Jay Leno/54th National Square Dance Convention

CallerLab disseminated the news that the 'interviews' that were done by a Tonight Show Comedian Interviewer would air last night. News traveled fast about that. I know I must have gotten the email about it from 5 other sources after that.

Danny taped it last night, but I was up and watched it. He'll get to enjoy it Sunday night when he gets back from San Mateo!

In the back of my mind, I was wondering HOW many square dancers watching were thinking there would be some positive slant on the 54th National Square Dance convention in Portland in June. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING. C'mon, it's the Jay Leno show...famous for "Jaywalkers" where he interviews people who are edited down to look very stupid (some of them are).

Yup, it portrayed all the very bizarre negative stereotypes about the activity. Ridiculous clothing, ancient 'dancers' stumbling around, goofy interview talk, silly music. We've seen it all before. There was a brief interview with Stu Shacklett and his wife...Stu received the Milestone Award a couple years back for 50+ years of calling and teaching. He did a bit of impromptu singing call into her microphone, which sounded weird to say the least...

As we've heard many times, the whole activity is going to have to die down to a bright shining ember at some point before it can have a rebirth. At least as an activity EVERYONE can be part of.

Jay Leno/54th National Square Dance Convention

CallerLab disseminated the news that the 'interviews' that were done by a Tonight Show Comedian Interviewer would air last night. News traveled fast about that. I know I must have gotten the email about it from 5 other sources after that.

Danny taped it last night, but I was up and watched it. He'll get to enjoy it Sunday night when he gets back from San Mateo!

In the back of my mind, I was wondering HOW many square dancers watching were thinking there would be some positive slant on the 54th National Square Dance convention in Portland in June. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING. C'mon, it's the Jay Leno show...famous for "Jaywalkers" where he interviews people who are edited down to look very stupid (some of them are).

Yup, it portrayed all the very bizarre negative stereotypes about the activity. Ridiculous clothing, ancient 'dancers' stumbling around, goofy interview talk, silly music. We've seen it all before. There was a brief interview with Stu Shacklett and his wife...Stu received the Milestone Award a couple years back for 50+ years of calling and teaching. He did a bit of impromptu singing call into her microphone, which sounded weird to say the least...

As we've heard many times, the whole activity is going to have to die down to a bright shining ember at some point before it can have a rebirth. At least as an activity EVERYONE can be part of.

C/W Lessons, Night 1

First night of teaching over and done, hope it's a start! There were 10 guys there for lessons that mostly were there by 7. I'm sure there will be lots more next week. I knew everyone there.

Had a couple of false starts using my own sound system. I couldn't figure out how to hook up to their sound system at the Ranch, and was having some really odd distortion problems with mine. Hard to figure out in the near dark, too...the bartender said "the overhead lights were all burned out". (That didn't turn out to be the case. The overheads came on about 7:30). But I got it working well finally.

So with my trusty new madonna headset, I spent almost two hours teaching the Basic Waltz, the basic dance partner frame, a couple of Waltz variations, Boot Scootin' Boogie, and Cotton Eye Joe. A couple of Wilde bunchers were there as "angels," which was good...

And of course, there were several around the bar that were being an audience.

VERY happy with the new headset. It's an AKG something 40 model. At only $249, it was a bargain for a walk-in-and-buy-it thing and much better quality than my old Samson that I bought about '91. I was prepared to pay $400...

So, I had to deal with what I FIGURED I'd have to deal with. Although the Ranch wants to have the c/w lessons to boost weekend dancing (and of course drinking...it's their profit), they aren't prepared to do any of that. The manager went to dinner at 6:30 and I don't know if he ever showed back up. They're busy running around doing their bar stuff, and only peripherally aware that there's lessons. It feels like there's an attitude that they're doing me a favor, which is pretty much the opposite of the REAL situation.

Their DJ who did show up at 8:00 or so is an enthusiastic guy and was making several suggestions on music I should use other than what I did (mine was fine). I pleasantly asked why he wasn't teaching the program, and he said he didn't know how to dance. Well, yah. I will give him updates of what I'm teaching every week though, so he can play the music that works for the dances. I know many gay bars have the DJ play the music and they just teach, but after 20+ years calling and teaching, I prefer to be the control queen myself! ;-)

Next week: Basics of 2-step and the Tush Push.

Maybe by week 3, we'll have one hour of new dancer lessons and one hour of review/refresh/practice.

C/W Lessons, Night 1

First night of teaching over and done, hope it's a start! There were 10 guys there for lessons that mostly were there by 7. I'm sure there will be lots more next week. I knew everyone there.

Had a couple of false starts using my own sound system. I couldn't figure out how to hook up to their sound system at the Ranch, and was having some really odd distortion problems with mine. Hard to figure out in the near dark, too...the bartender said "the overhead lights were all burned out". (That didn't turn out to be the case. The overheads came on about 7:30). But I got it working well finally.

So with my trusty new madonna headset, I spent almost two hours teaching the Basic Waltz, the basic dance partner frame, a couple of Waltz variations, Boot Scootin' Boogie, and Cotton Eye Joe. A couple of Wilde bunchers were there as "angels," which was good...

And of course, there were several around the bar that were being an audience.

VERY happy with the new headset. It's an AKG something 40 model. At only $249, it was a bargain for a walk-in-and-buy-it thing and much better quality than my old Samson that I bought about '91. I was prepared to pay $400...

So, I had to deal with what I FIGURED I'd have to deal with. Although the Ranch wants to have the c/w lessons to boost weekend dancing (and of course drinking...it's their profit), they aren't prepared to do any of that. The manager went to dinner at 6:30 and I don't know if he ever showed back up. They're busy running around doing their bar stuff, and only peripherally aware that there's lessons. It feels like there's an attitude that they're doing me a favor, which is pretty much the opposite of the REAL situation.

Their DJ who did show up at 8:00 or so is an enthusiastic guy and was making several suggestions on music I should use other than what I did (mine was fine). I pleasantly asked why he wasn't teaching the program, and he said he didn't know how to dance. Well, yah. I will give him updates of what I'm teaching every week though, so he can play the music that works for the dances. I know many gay bars have the DJ play the music and they just teach, but after 20+ years calling and teaching, I prefer to be the control queen myself! ;-)

Next week: Basics of 2-step and the Tush Push.

Maybe by week 3, we'll have one hour of new dancer lessons and one hour of review/refresh/practice.