The Stats Astound

Anybody that doesn't have a counter is not interested in any statistics that are drawn up daily all over the internet. But I am very interested even if not of all of them. One that I look into now and then is the hits that we get from outside the US and furnished by Blogger along with a lot of other stuff. The following is the top ten from a part of Town Dancer blog of the last week.

Entry Pageviews for the week

United States 520
France 84
Philippines 70
United Kingdom 60
Russia 41
Germany 34
Ukraine 31
India 28
Italy 28
Poland 18

Where in the hell is the Philippines?

The Ukraine and Poland are very surprising and the fact that nothing from Latin America is in the top ten.

"The day will eventually come, your wealth, fame and temporal power will

shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear."

More people on the Waianae Coast and Kapolei are getting interested in the self driving auto and it would beat the rail or bus easily. Tests have passed the first part. Like getting into your car in the garage and letting it know you want to go to the office in downtown Honolulu.

You will be seated in your recliner in the auto with your coffee and newspaper, you can phone at your leisure or with the TV on. The car will cruise along at the speed of the surrounding traffic and when it gets on the freeway, it will never go past the 50 mile car's speed limit.

When you get to your office, you still have to drive it into the parking space. However they are working on the new addition. You can leave the car where it is convenient for you and the car will then find a parking space by itself. In the evening you can also call it to pick you up, you get in and "Home, James."

No humbug of traffic going to a rail station, lines and paying for a monthly parking permit and going through all the rest of that crap.

"A Tree In The Meadow" - Margaret Whiting

 

 

With one third of the fleet in Articulated buses, Honolulu "coulda been a contendah"

and one tenth the cost of rail. Yes, I know, it's the dough, Flo

Waianae speak, Airs: Mistakes, "Dat shortstop has made two airs
already and dis only the turd inning."
 

We are getting good commentary on the use of Frank's Blogs by 808 Dance Magic. Terrific way to communicate with the reader/dancers and getting well known throughout the Islands. They are way ahead of the other dance clubs in town. They are communicating. Good for them, good for the blogs and most important, good for the reader/dancers. A win-win situation.

 

Pub's Side Note: "Of the dancers, by the dancers and for the dancers" All the dancers?

Of course not, they do not all want to be involved and we must respect.

 

 

The Cha Cha Cha

It should come as no surprise that in the West we have some of the best Cha Cha dancers on these Islands. I happen to be talking about American style Cha Cha Cha, breaking on the loud noise. How did that happen? Where on earth did it come from?

"You are the sound of the ocean - the breath of fresh air - The brightest light

and the darkest corner - You are a collective of every experience you have

had in your life - You are every single day - and it will end, all too soon."

Many years ago, in the West Indies, there are certain plants that produce seed pods called cha cha or (depending on the island) tcha, tcha. These were used to make a small rattle also known as a cha cha. In Haiti, (French blacks) the typical voodoo drum consists of three drums, a bell and a cha cha. The cha cha is used by the leader as a timing instrument or "metronome" to set the time in secular dancing as well as in religious music or singing. The drums follow as any other instruments.

"Mi Cha Cha Cha" by Rene Touzet

But even during the popularity peak of the mambo, many dancers did not care for it because, they claimed, it seemed to go against the natural rhythm of the music. In particular, many cultural dancers criticized the fast mambos for having the acrobatic character of jitterbug rather than the smooth movements usually associated with Latin dance.

In the early 50s, the Cuban orchestra "America" started playing the time honored Danzon with a new syncopated beat. This sounded like a very slow mambo and Cuban dancers used a chassé on the slow count. They added triple hip undulation too.

Gradually it evolved into a rock step and a chassé and the Cha Cha Cha was born. The Cha Cha Cha was introduced into the US in 1954 and by 1957, it arrived in Hawaii and picked up by Aiea Ballroom Dance Club, islanders going ga ga over it as well as throughout the world.

