Forget about "Tango Police".... What about "Tango Blogger Police"?

I'm the guy who tells you there are
guys you hit and there are guys you
don't. That's not quite a guy you
can't hit, but it's almost a guy
you can't hit, so I'm fucking
ruling on it right now that you
don't hit him, understand? - MISTER FRENCH, "The Departed"

Oh, it's so sad. Because of our beligerent ignorant attitude towards "El Mundo de Tango Blogging", we spent the entire week as "Tango Blogger Pariahs" - we go to a milonga, and everybody ignores us! We tried to say hello, but everyone turned away! No one will dance with Man Yung despite all his pleas on bended knees! All the special people of the milonga, from the world famous teachers and tango hot-shots to the lowest of the lowliest beginner all shunning us! Even the organizers of our favourite milonga could do nothing now that we have incurred "The Wrath of El Mundo de Tango Blogging" - forget about being seated in the hall, how's about a cosy seat next to the urinals? For our "Tango Sins", we finally get our just deserts - a little taste of Medieval "Tango Excommunication", anyone?

While I'm sure there's many out there rubbing their hands in glee - sorry to bust your bubble, but what I just wrote was completely untrue. We went to the milonga, said hello to everyone we wanted to say hello to - even the VIPs, and although many must be so disappointed, our friends didn't stop being our friends - ignored people we wanted to ignore, and had a great time dancing together and with others to great music and catching up with everything that has been happening over the past few weeks in Toronto. So much for being evil, hated "nobodies", and "Oh, my gosh, how dare you!" critics of GRICEL!

This moniker has been thrown around lately, and it's got us scratching our heads. "Tango Police" - nice actually, because "El Mundo de Tango" kind of needs this kind of public service lately, like the fashion world usually benefits from those who would act as "Fashion Police". Without the efforts of the "Fashion Police", everyone would be wearing off-shoulder oversized t-shirts over tight neon spandex bicycle shorts to work, and white socks with sandals to swanky restaurants.

Unfortunately, we cannot claim to be ever important and necessary "Tango Police". If we were, we would be standing at the door of all the Toronto milongas with tasers, zapping everyone who was not dancing exactly the way we would want them to dance. Alas, we really don't care to moderate how anyone dances - whether they are dancing badly or well, traditional or nuevo (yes, we're fine with people dancing nuevo - shock and outrage!) - so long they are not recklessly colliding into everyone, gouging people with their stilettos and heels and creating a hazard on the "pista". Please, continue to do what you are doing if you are enjoying yourself, why not? Irene and Man Yung are not your "mamas".

However, what is disturbing to us is that some "devoted" readers (why, why, if you hate us so much, do you read this blog anyway?) of this very self-same blog have appointed themselves "Tango Blogger Police". According to these illustrious individuals, Irene and Man Yung are not permitted to write honestly about their own, personal experiences or their own personal opinions. According to the TBP, Irene and Man Yung should shut the fuck up, because 1) they live in Toronto, not Buenos Aires, 2) they're Chinese (as opposed to Japanese or Caucasian or from Argentina, because this seems to be some of the criteria for Tango relevancy) , and 3) they aren't teachers, tango professionals or tango performers, so they must suck at Tango, and anyone that suck at Tango must defer to the opinions of those who either live in Buenos Aires, teach, perform or do anything to do with Tango professionally.

Who are you to tell us what to write, and to intimidate us by telling us to "be careful" or not to speak because we're supposedly "outsiders" etc.? Instead of contesting us fact by fact and making lucid, rational arguments to counter us, we get a whole crapload of insulting generalizations about us as the basis of why we should self-censor. Make all the rulings you like about the "guys" we can "hit" and the "guys" we "can't". Tango Blogger Police indeed - How about Tango Blogger "Mafia"?

One nice positive thing about being "Tango Blogger Pariahs" is that without having to spend a single cent or going through intensive interview and candidate selection processes, you can get other tango bloggers to be the clearing house of negative comments about you! If you don't believe us, go check out the blog of "Ms Tango in Her Eyes" - instead of commenting directly to us, you can log onto her blog anyday, lots of people are writing to her about us right now! From now on, all anonymous comments and all negative comments about our posts can be directed c/o of her. Awwww, thanks for all the free publicity and for providing a nice safe forum for people to criticize us and vent, you don't know how much we appreciate it!