Those Salsa Bitches

On Thursday night, Dallas Night Club rocks with the best night of salsa in Austin.  I notice Layla, the Brazilian sex therapist, back in town, and ready to dance.  Seeing her again made me think about how a seasoned salsera  looks and acts.  She’s wearing a brilliant orange sleeveless dress, with bare shoulders and cleavage.  It is a short dress, well above her knees, with rows of two inch fringe that stand out and seemingly shimmer of their own volition when she spins.  Her smooth, tan legs look yummy against the fluorescent orange.  Her light orange, satin dance shoes have two inch heels.  Layla, a strong-willed, exuberant dancer, will trample a weak lead.  I love dancing with her.

The mental conversation inherent in salsa appeals to me.  I love the anticipation and the move, the call and response aspects of just two people, making dance.  Some salseras feel as light as a feather.  Simply hit the turn signal, and they spin of their own accord.  You merely invite a move, and they know what to do; they flow gently into and beautifully out of it.  

You know you have a live one on your hands, if when asked if they can salsa, they reply: 

"You lead, I'll follow".  

Other, less experienced dancers need a firmer hand to know where to go.  Dancers with less than a year in the clubs require that you give them no option but to do the move you expect of them.  I call dancing with beginners "Tipping Cows".  If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of their hooves clattering across the dance floor.

"Want a beer?" I asked Layla.  

"No," she said, "I don't drink anymore." 

 "Oh," I replied, "Why not?" 

"The last time I drank, I ended up in handcuffs."  

"Wow," I said, "you mean when you woke up you were handcuffed to a bed?"  

Layla replied archly, "No.  I ended up handcuffed in the back of a squad car."  

"Oh, well, never mind," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand.    

Just then, Raoul walked up, looked at Layla, and said "You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.  Let me marry you, and I'll take care of you forever."  

Layla looked at him skeptically, and said  "I don't trust you."   

"Why not?"  whined a crestfallen Raoul, with love and hurt in his voice.  

Stone-faced, Layla retorted:  "You're Latin".


I met Michelle, a new girl I saw at Dallas for the first time the previous week.  

I asked her to dance, and she said "Sure, but go easy on me, I have a phobia about salsa."  

"Phobia?" I responded, slightly cross-eyed.  

"Yeah, five years ago my old boyfriend told me I would never be a good salsa dancer.  I recently broke up with him, and I'm trying to get back into salsa."  

"Well"  I replied,  "Let's prove that sonofabitch wrong.  I'll tell you what I tell all the new girls I meet:  

I need you to help me make you look good.   You're the picture, and I'm the frame.  You only have to do two things to dance with me.  One, keep your feet moving, and two, look pretty.  Can you do those two things?" 

"Sure, I can do that" she said with a smile.  

"OK, let's see if you know the basics."   

I began the basic step.  "Check".  

Then I performed a cross-body lead.  "Check".  

Then a ladies right turn.  "Check".  

Then a cross-body lead to her right with a left-hand turn.  She stumbled and grabbed my arms in a panic. 

"See",  she said in a plaintive, little-girl voice, "I can't do it!" 

 I gave her a hug, and said "Don't worry honey, it'll be ok.  We'll work on it until you have all the tools you need," and I led it again.  And then again.  

I have done the same thing with more than ten beginners, and now that they are accomplished dancers, they still remember me as the nice guy who gave them a break when they were just starting out.  Time and patience yields excellent dance partners.  The following week, I asked her to dance again. 

 "OK," she scolded me with a finger, "but no scary moves."  

After dancing for a minute or so, she leaned closer, and said  "I feel so safe and calm when I dance with you.  You're like my salsa therapist!"  I just laughed.

Later, I danced with a talented, experienced salsera with whom I had not danced before.  I did my usual thing, and our backs collided four times in a row.  After the fifth time, I stopped and turned with a WTF?  look in my eyes.  

Unapologetic,  she shrugged her shoulders, and said  "I don't know what to do.  Every time I turn around, you're not there.  It's like a magic show!"  

