...

Once my food got brought out, everyone else was nearly finished with their meal. They were nice enough to not pressure me about it, but I still felt kind of sheepish about it. So, in my somewhat masochistic method of eating, I slathered the sushi in enough wasabi to make my eyes water, and wolfed it down. It was frustrating having to wait that long, but the food was good, and for 7 pieces of nigri and 8 California rolls for $14.95, the price was right too.

At about 9:15, we left the Sushi Bar and went over to Platinum. It was a little early, and Mike and Simona were still trying to get the sound system working right, so I grabbed my friends Rob and John and played a game of cutthroat. I'm not the greatest at shooting pool, and Rob's actually a pretty good shot, so I was kind of doomed from the outset. However, things went from bad to worse. On my second shot, I was pressing a little bit, and on the follow through I rammed my hand into the metal grating on the side of the pool table. The impact gouged a chunk of skin off the index and middle finger of my right hand. It stung, but it wasn't bleeding, so I kept playing. A couple of shots later, I hit the Cue ball, and watched a glob of blood go flying off my hand and onto the table. I looked at my hand, and found that it was bleeding, profusely. I handed my cue off to Shelly while I went to the bathroom to get some paper towels to soak up the blood. When I returned, Shelly noticed the blood saturated rag covering my right hand, and asked me if I wanted some band aids. Lord knows where she managed to find band aids in the bar, but she really saved my night. The girls wouldn't exactly be lining up to dance with me if I was just going to bleed all over their blouse.

Right about when Mike got the sound system to where he liked it and Simona got the music going, Sheridan showed up. Sheridan's a beautiful girl from the Salsa class at OSU that I help out with. She's got some very real potential as a dancer, even if she doesn't think so herself. She's easy to talk to and very intelligent. She's also shares a name with a tank, what more could you ask for?

I took Sheridan out onto the dance floor for several songs, a few sons, a merengue, and a nice bachata. It was nice because it was before things got really crowded. I asked if she was feeling a little adventurous, and took the nervous giggle I got as a yes. I took her over to a Rueda de Casino that was forming on the dance floor. We jumped in, and she acquitted herself well. Afterwords, I saw my friends Amy and Shannon had shown up, so I brought them over to meet Sheridan. It turns out they all knew each other from their freshman year in college. They immediately started catching up on what they'd missed, so I left them to their devices and danced with a few other friends from my salsa class.

Later around midnight, Simona kicked off the Leap Day Leap Frog contest. I looked around for Sheridan, to see if I could get her to partner up with me, but it turns out she had left a little while ago. I had hoped to get her phone number, but I'm sure I'll see her around again. I found a guy named Dylan who was willing to team up with me for the competition.

The rules of the competition were pretty straightforward, the team had to leapfrog the length of the dance floor, chug a beer, and leapfrog back. There were six teams, broken down into two heats of three. The winner of each heat would face each other in the final. Dylan and I were in the second heat, so we watched the first heat go through. Rob and John, the two guys I was playing pool with earlier, dominated the first heat. Although I suspect it might have been closer if Naomi and Alana remembered that they needed to go back after chugging the beer. The second heat rolled around, and we were up. We smoked our competition. This meant that we had to go against Rob and John in the finals. That last run was filled with Olympic caliber drama, if the Olympics were conducted in a dark nightclub by drunks. We hit the beers at a dead tie, but Rob botched the landing, slipping on spilled beer. Thinking we had the win sewed up, we let up a little bit on the return trip. But Rob and John came back with a vengeance. Right as we were coming up on the finish, Rob completely laid out in an attempt to snatch our victory away from us. But we were not to be denied. We edged them out by a nose, and claimed our victory. The reward for the champions was more beer, and a stuffed frog. It's good to be on top.

Afterwords, once I was done with my victory beer. I ran into one of the girls who were brave enough to compete in the leap frog contest. Her name was Kara and we hit it off nicely. We sat down at a table and talked for a little while. As we were talking, my friend Kyle showed up to say hi. Turns out he knew Kara. I thought it was kind of odd to see Kyle at a Latin X night, he always struck me as a Wild West Wednesday type. He admitted as much, but I wish he had gone out and danced a bit. There's a picture of him on the Latin X website where he's just sitting at the bar, looking completely out of his element. I'd probably look the same on a Wednesday night.

