Ok, this whole blog thing was my idea, and I am WAY behind in the posting. Excuse? I keep opting to crash on a couch at the Dancer’s Den rather than sleep in my own bed. Clearly I am not mentally where I need to be to start an adult life. In any event, if there was anything worth blogging about, I have finally hit on it. This past weekend I packed into a yellow bug with some awesome buddies and made the six hour drive down to LA for Camp Hollywood 2009. Still riding the high.
Apparently I have found my new (expensive) hobby. SFLX’08. Check. SacLX’09. Check. Camp Jitterbug’09. Check. And now for Camp Hollywood’09 I am inking in a nice fat “X.” This was not what my pocketbook had intended. I am going to go ahead and place the blame squarely on the shoulders on Mel. Next to events like Frankie95, ULHS or Lindy Focus, Camp Hollywood is not particularly compelling. Filtered through an excited first time camper and general lindy hop cheerleader, Camp Hollywood is the ONLY place to be at the end of July.
When the time came round to register for Camp Hollywood, I was not particularly inclined to pay for the entire camp OR plane tickets OR a “posh” hotel. When one is currently what I like to refer to as an immobile vagabond (i.e. a bum), one must pick and choose where one wants to spend one’s previously hard earned monies. Camp Hollywood has a (deserved) reputation of being too…well…Hollywood. A whole barrage of extenuating circumstances had killed earlier plans to road trip down to LA, and I was ready to call it quits on making any part of Camp Hollywood. Then Brom offered me the last spot in his car, and suddenly it was “CH All Systems Go!”
Let me start by saying that this experience was by no means all good. It was plagued by mediocre night dances, sometimes iffy music, a hotel disaster of (exaggeratedly) epic proportions, not enough sleep, deficient nom prospects, constant LA traffic, and a missed barbecue that was apparently fantastic. But as with most things in life, the good far outweighs the bad, and I am glad to have gone.
Things immediately started going wrong when I got a call on Thursday night telling me that my hotel reservations had fallen through, and I needed to find a place to stay for three people. I spent a half an hour outside of Triple Rock amongst smokers and (real) bums frantically calling fellow campers to find us another situation. Thankfully, Lindy Hoppers are some of the nicest and helpful people in the world. Chris, Ben and Charles were particularly kind and offered to sleep on the floor in order to give us a place to stay. Everybody I talked to was a sport for putting up with the constant reshuffling. In the end, the whole scenario just reinforced another aspect of what makes being a swing dancer wonderful. You get to be a part of a community that has your back when things go a little bit wrong. I barely know Ben and I met Charles that weekend, yet they allowed me to impose on their vacation simply because I was part of their circle of lindy friends. And Chris, well, he is just a sweetheart. Swing Love!!!
I can’t really speak on the quality of lessons, and I was not able to see all of the competitions, but I feel that I took advantage of all of the weekend that I had access to. I danced most of Friday night (10pm-2:30am) and Saturday night (9:30pm-4:30am), and managed to sneak into the awards ceremony. There was no way I was gonna miss Matt, Yon and Bromley picking up some totally righteous hardware. Represent for the BAY (and Sac)!
Friday night was decent. I should probably thank Bromley for saving my night. I was having quite a bit of trouble navigating the crowd for the first couple of hours, and was feeling pretty crappy in terms of being a good dance partner. Dancing with Bromley almost always makes me feel like a better follow, and I was able to have some killer dances with some new partners afterwards. There is nothing like encountering a new dance partner and being excited to dance with him, but also feeling like he is excited to dance with you as well! That is something that I rarely get in SF anymore. I guess I have been around for too long… The DJ played a variety of music. Although I am sure there were some songs that I dislike very strongly (i.e. all of that rockabilly noise), I came away feeling that I got to hear some new music in my favorite jazz and swing styles.
I think the biggest knock on this social dance was that nothing about the venues was conducive to a lindy hopper who wants tear up the floor for eight hours. The physical surface was terrible. I had people tell me it was sticky, but I personally thought it was very slippery in some spots. Let’s just say it was uneven. The whole floor was divided up into three pieces, and was altogether too small at the beginning of the night and too big at the end. Swingouts that transition from laminate to carpet never go well and I hated being cut off from the other dancers out there by the floor divisions. I had one dance where Laura Keat whacked me twice, I kicked Marcus Koch in the shin, and I TOTALLY felt up some woman’s ass. (I literally dragged my entire hand along the width and breadth of her butt.) Not ideal.
