Milwaukee 2009 Update #3
It’s Sunday night, 10:15pm, and after wildly trying to photograph the judges’ sheets so we could tear out of the hotel to drive through the rain to the airport (which I checked seven times to make sure it’s the right airport) here we still are: Genieboy, Joe Arasin and I, still waiting for a flight which has been delayed first an hour, then another hour, then a half hour, waiting to hear the next increment.
Our plane can’t get out of the Minneapolis airport – thunderstorms here and all over the midwest. Joe has already finished his first book (a quick read – 700 pages), gone on a long hunt for a serious (his word) ice cream shop (the gelatto shop exactly right here at this very exact gate where we’re sitting is not serious enough) and it has to be chocolate; and he has just returned, looking kind of spacey, settling for gelatto with chocolate chips which he is standing here eating in my face while trying to decide whether to go to Swing Diego or Easterns and explaining why he doesn’t have a phone that does anything but dial phone numbers and is about to start in on his second huge fat book which I hope he won’t get the time to finish waiting for our plane to make it out of Indiana.
JJ Finalists announced Saturday night:
Advanced:
- Our Connie
- Alisa Winkler
- Adorable Texas Dallas
- Dawn Lara
- Krista Mitchell
- Michelle Haynes
- Cindy Dionne
- Leslie Bricker
- Julie
- Becky Brodie – 1st Alt
- Jamie Callahan – 2nd Alt
- Our Rob
- Byron
- Todd Paulus
- PJ
- Jesse Cramer
- Our Jody
- Chip DiStefano
- Arthur Uspensky
- Benjamin Plante
Intermediate:
- Carrie Richards
- Tracy Staten
- Kelsey Petrewski
- Joy Davina
- Veranne
- Peggy of the Delicious Armpits
- Lasonda
- Our Faith (that sounds like a church)
- Melissa Spencer
- ME!!
- Kelly Strouse
- Sebastien
- Brian Wong
- Joe Wright
- Levi
- Ken Negley
- jeffrey Tran
- Randy
- Scoootish Neil
- Albert Corrozato
- Kellese and Michael Norris, in yet another brand new routine (is this her 20th brand new routine in one year? Okay, maybe just her 10th brand new routine), danced to a classical/jazz/ violin something (which sounded familiar for some reason). Wait – now the whole routine seems familiar. Maybe this was not a new one after all?
- Ben and Melina (SO clean! so so so so SUPER DUPER fast! Such power! Such funk! I LOVE this routine!)
- Jake and Talitha (Soul Man)
- DON AND WHITNEY!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! Is that AWESOME or WHAT?!?!? Oh I am SO PROUD OF THEM!!!!!!!! They WON! Sort of!
- Sheli and Mike
- Sebastien and Blandine
- Jesse and Stacey
- Michelle and Joel (She is so ADORABLE I just want to squeeze her! And GB says she is a total blast to dance with, just laughs the whole time)
- Jody and Connie
- Willow and Dave Damon – first time on the floor with their new routine, danced to a sort of Southerrn Rock meets Punk Rock song, in black, which Willow was still hemming an hour before they went on the floor, and which doesn’t have any rhinestones yet but will soon be totally smothered in them
- Joy and Todd
- Karen Leiker
- Genieboy and Janice Samon
- Chips
- Michael Stephens and Beverly Salazzo
- Chip DiStefano and Cindy Dionne
- Kelly Strouse
- Jamie Callahan
- Shoshana Scheid
- Peggy of the Delightful Armpits and Delicious Boobs
- Fred and Tina Price (they drew each other)
- Fred Price (again) and Angie
- Angel and Dawn Lara
- Blandine
- Scottish Neal and Peggy
- Randy Sloane and Veranne (more on Veranne later – I love that girl)
- Kelly Strouse and FAYFEE PANGILININININ!! (it was at this point during Awards that I started to have a hard time holding trophies and bundles of cash, AND ing things down)
- Ken and Kelsey
- Sebastien and Melissa Spencer
- CONNIE!!! and PJ
- Chip DiStefano and Texas Dallas
- Michelle and Benjamin Plante
- Jody! and oops I forget who
- ROB!!! AGAIN!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA with Cindy Dionne
- Michael Stephens and Sheli
- Fred and Laura Christopherson
- Solemon and Angie
- Nino and Colleen
- HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! DONNIE!!!!! with the very extremely marvelous Taletha!
- Melina and Robert Royston
- Ben and Debbie Figueroa
- Terry Roseborough and Angie
Novice:
Our very own, and very psycho since the moment his name was announced, Wayne Scott Pulling, whom we affectionately refer to as Scott #3 (we collect Scotts in DC).
Classic Results:
(I think there were 12 couples but I don’t seem to have the last five here in my notes. I took pictures of the judges’ sheets, though, so I’ll send the rest of the list later)
Rising Star Results
Little bit of confusion here because Joy and Todd, who won in Chicago last week (wait. the week before. No oops that was Boston. The week before THAT. Anyway, they just won in Chicago), again all received 1′s from the judges (lot of the same judges since Chicago is an hour and a half’s drive from here – Carmen Passi, Yvonne Antonacci, Nino DiGiulio, Debbie Figueroa, Kara Przbyla, and Chief Judge Mike Topol), but despite this they came in 4th out of 4. I was told by a student of Todd’s that the judges did in fact all put them first, but that they were subsequently disqualified for You-Know-What.*
At any rate, here’s what was posted:
Midwesterners are fraaandly! We noticed this laaast year, too. Naat just the daaance community, but people in the Piggly Wiggly, the staaaaff at the hotel – everyone’s smiley and helpful and kind. Just nice to you for no reason. The problem is that they talk funny so while they’re being nice I’m trying to be nice back and not burst out laughing at their accent, which wouldn’t be nice at all. The highways here talk funny, too. The roads don’t have normal wordy names like “Interstate 495″ or “Route 70″ but instead are straightforward and unwasteful: “BB,” “NNN,” and “SS.” We used my portable GPS Navigon which has a mechanical voice not a real person voice and will not say vowels if there are no vowels written, which means that when it said “at the ramp turn left on FF and follow for 7 M to HHH” we said WHAT?!? thinking maybe Wisconsin made it blow a fuse.
Sunday Results!!! (people I know and managed to wildly write down while at the same time running back and forth to the front of the room to juggle wads of cash and trophies for the rest of the DC crowd who left early)
Masters JJ:
Hustle Novice:
Hustle Intermediate:
Hustle Open
WCS Novice
WCS Intermediate
WCS Advanced
The problem was that the prize money was cash, small bills, one envelope per couple. And I had my arms filled with trophies, and I was trying to write in my little weeny notebook and I had to be counting bills so the other person could get their half, and meanwhile they were already announcing the next winner who ALSO I had to get THEIR trophy and their envelope and also write that down too.
WCS Allstar
Crossover
(wcs and hustle – funniest was Brent doing hustle. Everything that hustle is, Brent is the opposite of. So he just kept jabbing his hands up in the air, walking very far away from his partner, and trying desperately to count. Robert Royston said what do you call a dance that is the blend of Swing, Hustle, and Shag? And Kellese said you call it “Hag.”)
More later – plane has arrived on the strip! So we should be home round ’bout 2:30 ish.
Love Liza
*Swing Content. Lack of it.