It's raining men

July 21, 2006

It's raining men. Not quite. There has not been a hint of rain although it would be quite welcome in this current bout of exceptionally warm days. I probably remember this song best from the recurring skit "Men on Film" from the TV comedy show "In Living Color." Apparently the original song was done by The Weather Girls, was remade with RuPaul, and remade again with Geri Halliwell. It's hailed as a camp classic and gay anthem - not surprising given "Men on Film" - a highly amusing parody of Siskel & Ebert featuring a pair of extremely effeminate gay men reviewing films based upon their potential for homoerotic content. In any case, the title came to my mind because there was a severe shortage of women to dance with tonight.

I arrived shortly after 10 PM. After saying hello to Vishal, Johnny and Serap, I had ~ 1 1/2 dances with Serap immediately; I think it was something of make-up dance for last week. I also had another dance with Serap later, so even though I only had about 10 dances altogether with ~6 people for the evening, 2 1/2 were with Serap.

As I was beginning to think that this was going to be pretty boring night, Cyrille showed up with his Italian guest. Cyrille had described him as a very good dancer, but he did not dance at all tonight - apparently because the music was not New York enough. What I heard tonight wasn't exactly Cuban (a la the Cuban room at the Rocket earlier this month), and I wonder what kind of music Cyrille's friend would have considered New York (unless he meant musicians based in New York - I don't think there was a single Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Joe Cuba, Lebron Brothers, Larry Harlow, Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Cachao, Africando or Frankie Ruiz played by Cristian tonight ... Vishal played a Willie Colon (Idilio) very early and likes Africando, and Cristian sometimes plays Frankie Ruiz ... also Isidro Infante might qualify as New York even if he's not liked very much by the on-2 people. I think Cristian plays El Gran Combo sometimes but I'm not absolutely positive on this. I thought one song might have been sung by Cheo Feliciano (based upon the voice quality) but I'm not sure (I think it had a series of transitions (or simply dodgy bits) within a very short segment at the beginning). Not sure if there was Grupo Niche. Nothing stood out as Los Van Van. There certainly were some very familiar songs but I don't know what they are. More I think about it, more I am mystified trying to figure out which artists Cristian use. Maybe I should ask to see his CD collection so that I have better idea of what he plays. Perhaps he mainly uses songs by contemporary artists (within last 10 years) I don't know much about (e.g. not Jimmy Bosch, probably not Wayne Gorbea, La 33, probably not Gilberto Santa Rosa either, N'Klabe, probably not Spanish Harlem Orchestra ... I have heard Tabaco Y Ron getting played sometimes in past). Some of the songs I recognized included El Preso (Fruko Y Sus Tesos), Me Voy Pa' Cali and Lloraras (Oscar D'Leon)). In any case, I suspect that it would have been a moot point given that Serap was the only CBL specialist tonight - there were some other pretty good followers but pretty much all of them were rooted more towards Cuban than CBL. Sergio was next to show, and he was joined by a colleague of his from his program (more of hip hop dancer?). Finally, the group was completed by Zern. Until around 1:30 AM, most in the group were just hanging out and goofing around with each other and not dancing very much. Cyrille probably danced the most after me although this includes only one or possibly two Salsa, couple of Merengue, couple of Bachata, and one Reggaeton where he was dancing by himself. Likewise, I think I saw Sergio dance maybe 3 or 4 times. I think Serap was the only person who had CBL style Salsa dance in double digits for the evening tonight.

I decided to have one beer (for the second week in a row), which elicited surprised comments from a few people including Sergio, Cyrille and Vishal. Alcohol sales seemed present if not brisk - I recall seeing some people drinking shots. A woman approached me shortly after one of my dances with Serap asking me to teach her some shines. It was doubly curious because I don't recall doing shines tonight. For some reason she thought I was a Salsa teacher, and I had to explain that I am not and point towards some others in the crowd who are more qualified. Also many of shines, which might be fine for leads would not look very good for followers. There was some talk of going to London - Saturday for Cyrille and his friend and maybe Zern and Sunday for me and Sergio. It's been a while since my last SOS, and it would be nice to catch up with some people (if they show up) there. Hopefully the weather will cool down a little too.