A few weeks ago Claudia and I were hired to perform at a fund raiser. This event was open bar and lasted from 6pm to midnight. We showed up to perform around 10, and people were already hammered. As soon as we saw the dance floor, we noticed one particularly hammered entity, and I said to Claudia, “Do NOT dance with him.” Later on in the night, this same guy 1) attempted to “dip” Valerie (translation: pick her up and toss her on the ground), 2) slammed a girl on the floor who had a wine glass in her hand, and 3) got his keys taken away from his wife…thank god.

When it was time for Claudia and I to perform, we were introduced, the floor was cleared, and we started. Luckily the first part of our routine is done solo. After about 20 seconds of us dancing solo, the same drunk guy decided to come out onto the dance floor and join us. He almost tripped into me while trying to mimic the steps we were doing, and luckily a couple of friends came and escorted him off of the floor. I am quite thankful they did that as a minute later, Claudia and I started throwing some aerials, and it would have been a pretty difficult prospect to try and avoid him while going through our lifts. And if that wasn’t enough, just before the end of our routine, another person went running across the back of the floor.

I probably should be aware that when dealing with drunk people you have to suspend all reason, but I really don’t understand how someone can just walk through a performance, nor do i understand how someone tries to participate in it.

I guess I have my drunken performing story now. I’m glad I could share it with you. Thanks for reading.

I am writing from a happy place right now. It is 1:28 in the morning on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and I’m helping Dax, Max, Annie and Sarah get some shots done for their new line of Rhythm Juice videos. There’s going to be some great new stuff up there, so be sure to check it out if you get a chance.

I’m also coming off a great weekend. It was Claudia’s birthday, and we had some great meals: da Lillo for dinner on Saturday night with dancing friends, L’Avenue for brunch with Dax and Sarah, and a couple places I’d rather not mention. L’Avenue is really really good: their poached eggs are delicious, and the big juice smoothies were just what the doctor ordered after a long night of celebration.

I also want to call attention to the fact that Studio 88 Swing is finally up and running in their new space. It isn’t completely finished yet, but the floor is down, most of the walls are painted, and they are running classes upstairs now.

Here’s some pictures of the process of putting down the floor.

What’s pretty funny is that the studio has been putting their TV on the base of the fire place, and Pat was able to find a video of fire burning. So during the dances we get a nice little extra heat coming from the fake fire on the TV.

I’m even happier because I’ve been able to spend the last 9 days in a row in the studio in the afternoon working with Claudia, Dax, Max, Sarah, and Annie. My body is killing me, but I am very happy with the progress of Claudia and my’s new routine, and I’m quite pleased with all of the Tap we’ve been doing. We Ninjammerz are starting to get a really great and diverse repertoire together. I can’t wait until we can start performing them.

That concludes this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Thanks for reading everyone, and be sure to check back soon.

In any case, the two houses I have had the pleasure of staying in do not really believe in cooking food, so I’ve been basically going out to eat for each meal, save for a few breakfasts and late night snacks I’ve made for myself. Tonight was no exception. Jeff and I decided to go up to The Winking Lizard so Jeff could get out of the house and be around some “din”. It is just up the road from his house, and we decided to walk. It’s about 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1 Celsius), but the cool air felt good on the walk there. We saddled up to the bar, had a couple of beers, ate a pretty good meal, and the bartender was sassy, which always makes for a good time. One of the highlights of the night was finding out the bartender had OCD, which manifested itself in making sure the ketchup, salt, pepper and BBQ sauce were all arranged in a particular order. Well, we decided that after each time she fixed those condiments we would then mess them up. It started with us messing them up a lot, and then it got more minute after each successive fix. During each fix, I found it hard to contain the giggling and the smile that was presenting itself on my face.

Once Jeff decided it was time to get back to his house to do some work, and after watching Syracuse win a close one against UCONN, we bundled up and headed out. But, low and behold, as we were approaching the train tracks that we needed to cross in order to get back to Jeff’s, a train blasted by us and made us wait in the cold for about 5 minutes. After about 3 minutes of this wait in the wind and cold, I looked at Jeff and said, “I can’t believe we are waiting for a fucking train right now,” which initiated a good laugh out of him. I don’t think I’ve ever waited for a train while I was traveling on foot before, but leave it to Cleveland in winter to be the first time.

As an aside, Cleveland was determined (by Yahoo) to be the worst winter weather city in the US. And yes, I have once again decided to spend the winter months in some of the coldest harshest places around. Last year was Stockholm and Montreal. This year, it’s Montreal and Cleveland. I swear I will learn soon enough.

