Mambo mambo mambo...

Once upon a time, before I was in charge at the church nursery, before I got married and had a kid, and before I turned 30, I was a salsa dancer. I don't miss it actually, but I do miss the music. Nothing can warm up a cold night like that cowbell behind all the latin rhythms.

Now you might say to yourself, "Salsa dancing is a skanky scene, yo!" And you would be right. I learned many things about the salsa scene in Portland, like where I could dance seven nights a week, where were the meat markets, where was free, where had the best music and where was a place I could dance with a man my height who wasn't either going to try to berate me or grab my assets.

I learned that in order to be able to afford my addiction (because this is precisely what it transmogrified into, in a mild sense), I could only drink one glass of wine and I had to dress to the nines to get in the door for free and to get asked to dance and maximize the time limit I set for myself, which was usually an hour to an hour and a half from the time I walked in the door.

I learned how to walk off the floor if my partner chose to be less than classy, and rescue my friends when I saw they weren't having fun on account of a less than classy partner.

I wasn't a great dancer. There were always those who had more fluidity, more ability to improvise in a gorgeous way, and somehow looked good no matter who they danced with. I was a good follow, if my partner was good, we were great. If my partner relied on me to do more than follow, well, I was still learning how to look good doing that.

I maintained salsa dancing despite the eyebrows it raised and the friends I lost (because all I wanted to do ever was salsa dance and a night doing anything else seemed like a waste) because I never have found anything to warm the blood like salsa dancing.

If your home needs some warmth, some heat and liveliness, go get yourself a salsa cd, light some candles and pour a glass of wine. Crank those hot rhythms up. And then give in the the urge to tap the feet. Find the rhythm, because that is the very first step in dancing salsa--finding the cowbell rhythm.

And here's to all my good partners, and a smackdown to all the losers (one guy told me he could dance with me but he would have to charge me 25 an hour because this is what he charges his students!)

I don't miss the skanky scene, I miss the beats. Now my job is to teach A how to do this. She is precocious, it seems to run in the blood. I love it when she starts dancing when she hears music in public. It's one of the few times I know I have done something right.

In the pic, I am the one on the left.

Looking back: Places I have lived

I live in Portland, OR. In the past 15 years I have lived all over this town.

Once I lived in a townhouse near campus with a young Asian chef and another Asian fella, my buddy S., an architect, who decided to never speak to me again after he found out I wasn't going to date him. At one point they both moved out so I had to find 2 new roomies. I had one cousin of my sister in law and we found another. She was 19 and would be sweet as could be except for once a month (gee what could it have been?) when she would turn in to a raving bee-yotch. She was pretty, blonde, young and athletic. And one night she decided to threaten to kick my arse if I didn't give her her rent money back so she could go buy a pair of Sorels. Wait, it gets better...the COPS came because she was knocking stuff over in my room and pushing me around and D. got scared (not me of course ha! I have all that mud wrestling experience behind me so I was oh so confident READ: I almost peed my pants--not quite but I was a little wierded out) So the cops come and tell the crazed roommate to move out, which she did that night and needed us to give her money for gas to do so. She said so many nice things to us while she moved out.

In the same place, there was a man who lived next door. Every morning about 8 AM while he was in the shower he would verbally denigrate himself while he bathed. "YOU JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET YOUR S@#T TOGETHER! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? YOU ARE FOOLISH AND WORTHLESS!!" and that would go on for about 15 min a day every am, at the top of his lungs. It was kind of a bummer way to wake up, if it wasn't so bizarre.

In another place downtown Portland I was apartment sitting for like 2 months (long story there) in this terribly sketchy place in el centro. Taking my trash out at 3 am there would be these punk rock dudes in the elevator with knives, playing with the sharp edges, me with my bag of kitty litter to take to the dumpster just annoyed as all heck that they were just so odd in countenance. Never really occurred to me that I coulda been in genuine danger. Hm.

In Corvallis doing my teaching stuff, I moved in practically without knowing anything about this one house because the loser advisor in the office told me literally 2 weeks beore class started that it was starting. In those 2 weeks I had to quit my job, sever portland responsibilities, pack everything I owned and move an hour and a half away. I had precisely 2 days to find an apartment, a cheap one at that...I was broke. This place was 210 a month, huge, private and very close to campus. Little did I know that all our utilities would be turned off because the roommates refused to pay, there were daily potsmoking sessions, and just before I left a new roommate had been told he could move in (without any consultation on my part because I was rarely home) and proceeded to sell big bags of green organic stuff from the house and empty out the bar into his bedroom, where they had a really great time at 230 am, and me right next to him have to get up at 5 am. Oh I was so glad to be there. I thought I had died and gone to hell.


It was not without its moments...me kicking people off my couch who were watching south park and and smoking dubbage because my parents were due to arrive, trying to explain to a fellow student teacher why there were beer bottles all over our living room whenever he stopped by to see me but I wasn't there..."I just sleep there...honestly, I am never there because it kinda sucks" (he mr. milk toasty church boy who probably could remember the last sin he committed) not that it is important, but going in renting there my thought was "Well as long as they don't just sit around and smoke pot all the time and they pay their bills, I don't care, I will never be home" Why didn't I move? With what time and what money? Besides, after one extremely stressful year, it was all over.

And this is to say nothing about the roommates who dragged out the crucifix with cowbones nailed to it and placed on our porch (it was art), and when my small voice registered some level of displeasure with this, I was painted as a big ugly fundamentalist kook

Nor to mention the crazy house where after we decided to have a swing dancing party, one roommate (a marine rotc guy) nailed his bedroom door shut with him inside because he was wierded out by all my russian and spanish speaking friends. And the other roommates took his side and I had to send my friends home. (??) Had no previous inkling they were racist, promptly moved out.

Yes I moved out of all these places in short order.

But there were cool places too...the large gorgeous old house with all the architects with the snooker table and the bands that played in the living room...the house with the deck with the mannequin on it where we could sit out and watch the people from the pub all stumble over the same buckle in the sidewalk.

Okay nostalgia moment about the bad old days is over, I will resume to our irregularly programmed schedule.

re rentanegro: un poco mas...

So this thing from Damali Ayo isn't really a joke. She has written a book.

And people are saying things like this...

"the generation of artists to which ayo belongs has begun to address not only the commodification of black people but also the marketing of blackness. (Ayo specifically acknowledges comedians Godfrey Cambridge and Dick Gregory, who told Rent-A-Negro jokes during their 1960s performances.)"

Maybe I should send her publisher a bill for promoting her. I could use the money.