A NEW ME

I never knew how much a simple Celebrity charity event could change me.

Wednesday night was the Celebrity Dance Challenge... I was really happy with my performance. When I started to learn my dance I was just hoping not to embarrass myself but the better I got at our dance the higher my expectations got. After our dance of the Samba, I couldn't have been happier the performance went as good as I had hoped. The judges placed me first. But our 7 listeners didn't show up and the audience voted for someone else as their favorite. The question after the dance "was I going to keep on dancing?" Well I definitely would consider it, it was more fun than I thought it would be. Am I a ballroom dancer now? I'm not sure but I do a mean Samba.

Over the last 4 weeks as I was getting ready for the competition I learned how to BALLROOM DANCE, Omar at Hair Arkitekts gave me a great haircut, waxed my eyebrows, dyed my goatee, and he even shaved my face... (that's the first time anyone besides me did that). I wore a sequined shirt and makeup.(my daughter Casey thought I looked weird in the makeup). Am I becoming a metro-sexual man? I don't know, I'll ask my baseball teammates on Sunday. A metro-sexual can play baseball, right?
How about them Packers?

SHOWTIME

So I'm here playing the hits, and I'm actually getting nervous for the Celebrity Dance Challenge.





I've done a lot of performing from singing, to playing in a band to interviewing all kinds of people but I've never intentionally danced for people. Maybe because it's such a new experience it's making me nervous. Maybe the nerves will go away as the day goes on...I'd rather be nervous at 10am then tonight around 8pm when I'm actually on the dance floor. The journey of learning the Samba that I'll be performing has been really fun and quite of bit of work.... Now I just hope I don't screw it up. I need to remind myself I'm dancing for a good cause we'll be raising money for the David M Sherman Cancer Care Center, and it's just dancing, something I've been doing pretty much all my life. Maybe when I hear our 7 listeners cheer me on tonight it will ease my nerves a bit.
If you want to see the local Dancing with the Stars it's at the Pfister starting at 7:30pm tonight April 19th, it's $15 but it's for a great cause and that's why I must DANCE.

I HAVE TO WEAR WHAT?

So Wednesday night it's dance time or SAMBA TIME! As I am dancing the SAMBA in the Celebrity Dance Challenge. The last 3 weeks I've been working hard to remember the steps, feel the rhythm, and as Suzana my partner constantly sternly reminds me STICK YOUR CHEST OUT! SHOW THEM WHAT YOU GOT!! So besides getting ready for the dancing the last minute preparations have included getting my COSTUME together. Oh the visions in my head of what I was going to have to wear. Would I dress like a matador?

Please don't make me wear a sombrero with those little balls hanging off of it and a poncho.





Would it be a puffy shirt?












Or even worse will they make me wear a dancers outfit that doesn't leave anything to the imagination?



My phone rang it was Suzana she's got my costume....what will it be?... "oh good just some flat front black pants"... those won't be too revealing. But what about the shirt? .. "it's black".... alright, "it's a button up long sleeve"...nice...
"with a camp style bottom so you can leave it untucked".... cool.
So No Matador jacket. No Sombrero. No Puffy shirt. No Spandex pants..... what's that?... "It has SEQUENS on it." You mean it's BEDAZZLED?

At least it doesn't come with the CAPE.

ARE THEY JUST BEING NICE?

So Suzana my dance partner MADE me take Friday off so I could practice for the Celebrity Dance Challenge.
(Actually she didn't make me I needed the practice and I have vacation time to use up before my anniversary date, which is coming next month.)
While practicing my dance moves some dancers came for their lesson and it was showtime. Suzana and I performed our dance routine for them. Even though I messed up a couple of things they said we looked really good. Are they just being nice or am I actually dancing the Samba like I know what I'm doing? I guess this Wednesday I'll find out, when we get on the dance floor.

No matter what happens on Wednesday at the competition I know I've had a lot of fun getting to this point and learning something I didn't know how to do before with plenty of laughs along the way.

C'mon Ride the TRAIN

Tuesday night Train rolled into town, at the Riverside and I escourted KTI Insider Karen Tresp and friends into the box for Train. If you have been to the Riverside you know the Muppet seats, the seats where the old guys used to yell "Get off the stage" that was not what we were yelling. Train put on a great show. The only time anyone was tempted to yell get off the stage was when, we'll call her "THE LADY IN BLUE", decided to jump on the stage and start dancing with Pat of Train. Security attempted to take her off the stage but Pat gave her a hug before she stumbled back to her seats, yea she didn't really know which seats were hers. I actually met "THE LADY IN BLUE" before the show outside the Riverside when she was
HIGH FIVE-ING Lisa Letterman of WKTI and telling her she was cool. Yea "THE LADY IN BLUE" was enjoying all that life had to offer on Tuesday night. She certainly made an impact on us at the Riverside and on Train.