I was initially excited to hear Mora’s Modern Rhythm Makers, because I have and enjoy a few of their recordings. Overall, they were underwhelming. I think Eva put it best when she said that they played run of the mill swing. The long delays between songs were trying as well. By 2am, the floor had mostly cleared out, and Eva said that I looked “danced with” which I suppose translates to disheveled. I figured hanging around for much longer would not be worth the sleep I could be getting, so I packed it in. Highlight of the night, Nicole slapped my ass. Swift judgment from the head judge, and I think I am OK with it.
Saturday night made my entire weekend, but it started out rough. Once again, I had trouble warming up and approaching people. This has become a trend with me, and I need to get over it. It takes up too much time. The competitions (Team and Lindy Finals) were tough to stomach. JB had some rough spotlights, and by 11:30pm, I was feeling a bit forlorn. This was unfortunate for many reasons, but especially because Jonathan Stout and his band of farm hands sounded great. Luckily, a few swigs of beer and some great dances with friends can turn any night around.
I will forever remember Saturday night for giving me my first Big Apple. A quasi-fast song came on, and David came over to see if I wanted to practice some Balboa. I was just saying yes when it clicked: BIG APPLE CONTEST!!! *SHIT* “David we will have to dance LATER!” I literally tore across the room to jump into the fray. Honestly, I am sure I was terrible, but who cares? The music and the energy of that dance is just fabulous, not to mention that it makes me think of Frankie, which just gets music and energy bubbling in my head all over again. Right before we got into “Ride the Pony” I panicked again, because I suddenly realized that I was in between two chicks. There was no way that I was going to be without a partner in my first Big Apple! Luckily, Bromley was in the same position (except with dudes). I got my ass over to him in time to pose on 3, and well, the rest is CH history. One thing I will remember for next time is to just trust that I know the steps and not depend on other people. At one point, I am sure I was just standing there (grinning like an idiot) because half the people were off and I was no longer sure who to follow. I will have to jack the video from David later to evaluate the messy execution. Maybe I will say that I was just adding my personal “style” to the choreography.
Also on Saturday night was the second Underground Jitterbug Competition. Mel and I managed to get front row seats and were literally almost right under the action. One day, I am going to be good enough to enter. Period. I have to know what this feels like. HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO! Watching the participants tear it up was exhilarating, and I went hoarse with yelling and cheering. Congrats to Tiffiny and Kenny. While I feel that Dax and Max were more entertaining and displayed an almost unbelievable range of skills, I have nothing bad to say about the effort that the winners put out. Kenny looked like he was about to die by the end of it all. Tiffiny is pretty tiny, but I suppose constant aerials with anyone will tire a guy out. Hehe. I was also…err…”treated” to a first hand look at Dax’s knickers because he started to undress. Red briefs with stripes. TMI, I know. The only knock on the UJC is that the MC needed to shut up and let the people dance. I personally don’t need to be pumped up by a guy in a plastic crown with runny eyeliner when there are couples ready to swingout at upwards of 250 bpm. After the UJC, most dancers were inspired to go back into the main ballroom and dance more. I spent the next couple of hours doing what I love most.
In the end, I am super happy to have made it down to LA for Camp Hollywood. I got to be part of a super strong NorCal contingent that made its presence known in competition and on the social dance floor. I think the most disappointing aspect of this event was that the feel of “Late Night” never materialized. At CJ and SFLX, once 2-3am hit, everybody that was left seemed to just hunker down and DANCE. The rooms got a more intimate and darker feel. Everybody was disgusting, but nobody cared. It was like collecting fatigue points for a couple of hours, but saving them for later. At CH, the room just emptied. I felt the vibe in the room consistently lessen as the hours ticked by. Still, I met and danced with some awesome people. I got to do some more traveling/dancing/jumping up and down with my best friends. I’m not sure if this is an event I would want to hit regularly, but who knows?
Next on the docket: SFLX’09 and ULHS’09. Yikes!
Photo Credit to Charles Lin
Forge Ahead
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