That’s it for this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Thanks for reading. Check back soon for more stories of the life of a traveling Lindy Hop instructor.

My first day here, Thursday, I got to see the progress Valerie Salstrom’s kids made since Frankie95. They were working with Peter and Naomi when Ellen dropped me off after picking me up from the airport. It is pretty amazing how quickly these kids pick things up. What was even more amazing is that professional tattoo studios will actually let 15 year-olds get tattoos. Derek, the oldest boy on the team had a pretty bad prison tattoo the last time I saw him, but this time he also had a very large forearm tattoo of his niece’s name: Sincere. Not only that, I made the mistake of telling him that he had something on his lip, and it turned out to be a piercing. Apparently he did it himself, and I think it is part of a pen. I can’t even imagine what else these kids would have gotten into already had Valerie not had involved in their life.

I spent the weekend teaching with Valerie at SparX. Peter and Naomi, and Chiles and Kristen were teaching there as well. The classes were a blast, and the students were happy with the material and the process. I taught probably the busiest and craziest class I ever had. It was a beginning air steps class that had 80 people attend. I had to yell at one student because he went in the air before I said anyone could, and the kid looked absolutely terrified. Mark Muthersbaugh was actually sitting on the side of the room when it happened, and he later told me, “Dude, that was intense when you scolded that kid in class today. I was just sitting on the side of the room, and I felt like I did something wrong.” I normally don’t yell at my students, but in an air steps class, I feel like I need to insist upon complete and utter compliance and process in order to ensure safety for everyone.

I also had the pleasure of attending a fund raiser at The Blind Pig on Super Bowl Sunday for a friend of a friend who died of cancer about 5 years ago. The guy I went with, Jeff, actually ended up winning $200 and donating half of it to the charity. He bought our drinks and dinner with the rest of the money, which was pretty awesome. We then went to Melt – still awesome, and you need to go there – and hung out with a few other friends. Becky the bartender was doing a great job as usual, and we ended up laughing and hanging out until 3am. It was a pretty fun weekend overall. Hopefully next weekend in Indianapolis will be just as great.

That concludes this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Check back later for more updates. Thanks for reading.

During my time in Montreal, I’ve had the pleasure of working on my dance with a lot of people. Many of whom are part of the dance studio Studio 88 owned and operated by Annie Trudeau and Didier Jean-Francois. They have recently moved out of their studio on Cremazie, bought a new place on St. Hubert, and are currently in the middle of renovations. The work is being done mainly by a member of the studio Jiver who dances on the Swingin’ Air Force Squad. He’s had a lot of help over the past few months, including help from myself and Claudia. We’ve painted, brought out trash, and built a wall: to name a few activities. Before I got involved with this help, I didn’t really understand just how much work it is to completely renovate a building for the purposes of creating a kick ass dance space.

Studio 88 is lucky though because they have a very loyal and helpful student and member base, who are willing to donate time to the completion of the renovations. They are also lucky to have two floors in their new building. The first floor is complete enough to now host their large Saturday night dance – Le Jazz Hot – which I attended this past weekend. Below are a few pictures from the night.

Chillin' at the bar

Behind the DJ booth

Listening to D talk

This is just one segment of a series of blogs I’ll be writing on the progress of the dance studio. I’m also planning on doing a video walk through of the downstairs and the unfinished upstairs. That will be posted on LindyHopVideo.com, and I’ll make sure to let you all know when it’s done.

That concludes this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Once again, thanks for reading, and check back soon for more updates.

Driving up here after Thanksgiving, I knew that I would be dealing with having a car in a city that gets a lot of snow but I took comfort in the fact that I would be able to park my car in the reserved parking spot outside of my girlfriend’s apartment. I actually have to share the spot with Claudia’s roommate’s boyfriend, which was fine…until the snow came.

Tuesday nights are his nights to park in the spot, and I luckily found a spot on the street right outside of Claudia’s place when I got home from The Petit Medley where Studio 88 Swing has there weekly dance. The snow had started to come down a bit, but driving was fine, and there wasn’t much accumulation. I should mention at this point that the province of Quebec has a law that requires all vehicles registered in the province to have snow tires on their cars by December 15th. My car is not registered here, and my car doesn’t have snow tires on it, but after dealing with what I’m about to write to you, I can totally understand the law, and I will be buying some once I get back to the states.