She looked down at her satin dance heels for a moment, and then back up at my face.  "I know what it is.  You dance in a circle, and I dance in a slot."  

She had nailed the problem.  I came up through the Cuban-style rueda, and she began with the dance school slot routines.   After 18 months of non-stop salsa, I took Swing lessons for a while, so I now do swing salsa in a circle.  We mutually agreed to take a break.

When I saw Layla the next week,  she told me about what happened after she left the club that night.  She had stopped at a convenience store in the early morning hours to buy gas.  While she was standing at the counter to pay, a young woman, obviously flying, entered the store, and took Layla in with a glance.  

"Oh", the girl exclaimed in an overly loud voice, "you must be one of those salsa bitches!"  

She wanted to dance right then and there.  

Alarmed, the store clerk, in a voice inflected with a strong Bengali accent, asked 

"Should I call the police?"   

"No", Layla laughed, "she's right", and they danced in the aisle together.  

Layla left the store with a shake of her head and a smile.

Got time for a salsa lesson?

                                                          

 My martial arts career began more than 30 years ago.  Starting with self-defense , I moved on to Shodokan Karate, dabbled in Kung Fu for a year, and finally graduated to Tai Chi eleven years ago.  My self-defense sensei was Air Force Colonel Jerry Robinette (Retired).  Among other postings, he was Commandant at the Air Force SERE (survival, evasion, rescue and escape) School for two years.  When Vice President Lon Cheney wanted to set up a CIA program to torture information out of al Qaeda suspects, he reached out to the SERE School for instructors.  The SERE School  trainers modeled their tactics after those used by ChiComm interrogators during the Korean War.  The instructors intended to prepare present U.S. pilots for whatever detention tactics, including torture, they might encounter if shot down over enemy territory.  One of the Colonel's tasks included making sure the trainers received the support they needed to carry out their assignment.

     Colonel Robinette was a strict sensei who demanded excellence. Aspects of the the Colonel I admired included the fact that although he understood the power of carefully applied violence, he did not share the military's disregard for human life.  For example, Major General Johnson, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq's Anbar province, described civilian deaths as a "cost of doing business".

     The Colonel had sayings he had accumulated over a lifetime in the martial arts.  He would show us a move, and then say "OK, now repeat 10,000 times."  

Or:  "The more sweat on the practice field, the less blood on the battlefield."  

Or:  "You're not a loser until you quit."  

Or :  "What you're trying to do is replace your opponent's consciousness of you with the consciousness of PAIN."  

Or:  "If you can sit up and get out of bed the morning after a fight, you weren't fighting hard enough."  

One of the Colonel's comments profoundly affected my life.  His advice:  "Spend at least one hour a day on a subject, any subject, and after a while (he didn't say how long) you will become a world's expert on that subject."  I followed that advice in my day job, and ended up with six patents.

      As a former F-4 fighter pilot in Vietnam who flew close air support for ground troops, the Colonel liked the brutal, linear attack style of Shodokan karate.  Anyone knowing the nature of the Japanese schools of martial art, including karate,  would not find the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor surprising.  Do not telegraph your intent, just attack as hard as you can, as fast as you can, and as soon as you can.   After the Colonel passed away, I continued my study of  Shodokan Karate with the Colonel's sons, one of whom was Micheal Dell's children's bodyguard.

     One Tuesday evening, the Colonel stopped by to check on our progress.  The tempo of the dojo quickened when he entered the room.  He slowly made his way around the mats, asking each of us individually how things were going.  

When it was my turn, I said "Yes, Sir, my skills are progressing, although more slowly than I want."  

About six months before, the A.P.D.   S.W.A.T. team had invaded our school for a year's training in proactive self-defense, and I had been sparring with them on a regular basis.  

"I have a hard time keeping up with these younger guys,"  I continued.  

He smiled at me, and said   "Robert,  young men as a rule are faster, stronger, and have more endurance that us old guys.  So, in order for us to win, we have to cheat."  

 "Oh," I said, and returned to my workout, an enlightened grin on my face.

