Belly Dance Classes

Those of you interested in Belly Dance, I teach Organic Belly Dance in Los Angeles and Chicago. 

You can visit my site for more information:  Soul Blossom Dance 

 

or you can join our dance-loving family on Facebook as well.

 

Jillian Michaels and Lou Ferrigno: The Same Person? Hmmm…

I Googled “Jillian Michaels Lou Ferrigno” several times hoping I was not going to have to bear the burden of being the first person to notice this resemblance, but it looks like I’m going to have to. It looks like since I didn’t find anything about this anywhere on the internet and since EVERYTHING imaginable is on the internet, that I am THE first person in our entire universe who has noticed this. *Sigh* it is a burden indeed, a heavy one.

Since I’m talking about Jillian, I have to get something off my chest. I’m a little sick of the fact that every time I look up anything having to do with exercise or calories online, she comes up in an ad. Her and her strong jawline. Come on, is she the ONLY trainer out there? And with the way her face looks it’s obvious she’s taken steroids, is that really something we should all be looking up to? That alone ensures she’s not putting out a positive message. So why is she so popular?

I don’t mean to incite the anger of her fans but like I said in the previous paragraph, she’s not the only trainer out there. I realize she’s loved for her tough-love, yell-in-your-face approach, but there are manymanymany female trainers out there who are the same way, and who haven’t taken steroids. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Jillian’s tough trainer persona was really just her roid rage.

There are other things I could bring up, like how several experts have criticized the uber-strict and too-hard-to-keep-up-in-real-life method employed on The Biggest Loser, or how she was in several lawsuits over her kettle bell workout because of her outrageous weight loss promises and the improper and potentially dangerous form she teaches on that DVD, but I won’t bring those up. I said what I wanted to say about her manly face and now we move on to how she used to be Lou Ferrigno.

This is what I think happened: About twenty years ago, Lou Ferrigno realized that he would never again reach the celebrity and income status he enjoyed in the 1980′s for a few different reasons, the most important one being that the ridiculously buff and steroided look was going out of style. So, Lou started doing research on fitness trends, and he soon noticed that women’s fitness was gaining popularity, indicated, for example, by the increase in women’s fitness magazines. That’s how Lou’s lightbulb went off and why he got his sex change operation and how “Jillian Michaels” came to be.

Okay, maybe that didn’t happen. But I bet you Lou Ferrigno is reading this and wishing he thought of it!

Here are a few images for you to compare with. You have to admit they do look a lot alike, don’t they? I know you see it.

All image credits at bottom of post.

Banner photo: Michaels: usmagazine.com; Ferrigno: Wikipedia

From top to bottom: tvguide.com, bing.com, theoaklandpress.com, zap2it.com, kameronhurley.com, blogs.wickedlocal.com, deadline.com, arthritis.org

Saint Jude: Patron Saint of the Impossible

St. Jude is known as the saint of impossible cases and of livelihood/life purpose. He has helped me a couple of times in very surprising ways.

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Danny Thomas and St. Jude

Perhaps the most nationally recognized devotee of Saint Jude during the last half of the 20th century was Danny Thomas, once a little known nightclub entertainer who soared to countrywide popularity as the star of the television show “Make Room for Daddy” from 1953 to 1964.

Thomas never hid his attachment to Saint Jude, and origins of that devotion date back to the spring of 1940 when Thomas first heard of Saint Jude from a stagehand in Detroit. The stagehand told him his wife had made a seemingly miraculous recovery from cancer, and that recovery, he insisted, came through his prayers to Saint Jude.

At the time, Thomas was struggling to make a go of it in show business. He had done some radio and nightclub work, having gone to Detroit from Toledo, Ohio, where he had grown up in a large family and had changed his name from Muzyad Amos Yakhoob to Amos Jacobs. He was averaging about $45 a week, and when his wife, Rose Marie, delivered the first of their three children, he knew he needed help. So, remembering the stagehand’s profession of faith, he began making short prayers to Saint Jude, asking for the saint’s intercession “to show me my way in life.” He prayed for strength to succeed in his profession and promised he would “do something big” in Jude’s name if he managed to gain a measure of economic security.

Before long he traveled to Chicago, where he landed a $50-a-week job doing radio commercials. Shortly thereafter, talent agent Leo Salkin booked him into the 5100 Club on the city’s north side for $75 a week. At that juncture, he again changed his name from Amos Jacobs to Danny Thomas. He soon became a nightclub sensation, earning $500 a week and drawing customers from all over the city to listen to his outrageously funny stories, which he told in different dialects while deftly skewering human vanity and stupidity. And, although he had his audience laughing uproariously, he never resorted to using vulgar language.

His lengthy night shows on Saturdays ran far into the morning hours, and when he was finished, he went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church on his way home. It was at the church one day that he noticed a leaflet on a pew. He read the leaflet and learned about a solemn novena to Saint Jude that was then held four times every year at the National Shrine of St. Jude at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the far southeast side of Chicago.

