Chapter Eleven - The Hustle and the Whore
When my best friend in my twenties got married, there was one single bridesmaid. Every single guy, including me, tried to dance with her.
Problem.
She was ballroom trained. And if you couldn’t waltz or salsa, she wasn’t interested.
That day, I decided I would never be in the position of not being able to dance with a woman at a wedding again.
The next Monday, I marched myself into the Dance Doctor in Santa Monica, signed up for private lessons, and never looked back. If you’re ever wondering where my money went, as I had a substantially high paying job, it was to a slew of dance studios across Southern California over the next ten years. For the equivalent of a mortgage of a house, I can now foxtrot, waltz, swing, tango, rumba, cha-cha, hustle, mambo, and salsa... all with a certain degree of mediocrity.
I am not going to lie. It is a great confidence builder to be able to ask a girl to dance, move her around the dance floor, spin her a few times, and keep the rhythm. I should have stopped at $5K worth of private lessons and realized at that point that I hadn’t started dancing when I was three. I already had a decent sense of rhythm through piano and percussion. I would never jive as well as the couples you see on the competitions on PBS who dedicated their lives to the ballroom and are not just indulging in an overly expensive, shockingly addictive hobby.
I had a phenomenal dance instructor at Arthur Murray. She had a thick Eastern-European accent and not the greatest command of English. I mention this only because once we were working on a salsa step, and she tells me I looked like a whore. It did not go over well.
“Why are you getting all upset?” she asks. “Whore... whore.... the animal.”
This is not getting better. Animal?
“What is the singular of horse?” Oooooh.
When I tell her horse, of course, is the singular of horses, she does not believe me.
You can now imagine how crazy our dance lessons were.
The major point about taking dance lessons though, was that this was the first time I had done something musical that was completely my decision... financially and personally. That is why I didn’t invite any family or friends to come watch when I competed. That is why I resisted competition altogether.
As much as I appreciate (now as an adult looking back on it) what my mother had done for me as a kid... driving me up and down Hoover to lessons at the Colburn after school and getting dinner on the table; driving me all over to youth orchestras on Saturdays from Silverlake to West Hollywood to Northridge and back; driving me... her... all right, both of us driving each other nuts, I needed something musical all my own. I needed something I could love and enjoy, and sink my teeth into on my own terms. The salsa, hustle, tango, et al. were it.
Own your artistic space, even when it’s out of the box. Do something creative that is only yours as a part of your process.
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