     Eleven years ago, I began studying the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi, which is a slow-motion form of kung fu.  Guy Forsyth, the Austin singer, songwriter, and musician, leads a free class every Monday and Thursday at ten o'clock at Strange Brew.  Want a one word description of Tai Chi?  Subtle.  The Tai Chi masters operate under the assumption that a beginning student has already spent twenty years or more studying other forms of martial art, and now stands ready to study the fundamentals underlying martial movement.    One day after class, I discussed the nature of karate, kung fu, and tai chi with Guy, who agreed with my assessment.  Using karate, you take your arm, and beat your opponent to death with it.  Using kung fu, you take your opponent's arm, and beat them to death with it.  According to the tai chi master's world view, to oppose your opponent's force with force is considered rude and uncouth.  Rather, one merely assists one's opponent in moving in the direction they were already going; preferably face first into a tree. Using tai chi, your opponent takes their own arm and beats themselves to death with it.  Subtle. 

     Eight years ago, I stumbled across salsa dancing. Salsa has has now joined martial arts as my main hobby.  I really love the universality of salsa.  The salsa dance floor represents the most integrated piece of real estate in the City of Austin .  On any given night, every race, every nationality, every religion, and all five sexes, including heterosexual male and female, gay and lesbian, and cross-dressing transsexuals (you can do amazing things with duct tape) are accounted for when the music starts.   Come to the clubs, and you'll see what I mean.

     After a while, I began to understand how my study of Tai Chi could inform my enjoyment of salsa.     Many martial art moves embed themselves in salsa, like the pattern called Wax On, Wax Off.   Tai Chi, for me, involves foot placement, so that if one gets one's foot in the right place, the rest of the move flows naturally.  The same insight applies in salsa.  Another similarity between Tai Chi and salsa revolves around the sparring mat and the crowded dance floor.  In salsa, you not only have to dance with your partner, anticipate her moves and lead her to the next one in a smooth fashion, but you also have to interact with the other dancers on the floor.  Avoiding collisions in salsa is just as hard, and takes just as much concentration, as sparring in the dojo.  Multiple dancers and multiple sparring partners impose the same requirements for mental anticipation and  physicality to perform safely. 

 "Louie", a former A.P.D. under-cover narcotics officer, was my karate instructor for two years while he studied for his black-belt exam.  At the beginning of each class he would say:

 "O.K., Ladies, listen up.  We didn't come here to practice bleeding, so take care of your partner".  I try to do the same on the dance floor.

     Soon after I began dancing salsa at Ruta Maya, I said to myself, 'Self, you can work out at the dojo, and wrestle with hot, sweaty men, or you can work out at the clubs, and dance with hot, sweaty, beautiful women. What's it going to be?'  

Now when I get home after a night of salsa , my hands smell like women and perfume, instead of boxing gloves and sweat.  Verdict ?  See you at the clubs. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOMpi-TPdcw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

A beautiful Mexican comes sweeping in the door...

                                                                 

        During my weekly session, I spoke with Layla, the Brazilian sex therapist I met on the salsa dance floor.  I told her about my recent encounter with a gorgeous Mexican, Melody Sonora, on whom I first laid eyes at the U.T. salsa conference earlier that year.  Mel, tall and slender, had dancer's legs, lustrous black hair, and obsidian Aztecan eyes.  She combined a beautiful creature with a shining presence and a body built for two.  While sitting in the lobby of the ornate, chandeliered University of Texas Ballroom, looking at the floor as I waited for the doors to open, I heard footsteps.  Looking up, I saw black suede boots with four inch heels, then skin-tight black designer jeans, then a black western silk blouse with red roses embroidered across the chest, then a beautiful face ringed by curled black hair.  The coiled snake tattoo on her left shoulder, partially hidden by her blouse, should have warned me, but her looks had me too smitten  to decode the hint needled into her body.  I later regretted my inattention, as her beauty masked her reality.  

