Christmas came and went and I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen one Christmas movie. I had recently watched "There's No Business Like Show Business", and my NetFlix program had similar viewing suggestions for me. White Christmas with "der Bingle" and the boys was first on the list. Heck, I thought to myself, it would be bad luck not to see at least one schmaltzy Christmas movie so I fired up "White Christmas" this morning. I had enough of bad luck in 2013 and I didn't want to jinx 2014...
There's a really sweet dancing and singing number in there featuring Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen. "The best things in life can happen when your dancing. Dancing, often leads to romancing". As I'm sitting there smiling and humming along (quietly; it was 7 AM...) my mind, as it so often does these days..., started drifting back. Back to a dancing experience of my own.
It was '84 and I was 35. I was working in the tax department of a big leasing firm in SF's financial district. I had just been told by an Orthopedic surgeon that my volleyball career and my jumping days were over as my knee's cartilages were thinner than a communion wafer... "Can I still run, skip, play tennis? I dunno even dance?" I asked the doc. He said all that stuff was probably okay as long as I avoided jumping. Looking around for something to fill the void that the cessation of my volleyball career had created, I said to my supervisor and partying buddy, Peter (Fuzzy K.) Muzzy, "Hey Fuzzy! I read where they're giving western swing dance lessons at the Taraval ballroom. Wanna give it a whirl? Huh? Huh? Do you good to trip the light fantastic with some babesters, for a change (Fuzzy was gay...)".
It turns out Petie was game so we danced our way on down to the Taraval Ballroom in the sunset district. It was really a lot of fun to learn swing dancing. I put on my best Italian lace-up shoes with leather soles and spent one night a week for eight weeks learning the various moves: the five basic varieties: (1) Starter Step, (2) Side Pass, (3) Push Break / Sugar Push, (4) Whip. (5) The Anchor Step. I was pretty coordinated for a tall, lanky (in those days) middle aged guy and I learned the steps pretty quickly. Since all the guys and gals in the class were progressing at roughly the same rate, it made dancing with the ladies pretty easy. "Now that you've learned the basic steps, before we go into some of the more complicated moves, we need to pay attention to our movement and posture." Said our instructor. "For you guys, in particular, stand up straight, chest back, and swing those hips! That's why they call it "swing" dancing!" So I straightened up my posture and started swinging my hips.
One night, between dances, I saw a couple of the gals looking, (shyly), at me and chuckling. So I went over to see what was so funny. "Hi Mike, me and the gals were just saying you're our favorite dance partner. It's nice to be in the arms of such a big guy who can dance. And we love the way you swing your hips. In fact we call you "Swivel Hips" behind your back." Well, "Swivel Hips" was just fine by me...
I had just met a woman I was interested in and she invited me over to her apartment in the city. She told me that her favorite music was Sinatra's swing tunes, mostly from the fifties. That night we listened to some of Frankie's classics from that period: Come Fly with Me, My Way, Songs for Swinging Lovers. I fell in love with the girl and with the music. All that great swinging music and me a newly minted "swinging guy" swing dancer! I borrowed all her Sinatra albums and made a couple cassette tapes of my favorite swing tunes. I had a really great Blaupunkt cassette/radio in my (swinging...) BMW 320i car. I would drive around singing harmony with "ole Blue Eyes".
One night my new squeeze and I were driving around the Embarcadero after dinner and drinks. It was a beautiful full-moon night in the city. I had the moon roof open and Sinatra on the cassette player. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. There are these wide wooden fishing piers that jut out from the Embarcadero boulevard into the bay. It was a popular place for the local "hombres" to take their dates and see if they couldn't get them to watch the submarine races with them. You could drive right onto the pier and park. "Hey Jennie, I've got an idea. Let's go park on that pier over there". After we parked, I opened up both front doors, turned the music up and asked Jennie to dance with me. While we were doing the side pass and the sugar push, we could hear the other folks commenting on this intrusion into what they felt like was their home turf. These were young Hispanic couples from the Mission and they were sitting on the trunks of their "low riders" drinking and laughing.
The homeys were mostly laughing at us. "Man, look at those gringos making fools of themselves". The latinas didn't feel the same way and they stood up for us and our romantic gesture. Soon some of the gals had their guys out there dancing with us. It was a beautiful night and a great memory of dancing on the bay under the moon. For as Danny Kaye sang: Wonderful things can happen when you're dancing.
Love and kisses, Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres
No comments:
Post a Comment