Dancing with Kaite

Dancing makes me happy, sometimes nervous. . . but happy. I was meeting a new friend at Joe's All American Bar & Grill Tuesday night. Her name is Katie and she loves to dance and talk about magic, cool huh? A chick magician! Her dad does magic and so does the guy she's dating (I would say who that is, but he's famous and I'm not sure what the ethics are on that sort of thing). Lets just say that we can talk about Erdnase between dances.

I was nervous about dancing and looking foolish, but the band started up and before I knew it we were on the dance floor cutting a rug. It wasn't so bad, I was doing just fine and she was doing great. She has danced most of her life and it shows.

We're gonna try and make this a regular Tuesday Night Dance Night. This is great news for me as that's one of the things I was missing about Seattle. It's great fun and good exercise. I was chicken shit about asking other women to dance, but Katie didn't seem to mind me hogging most of the dances with her. We both danced with other people as well. I was glad she had a couple of dances with excellent dancers. I think I hold my own OK, but lack confidence. Weekly dancing and not being such a chicken shit should help with that.

For those of you who may not know what swing dancing looks like, here is a clip I found on You Tube.

Doens't this look like fun!?

Swing Dancing in Burbank

My desire to swing dance, starts a strange series of events that ends with a phone call from Chris Kenner and a hangover.

I don't know how to explain it, so I won't. All I can say is that I had a super time at Joe's All American Bar & Grill in Burbank, Tuesday night. I went after hearing that they they have a bit of a dance scene with live music. Sounded good as I've been wanting to do some dancing. It's always hard for me to go to a new place and ask women I don't know to put up with my lousy dancing. After a few drinks, I asked a woman named Trish to dance. It wasn't so bad. I talked to a fellow named Paul and asked for some advice. He said he was flattered, but he looked pretty good out there.

Dancing is great. Two people close together, in sync with each other. The man gets to be the man and lead. She will go where I lead. I must do this with confidence and stay on the beat. Both women I danced with, were much better dancers than me. Big surprise there. Good women dancers always seem to pick up my slack. If I'm off the beat after the turn, they some how make that half second disappear.

The band was done by midnight. The DJ played on and Trish gave me a little Cha Cha Cha lesson. I'm looking forward to going back next week and doing it again.

The best thing about finding this cool place to dance with a big dance floor and good music is. . . it's only 4 miles away! IN LA, how nice is that?

Saturday Night • The Avalon Ball

We left the house around 4PM on Saturday. It was going to be about an hour drive to get to Long Beach where we would catch a boat to Catalina Island. We passed the Queen Mary on the hour boat ride to the Ball.

We enjoyed a cocktail and each others company on the boat as we stared into each others eyes.



Here we are at the ball. We arrived fashionably late and didn't waste anytime getting into the swing of things. We danced, we drank we kissed. When we got too hot from dancing we went outside and enjoyed the cool evening air and the beautiful sights of the bay.



All in all a great evening with my sweetie. Definitely a must do for next year. We might stay on Catalina next year or at least make a whole day of it.

We saw some great dancing, listened to some of our favorite big band standards and just had a perfectly delightful evening. Lots of hats, tuxedo's, sparkly dresses and cigars. My kind of evening! Thanks Polly!

The Avalon Ball

Tomorrow night Polly and I will be attending the Avalon Ball on Catalina Island. I'm very excited about getting out there and doing some dancing with my gal. I haven't gotten all dressed up in a while, should be a swinging good time. I think this is the same band that we saw at the Derby.

I love the feel of the 20's, 30's and 40's, the music, the style, the clothes, the hats, the dancing and of course, the magic. Going to an event like this, in a way, is like going in a time machine (a "clean air act" time machine).



During the summer we went to see a contemporary musical film called Idlewild. The slow motion segments of the lindy hop, dance sequences were breath taking. I wish I could put into words what I feel when I'm dancing with a girl. The first time I took Polly dancing in Seattle she said of my smile, that I looked like a really happy 6 year old.

A couple of cocktails, a slow dance and and then pick it up a notch and let the horn section rip! I like to lead, it's what the man does. Some women like to lead. When that happens, sometimes I just force the lead. I asked a dance instructor about that once, his advice, "Make her feel like she's right". Most women follow beautifully. I hope Polly and I dance with a variety of people. It's going to be so fun. . . I can't wait!