        I felt like a salmon, rising to hit the lure, as I stood up and asked her if she knew how to salsa.  She looked me in the eye and replied:  

        "Yeah.  You lead, I follow."  I fell instantly in love.

        We had a wonderful time at the salsa conference; she and I danced with the stars.  I gave her my card.  She called me the next day, and we began a long-distance relationship, because she lived in Dallas, and I in Austin. 

       Over the next several weeks, Mel revealed that she was 50 years old, divorced, with five marriages hanging from her custom Gucci leather belt, four grown children, and ten grand kids.  Dancing released her from the worries and strains of life.  What she didn't tell me, at least not right away, was that she was recently released from an Dallas mental hospital, which she entered following a mental breakdown precipitated by her fifth in an unbroken string of violently abusive husbands.   As I came to understand, she was half crazy, and the other half was on medication.  Mel, under the care of a psychiatrist, had her equilibrium  maintained by the anti-psychotic drug Topamax, a.k.a. Dopamax.  The manufacturer of Topamax recommends that you call your physician if you begin to kill small animals while consuming this drug.  Mel endured large mood swings, from fear, to rage, to shame, as she battled her memories of physical, mental, and emotional abuse at the hands of her "loved ones".  With her story slowly unfolding before me,  I became more and more engaged, as her situation was crack for my co-dependency issues. 

        I felt an overwhelming urge to play Savior to the rotting lepers in her mind.  As our relationship endured, her mood swings became more and more problematic.  She would go from happy and carefree to angry and repellent in a flash.  Her moods were brittle, like a glass rod, bending  under pressure only slightly before breaking with a loud snap.  She would change from sunshine and butterflies to rain and roaches in the space of a comment.  But, when she was nice, she was very, very nice.  I loved her when she was nice.  I still remember the taste of her smile.  I especially loved her when we were alone together on the dance floor.  The first time we made love, I found a small arrow, pointed down, tattooed below her bikini line.

        Layla listened to my rant with a non-committal gaze on her face.  

       When I finished, I asked her:  "Well, help me out here.  What do you think?"  

       She replied: "Most people have certain requirements for a good relationship.  Generally, things like sex, comfort, and companionship head the list.  What you want is someone who loves you like you love you.  But, at the end of the day, you have to take a hard look at yourself, and then come to Jesus.  Some people are the exact opposite of  "good for you".  You need to be able to recognize when you are in a dead-end, destructive relationship, and get out, even if your self-indulgent, lizard-brained pleasure center is happy rolling in the puke generated by the misery inherent in such a relationship.  Mel has a border-line personality disorder, and has been broken by her experiences."  

        "The border-line," I asked her, "between what and what?"

        "Between neurotic and psychotic," she replied.   "She can only drag you down.  Get out NOW." 

         I sat sadly looking at her, shaking my head no, knowing she was right.

         Now, everyone has baggage, and what you have to do is weigh the baggage and see if it's worth the freight.  Well, I checked, and Mel had a thirty mule team pulling her baggage train.  She was as crazy as ten rats in a burlap sack.  Still, I knew in my heart that underneath all that craziness and suffering and pain there was an eight year old child dying for love.  As I left the session, I resolved to ignore Layla's advice, and continue on in my relationship with Mel.  I thought perhaps Layla was overreacting, and everything would be fine.

       That next week, one of her exes contacted her, and she suffered a psychotic relapse that broke through the Dopamax.  She drove me in the ditch, pulled her plates, and split.  I still miss her, the way the memory of a painful, infected tooth lingers after an expensive trip to the dentist.

        I have learned something, though.  From now on, when I meet a beautiful woman, as soon as possible I'm going to check her purse for drugs.  Not only coke or crack or meth or barbs, but finding an anti-psychotic like Dopamax will make me run like hell.                   

                                                  To Mel:   Songs of the Year 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3oNSFQVzNM

http://perezhilton.com/tv/index.php?ptvid=b9f728f5f1f2b

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG16eqK9LL0&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZ1uI5yPbY

Los Zetas

It’s early on a Tuesday evening. I’m at the salsa meet up at Speakeasy. Layla, the Brazilian sex therapist, and I are chatting before the music starts.  She’s telling me about recent events in her daughter's life. 