I woke up on Wednesday morning and saw that snow had continued to come down all night. I did however forget that my car was parked on the street. Luckily Claudia reminded me that we had to move the car into the parking spot because we didn’t want the car to get plowed in or towed once the city started its snow removal process. This reminder came at 2pm, which started the joy of snow transplantation for me this winter. I hadn’t realized how much snow had fallen by 2pm, and when I went out to my car, I expected to be able to just drive out of the spot I currently was in and straight into the reserved space. I was wrong. The plow had made a couple of passes and had packed just enough snow around my car so as to make it impossible for me to simply drive out. In order move, I had to go buy a shovel at the local hardware store, which is luckily only a block from Claudia’s house, and then dig a hole in snow bank to drive my car through. Luckily the snow was light and fluffy. And Yes you read that correctly, neither Claudia nor her roommate own a shovel. Yes they live in Montreal. Yes I know it’s crazy.

In order to get the car into the parking spot, I had to drive around the block, and while doing so, my car got stuck in an intersection because once again, the plow had placed just enough snow to keep my light little Honda Fit with no snow tires from passing through the blockade. With my new shovel in hand, I proceeded to then shovel my car out again. I finally got of the pickle and pulled my car up into the reserved parking spot, where I then once again had to shovel the space so that my car could fit alongside the other two cars that need to park around mine upon their return. In the course of an hour I had to shovel effectively 3 different spots so my car would have a home during the winter. This is where the story gets even more interesting.

That night, Max and I decided to go down to Les Bobards where Pat Evans hosts a weekly swing night with live music. That night we were lucky to have The Solomon Douglas Swingtet on the last night of their Black Friday tour of the east coast. He rocked the house, played three encores, and then Max and I got a ride back north from Joel (female). Alain Wong was actually in the car as well, and after we dropped Max off, Alain, Joel and I continued on to Claudia’s apartment. As soon as the car pulled up outside of Claudia’s place, the car stopped unexpectedly. After a couple minutes of speculation and a phone call to Joel’s boyfriend, it was clear that the car had run out of gas. Your protagonist here offered a ride to the gas station at 2am through the barely plowed streets of north eastern Montreal in his tiny, light, Honda Fit, to the woman who had brought him home. Maybe not the smartest of ideas considering the road conditions, but after shoveling my car out once again, Alain and I made the trip, fish-tailing and sliding the mile there and the mile back, while Joel stayed with the car. Upon getting back from the gas station and just barely being able to park my car in the reserved spot due to the shitty parking skills of the douche bags who put their cars in the spots around me and the accumulated snow drifts around the entrance to the parking area, I decided to once again do some snow maintenance, and move the fluffy white stuff around for another 10 minutes. For those counting, that makes 5 times in 12 hours.
And just when I thought it was over, a damsel in distress came up to me as I was walking with my shovel to the front door of Claudia’s apartment and asked to borrow my shovel so she could get out of her parking spot. I didn’t have the heart to tell her no, but I also didn’t want to let the shovel out of my sight. The thing was $15, and I had a feeling that I’d be needing to keep one in my car if I was going to be spending much time in Montreal over these next couple of months. I gave her the shovel and followed her over to her car. Her boyfriend was walking inside the apartment complex when I arrived, and I asked the young woman if he was going to get another shovel. Of course he wasn’t. Why would any residents of Montreal actually own shovels? Fucking Christ.

She began to poorly remove the large pile of snow the plow had deposited next to the passenger side of the car. At the rate she was moving, I wouldn’t have gotten back inside for an hour, so I decided to start digging like a dog with my hands. I raked the snow between my legs and didn’t even watch as the snow bank began to disperse onto Rue Lajeunesse. After a few minutes of that and an occasional glance at the ineptitude of the wayward woman weilding the shovel, I took the instrument from her and dug her out myself while the boyfriend stood and watched. It didn’t take long to get her out once I started in with the shovel. I guess I’m just surprised that the woman actually still wanted to have anything to do with the guy after his complete uselessness in what could romantically be described as a life-threatening situation – car buried, couple stranded. Where was the dude’s testicular fortitude? The snow wasn’t even that heavy. I don’t know how long they were looking for a shovel at 2:30am on a Tuesday night, but I’m guessing if the guy actually had any balls, they could have been out of the spot by doing the Rover-digs-for-his-bone in no time.

So after a day of 7 snow shoveling sessions, a night of dancing to a kick ass orchestra, a late night gas and damsel in distress rescue, and a farewell greeting of, “Thank you kind boy” through the window of the damsel’s GTI, I finally got to go up and hit the sack.

And one last note to all the residents of Montreal – buy a fucking shovel.

That concludes this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Thanks for reading. Check back soon.

