That's Entertainment!

Saturday, October 16. Finally gave in and ate something non-Asian tonight.Took a friend to a place called Amigos, nestled well back of the main streets I live on, in a little high-end strip mall where a "cafe latte" maker sell for $100, displayed on a $300 solid mahogany coffee table (from guess whose disappearing rainforest, I'm sure) plunked down in the middle of a mass of large private homes. Not a bad imitation of Mexican, but it was easily the least memorable repast of the trip. But there were two things worth commenting on. The first is that each table had at least one white guy at it. Most had a couple of ‘em, and all but one had a local lady, too. Several had cute kids. Not cute: nearly all the guys were heavily into their beers and practicing leers. Kinda gross. But, the families were fun to watch, especially when the dancing started.

That’s the second thing worth commenting on, why the dancing started. I’ve now seen two bands playing in my neighborhood, and both of have been professional cover bands. The r&b/jazz band ten days ago was rock solid and often moving. This band tonight also fabulous in its own way. 4 gals and a guy rotated lead singer duties covering everything from Abba and the Bee Gees to Eminem and Beyonce in front of a steady rhythm section, and they all had MTV-worthy lungs, fab soul, and language and diction were so realistic the whole picture was downright surreal… So surprised to find myself enjoying this stuff. They played for nearly two hours without a break, got Mothers and fathers and children, lonely leering white guys, a couple of "seniors" on to the dance floor, sold every minute of it, looked like they never wanted to do anything else. A friend I was with told me they don’t speak any English at all; the sounds and music and movement are muscle memorized. And I thought, "how many hundreds of times do they hit the "previous track" button in front of a mirror, making hips, lips, and elbows be not quite their own? How much sweat (especially in THIS part of the world) do you pay out to take such ownership of something so completely not your own? Then I realized, more or less, that once upon a time I had dedicated myself to precisely that line of work. That’s what got me hooked on the study of how we learn what we learn…in one way that’s what learning is, right? Taking ownership of knowledge that previously wasn’t owned by the learner? Nuff.