 "This has been the worst week of my life" she says.  

 Alarmed, I asked: "What happened?" 

It seems her daughter was married to a Mexican, and they lived in Monterrey with their two children.  Layla drove down to visit them for Thanksgiving.  She arrived Tuesday about noon.  When Layla entered their house through the smashed open front door, she saw her daughter in tears, clutching her children, and the living room all torn up. 

 "My gosh, what happened?" asked Layla.

Her daughter told Layla this story:  Two hours previously, a large group of masked, armed men burst into their home.  They grabbed her husband and beat the holy living crap out of him, breaking both his legs in the process.  They dragged him out to the street by his hair, threw him into the trunk of a car, slammed the lid, and roared off, tires squealing.  

The team leader then told her that they were Los Zetas, and that they wanted 1 million pesos ($100,000 U.S.) by Sunday, or "bad things will happen." 

In case you didn't know, Los Zetas are a rogue military hit squad.  It seems some genius at the DEA decided in 1992 that what the Mexican government needed to counter the drug cartels was a death squad.   Accordingly, a 24 man team comprised of Mexican military special forces began their studies at the School of the Americas in Panama.  Executive action teams from Latin American countries receive training by the U.S. military to carry out extortion, kidnappings, and executions at this school.  After graduation, the team, call sign "Zetas" (to distinguish them from the Federales, call sign "Yankees") deployed against the Gulf Cartel in eastern Mexico.  When the kidnappings and executions began, Senor Antonio Cardenas, the cartel patron, received information that a government death squad was responsible.  

He said  "A death squad?  What fun!   I want one of those."  

The cartel reached out to Los Zetas, and offered them money to change sides.  The amount of the bribe isn't known, but $5 million each would only be $120 million, which comprises about one week's income for the Gulf Cartel.  At any rate, Los Zetas accepted the offer, and began to apply their talents for the Gulf Cartel.  In 2006, the Zetas chieftain, Raul "Lucky" Hernandez, decided that they didn't need no stinkin' cartel, and they became independent contractors.  Now another lawless gang ran loose in Mexico, specializing in moving methamphetamine that they produced in huge pharmaceutical-grade labs, human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and the beheading of rivals.  Only three of the original team are still alive because the of the significant attrition rate in that line of business.  Los Zetas, after decapitating the Gulf Cartel,  are now considered one of the two largest crime groups in Mexico, along with the Sinola Cartel in western Mexico, run by Senor Joaquin Guzman. 

A tripartite internecine war for control is now ongoing in Mexico between the thieves and swindlers who have owned the government for the last century and the Zetan and Sinolan narcotraficantes.  The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years, until their electoral ouster in 2000 created a power vacuum.    Previously, corrupt PRI authorities like city mayors, state governors, and federal officials accepted bribes from drug cartels in order to ply their trade unimpeded.  Since 2000, the new government's struggle against the cartels created by the change in elected officials has led to an estimated 50,000 Mexicans dying in the drug war.  Now, the drug cartels call the shots.  

According to a Mexican security analyst, "When a new official is elected, the cartels negotiate with him, and if he doesn't want to go along, they kill him, and that is the end of it".   

Five Mexican newsmen have been slain since the first of the year by the cartels for reporting considered unfavorable by the gangs.  Police found the latest fatality with "a note attached to the corpse signed by the Zetas."  The note was pinned to his forehead with a four inch nail, pounded in antemortem.