I want to thank everyone for their concerns. I also want everyone to know that what I described earlier is going to be rectified shortly, and that this person has a long track record of making good on debts.

This concludes today’s episode in Vagabond Diaries. Thanks for reading.

It started on Thursday afternoon when Seth, a dancing friend of mine originally from San Fransisco, texted me asking if I would like to play in a basketball game for his coed league at MIT. I’ve done this a few times before, and it always proves to be a good time. Usually Seth plays and we dominate, but Seth had work this time, so I was responsible for getting his team the W. I succeeded in leading the team to a win, dropping at least 14 with 10 assists, and a few steals and rebounds. There was some tension during half time though. Whenever I play any kind of organized basketball, I always take it upon myself to coach the players around me. You could say it’s inherent in my DNA. So during the half, I brought the whole team together and explained to them what we needed to do to win. At that point we were up something like 19-15. Unfortunately, the one woman on our team was getting water. When she came back to the court, I started telling her the same things I had finished telling the rest of the team, and she got quite defensive thinking that I was lecturing her on basketball because she was girl and didn’t know any better. Fortunately I was able to explain to her that I was telling her the same things that I had just finished telling the rest of the team, and she was generous enough to apologize to me after the game for snapping at me during the half.

Thursday ended with me going to a bar in Jamaica Plain with Adam and Megan (a couple other dancing friends) and having a cider. We ate some Cuban food at the bar that we had picked up across the street at a Cuban restaurant. The ordering process at the Cuban place was quite a bizarre experience. I never would have thought that I could go somewhere in the greater Boston area (except for maybe China town) and have the staff at the restaurant not speak a lick of English. My limited Spanish skills came in quite handy in getting me, Adam, and Megan the food we desired.

As a side note, I want to thank Megan and her boyfriend Alex for letting me crash at their house on Thursday night.

Friday was interesting as well. I ended getting up a lot earlier than I have in a long time (9am), and heading in to my old insurance job to do a few hours of consulting work for them. After I got out of there, I spent the afternoon at Seth’s apartment with him, kicking his ass at darts, drinking a beer, and then bringing him to the airport. Come to think of it, I actually played the part of Seth all weekend. He planned a trip to DC to visit some friends, and he let me crash at his place Friday and Saturday night. After the airport run, I had to hustle to get over to a show in Harvard Square that my friend Allegra is assistant directing: The Donkey Show. I can’t even describe how much fun I had dancing to disco music all night and seeing a great performance. You’ll just have to go check it out for yourself.

I followed up The Donkey Show by going to a Lindy Hop Dance with Allegra in Inman Square called Boston Swing Central. The White Heat Swing Orchestra was swingin’ fast and tight, and I had some fun dances. After the dance Allegra and another friend of mine, she who must not be named due to legally binding contracts, accompanied me to one of my favorite watering holes in Cambridge: People’s Republik. It’s a classic Cambridge bar where they only take cash, serve food during most hours, and have a limited but interesting and in my opinion, good, beer selection. The three of us closed out the place while talking about dance, The Donkey Show, and other random topics that generally come up while a crowd is drinking. We even had some random woman come talk to us about West Coast Swing because she saw Allegra and I reenacting some of the Hustle moves we were pulling out at the Donkey Show, which she mistook for West Coast Swing. When the lights came on, we decided that we weren’t ready to go to bed and continued the conversation up in Seth’s apartment, which is conveniently located about 100 yards from the bar (one of the main reasons why this place is one of my favorites). After a few more drinks and a couple hours of good company later, the ladies left, and I passed out…way too late for the day I had planned 7 hours later.

Friday was also my aunt’s 60th birthday, so I decided that we should go out to lunch on Saturday. I was a little late to meeting her because of the lateness of the night before, but we ended up having a great lunch of pizza and salad at Cambridge One in Harvard Square. The food there is so fresh, and the ambiance just feels right.

Then to continue my impersonation of Seth for the weekend, I ended up going to a dance workshop some friends of mine, Skye and Naomii, were teaching at Brookline Tai Chi, through Hop To The Beat. The classes were fun and informative. After the classes, the three of us ended up grabbing some dinner together at Whole Foods, before having the pleasure of listening to Gordon Webster and his band absolutely swing the sh!t out of the dance that night. It’s always a pleasure to listen to him tickle the ivories. Well, I should really say pound them.

After the dance I drove back to Cambridge, grabbed a beer and talked about The Donkey Show some more with Allegra, before heading back to Seth’s to rest up for my aunt’s official 60th birthday party at The Colonial Inn in Concord. The whole family was there, along with some of my aunt’s friends, and it was a really great time. My little cousins keep getting bigger and cuter, and my older cousins are turning into adults. It’s a little bizarre to see actually. The food at the Inn was incredible, and the chocolate raspberry birthday cake was delicious.

