Free Events Thursday

Free Events Thursday

Latin Beats

Friday, May 30th Downtown Aquarium from 7 pm – 10 pm and Saturday, May 31st, City Center from 7 pm-10 pm

Enjoy a live band (last Friday each month) plus free salsa dance lessons from professional dancers.

Price: FREE!!!

 

Dance Under the Stars 

Friday, May 30th Sugar Land Town Square from 7:30 pm – 9 pm

Grab your dancing shoes and enjoy outdoor dance lessons with Fred Astaire instructors. This month’s dancing features Splash Band, a Motown and Oldies band.

Price: FREE!!!

 

Breakfast Yoga Club Houston 

Sunday,  June 1st at Asia Society Texas Center from 9 am – 11 am.

Soothing music and breakfast accompany the yoga.

Price: FREE!!! (with reservations)

 

Sandcastle Competition

Saturday, May 31, Galveston from 10am- 4:30 pm.

Galveston East Beach, 1923 Boddeker

The 28th year of this friendly competition pitting business teams against each other. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) annual Sandcastle Competition in Galveston is like nothing you’ve seen!

Price: FREE!!! (Parking is $10)

Galveston sandcastle competition

 

Learn Improv 

Friday, May 30th at 7:30 pm.

Station Theater

1230 Houston Ave

Take a free Improv class, thanks to Station Theater’s Intro to Improv. All Intro students are  invited to stay to watch Supernova Armando show for free ($6 value), a fast-paced comedy show with a guest monologist.

Price: FREE!!!

 

Walk the Streets

Sunday, June 1st, Studemont to Milam (Market Square Park) from 11 am – 3 pm.

Closed to vehicles, folks can walk, bike, dance and socialize their way down the road. Market Square Park will have several businesses onsite: Houston B-cycle, Bayou City Outdoors, Bike Barn, Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt food truck!

Price: FREE!!!

Sunday Streets HTX

 

 

 

Links We Like Friday

Links We Like

Cool Inventions  I like the peel back shade!

 

The Lion King      Parenting Done Right

 

 

Famous Last Words of Famous People

http://www.buzzfeed.com/video/mattpagourgis/12-legendary-last-words

 

Talent Rally Highlights 2014 (Very Talented Kids…check out MJ!)

 

You know this popped into your head the first time you heard the song. Don’t deny it!

 

If You Haven’t Seen This…Shame On YOU!!! 🙂

 

 

Links We Like

Links We Like

 

…I know you just sang that line….now you’re going to listen to the song, aren’t you? …Yeah you will…and why not it’s FRIDAY!!! 🙂

 

 

5th grade boys Synchronized Swimming Talent Show Skit 

 

 

Dude Sits Down At Public Piano…. Gives it a Schoolin

 

 

Kid Singin’ the Blues…like a boss

 

 

These Marines Just Let it Go

 

 

 

Tuesday Tunes: The Roaring Twenties!

Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

 For the next few of weeks, Tuesday Tunes will be spotlighting famous dance crazes throughout the decades!

 

         This Tuesday Tunes celebrates the…

 

 

 

 

The spirit of the 1920’s was marked with a disdain for modesty and the breaking of traditions which brought the sensations of jazz music and the ideology and fashion of the flappers. The Roaring Twenties, also know as the Golden Twenties, was a time of raised skirts, bobbed hair  and exciting parties filled with fun cocktails and wild dances. Dances like the Charleston, Black Bottom, the Shimmy (which was actually banned in certain areas)and many others took the world by storm and dancing to a whole new level. 

 

 

The Charleston, the Shimmy and the Lindy Hop

 

Black Bottom 1926, and The Black Bottom Dance

 

1920’s – Quickstep Vs Charleston



Tuesday Tunes: Buddy Ebson

Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

Before he was Jed Clampett…

       

         Buddy Ebson

 

You get more negative reactions than positive reactions as you go through life, and the big lesson is nobody counts you out but yourself…I never have, I never will.

 

Buddy Ebsen began his career as a dancer in the late 1920s in a Broadway chorus. He later formed a vaudeville act with his sister Vilma Ebsen, which also appeared on Broadway. In 1935 he and his sister went to Hollywood, where they were signed for the first of MGM’s Eleanor Powell movies, Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935). While Vilma retired from stage and screen shortly after this, Buddy starred in two further MGM movies with Powell. Two of his dancing partners were Frances Langford in Born to Dance (1936) and Judy Garland in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937). They were a little bit taller than Shirley Temple, with whom he danced in Captain January (1936). MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer offered him an exclusive contract in 1938, but Ebsen turned it down. In spite of Mayer’s warning that he would never get a job in Hollywood again, he was offered the role of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Ebsen agreed to change roles with Ray Bolger, who was cast as the Tin Man. Ebsen subsequently became ill from the aluminum make-up, however, and was replaced by Jack Haley. He returned to the stage, making only a few pictures before he got a role in the Disney production of Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955). After this, he became a straight actor, and later won more fame in his own hit series, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Barnaby Jones (1973).