Most dancers in West Oahu have become more comfortable with the Cha Cha Cha rhythm than with the Mambo or Salsa rhythms and it lends itself very easily to most variations available in Mambo or Salsa. Today almost sixty years after its inception, it remains one of the most popular dances in our island Cultural community. Just needs the right music, that Latin sound.

Pub's Side Note: A dance blog is what all dance websites would like to be, updated on a regular basis, containing content that is of interest to a select or target audience. Information easy to update and change. Our readers are gradually picking up on this action. Whenever you are ready.

The Cha Cha Cha

It should come as no surprise that in the West we have some of the best Cha Cha dancers on these Islands. I happen to be talking about American style Cha Cha Cha, breaking on the loud noise. How did that happen? Where on earth did it come from?

"You are the sound of the ocean - the breath of fresh air - The brightest light

and the darkest corner - You are a collective of every experience you have

had in your life - You are every single day - and it will end, all too soon."

Many years ago, in the West Indies, there are certain plants that produce seed pods called cha cha or (depending on the island) tcha, tcha. These were used to make a small rattle also known as a cha cha. In Haiti, (French blacks) the typical voodoo drum consists of three drums, a bell and a cha cha. The cha cha is used by the leader as a timing instrument or "metronome" to set the time in secular dancing as well as in religious music or singing. The drums follow as any other instruments.

"Mi Cha Cha Cha" by Rene Touzet

But even during the popularity peak of the mambo, many dancers did not care for it because, they claimed, it seemed to go against the natural rhythm of the music. In particular, many cultural dancers criticized the fast mambos for having the acrobatic character of jitterbug rather than the smooth movements usually associated with Latin dance.

In the early 50s, the Cuban orchestra "America" started playing the time honored Danzon with a new syncopated beat. This sounded like a very slow mambo and Cuban dancers used a chassé on the slow count. They added triple hip undulation too.

Gradually it evolved into a rock step and a chassé and the Cha Cha Cha was born. The Cha Cha Cha was introduced into the US in 1954 and by 1957, it arrived in Hawaii and picked up by Aiea Ballroom Dance Club, islanders going ga ga over it as well as throughout the world.

Most dancers in West Oahu have become more comfortable with the Cha Cha Cha rhythm than with the Mambo or Salsa rhythms and it lends itself very easily to most variations available in Mambo or Salsa. Today almost sixty years after its inception, it remains one of the most popular dances in our island Cultural community. Just needs the right music, that Latin sound.

Pub's Side Note: A dance blog is what all dance websites would like to be, updated on a regular basis, containing content that is of interest to a select or target audience. Information easy to update and change. Our readers are gradually picking up on this action. Whenever you are ready.

Da Moosic

What's there to know about it? "I know what I like and I know what I don't like." There is some truth to it. But many people just don't go far enough.

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

I always like to divide everything into three parts. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." (Wasn't that was a nice movie) So we have the divisions graded from the usual zero to 10. In this case, 0 would be for music that is nothing, but there is always something there so we can skip that. And we know there is no ten because none of it perfect.

"Once In Awhile" by the Chimes

That leaves us with three divisions and each divided into three.

The bottom levels are the kind of the music we are most likely to hear. The billions of tapes that are produced daily. The music in the earphones of millions as they go about their business or that is heard on radios or in Malls. You hear it because it is there but is it really there? When they drop in sales, they are sold at Walmart for a dollar.

The middle levels are songs that have never been really much or have at one time may been consider very nice. They were pushed by the record companies and their advertising media to promote and sell the music and they made millions. When they drop in sales, they are sold in bins at the Kmart for a couple dollars.

"Near You" by the Andrews Sisters

The top levels, some may be worthy of the level. Some may have been there just because of intense promotion and they will eventually fall by the wayside like many of the others. Some (a very few) will emerge as classics. Fortunately many of these classics will be danceable simply because they were nice listening. They will be danced by the Cultural dancers over and over again in sheer joy.

From this top total, there may be only 10 to 20% that can be considered "danceable," and not everyone will automatically know which is which. Most of the time, there is only one way to find out, "dance it." Even then opinions may differ. This has been part of our dance culture for a very long time.

