Onion

March 8, 2007

Is it 1 AM already? It did not seem as if I stayed extra long. I did fall down on my couch after coming home and had no will to move for a very long time. I sure did not dance much – 3 times all night? I only asked 4 people. I think Sergio danced more than me – this has to be a first in a very long time – over 2 years probably. In fact I am pretty sure Sergio danced at least 4 times or maybe even more. This number is not particularly high for him. And I thought I danced very little on Tuesday. I think I’ll count the dances for tonight again. There was one with a complete beginner – probably with no more than 2-3 lessons under her belt and as few as 1 lesson. I danced with Lindsey to Mundy Baja – a rather sedate affair. After a long hiatus caused in part by a brush with arguably the worst song ever heard at Club Salsa (see below), I forced myself to dance much later with Annette, but it was too fast and I was totally uninspired. It was not a very good night compared to most Thursdays at Club Salsa.

There was one truly awful Salsa song played tonight – so devastating that I could not tell if the next several songs following it were no good or if this song left an extremely bad aftertaste – Sergio called it an onion. Until that excruciating song, the music was fine - not much worse than average by Thursday standard (Mundy Baja, Pico Swing and Tu Tu Ta Ta II had been played up to that point). A disclaimer – I might have been uninspired to start with because there were so few people to dance with (the male to female ration might have been 2 to 1 or worse). In any case, I think there were 5 couples dancing to this horrible song. One of the five couples on the far side might have been dancing more or less respectively, but the other four couples looked atrocious. By the way, I’m not calling anyone a bad dancer here because some of those 10 people can be quite good in other circumstance. I just think it was a really unfortunate mix of a stupendously bad song possibly combined with poorly matched couples. I would not be surprised if most if not all Salsa dancers in the know who danced to this song tonight left the dance floor feeling unsatisfied about their dance. Maybe their dancing was fine, but I was unwilling to admit that any dance to that song could be any good. I think this song made me lose what little will I had to dance tonight (although I did try once with very poor results). To me nothing sounded any good afterwards – including Ritmo Pa Borinquen (Grupo Latin Vibe), Manos Duras and Arrepientete (both by Ray Barretto). Sergio on the other hand seemed quite recovered by the time Ray Barretto songs came on and looked quite nifty dancing solo as well as dancing with Nina.

Sergio said he liked what sounded like an older version of a Joe Arroyo song he knew, but as a first pass I was lukewarm (this was before the worst song in memory). He called it bam bam song.

Postscript. Perhaps because of my invective against this now- or to-be-infamous song, people would become curious and ask to have it be played again. With my luck, some and possibly many people will say it’s a great song and it will become one of all-time favorite at Club Salsa. What a nightmare…

Post-postscript. I was so disheartened that I forgot to write a description of the routine/choreography. Maybe I’ll do it later. Any afterglow leftover from SOS is long gone. Maybe it's all part of the up-and-down swings.

Post-post-postscript. Shila et al are apparently organizing some party involving Salsa music among others at St. Edmunds College on this Saturday. 8 days in a row??? This is getting insane. Maybe it's time to cut down.