At any rate, kidnapping for ransom is nice work if you can get it, and that is what happened to Layla's son-in-law.   He was taken to a safe house elsewhere in Monterrey, handcuffed and thrown in an empty room with no food and no medical care for his broken legs.  On Saturday, Layla's daughter received a phone call.  Los Zetas demanded their money, and had her listen to her husband's screams as his fractured legs were given the boot.  She said they were only able to raise 250,000 pesos, but were ready to deliver it where ever they said.  The drop point instructions were given, and the next-door neighbor volunteered to deliver it.  When he arrived at the designated spot, four marked police cars converged from different directions, and boxed in the bag man.  It was Los Zetas!  They had squad cars!  Fuck! They captured the bag man at gunpoint, beat the holy living crap out of him, and took him and the money to the safe house.  They wanted the rest of their money, and they intended to ransom the bag man too.  They threw the good Samaritan into with the room with the son-in-law.  Meanwhile, the real police had the safe house under surveillance.  A SWAT  team went to the front door, knocked, and said they wanted to enter and search the house.  Los Zetas opened fire, and the SWAT team pulled back.  The Mexican army then surrounded the house, and they shot the shit out of the place with automatic weapons.  News reports in the Austin paper said 11 men were killed in a shootout in Monterrey.  None of Los Zetas survived.  When the police went in to search the wreckage, they found the neighbor and the son-in-law, now with an M-16 wound to one of his broken legs, but still alive. The cops that stormed the room said they found two men "handcuffed and whimpering".  Since the cops didn't know their identity, they took them both to the cop shop for interrogation and detention until they did.  They could have been drug dealers being tortured to reveal their stash. They still received no medical care.  The cops called Layla's daughter, and asked if her husband was missing.  

"Thank God!" she shouted, "you've saved him!"  

Once the cops were satisfied her husband was a kidnapping victim and not a drug dealer, they said "OK, there is a fine for needing rescue, and when we have $10,000 in cash, and we'll let him go."  

Layla had to round up another ten grand to get her son-in-law out of jail. 

"Wow" I said.  "That's quite a story.  Remind me not to go to Mexico any time soon, OK?"  

With that, the music started, and we made our way to the dance floor, safe in America.

Salsa video

Here are excellent salsa instructional videos.  Do it like this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZFYqmuTEZ4&feature=fvw


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5mavUKCnzQ

The Unicorn

"Do it big, do it right, and do it with style."  Fred Astaire.


The phone rang about 8:45 on a Friday evening.  

Jewels, the Panamanian salsera with legs to die for, said:  "I just passed my exam for my Master's in English, and I want to party.  Ritmo Tres starts in a few minutes, and I want you and Kurt, my two favorite salsa partners, to come down here and dance with me."  

I replied:  "Jewels, you know I love to dance with you, but I'm moving my parents from their condo in San Antonio into an assisted living facility here in Austin right now.  I had a 14 hour day today loading the truck, and another 14 hours tomorrow  to unload, and I need to stay home and rest up".  

"What?" She said with mock incredulity, "You mean I've met a responsible man?"  

"'Fraid so," I replied.  

She laughed and added "You know, I worked in an assisted living facility in Bastrop a while ago.  The old people were outrageous.  There was one crazy lady whose daughter had died of a drug overdose.  She claimed the doctors had a machine that blew water up her ass and flushed out all the drugs, and she was still alive.  We all just smiled and said OK".  

With that, she hung up and went dancing, and I went to bed.

The Unhappy and Unlucky

The 48 laws of power:    Law 10

Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky


You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.


The Monkeyfarmer


A person has a problem, a frustration, a grief. They focus on the problem, talk about the problem and nurture the problem until they finally begin to identify with the problem. They secretly love their problem.   It gives them purpose.

You meet this person. They hope to share custody of their problem with you. They want to make it your problem, too.

In other words, they want to put a monkey on your back.

People know Wizzo is a problem solver so they assume he’ll be willing to have a long, pointless discussion with them about their monkey. They’re wrong. If that monkey gets near him he’ll kill it. Wizzo is not a monkeyfarmer.

Problem solvers believe in direct action: “Stab it through the heart with a knife.”

Problem solved. Monkey gone. Life is good.

The person who loved that problem is wide-eyed, shocked that anyone might want to eliminate their beloved monkey. They didn’t want to kill it. They just wanted to talk about it.

“Stab it through the heart with a knife.” Discussion over.

Problems are monkeys. Life without monkeys is good.

Roy Williams