Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A Morning's Worth Of Mambo

There were ninety minutes of mambo madness this morning on Self Help Radio. Did you miss it? Don't worry! The show in its tireless entirety is now available for your listening pleasure - hip injuries notwithstanding - at self help radio dot net. If you're just feeling poppy, there's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute. So much goodness, such an old-school website.

I will be visiting family in Dallas for the rest of the week so you won't hear hide nor hair from me until Sunday at the earliest. That means this week's Dickenbock Electronics has been delayed for a week, so it'll happen next weekend. Self Help Radio will be on next Tuesday though, so don't fret. Just have a wonderful week!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Whither Mambo?

4:30 in the morning may seems an inappropriate time to discuss a dance & musical style that was popular over sixty years ago. You are wise to suggest that. I have however become painfully aware of certain (shall we call them) rogue elements in our fair city who are determined - nay, resolved - to not march to the beat of the same civic & cultural drum we ourselves use to keep time. I've heard of early morning screenings of late-night talk shows; of impromptu Jazzercise sessions; of kids taken to school in the early evening & made to endure home room at dinner time; & of course, mambo.

They mambo whenever inconvenient: in the line at the jewelry store; in the corner of your eye when you're enjoying too much Chinese food at a buffet; on national television during the news or any car commercial after ten p.m.; with friendly police officers who don't know any better; on a Thursday night in the privacy of their own backyards.

You see, 4:30 am may be the only time to expose these anarchists, these agents of chaos, these exceedingly silly folk.

& I shall. Tune in to Self Help Radio tomorrow morning at 4:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL. You can listen online. You can also enjoy the show later that day on self help radio dot net.

It will be part exposé, part cultural commentary. But a lot of it will just be mambo.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Preface To Mambo: Can YOU Mambo?

I can't. In fact, at this late date, mere days before I do a radio show about the mambo, I still am not quite sure what a mambo is. There just seemed to be, you know, so many songs about mambos - or songs that were mambos - out there. I figured I'd catch on at some point.

I haven't done any research yet - really, I don't do much research at all, but even so - so I wonder if the "mambo" as a dance is related to the "mamba" as a snake. Or if the two of them have a similar origin.

Can you imagine this fellow dancing to Latin rhythms?



(I can!)