Come Dancing!

I was born May 23, 1957, and began taking ballroom dance lessons in mid-June, 2005. Two weeks after my first lesson, I attended a local Jacksonville, FL, event, the Black and White Gala, hosted by my dance studio, Kaluby's Dance Club. It's an event put on purely for fun and entertainment, not competition, consisting almost entirely of one-couple showcase routines.

Although I'd started the lessons only with the notion of becoming a good social dancer, I was enthralled by the showcases and came away from this event with the goal of performing them eventually. I'm also a nearly lifelong fan of Humphrey Bogart (see my Squidoo lens on Bogie), and Casablanca is my all-time favorite movie. Having already come across a foxtrot version of As Time Goes By, the famous title song from that film, I immediately knew that this is what I'd have to do for my first routine.

It took me two years to feel I was ready, though. By this time, I had collected several more foxtrot versions of As Time Goes By. When I listened to all of them, though, none of them felt right. They were all kind of, well, hokey or overly schmaltzy. I wanted something a lot jazzier. Macintosh geek that I am, I took a nice solo jazz piano MIDI file, imported it into GarageBand, increased the tempo from 80 to 120 BPM, and added bass and drums. Then I dubbed in dialog from Casablanca. After the event, I had a field day putting the video together in iMovie, so, really, what you're seeing combines three of my biggest passions.

By the way, you can't hear it because it's drowned out, but 10 seconds after the music ends, the routine ends with Bogie saying "Here's looking at you, kid."