The trip to Santa Fe
Feb. 24th, 2008 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerYesterday, I was feeling bad all day. Not quite sick, but like I still couldn't quite get over this five-week long drudge after the flu and my body was rebelling against me. Fatigue was the word of the day. A 1pm nap helped a little bit, but my butt was draggin'.
In spite of that, we had to make the effort to get it together for the trip to Santa Fe. I had to be up for my hour of teaching c/w lessons at Rainbow Vision, then being up for working with Danny as co-DJ for 3 hours after that.
Jim Bailey joined us for a rather bizarre and not-that-tasty-but-expensive dinner at Garbo's, the upscale restaurant in Rainbow Vision. We had to run over to the bar after ordering to set up the sound equipment for the night, hooking into their amp and speakers. That wouldn't have been a problem, except we didn't have the particular adaptors that system needed! Danny was able to get the laptop going through the tape input, but I had to run out to my car to get my Hilton amp so I could use the wireless headset. It took about 20 minutes to get all that going, while Jim was sitting in the restaurant reading a book waiting for dinner.
Danny can't have any dairy and Joseph (who didn't join us for dinner) is a total vegan. Makes for interesting restaurant choices. Garbo's was interesting, but probably won't be repeated. It's not meant as a general restaurant anyway, but for the residents.
Although we had gotten there at 6:05, and the lessons were to start at 7:30, by the time we had gotten our meal and paid, it was 7:25. At least the dance was 30 feet away!
The lessons went well enough, but one hour is such a short time to try to teach 20 people enough of the fundamentals of c/w dancing to get them through the night. But dance they did. Apparently drinking helped though, because most of them stayed the entire evening. Jim and Joseph participated, too and stayed an hour longer than they intended. They brought a female friend of their's named Janet with them...she has terminal cancer, but a wonderful outlook on life and participated in the lessons happily.
Danny did 98% of the DJ work for the night, as well as 99% of the prepping for the night in advance,using the newly acquired OTS DJ software. He did a great job, blending in the requests (that we had in the library) into the dance playlist he had put together. This was a first for both of us, and a learning experience it was. At one point, some dancers came over and said we need to play more upbeat "faster" music, and of course we asked for a particular song or artist. Took a while for them to come up with one, and of course it wasn't faster (for dancing), it just SOUNDED faster because of the double-beat in the rhythm section. But we opted to find 'perkier' sounding music to blend in with the general dance, thanks to the BPM chart of music Danny had the foresight to put on the laptop. Except for one number I had Danny throw in at random that I thought was dancable but wasn't ("Kick A Little" by Little Texas), there were dancers on the floor for every number.
Finally, 11:30 rolled around...we ended the night with "We Danced" by Brad Paisley and packed it all up for our hour drive back home. Unloaded the car at 12:45am, and Danny immediately fell into a sound sleep in bed...he had napped in the car most of the way back. I stayed up till about 3am watching TV, since I had been drinking caffeinated sodas during the evening.
I'm SO glad we're only doing this once a month...all that 'up-ness' makes one bone-crushingly weary after awhile. I may even decide that we'll just do it through April, unless we're given the boot before then.
In spite of that, we had to make the effort to get it together for the trip to Santa Fe. I had to be up for my hour of teaching c/w lessons at Rainbow Vision, then being up for working with Danny as co-DJ for 3 hours after that.
Jim Bailey joined us for a rather bizarre and not-that-tasty-but-expensive dinner at Garbo's, the upscale restaurant in Rainbow Vision. We had to run over to the bar after ordering to set up the sound equipment for the night, hooking into their amp and speakers. That wouldn't have been a problem, except we didn't have the particular adaptors that system needed! Danny was able to get the laptop going through the tape input, but I had to run out to my car to get my Hilton amp so I could use the wireless headset. It took about 20 minutes to get all that going, while Jim was sitting in the restaurant reading a book waiting for dinner.
Danny can't have any dairy and Joseph (who didn't join us for dinner) is a total vegan. Makes for interesting restaurant choices. Garbo's was interesting, but probably won't be repeated. It's not meant as a general restaurant anyway, but for the residents.
Although we had gotten there at 6:05, and the lessons were to start at 7:30, by the time we had gotten our meal and paid, it was 7:25. At least the dance was 30 feet away!
The lessons went well enough, but one hour is such a short time to try to teach 20 people enough of the fundamentals of c/w dancing to get them through the night. But dance they did. Apparently drinking helped though, because most of them stayed the entire evening. Jim and Joseph participated, too and stayed an hour longer than they intended. They brought a female friend of their's named Janet with them...she has terminal cancer, but a wonderful outlook on life and participated in the lessons happily.
Danny did 98% of the DJ work for the night, as well as 99% of the prepping for the night in advance,using the newly acquired OTS DJ software. He did a great job, blending in the requests (that we had in the library) into the dance playlist he had put together. This was a first for both of us, and a learning experience it was. At one point, some dancers came over and said we need to play more upbeat "faster" music, and of course we asked for a particular song or artist. Took a while for them to come up with one, and of course it wasn't faster (for dancing), it just SOUNDED faster because of the double-beat in the rhythm section. But we opted to find 'perkier' sounding music to blend in with the general dance, thanks to the BPM chart of music Danny had the foresight to put on the laptop. Except for one number I had Danny throw in at random that I thought was dancable but wasn't ("Kick A Little" by Little Texas), there were dancers on the floor for every number.
Finally, 11:30 rolled around...we ended the night with "We Danced" by Brad Paisley and packed it all up for our hour drive back home. Unloaded the car at 12:45am, and Danny immediately fell into a sound sleep in bed...he had napped in the car most of the way back. I stayed up till about 3am watching TV, since I had been drinking caffeinated sodas during the evening.
I'm SO glad we're only doing this once a month...all that 'up-ness' makes one bone-crushingly weary after awhile. I may even decide that we'll just do it through April, unless we're given the boot before then.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 06:21 pm (UTC)Now that you've done this once, I bet you'll find the next time(s) to be easier, in spite of the schlep to Santa Fe. Wish I could be there to see the two of you in action!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 06:33 pm (UTC)I did go out on the floor to try to help a few of the dancers that were flailing about during the regular dance. :-)
And yes, I think I agree with the "rhythmic subdivision" bit.