San Francisco Rise and Resist! Counter-Rally and LovedUp Mobile Dance Party - August 26, 2017

Rise and Resist! with MC Cleve Jones on bullhorn, ready to rally

After a white-supremacy rally at Crissy Field was called off for August 26th, San Francisco went ahead and held numerous counter-rallies as scheduled. This included the stylish Come Together rally of LGBTQ-rights activists in the Castro who were met up by a group of equally stylish dancing activists from the LovedUp Mobile Dance Party at Dolores Park. Together, we all electric-slid down Market Street to the Peace, Love and Understanding music party at Civic Center.

We danced and chanted and sang, thousands strong.

Here we go! Tunes provided by the LovedUp Mobile Dance Party bicycle-toting sound system,.

Plenty of signage, good vibes and big hearts.

I haven't seen an official count in the media since Saturday, but it was thousands. My guess would be at least twenty thousand, if not more. I parked myself on the side of the street a few times and people just kept coming, and coming, and coming.

This sign won cinematic signage reference of the day. This sign has been approved by The Craft fan-favorite Fairuza Balk. An excellent job in cult-film signage.

This is my kind of super-hero.

To the two ladies riding unicorns down the street while playing satirical ditties on ukuleles: I love you.

DANCE DANCE FACISTS (sic) FUCK OFF - sign o' the times

Activist Honey Mahogany commands attention with her regal radiance. I see she's co-starred in Peaches Christ's production of The Craft. This moment in photographs, brought to you by The Craft.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been stepping up for human rights and helping me cope with my Catholic upbringing in a healthy manner since 1979. Hail to you, Sisters!

As the Sisters posed for this photo, I heard one of them say to the little girl, "I love your wig!"

Heather Heyer remembrance shirt. Heather's mom Susan Bro announced the formation of the Heather Heyer Scholarship Foundation this week. Rest in power, Heather. We will remember you.

Dancers from a Dance Planet - who are these wondrous dance pixies? If anyone knows, tell me because they deserve all the accolades.

Sending love around the world.

Women's March Oakland, January 21, 2017

Among 100,000 people in Oakland, I managed to meet up with my friend Joy and my family members from Seattle and San Francisco. Then our phones collectively and figuratively blew up due to mass usage and anyone else we knew, we bumped into the old-fashioned accidental way. That was part of the magic. Never have I been part of such a large protest and never in my long protesting history has a protest been this peaceful and joyous.

There was music, laughter, dancing, sign-waving, adorable babies, people in wheelchairs braving potholed terrain, BART delays, shuffling progress due to walking the streets alongside SO MANY PEOPLE—of all ages, backgrounds and affiliations. It was uplifting to be with one another, walking in sunny Oakland.

This administration is without a doubt our nation's shittiest (and that's saying something), but they are the minority, and they gained their power through subterfuge and gerrymandering. We are the majority and we will prevail. That's not rhetoric. That's a fact. As a wise man (Jerry Springer—surprise!) once said, "Liberals always win (in the end)."

Some dancing in the streets courtesy of the fabulous drumline from SambaFunk!.




Snippets, shot hastily while in a protesting glow.




Some photos of the day.

Me, Joy

Tom, Linda, Jenny, me (hats made by Linda—thank you!

My Pussy Riot sign. It's a keeper.

My friend Sherry LaVars, who shoots for the Marin Independent Journal, gave me permission to post some of her personal work here. Thank you, Sher.

Sher in the middle with two friends

See you at the next march. If you can't make it, there'll be more.

Women dancing seductively in 60s' films while on LSD

There's nothing like a good ol' fashioned 60s-era druggie exploitation flick. They just don't mix up batches of that special LSD that made scantily clad women dance sensuously anymore. You know the kind of LSD I'm talking about—the kind that made the ladies make love to the camera and take off their clothes. I guess the men in these films took the other LSD—the manly variety, because they seemed to keep their clothes on and there was no seductive dancing whatsoever. Just an occasional violent freak out.

In celebration of the new year, let's revisit some classic sensual LSD-laced dance scenes from yesteryear. None were destined to make MGM's "That's Entertainment!" reel, but it's a lost NSFW art-form that could use a little appreciation.