It was the first he knew that St. Jude’s home was in Chicago. In reading about the Shrine he realized, in the midst of his newly-found professional success, he had completely forgotten his earlier prayers and promises to Saint Jude. While renewing his devotion to the “forgotten apostle,” he planned on somehow showing the church appreciation for his prayers being answered.

Thomas’ life changed dramatically again a few weeks after that. His agent persuaded him to take his comedy routine to New York City, where he was booked into the Club Martinique. From that point on, he moved into the entertainment world’s big time. After USO tours in both Europe and the Pacific, Thomas was engaged to perform at New York’s Roxy Theater at $3,750 a week. He later performed in the most popular nightclubs from coast to coast, broke into movies, playing in “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and “The Jazz Singer” and finally, starting in 1953, he achieved his greatest fame through his starring role in the long-running television comedy series “Make Room for Daddy.”

Thomas’ “big gift” to St. Jude included devotion through the National Shrine of St. Jude and the Claretians in Chicago, and ultimately the world-famous St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Thomas died in California of a heart attack at age 78 in 1991.

Compiled from How St. Jude Came to Chicago by Jack Kuenster.

Taken from http://shrineofstjude.claretians.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ssj_jude_danny_thomas

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Prayer to St. Jude:

May the sacred heart of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved, and preserved, now and forever.

Sacred heart of Jesus, pray for us.

Saint Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us.

Saint Jude, helper of the hopeless, pray for us.

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This is said 9 times a day for 9 days for the novena. I am actually in the middle of a big one right now so whatever changes are happening I’m sure are for the best.

I was reminded of St. Jude when a friend posted his picture and novena on Facebook, and how he had answered her family’s prayer very quickly.  He usually works that way. St. Jude is very powerful, I’ve given this prayer to friends and he has worked miracles for them too.

I took this picture..this statue is in a church I go to.

Rita the Random on Facebook

Hi, all.

The page will be converted to the title and theme of this blog. It will be my page for my dance classes for not much longer.

So, come on by and like, I usually post great music from around the world, and some uplifting quotes and whatnots!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Soul-Blossom-Dance/161292333930337

 

Akitu, Nawrooz, Honen Matsuri – Spring is upon us

March 15th is a very special day in Japan. Today is the day of Hounen Matsuri, a springtime festival also known as the “Penis Festival”.

Well, I’m not gonna waste my typing energy when Wikipedia can do it for me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounen_Matsuri

Nawrooz is a few days long festival that is celebrated by Persians (Iranians):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawroz

A lot of cultures celebrate the beginning of Spring as their New Year. I’d like to though, point you all to the direction of Mesopotamia, where it was very most likely the first time and place that this happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akitu
The modern day Assyrians still celebrate the spring portion of Akitu and Kha b’Neesan.

(Kha b’Neesan translates to “first of Spring”, and is the finale of the celebration)

I must say, it makes much more sense to me to celebrate the new year as the beginning of spring. With the way everything blooms and blossoms, and the skies are clear and the sun is always out, it seems as though that is nature’s new year as well.

Happy Akitu, Happy Nawrooz, Happy Japanese Penis Day, Happy whatever you call it, Happy New Year, Happy Spring!!!

Image above is of the Hollywood mall. Just a little example of resilient Mesopotamian culture is.

Happy Holi, India!

Sigh Candy March 1, 2012: Rose McGowan

Ok, now, I’m quite the heterosexual female, but there’s something about Rose McGowan’s pictures that are insanely mesmerizing to me. We all have our non-sexual crushes, and Rose is mine for a few different reasons.

Her beauty. Now I know that’s a shallow thing to be transfixed by, but beauty itself is not shallow, it is perhaps just the sole pursuit of it that is so. Beauty, is all subjective anyway, what may be beautiful to me may not be to someone else. But in Rose’s face I see tremendous beauty.

I know she doesn’t look like this anymore. Sadly, she, either out of low self-esteem or bad advice, or both, has succumbed to unnecessary plastic surgery, and it looks like she did so many times. I was going to post her “after” pictures (what she looks like now) after every “before” picture so you can all see the difference but then I thought nah, screw reality, and screw what everyone else who’s blogged about her has done. I will keep this post an homage to her sigh candyness.

And speaking of her sigh candyness, and going back to the reason she’s my crush, her choice of apparel is also what’s gotten me obsessed. When she’s casual she’s quirky but always sexy and feminine, and when she’s dressed up she’s all goddess, in long, body-conscious gowns cut from very sensuous fabric.

And so many different looks look so great on her, whether she’s a pale redhead in a wispy summer dress or when she’s borderline goth in a black minidress with black hair and blood-red lips..she can pull it all off!

I just LOVE her face, her makeup, her clothes, her gorgeous figure, it’s like she put together all my ideal manifestations of all aspects of being female.

Okay, I better stop. This is getting embarrassing.

 

Here are the pictures. They’re very inspiring to me…they make me want to dress up and go out and be seen. I hope they do the same for you!