Benjalie Proposal
Well, I schpose I'm glad that this isn't with Benjelle, simply because we would have, like, hated Benji when it turned out he was joking... It would have been funnier with Travis, though : P
~ Moosey ~
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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15 comments:
i hope i'm first to report!
mini squee (for me at least, i cant help myself!): benji went to donny's class! oh how i wish i could have been there! but i'm still happy. he spent time with her over his gf yet again.
oh and yay for the jenny pic being #1. gosh i hate/love mixed signals.
Ask me why I keep on loving you when it's clear that you don't feel the same way for me... the problem is that as much as I can't force you to love me, I can't force myself to stop loving you. ~Author Unknown
So, yup. A nice quote I found that reminded me of fair Benji...lol...
squee
ahhh..
they are like peas and carrots.
...post stealer :)
-Tay :P
Hi it's Nony!
Here's an obscure Martha article.
Following Martha's lead
Danny Hooley, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - With all the matching orange shirts, you'd think a Clemson crowd had descended on the sports-themed Champps restaurant on this Wednesday night.
But look closer. These folks are here for Martha.
More than 100 strong ("a small crowd compared to what we usually get," one of them says), they don't just think Martha can dance. "We Know Martha Can Dance," the shirts read on back.
On this triumphant night, Martha Nichols, a graduate of Millbrook High School in Raleigh, can probably feel the love all the way in California, where she's a finalist in the Fox talent show "So You Think You Can Dance." A week later she'll be eliminated. But tonight everyone's reveling.
"Dance" doesn't carry the cachet of "American Idol," so Martha madness hasn't reached the pitch of 2003's Claymania, when hometown belter Clay Aiken made it to second place on "Idol." Here at Champps, though, there's something other than idolizing going on.
People call Nichols funny, crazy, loud, talented, beautiful and genuinely concerned about the people in her life. They admire how she has persevered since her mother died a year ago. They say she deserves to win.
Blair Ellis, one of Nichols' dance students, and the other 15 teens at her table, rattle off a list of Nichols' quirks. She hates pickles and won't drink a beverage with ice in it. She loves Comedy Central's "Reno 911." She hates rain. She's obsessed with eating cheese balls. They say these things with affection and laugh as they do it. In this big, extended dance family, they think of her as a sister.
"It's so not hard for her to relate to us," says Blair, 15. "She's three or four years older than us. It's like talking to one of your best friends."
Martha, who turned 19 on July 14, has that effect on older folks, too.
"I'm 45 years old," says dance teacher Sandra Jones. "She's one of those people I go to for advice."
And, yes, she can dance. When she appears on the Champps screen in a green chiffon gown to fox trot with partner Travis Wall, you've never heard such screams from a small crowd in your life. When the show's three judges voice approval for a job well done, the screams continue.
Champps started hosting this crowd of 50 to 400 viewers when the competition began in mid-June. Most are connected in some way -- teachers, students, parents of students -- to the CC & Company Dance Complex, owned by dance teacher Christy Curtis, whom Nichols calls her "second mom."
Curtis isn't at Champps tonight. She's in Hollywood with Nichols, along with Nichols' other second mom, Cheryl Russell, and Russell's daughters: Kirsten, 13; Kelsey, 10; Kayla, 7. And when Nichols refers to them as "my little sisters," she means it.
Family ties
Nichols' real mother, Mary Jane Nichols, died of a heart attack June 1, 2005, a few days after her daughter's high school graduation party. She had relocated to North Carolina from Brooklyn, N.Y., when Martha was 8. Mary Jane's mother was born in Warrenton 79 years ago. The elder woman returned to the state, settling in Louisburg a decade ago after her daughter moved here.
Dancing was in the Nichols blood.
"Martha Sr.," as Mary Jane Nichols' mother calls herself, was quite the jitterbug in her day -- so Mary Jane enrolled Martha in the Pierrette Sadler Danceurs Studio in Raleigh, where Curtis was teaching at the time. The two became close.
A couple of years later, at the studio, the Russells also met Martha.
"Any time she exited a door from a dance studio and walked through a lobby, she had an entourage," says Cheryl Russell, speaking by phone from her home in Raleigh. "And I could not figure it out to save my life. So finally I said, 'I've got to meet this girl.'
"Then I realized how dynamic she is, how funny she is. She and I very much share the same sense of humor. The more that I got to know about her, the more I loved her. And also, with her mother."
The two families merged, helping each other out however they could, with baby-sitting, with finances -- whatever was needed.
That included taking in Martha when Mary Jane died.
Russell says Mary Jane's doctor had recommended an immediate angioplasty, a procedure that would open her coronary arteries. But Mary Jane wanted to wait until Martha graduated.
Martha's supporters bring up the subject of Mary Jane's death after a few minutes of conversation: "Have you heard her story?" they'll ask. Martha herself, though, appears not to want to discuss it too much in public.
Travis Wall, 18, Martha's partner on the Fox show for the first six episodes, has known Nichols through dance competitions since he was 14. He was actually in Raleigh, taking a workshop with Curtis, when Mary Jane died. He has a reminder of that experience: 12 stitches over one eye from taking a spill in that class. "It's for Martha," he says.
Until her last week in competition, Nichols avoided giving reality TV the real-life slice of drama audiences love. Cheryl Russell says that in comments taped for last week's show, Martha mentioned that her mother's death was weighing on her mind the week of her birthday. The comments were edited out.
Wall says Nichols always wanted to put dancing above personal life storylines. "A couple of the people on the show are using their back story to their advantage," says Wall. "And Martha wanted to come on the show and just be about her dancing, and not having any pity votes for her lost mom."
Last week, her three performances -- a waltz and a hip-hop routine with new partner Ivan Koumaev plus a solo that was supposed to be her redeeming moment -- drew negative reviews from the judges, and their comments drew the dancer's tears. When the tally from a record 8 million votes was announced Thursday, Nichols had the fewest of the five women dancers. She was cut.
Speaking by phone from Los Angeles the week before, Nichols said she was perfectly prepared for any outcome.
"You can never tell, ever," she says. "You just never know what America likes."
And nobody can take away what people love about Martha Nichols. She has killer legs, strong arms, a dazzling smile and a great attitude -- and one very dedicated group back home, pushing her forward in their thoughts and prayers. And now there's talk of a nationwide tour of the top 10- dancers on the show, so America may be seeing more of her soon.
Martha's going far.
Hi, it's Nony! (Repost)
Here's a link that works to the Cincy Benjelle! It loads automatically so you don't have to wait, then it shows some other clips of the show too. But all the Benjelle is together.
http://www.vmix.com/view.php?id=1674194¤t_resourceid=1674194&type=video
And here's some pics from the Newark show. Really good pics that make you think they were totally posed for.
http://denisebernadette.smugmug.com/gallery/1970284
When Martha was cut, she was all alone, while the others hugged, & cried for Dmitry. Then D. came along and comforted her.
the link is still not working
squee!!!! yay benji went to donny's class =D gotta love them
Taylor: Wait... You already posted that? Sorry, I didn't know!!! : (
Love!
~ Moosey ~
Nony: The link still doesn't work : (. Thanks for trying, though. Oh, and those pictures were posted here a while back.
Much lurv!
~ Moosey ~
Aw, Ray : *
benji looks so cute when hes proposing! hahaha you know i was picturing natalie as someone else!
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