Bibi (Pamela Rodgers) from The Big Cube (1969) is always looking for attention. I can't help but adore her rascally antics. If I was a drag queen, I'd model myself after Bibi—great 60s-wear, big hair, massively exaggerated line delivery, always. Here, she's got a little male competition but nips it in the bud because it's all about her. He must have taken some of that lady acid.





I've never seen Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) in its entirety but perhaps that's unnecessary—this LSD-fueled dance by Andy (Mimsy Farmer) encapsulates its exploitative schlock-factor for nearly eight minutes so well. In a piece-of-crap film like this, it's surprising how much Farmer throws herself into the moment here, during two song cycles before being ravished off-screen by a drug-dealing goon. The second half of her choreography is especially crazed—nearly transcendent. A modern-dance company worth its salt could certainly do justice to her interpretation. Or a drag-queen revue. I would pay to see either.





In an otherwise deadly dull look at LSD culture, here's Peter Fonda in The Trip (1967), about to take a headlong voyage to the bottom of a basement club full of dancing freaks, including a naked body-painted lady doing her hippie groove thang.





I'd be remiss not to include the "The LSD Story" from season 1 of Dragnet. Sure, it's television, but producers managed to sneak in a few moments of sensual-LSD dance during the brief-but-memorable party scene "up in the hills somewhere" in Los Angeles. Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Bill are here to break up all the fun, as usual (starting around the 4-minute mark), which includes not only the family-friendly sexy dancing, but actual climbing-the-wall dancing. The party boys get more active roles, playing (and rewinding) tunes, eating paint and being mouthy. The girls merely look perplexed and pouty, yelling, "Merry Christmas!" during the drug bust like a bunch of acid-tripping dum-dums. It's an LSD-party glass ceiling is what it is.





Now it's your turn! Make up your own sensual LSD dance. Here's the Strawberry Alarm Clock in Psych-Out (1968) to get you started (young Jack Nicholson sitting in on poseur guitar). Remember to seduce the imaginary camera (male gaze). Clothing removal is optional but in keeping with the hippie ethos. Use all-organic ingredients for your body paint—skin is our largest organ, after all.

Dance GIFS Are Especially Animated

Dance GIF Thursday—I just made that up. It's not a constant thing. It's just for today. But Dance GIF Thursday will always live on in our hearts, minds, and nervous systems. Now here are some hand-picked dance GIFs for you and yours.

Start us off, Hugh Jackman, ultimate song and dance man.




What if the dance scene from Pulp Fiction had a 90s-rave mashup feel to it? This answers the question that no one thought to ask.




This day-glo dinosaur needs to dance. Who would stand in its way?




Pete Campbell does a wicked little dance of selfish glee. Always loathsome yet pitiful, and sometimes delightfully so on Mad Men.




Why mow the lawn when you can dance-mow the lawn instead?




Advertising blow-up man interpretive dance. We love you, modern age.




Bill Haverchuck doin' his thing in Freaks and Geeks.




Racoons—they only dance at night.




Go, Ava Gardner, go!




Paul Rudd always makes a grand dance entrance.




Eddie Izzard and Craig Ferguson GET DOWN.




And into the fairy dawn...



As is usually is the case with animated GIFs, it's hard to give credit where credit's due. If you made any of these—way to be! Send me a line and I'll give you a credit.

A Dancing Chicken Post

This blog has existed for seven years and yet no dancing chicken post. Until now. I love chickens. I love the dance. Dancing chickens are almost too incredibly wonderful to contemplate. Dancing chicken free-for-all follows. Bless them, one and all.

The dancing chicken from Werner Herzog's "Stroszek." Perhaps the most famous dancing chicken of them all.



Chicken Techno by Oli Chang—from the original Australian Domino's Pizza commercial. Look, I don't make these; I just embed them.



National Dance Like a Chicken Day is May 14. Did you forget to enter the video contest?



"Dance of The Cock and Hens" by the Bavarian State Ballet from La Fille Mal Gardée, because it's all about the (chicken) dance.



The Glaum Egg Ranch of Aptos, California, has a 24-hour vending machine. For three dollars you get two dozen cage-free eggs and get to watch animatronic chickens dance to Glen Miller's In the Mood, as sung by chickens. I'm really glad I grew up in California. It's my kind of state-of-mind.



The Famous Chicken and "Barney" in a most violent dance off.

Get on board the funky train ride!

