Jet City Swingers

Friday, September 11, 1998

I want to recommend this very funny site: Jerk City! I found it through Cruel Site of the Day. The creators take random snippets of text, presumably from their real chat dialogs, and have MS Comic Chat do the cartooning. I love it!

I went to Friday Night Practice at the Savoy Swing club tonight. What a treat! We had Hep Jen teaching us, with Jessica assisting her since Cat Daddy Chris was out of town. I was able to get the steps she taught easily, since they were very similar (if not identical) to the ones we'd had in class yesterday. I got to dance again with Keith from Corvallis. He is a superb dancer! Lots of great style and energy, and clear leads. I asked him if he was going to the Century Ballroom tonight, but he's underage and doesn't want to mess around with a fake ID. "It's a felony!" he said.

Earl and I went for a snack in between practice and the dance, then he drove me the few blocks to the Century. The distance is so short, it was almost not worth it to move his car! He didn't want to go into the dance yet, since he said if he arrived too early, he'd get too tired, too soon. So I went on in, and left him in the car reading a book. (I don't think it was really because he didn't want to be seen arriving with me! This horrid thought just popped into my head this minute!)

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I last heard the band at the Century, HB Radke and the Jet City Swingers, back in April. They are a fun band, with HB modeling himself on Frank Sinatra, but the long medleys they play can wear you out!

We had a dance contest with an unusual format: The follows voted on their three favorite leads, and the leads voted on the follows. No judges, and no audience voting, just the other dancers! And again I was unplaced. Oh, well, I'll keep trying. I did like this way of running a contest. Apparently Benjamin brought back the idea from an out-of-town dance workshop.

There was a cool couple visiting from LA, but I didn't get their names. The guy looked hispanic, with very long hair tied back in a pony tail. Both were expert dancers in a multiplicity of styles, including something that I think was Balboa. I'd never seen this dance, but I've read descriptions of it as the couple dancing upright and close together, facing each other, while their feet go crazy fast underneath.

The girl was extremely energetic, and a very good follow. Another model for me! In other dance news of note, I asked Hallie to dance, which I don't recall doing before. It's always slightly intimidating to ask your instructor to dance in a social setting, but I've done this with Jen and Chris many times now. I hadn't quite worked my courage up to ask Hallie before, and she's usually very busy running the place. But I'll ask again in the future.