 

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936 (Buddy & his sister Vilma)

 

 Buddy Ebsen dancing 1978

 

Donald O’Connor and Buddy Ebsen (a RARE clip)

 

 

Fun Facts about Mr. Buddy Ebson

 

Got the nickname ‘Buddy’ from his aunt, so Christian changed his name to Buddy Ebsen.

Was a Boy Scout.

In the 1930s, Disney animators filmed him dancing in front of a grid to “choreograph”Wayne Allwine’s dance steps for the Silly Symphony cartoons.

Originally cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Buddy was hospitalized as a result of inhaling aluminum powder used as part of his make-up. One chorus of “We’re Off to See the Wizard” in the movie and soundtrack album retain Ebsen’s original vocals as the Tin Man, recorded before he was forced to leave the production. Because of the prolonged hospitalization, he was replaced by Jack Haley (whose reformulated make-up used pre-mixed aluminium dust), and Ebsen’s scenes were re-shot using Haley. Footage of Ebsen as the Tin Man still exists, and was included as an extra with the U.S. 50th anniversary video release of The Wizard of Oz (1939).

After seeing Ebsen in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), the creator of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) wanted him to play family patriarch Jed Clampett. At the time, Ebsen was thinking of retiring, but the producers sent him a copy of the script, and he changed his mind.

Began his television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) at age 54.

Taught Judy Garland the shim-sham shimmy while they were at MGM.

Was a longtime friend of Dick Van Dyke, who hosted his memorial service on 30 August 2003.

He served in the Coast Guard during World War II as the executive officer on the Pocatello, a submarine chaser in the North Pacific.

Became a bestselling author at age 93.

Buddy Ebsen died on July 6, 2003. Just 3 weeks after his death, his longtime best friend, comedian Bob Hope, passed away.

Buddy Ebsen died just three months before his death, he celebrated his 95th birthday, on April 2.

 

 

Tuesday Tunes: Mickey Rooney

Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

Tuesday Tunes honors…

           Mickey Rooney

 

I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done. I only wish I could have done more.

Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. It was in this popular film series that he took the stage name Mickey Rooney. Rooney reached new heights in 1937 with A Family Affair, the film that introduced the country to Andy Hardy, the popular all-American teenager. This beloved character appeared in nearly 20 films and helped make Rooney the top star at the box office in 1939, 1940 and 1941. Rooney also proved himself an excellent dramatic actor as a delinquent in Boys Town starring Spencer Tracy. In 1938, he was awarded a Juvenile Academy Award.

Teaming up with Judy Garland, Rooney also appeared in a string of musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939) the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar in a leading role, Strike up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). He and Garland immediately became best of friends. “We weren’t just a team, we were magic,” Rooney once said. During that time he also appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in the now classic National Velvet (1944). Rooney joined the service that same year, where he helped to entertain the troops and worked on the American Armed Forces Network. He returned to Hollywood after 21 months in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), did a remake of a Robert Taylor film, The Crowd Roars called Killer McCoy (1947) and portrayed composer Lorenz Hart in Words and Music (1948). He also appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Rooney played Hepburn’s Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. A sign of the times, Rooney played the part for comic relief which he later regretted feeling the role was offensive. He once again showed his incredible range in the dramatic role of a boxing trainer with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). In the late 1960s and 1970s Rooney showed audiences and critics alike why he was one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. He gave an impressive performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 filmThe Black Stallion (1979), which brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. He also turned to the stage in 1979 in Sugar Babies with Ann Miller, and was nominated for a Tony Award. During that time he also portrayed the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which also had a successful run nationally.

Rooney appeared in four television series’: The Mickey Rooney Show (1954-1955), a comedy sit-com in 1964 with Sammee Tong called Mickey, One of the Boys in 1982 with Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane, and the Adventures of the Black Stallion from 1990-1993. In 1981, Rooney won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally challenged man in Bill. The critical acclaim continued to flow for the veteran performer, with Rooney receiving an honorary Academy Award “in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances”. More recently he has appeared in such films asNight at the Museum (2006)with Ben Stiller.  In 2011, Rooney made a brief cameo appearance in The Muppets and appeared in an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories, recounting how, during a down period in his career, his deceased father appeared to him one night, telling him not to give up on his career. He claimed that the experience bolstered his resolve and soon afterwards his career experienced a resurgence. In 2014, Rooney returned to film scenes to reprise his role as “Gus” in Night at the Museum 3. It is currently unknown whether he completed his scenes and whether his death will affect the film’s production. Mickey Rooney died April 6, 2014, at the age of 93.

 

Mickey Rooney Jitterbugs With A Woman Twice His Height

 

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney

 

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Yankee Doodle Boy from Babes of Broadway

 

Fun Facts about Mr. Mickey Rooney

Mickey’s son Teddy Rooney appeared with him in Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958), portraying – who else? – Andy Hardy Jr.

At age nineteen became the first teenager to be Oscar-nominated in a leading role for Babes in Arms (1939).

During World War II he served 22 months in the U.S. Army, five of them with the Third Army of Gen. George S. Patton. Rooney attained the rank of Sergeant, and won a Bronze Star, among other decorations.

With the death of James Stewart on July 2, 1997, he is the last surviving entertainer of the forty-six caricatured in Hollywood Steps Out (1941).