A flapper and a slacker

Last night was Great Gatsby Night at Kristen's dance studio! Everybody was supposed to come in 1920s-era attire. Kristen made a terrific flapper girl ensemble! However her ne'er-do-well boyfriend couldn't put a proper costume together in time so he showed up looking more like a flood refugee...


And here is Kristen with two other fine ladies in period attire!


And a good time was enjoyed by all :-)

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Kristen dances a storm at Showcase Spring 2013!

Last week was the semi-annual Arthur Murray Showcase ballroom dance spectacular at the Hotel Roanoke, put on by the Arthur Murray Studio in Roanoke, Virginia. This was the fourth one I've been at to cheer on my girlfriend Kristen Bradford. And once again she was a thrill and a beauty to behold! Her routines garnered a wazoo of applause from the audience and some of them she kept as quite a surprise... even from me :-)

As usual I shot footage of her dancing, and just finished uploading it to YouTube for your viewing pleasure. So here is Kristen accompanied by her dance partner Jay Henderson pulling off some amazing performances...

Awright, I better share this as well: at Showcase Kristen asked me to wear the official Doctor Who/Eleventh Doctor bow tie that she gave me for Christmas a few months ago.  Kristen thought it was a great new look for me.  So did our family and friends, one of which said it made me look "powerful!"

Is this the start of a new fashion trend for Yours Truly?!  I might have to get more of these.  After all: "I like bow ties!  Bow ties are cool!" :-P

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Fred Astaire, dancing, in full makeup as Alfred E. Neuman...

The temptation yesterday was to post this then. But it's something so offbeat and unique that I felt the original article at Ain't It Cool News deserved 24 hours to stand on its own. But I really could not possibly be more giddy about sharing this...

In 1959, dancing legend Fred Astaire had a televised special called... well, Another Evening With Fred Astaire. And during it he did a routine with Barrie Chase.

And for whatever reason, Astaire chose to perform as Alfred E. Neuman. Yup, the gap-toothed ever-grinning mascot of MAD Magazine.

Astaire went all-out. The costume was spot-on Neuman. And for good measure he brought aboard makeup and prosthetics genius John Chambers (who went on to create the ape makeup and appliances for Planet of the Apes a few years later) to bring Neuman to life.

How did it turn out? Here's Fred Astaire as Alfred E. Neuman...

"What, me worry?"

This was 1959. MAD Magazine hadn't been in existence for very long (and even less in its modern satirical format). It's fascinating to me that in that brief a time, Alfred E. Neuman had become a classic enough character for Astaire to pay homage(?) to.

But wait, there's more! Here's the clip from Another Evening With Fred Astaire of "Alfred" dancing with Barrie Chase!

My girlfriend is into ballroom dancing bigtime and she thinks Astaire and Chase gave a great performance. I'm not as good a dancer as she is but I have to concur. If for no other reason than because MAD influenced me so much while growing up.

Tip o' the hat to Eric Vespe - AKA "Quint" - of Ain't It Cool News for this amazing find!

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My girlfriend's performances at Spring Showcase 2012!

This is Kristen Bradford, the girl who I am more blessed than I possibly deserve to have in my life, along with her instructor Jay Henderson at this past weekend's Spring Showcase in Roanoke, Virginia...

(Photo credit goes to Ryan Kegel, who along with his wife Sarah were two of the many who came to cheer Kristen on :-)

Showcase is a twice-annual event hosted by the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Roanoke, Virginia. It's a formal/gala event at the Hotel Roanoke where the students perform before a large audience. This was the third one that I have been at since we've been dating and it was easily the most electrifying one yet!

Okay, 'nuff from me. Y'all want to see Kristen dance. And I'm gonna happily oblige ya!

First up was a "graduation ceremony" of sorts. Ballroom dancing has different levels of skill and competition. At this Showcase, Kristen is moving up from Bronze III to IV. Here are the routines that she performed...

Then followed a series of "mini-matches": four couples on the floor at the same time, with the crowd calling out the numbers pinned to the male partner's backs when that couple does something especially good. Here are the first three mini-matches Kristen did...