That's right. Funk music and trains—no one knows for sure what the connection is, but it's a strong one, or as we say in Spanglish: muy fuerte. If you're funky, if you like trains, you're in luck because you're going on a funky train ride RIGHT NOW.

Gap Band - Party Train. Is this the greatest music video of all time? Featuring a Gap Band heavy down beat and a Venice Beach dance-off of epic proportions, with muscle men, little kids, Boogaloo Shrimp, dancing cop, endless popping and breaking, and Charlie Wilson in a Speedo. It is truly a party, but no train.




Heatwave - The Groove Line. This is one of the best songs of the disco era. When I was a youngster, Heatwave was one of my faves. They still are. They had Dayton, Ohio-bred soul, a ridiculously strong work ethic, and secret-weapon songwriter Rod Temperton on board. Heatwave disbanded under tragic circumstances, but their spirit never wavered.




Did this start it all? The Soul Train theme from 1973 with its animated chugga-chugga train streaming soulful vibes from its steam funnel. RIP, Don Cornelius. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doooo!




James Brown - Yes, I am ready for the Night Train. Damn!




Of course, I can't leave out Little Eva's Locomotion. A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul.

Don Cornelius - Soul Provider

I'm very sad about the passing of Don Cornelius, apparently of suicide. This man had a profound effect on my upbringing in the then white-bread deep East Bay. Although I was surrounded by infinite amounts of white people and their homogenized ways, my cousins were living in more urban environs and all of us bonded over Soul Train. Don Cornelius helped my more isolated suburban friends to have a broader musical background than if they had listened to only top-40 radio exclusively.

To be fair, top-40 radio was much more inclusive than radio of today. And even more inclusive than Internet radio, which tends to segregate itself into repetitive genre play. Don Cornelius was the glue that bound all the soul happenings of the 70s and 80s together. He had the best R&B, funk and soul bands on his show, as well as solo artists, black and white.

Don Cornelius was a television and music visionary, wearing a stylish suit and interviewing the hottest acts in his low, rumbling voice. He had us all line dancing every week, which was a great joy. He provided much happiness over the years and I already miss him.

The Simple Things In Life

It's summer! Unless you're in Australia. But here, it's summer! Time for sipping lemonade at the local garage sale while ladies fan themselves with junk mail and talk about network-marketing moisturizing parties. When did it all get so COMPLICATED? Here's to the simple things in life.

Unicorns!


Daisies!

Part 2
Part 3

Love!


Frog song!


Bar-Kays!

Wholesome Pole Dancing

Pole dancing! The fitness sensation that's sweeping the nation! It's not just for strippers anymore! Need proof? Read on:

Pole fitness for Jesus done to upbeat contemporary Christian music.




Martha Stewart embraces the pole, looking perfectly comfortable and natural while doing so.




Not to be outdone, Ellen De Generes tries her hand in her awesome custom-made androgyny-wear. (Ellen is my favorite fashion icon. Even more so since whenever she speaks I think of Dorie the lovably brain-damaged Fish from "Finding Nemo.")




In a show of pole-dancing equality, Ellen features a bare-chested male pole dancer. The suspenders make it wholesome.




I hope you're up for an emotional open-shirted pole-dancing experience. The confetti rain washes away any lingering impurities.

Happy Dance Anywhere Day

Once again it's Dance Anywhere Day. Has it been a year already? You didn't know about Dance Anywhere Day? Neither did I until I read about it in the SF Weekly last night. But no matter! It's been happening for the past five years and it's happening again--today! On six continents, in 27 countries, and 316 cities, according to the official Dance Anywhere Web site.

Whether you want to participate or just check out the dance anywhere action, I say: enjoy. The event was created in San Francisco by dancer and visual artist Beth Fein to focus on dancing offstage as a "worldwide community to transform our familiar and ordinary locations." And she's right. How cool and elegant is it to see talented performers break into dance during a celebrated musical? And how many times have you been brought to tears of joy by a well-timed flash mob performance? C'mon, admit it. Dance is emotional.

So get emotional and move around, or stare in wonder as you ponder your lunch order and someone launches into a soft-shoe across the tiled floor of your local Pizza Hut. I myself will be dancing in my living room, probably to our new Just Dance 2 game, but I won't be posting anything to the site. Sorry--you'll thank me.