This morning I remember "THE LADY IN BLUE", KTI Insider Karen and her friends remember "THE LADY IN BLUE", the rest of the crowd at the Riverside remembers " THE LADY IN BLUE" but this morning does "THE LADY IN BLUE" remember "THE LADY IN BLUE" my guess is no.

I have DANCE practice

Today I was talking with Gene Mueller about what I was going to do with this nice Wisconsin spring day. Was I going to go golfing? Nope. Clean up the yard after a long Wisconsin winter? Not today. Baseball practice? No I'm still recovering from Saturday's practice. What I will be doing is going to DANCE practice. That's when Gene said to me "you know that's a sentence I never really expected to here you say". Gene was right, I never thought that I was ever going to go to DANCE practice. I've always enjoyed dancing, in fact, back in college I won a dance contest at a bar in Whitewater after a couple of adult beverages... but that was me just feeling the music and getting stupid, that wasn't REAL dancing. What I am doing now is REAL dancing, it's SAMBA ballroom dancing and it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. With a week and a few days left before the charity Celebrity Dance Challenge it has progressively gotten easier. Hopefully I'll have had enough practice with Suzana my professional partner to win my second dance contest. This time not at a bar in Whitewater but at the Pfister Grand Ballroom on April 19th in front of professional dancers, judges and potentially you if you decide to come watch me dance. With all eyes watching you now know why when Gene Mueller asks me what I'm doing I must tell him I'm going to DANCE practice.

Bring your "A" game

So last night I and some other employees from WKTI, WTMJ, and Todays TMJ 4 got together for a trip back to our youth. We played kickball. The same game we played as kids is now being played by adults around Milwaukee, it's actually a sanctioned league event. While waiting for the bouncing ball to come rolling towards me to kick I was thinking you know this is pretty fun and a little harder than I remember back in grade school.

In grade school I remember kicking the ball further than I can kick even now. Have I gotten bad? Am I on the downside of my kick ball career? Maybe I should have seen the signs of my skills not being what they once were and called my retirement press conference after Mrs Hauser's 5th grade English class. But I can't give it up, the game of kickball has a hold on me. Now I know what Brett Favre is going through. He still loves the cheer of the crowd or for me the 3 people watching and clapping when you make a nice catch... The spirit of competition... The camaraderie of the locker room with your teammates... or for me making fun of someone else on the team having the ball bounce off their head. After my ridiculously bad kick my first time up... I got two singles and scored the tying run and made a couple of nice plays in the field.. So maybe my skills haven't gone completely away... Maybe I'll see if anyone wants to play whiffle ball or steal the bacon.

Love of the Dance

Yes the Dance. When did my love of the Dance begin? I'm not really sure maybe it was 7th grade gym class when we, here in Wisconsin, learned to Polka, or maybe at the 8th grade dance when some of my friends bet me to leave the wall where all the boys were hanging out afraid to dance with the girls or in front of anyone, and dance to Rick Springfield. Somehow I got over the fear of dancing in front of others. So when I got the call about a local "Dancing with the Stars" to raise money for the David M Sherman Center for Cancer Care, I thought why not have some fun and leave the wall and get out there and dance.

The Celebrity Dance challenge gives me about 3 weeks to learn a ballroom dance with my professional dance partner Suzana Gossett and a chance to help raise money for people that are certainly in need. Suzana and I are doing a Samba with a little funky funk funk. Even though I have rhythm and can dance a little bit..This ballroom thing is a whole new ball game. I'm practicing hard to not embarrass myself April 19th at the Pfister Grand ball room. The event starts at 7:30 and is a competition, with the audience getting 20% of the vote, so the more KTI listeners that can come and support me and support a worthy cause the better. Tickets for the event are available at the registration desk at the Pfister's grand ballroom for $15.

Blogging NOW

In the beginning Caveman Unk scribbled paintings on his cave as a form of communicating. As time moved forward Unk's relatives begin using ink and paper... Generations passed and to share your thoughts you could use the typewriter. The typewriter led to advances in technology and the use of whiteout. Those advances in technology eventually gave us COMPUTERS.

With the computer came the INTERNET and an audience that was World Wide. A relative of Caveman Unk's, twice removed through marriage James Blogger added another way of communicating to our lives...
THE BLOG. Following in great great........great....great.....Uncle Unk's footsteps, I too have taken to this idea of communicating. Instead of his idea of pictures on a cave wall I have my very own BLOG.

Welcome and as always thanks for listening and now reading as well.

Dan Kyle