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #1

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #2

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #3

Following the first half of Showcase there was a thirty-minute break. And during this time I had a little fun with the trusty iPad. Here is Kristen and Jay starring in "The Dancing Damsel!"

Following the break, Kristen returned to solo with a Samba...

Kristen had two more mini-matches for the evening...

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #4

Kristen Bradford Mini-Match #5

And then, later on during Showcase, came a performance that I heard many say was perhaps the finest of the event. I certainly loved it!

Accompanying the song "Lady in Red", here is Kristen and Jay dancing Bolero...

Someday, I pray that I might be able to dance even half as good as Jay... because I would seriously love to be a serious enough a partner for Kristen :-)

After Showcase finished up, there was the fine dinner and night of dancing ahead of us. And yes, Yours Truly did hit the floor with mostly some Waltz and Rumba. I even did a fancy turn somewhere in there.

But I definitely gotta show y'all these guys. Nick Manzo and Laura Cotton came to Showcase all the way from the Arthur Murray studio in Arrowhead, Arizona! They are two of the top-ranked dance instructors anywhere in the world... and here you'll see why:

By this point the evening was getting long, and after all that dancing Kristen was feeling a bit exhausted.

And then Nick asked her for a dance! Here they are, having fun with a Hustle along with Sister Sledge's "We Are Family":

That was more than enough to put a few more times on the dance floor into her :-)

Everyone from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Roanoke did a remarkable job! I'm looking at taking classes there sometime in the near future. Hey, maybe there's hope yet for a guy with two left feet :-)

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My girlfriend burns up the dance floor with two hot routines!

From Saturday night, here is Kristen doing an Argentine Tango...

Later on, she performed a Bolero (one of the tougher ballroom dances to do, I'm told)...

And yes, your friend and intrepid blogger has taken up some ballroom dancing as well. Maybe someday soon there will even be photo/video documentation of it. If you're good. And if I'm good :-P

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Wanna see my girlfriend dance a Mambo in a "really sexy little tiny costume", along with a HARRY POTTER Viennese Waltz?!

This past weekend was the fall Showcase of the Arthur Murray Dance Studio at the Hotel Roanoke (in umm... Roanoke. Virginia. I think...). It went on most of the day and well into the night and it was a blast! I saw ballroom dancing that boggled my gray matter bigtime.

Here are two of them for your viewing pleasure. The first is none other than my girlfriend Kristen, in what the announcer describes as her "really sexy little tiny costume", performing a Mambo...

Now this next one, I really regret that I didn't get the first part of it because I was... well, confused about what they were doing initially. And then the first notes of "Harry's Wondrous World" from John Williams' score for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone began playing.

What followed was a Viennese Waltz perhaps unlike any other, performed by Beth Craighead and Mohammed Taher ...

For those curious, yes I am starting to learn ballroom dancing. A little of it so far anyway. Maybe when I begin taking lessons on a regular basis I might eventually post a video of me dancing a Rumba to "Imperial March".

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My girlfriend dances a wicked Mambo!

Let's finish this day's blogging with a little culture, shall we?

Kristen, my girlfriend, is an absolute fiend for ballroom dancing. That is something that I've known since the very beginning of our relationship. She's already begun teaching me a few things like Rumba, Waltz etc. though it's gonna be awhile before I'm anywhere close to how good she is :-)

But this past weekend was the first time that I really got to see her practice her chosen art... and she completely astounded me with her ability! It's something that was just screaming to be shared on this blog.

So here's Kristen dancing Mambo. And I also recorded her doing a Waltz but my stupid finger was over the iPad's microphone during that performance (d'oh!)...

If y'all are good, maybe next time it'll be a clip of her and me doing a Waltz together ;-)

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Filipino convicts perform Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Can't embed this YouTube video so you'll have to click here to watch it. It's just what the title says: 1,500 inmates at a prison in the Philippines dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Yes, this is for real. Here's a story from the BBC about it, which is part of the exercise regimen that a security consultant came up with for the prisoners.

Thanks to Marc at Bmovies - who never fails to amaze me at the stuff he locates on the Internets - for finding this :-)

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