Weather dance report: it's going to rain today so if you're in the Bay Area, look for umbrella dancers swinging around lamp posts and splashing through puddles as they make their way down the boulevard of public-performance dreams.

From the site gallery.

Hoop-la

I just almost completed my first hoop workout. Not technically a Hula Hoop workout because we have a different brand of hoop, filled with water and weights, which is actually a little small for me because it belongs to my kid. And that's too much information--sorry. But I guess if I want to get serious about hooping, I'll have to spring for one of those gigantic adult-sized workout hoops, special-ordered from the Internets and capable of causing all kinds of damage in and around the house. That's the price of fitness.

What's new in hooping? Let's find out.

Hoop La La really wowed 'em on "Britain's Got Talent," a few years ago. Damn, they're so cute.


FYI, you don't need a Hula Hoop to do the Hula Hoop.


I love our First Lady.


You can be all flamboyantly new-age and stuff--it's OK with a hoop because then at least you're entertaining.


Guys--you can hoop too. Especially at Burning Man. In fact, I believe it's a requirement.


Mesmerizing!


My inspiration.

Baffling Broadway

I grew up in a Northern Californian suburb where cow tipping was considered a viable Saturday night out, so we didn't hit a lot of Broadway shows. But everyone in our cul-de-sac had numerous Broadway and movie-adaptation soundtrack albums in their record collections and we listened to them a lot. Then in high school, when most drama geeks were traipsing about, awkwardly performing most of this stuff, I had the one drama teacher in the country who hated musicals (and for complicated and unpleasant reasons, didn't get along with our school's excellent music teacher). We did Shakespeare and Neil Simon plays instead.

Since I didn't see many of these musicals until years later, some of these songs remained a real mystery to me. What was their purpose and how did they come to be? Like this one: Buddy Hackett sings "Shipoopi" from The Music Man. On record, this really blew my mind. What was up with Buddy's helium-induced voice? What was "shipoopi" anyway? What made him sing it with such conviction? Looking at the film clip--why are these dancers going so crazy during this number? It's not even that fully orchestrated to induce this kind of town-square frenzy. Still, despite everything, I like it.


West Side Story's "Prologue." I walked into the family room while my parents were watching this on TV and I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized. A musical filmed outside in an urban environment? With finger-snapping, dancing gang members threatening each other to a sinister tune? It was so dark yet everyone was so snappily dressed. Who knew you could get away with this kind of stuff? TV: not always evil.


"Turn Back O Man" from Godspell (at 4:37). I don't remember if we got the record to "Godspell" or if I saw the movie on HBO first. All I know is that Godspell was the shit. I mean--I loved it. I got the piano sheet music and played every song, especially this one. I thought the thrift-store fashion sense was the ultimate. I thought John the Baptist was hot. I thought Victor Garber as a stick-thin Jesus in a Superman shirt was adorable and mime-like.

Because I was a child, the hippie playfulness of the cast was appealing and not questionable to me in any way. Especially because everyone in the film initially casts off their worldly goods, quits their day jobs and follows a gentle storyteller while traipsing around a strangely unpopulated New York City. Every budding drama geek's fantasy! Now it's dated and looks really low budget and precious, but then, it was like Sesame Street for Christian grown-ups with the apostles as muppets.

This is the "sexy" number where Sonia the sultry apostle tries to tempt Jesus with worldly goods and maybe even some sex. It's kind of implied in a vaudeville manner. Anyway, it confused me: who would try to tempt Jesus? That's just WRONG. Let him tell his parables in peace. It does inject a necessary shot of animal magnetism in an otherwise chaste theatrical endeavor. And that's probably why everyone digs this number.


"The Book Report" from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. A big show-stopping number about children stressed out about homework. I didn't know you could make drama from this, but apparently it works for a lot of people. This show also features manic-depressive odes to suppertime and songs of bullying and low self-esteem. Like the comic strip it's based upon, it's very uplifting!


"Anything You Can Do" from Annie Get Your Gun. My friend Jill and I LOVED this song so much we actually lip-synced it for the school talent show. I had to play Howard Keel to her Betty Hutton because she was blond and starting to get buxom. Had we watched the film, we would have noted that Hutton's Annie was actually more butch than Keel's Frank. That's what makes the song great: competitiveness between the sexes with tons of gender blending traits throughout. Plus it's hostile, funny and clever all at once. Here's the Ethel Mermen Broadway version set to Batman because the film version can't be embedded. Baffling, yet it definitely works.