"Share Your Thoughts"

For most people music and dance are an equal partnership and with many it is the music first. In exhibition, theatrical, acrobatic and competition, music is much less important to the dance. The dancing is the important part of the whole. It has to be "heel, toe, toe heel" or maybe its the other way around. The Rootzi Tootzis can dance entire routines "without" any music at all. Simply amazing!

For the Cultural or Traditional dancer, the right music is almost the whole thing, and the movement is just to enhance the pleasure of the music. The dance is definitely of secondary importance. And we define these as the real dancers. The feeling can get to its highest plane with the right music. There is a reason for a "Playlist." It will be coming.

"Al Di La, the famous Italian rumba, that smashed through the Americas of the sixties. We will
be playing it twice during the evening. This is your chance to relive the music and the time."

 

Blues Dancing

Blues dancing is a family of historical dances that developed alongside and were danced to blues music, or the contemporary dances that are danced in that aesthetic. Amateur Dancer carried an article entitled "Blues and Rhythm and Blues Dancing" in a July/August 1991 issue.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

Mura Dehn used the term "The Blues" in The Spirit Moves, referencing different dance styles. African-American essayist and novelist Albert Murray used the term "blues-idiom dance" and "blues-idiom dance movement" in his book Stomping the Blues.

History of blues dancing

Early commentators on dance from sub-Saharan Africa consistently commented on the absence of close couple dancing, and such dancing was thought to be immoral in many traditional African societies.

In all the vast riches of sub-Saharan African dance heritage there seems to be no evidence for sustained one-on-one male-female partnering anywhere before the late colonial era, and even then, it was apparently considered in distinctly poor taste.

In the United States the dances of white Americans were being adapted and transformed over time from all over with the large groups of immigrants. As dance evolved, the Afro-American elements became more formal and diluted, the British-European elements more fluid and rhythmic. Dance moves passed down through generations were revised, recombined, and given new flourishes. The cyclical re-emergence of similar elements marks the African-American dance vocabulary.

"Blues In The Night" by Johnny Mercer

During the post Reconstruction period (1875–1900), as Jim Crow Laws were passed in the South, dance steps once linked to ritualistic or religious dancing also acquired a more secular identity. Where by and large, slavery had inhibited the retention of specific African tribal culture, the dances of working-class and lower-class blacks relinquished some of their Euro-American characteristics during this time.

Meanwhile, "dances became more upright and less flat-footed. As dance became more associated with sexuality and the free consumption of pleasure, which in the black community still had some communal ties to group dancing, the partnering relationship became more isolated and individualized. The "sport" and the "good-time gal" were people of the moment. Hip shaking and pelvic innuendo were now more of a statement to one's partner than to one's community.

W. C. Handy, who wrote some of the first published blues songs, documented his earliest experience with what may have been blues, and dancers reaction to it, at a dance c. 1905 in Cleveland, Mississippi. At one point Handy was asked to "play some of our native music". Although "baffled" he had his band played "an old-time Southern melody", after which he was asked if a local band could play a few numbers.

That group consisted of "just three pieces, a battered guitar, a mandolin and a worn-out bass" (Handy described the group as "a Mississippi string band") and played "one of those over-and-over again strains that seem to have no very clear beginning and certainly no ending at all .... Actually Indian type music. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps "haunting" is a better word for it ... The dancers went wild. Little did they know that their dancing would eventually splinter into dozens of different dances.

Oahu - West Blog

This blog now breaking out of the lower pack where it has been in the 20s. The Christmas season was one reason, and the bus situation that did not allow me more access to the dance functions too. With reorganization to include Aliamanu dancing, it is pretty definite, it will go up in hits.

 

"We haven’t failed. We’ve just found 1000 ways that won’t work."

Then with a couple of good steady Information and Photo contributors it will solidify in the sixties. One Guest Author and it would go over 100 average hits per day. A couple more and for sure it could go independent. That is my aim for all of them except my personal blog which seems to be shaping up as Dancing in the Dark, helping all the other blogs.