The conversation with Kara progressed nicely, until Simona decided to start playing some merengue again. At which point I felt the need to take Kara for a few dances. A little merengue is great because you can dance it no matter how much alcohol you've imbibed at that point. The music went from Merengue to salsa after a few songs, and Kara continued to keep up, which impressed me. She definitely has done salsa before. I'll have to make sure she comes out for the next Latin X night.

At this point, it was real late, and the party started to die down. Security hit the lights, and everyone staggered their way out into the night. I stayed behind to help Mike break down some of the decorations. My height comes in handy with some of the higher lighting setups. On my way home, I watched some poor SOB get lit up for a DUI. It was their own fault, every night the cops stash cars at the same place outside every bar, and every night, someone's stupid enough to try driving drunk right in front of the cop. I'm just glad I live close enough to walk.

Saturday morning brought up a new set of challenges. Rumbanana was holding a fundraiser party at Aztec Willie's in Portland. The goal was to raise money for their trip to the World Rueda Championships in Munich, Germany this week. The side effect of this fundraiser is an awesome party. However, the party's in Portland, I'm in Corvallis, and there's 90 miles separating the two. These are the days I wish I had a car. But I don't, so I do what's needed to get what I need, I beg, wheel and deal, and call in favors. But sometimes, things get a little out of control. This was one of those times.

Initially, I was supposed to get a ride from Alana. We were going to leave around 11 AM, and I'd bum around Portland for the day before showing up at the party at 9. I called her at 10, and she said that she decided to leave later. Fine by me, lets me loaf around home, rather than in Portland. But then, at around six, she calls me and tells me that somethings happened over at her place and she won't be able to give me a ride. Well, shit.

I go into panic mode. I start calling up everyone I know who has a car, to see if I could get a ride up to Portland. Alana was helpful, she sent me a ton of numbers of people from Rumbanana, and I started going down the list. Eventually, I found a ride up there. Thankfully.

We drove up to Portland, and found our way over to Aztec Willie's. We got there right as Mike and Simona kicked off the Rueda lesson. As that got going, I went over to the bar, and opened a tab. I was in a Kahlua type mood that night. I started off with a Smith and Wesson, and through the course of the night I went through a few White Russians and B-52s too. Yum...

Aztec Willie's is a nice establishment, it's got a couple flat screens with SC on, a Mexican grill, and a nice dance floor with a classy looking glass DJ booth. The problem is, the partition between the grill and the bar and the dance floor creates a brutal choke point. It really makes things a lot more crowded than it should be.

After I opened up my tab, I noticed the grill. But the bar had my debit card. The food actually looked pretty good, and even though I wasn't that hungry, I seriously entertained the notion of asking if I could put an enchilada on my bar tab. I bet they get asked that alot. But I thought better of mixing Mexican food and excessive amounts of alcohol.

One of my favorite things about going to a salsa night at the club is finding new people to dance with outside of the rumbanana circle. I was sipping on my drink after dancing a Bachata with Sara, I was walking over to the bar for another drink. On my way, I saw a pretty woman, about 5'11", blond, and slim. I walked over and asked if she wanted to dance. She said she didn't know how. So I taught her a little LA style salsa, because it's easier for most women to pick up on the fly than Cuban salsa. We danced some salsa, and some merengue (because let's face it, anyone can dance merengue). She had a good sense of rhythm, which made things easier, but things were still a little cramped on the packed floor. We went back to the bar, and engaged in the typical small talk. Her name was Kelly, and she was a Massage Therapist who had just moved to Portland from her previous job at a spa in Malaysia. Sexy. I'm definitely calling her the next time I'm in Portland.

Eventually, I had to leave, given as I was 90 miles from home, and my hope, to crash at Chelsea's place, fell through when she got a house sitting gig that night. So I bummed a ride back to Corvy, and passed out the moment I hit the bed. I spent most of Sunday recovering.

It was awesome.