Disco Afflictions

Disco wasn't just a celebration of debauchery and dancing in shiny Lycra finery. No--it was problematic on several levels. The music spells it out clearly and succinctly: inappropriate boogying, disaster, hangovers--it could all lead to Armageddon--but what a blast.

The Trammps - "Disco Inferno" Usually infernos are considered bad things. Nobody wants to be part of a raging inferno, but The Trammps made it sound fun; inviting even. Try to resist their invitation to "burn baby burn." You can't, can you? You're out of control but it's so entertaining when the boogie starts to explode.


The Sylvers - "Boogie Fever" Disco dancing as treatable disease. But it's a good thing. If everyone did the bump all night long, think how much our recession-era malaise would lift.


Diana Ross has a "Love Hangover" but she doesn't want a cure. Understandable, since she's fabulous.


Evelyn Champagne King - "Shame" Her youthful self-worth is careening toward a bottomless pit of confusion and insanity. Nonetheless, we cannot keep our feet from tip-tapping across the dance floor. Shame!

Otis Redding, now THERE was a man - Company C Contemporary Ballet pays tribute

I splurged on some contemporary dance the other night. Mom and my cousin Mary Ann and I all headed down to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek to see some Company C Contemporary Ballet. What in the world attracted me to contemporary ballet? This man: Otis Redding. Company C's winter program has an entire performance set to his music. When I read about it beforehand, I thought: Now THAT I want to see. And it was great--set in a kind of minimalist speakeasy with lots of emotional interaction between the company and the soloists.

They mix it up a lot, Company C, to an almost schizophrenic degree, but they're highly professional and artistic as hell. I don't know much about contemporary dance, other than the few classes I took in college, but the choreography was really intricate. And there's this very strange and somewhat hypnotic Nine Person Precision Ball Passing program that is just that: dancers set on risers, passing balls to each other like a finely tuned factory machine working in synch with almost childlike electronic music; transfixing. Their winter program continues in San Francisco in February. The 2010 Spring show starts in April and I will be at that show, which will feature choreography by Twyla Tharp.


Company C 2010 Winter Program from Rob Goldring on Vimeo.

Let's listen to the incredibly soulful Otis Redding. All these songs (and more) are featured in the world premier ballet, “Dreams to Remember,” choreographed by Amy Seiwert.






I miss your voice, Otis Redding.

Chronicle says of Company C: A+

Rye Rye 4th of July - Bang

The latest from Baltimore's Rye Rye, directed by M.I.A. (swear-word chorus). Have a good fourth. I like to imagine Thomas Jefferson visiting the current White House and doing a tremendous double-take. Ha!

The Uptones Skank On

My favorite ska band, The Uptones (OK, truthfully, they're tied for first place with The Specials), were high school musical prodigies back in the 80s. But they're all grown up now and reformed (as of 2002). Here they entertain us with their excellent dance moves to the title song from their new CD, "Skankin Foolz Unite," which as one YouTube commenter succinctly put it, "is the shit." Indeed!



Get Out of My Way


Rude Boy


Not From Here


Bested by Pelicans


Ghost Town - The Specials' song destined to be covered for eternity.


Wiki
MySpace

St. Patrick's Day is for Dancing

Hey all you Irish people--get your dance on with Michael Flatley Lord of the Dance. And that goes for all you would-be Irish people, admirers of Irish people, and people who live near Irish people, who haven't officially been introduced, but have been meaning to go over and say "hi."

Dance Dance 2009

It's a new year with both amazing and crappy prospects. Time to dance.

Bettie Page (1923 - 2008). Gorgeous, winsome, bondage pin-up gal, Bettie Page always looked like she was having a genuinely good time. Whether or not that was true, for the buttoned-down 50s, she was a healthy jolt of sexuality. She said she often pretended the camera was her boyfriend. At age 30, she got out while the getting was good, leaving a mysterious and lovely imprint on the next five generations.


Kurtis Blow - Krush Groove, 1985


Aszure Barton's choreography is beyond impressive.


Breakin' vs. Krumpin'- Guys, guys, you're BOTH pretty...


Everybody celebrate.