I was also waiting for the next social club to arise. But some have already told me there will be none as less people will be moving east because of the rail. We have already lost one lady in our Senior Apartments, she moved to Kaneohe. So few buses, packed to the gills, some have two wheelchairs already in the bus, they cannot take another. "Wait for the next bus, in one hour." Auwe ! The people in the Ivory Towers, "What problem? We don't see a problem." They have 97 articulated buses. Wow, the case solved. Ha Ha! Old ladies riding standing up Waianae to downtown. Hey, Hey, Hey! That's Criminal! Ivory Towers couldn't care less, they have their own stats.

 

 With the articulated bus in 60% of the fleet, five times the efficiency and at one tenth the

cost of the rail. So who needs the rail? Yeah, right. But it's the bread, Fred.

The Caldwell administration couldn't care less. He is already screwing up some things at Honolulu Hale. And the rest of us are stuck with him and Boylan too. Our west coast representatives are already in the pockets of the Rail, so we are losing there too. But there is some hope. "Honolulu Traffic" the organization is leading the way. Let us all wish them luck. They may be able to stop the rail yet.

For the Waianae Coast one of the best buses scheduled is the #93 bus. I can get it 3:00 pm at the Alapai Transit Center and be home in Nanakuli before 4:00 pm. The rail ain't gonna beat that in a million years. And I get off right around the corner from where I live. I don't need a rail station even if the parking fees will be less than $200 per month. But the Caldwell rail hatchmen will kill that route too. Maybe I will have to move to the East too.

Pub's Side Note: Check out Richie's blog on the Gonzales new gig, in the Oahu And Beyond blog. Good news for the Gonzales fans.

 



Oahu - West Blog

This blog now breaking out of the lower pack where it has been in the 20s. The Christmas season was one reason, and the bus situation that did not allow me more access to the dance functions too. With reorganization to include Aliamanu dancing, it is pretty definite, it will go up in hits.

 

"We haven’t failed. We’ve just found 1000 ways that won’t work."

Then with a couple of good steady Information and Photo contributors it will solidify in the sixties. One Guest Author and it would go over 100 average hits per day. A couple more and for sure it could go independent. That is my aim for all of them except my personal blog which seems to be shaping up as Dancing in the Dark, helping all the other blogs.

I was also waiting for the next social club to arise. But some have already told me there will be none as less people will be moving east because of the rail. We have already lost one lady in our Senior Apartments, she moved to Kaneohe. So few buses, packed to the gills, some have two wheelchairs already in the bus, they cannot take another. "Wait for the next bus, in one hour." Auwe ! The people in the Ivory Towers, "What problem? We don't see a problem." They have 97 articulated buses. Wow, the case solved. Ha Ha! Old ladies riding standing up Waianae to downtown. Hey, Hey, Hey! That's Criminal! Ivory Towers couldn't care less, they have their own stats.

 

 With the articulated bus in 60% of the fleet, five times the efficiency and at one tenth the

cost of the rail. So who needs the rail? Yeah, right. But it's the bread, Fred.

The Caldwell administration couldn't care less. He is already screwing up some things at Honolulu Hale. And the rest of us are stuck with him and Boylan too. Our west coast representatives are already in the pockets of the Rail, so we are losing there too. But there is some hope. "Honolulu Traffic" the organization is leading the way. Let us all wish them luck. They may be able to stop the rail yet.

For the Waianae Coast one of the best buses scheduled is the #93 bus. I can get it 3:00 pm at the Alapai Transit Center and be home in Nanakuli before 4:00 pm. The rail ain't gonna beat that in a million years. And I get off right around the corner from where I live. I don't need a rail station even if the parking fees will be less than $200 per month. But the Caldwell rail hatchmen will kill that route too. Maybe I will have to move to the East too.

Pub's Side Note: Check out Richie's blog on the Gonzales new gig, in the Oahu And Beyond blog. Good news for the Gonzales fans.