I capped the night off watching/falling asleep to the Patriots game on Johnny’s couch back in Nashua. It’s a good thing they beat the Jets this week. Last week’s loss to Indianapolis was just ridiculous.

This whole weekend really reminded me just how much I love being around Boston. I hadn’t spent enough time in Pittsburgh to be totally engrossed in the community around me, and due to my lifestyle choices, I wasn’t going to be immersing myself into the culture any time soon. I’m very happy that I left Pittsburgh and decided to come back to the east coast corridor and spend more time with my family and friends out here.

And so concludes this episode of Vagabond Diaries. Thanks for reading. Be sure to check back soon for more updates and stories on my life as a traveling Lindy Hopper.

What frustrates me about this is that neither officer showed any understanding as to why I was going over the speed limit.

The first time I was pulled over as I was passing a truck, and it just so happened that while I was doing so, the highway turned into a work zone and dropped 30 KPH. And, as I was passing the truck, I was only going 5 KPH over the actual speed limit of the road when it wasn’t a work zone. The officer was sitting just inside the work zone and pulled me over even though as I was passing the truck there was plenty of other traffic going the same speed, if not faster then I was. BOOM! $229.

The second time I was pulled over on a 4 lane freshly paved road as I was pulling out of Ikea and getting ready to merge onto the highway. I had no idea what the speed limit was on that road, but apparently it was 50 KPH, the equivalent of 30 MPH. Can you believe that? a 4 lane access road to a highway was 50 KPH. Not knowing the speed limit, trying to merge in with traffic going faster than me, and looking for how to get onto the damn highway, I was traveling at 85 KPM. I even came to almost a complete stop in front of the officer as he was pulling onto the actual road. BOOM! $229 again.

So, I’m fighting both the tickets, but apparently the courts are backed up 2 years, so I’ll put the money in an account and hope it accumulates some wealth in the next two years, so even if I have to pay the damn ticket it won’t be quite as much as it is now.

Wish me luck.

This concludes another episode of The Vagabond Diaries.

I am currently sitting in my living room in Pittsburgh (still mine for a couple of weeks) after teaching 15 hours in Cleveland over 3 days with Claudia. Needless to say, after the teaching and the drive back, I am quite tired.

My story for tonight is about my flight to Cleveland from Montreal on Oct 9, 2009. I’ll start in Philly where I am waiting for my connecting flight on US Airways flight 3388 operated by Republic Airlines – ‘named #1 Regional Airline 2008′. The boarding was great. The flight was only 1/3 full, so there was plenty of space to spread out, and we were actually ready to leave a little early with our 70 passengers. This is where the hypocrisy begins. I realize while I’m reading my very intriguing new book my father gave me for my birthday, Beautiful Children, by Charles Boch, that despite our early board we have been sitting at the gate with the cabin door closed and the walkway retracted for about 30 minutes. A few minutes later, the captain’s voice came over the intercom saying, “You are probably wondering why we are waiting, but the concessions crew who serviced our plane mistakenly took one of our flight attendants personal items while they were changing the plane over. The item is on its way back, and we will be leaving shortly.” After another 10 minutes, the item was still not on the plane – the cabin door still closed, the walkway still retracted. I come to find out that that item we are waiting for is actually the flight attendant’s dinner! – a dinner that none of the 70 passengers on the plane would be getting served nor have the option to even buy. The damn thing finally came, and the crew opened the sealed cabin door. Not only did US Airways break FAA regulations about opening the cabin door after it had been shut and the walkway had been retracted, but they did it because of a dinner. The flight from Philly to Cleveland is 1 hour, and we waited 45 minutes for that damn dinner to get back on the plane. The flight attendant caused 70 people to be 40 minutes late on a Friday night, when she could have simply waited an extra 20 minutes and eaten in Philly. Shit, she could have even called ahead and had the meal waiting for her at the gate. I can’t even explain to you how much this chaps my ass. How many times have you heard stories about people being two minutes late for a flight, and the airlines say, “Sorry, the cabin door has been shut, and the walkway has been retracted,” meanwhile, the poor bastard who was late is staring at the plane sitting just outside the window. Unreal.

This is a video we made while waiting:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m72mvgF_WQ]

Here’s where this episode of Vagabond Diaries ends. Keep checking back or subscribe to the RSS feed for more updates on The World According to Davis.

Thanks for reading.