Totally Bad Form. I'm Sorry.

So while I was chatting with Alice Cooper today at the Boys' & Girls' Club Fundraiser Banquet, he told me a neat story about his time filming The Muppet Show in London in 1978. The year I was born. I didn't tell him about that. I didn't want him to feel old.

He said they spent about a week rehearsing the show in London before they taped it. (Maybe he said 4 days and that they were in London for a week?) He seemed surprised by that. He also told me how wonderful it was to do a number with Miss Piggy...and then mentioned how interesting it was that, Frank Oz, being so into his character (and insisted that Piggy may have been coming onto him during their duet) Mr. Cooper would forget that it was just a puppet. He'd get an idea for something and say "oh, you should put your head on my shoulder, like this" but he'd look at the puppet while saying it & then realize, the puppet wasn't necessarily watching him and then he'd ask the same question again, this time toward Mr. Oz's face somewhere below. He lit up when he started talking about it. It was surely good times.

Ok, so yeah I make it sound like Mr. Cooper and I chat on a daily basis...we don't. This is really only my 2nd encounter with the man, and the first was so minuscule.

We used to attend his church (not for very long at all), but when my son was a toddler & getting wiggly during the service one Sunday, I had him walk up the steps toward the back of the church with me. Mr. Cooper (Vince) was sitting on an end seat. I didn't know it was him, just noticed that there was an older gentlemen with long black hair flirting with my little boy. My little boy totally dug it. Totally.

When my little boy grew up to be a bigger little boy (so maybe about 3), he saw Season 3 of The Muppet Show & from then on wanted to watch the Alice Cooper episode over and over and over again. I ended up telling him about how Alice Cooper flirted with him when he was a toddler at church and it just sealed the deal. He was a die-hard fan. School's Out was his favorite song (Oh and when Guitar Hero came out with that as one of the play options? WOW yeah...he knows that one). When Dave Goelz came to visit Arizona, I pulled the kiddo out of school that day so we could go watch The Muppet Movie with him at the library. So what does my inquisitive 4-year-old ask to the puppeteer with Gonzo on his hand in front of the boy's face? "What puppets did you do in the Alice Cooper muppets?"

So tonight, when we were at a fundraiser (totally bad form, I know, I'm sorry Mr. Cooper,...I feel bad...kinda), and I saw Alice Cooper 3 feet from my face, I had to just let him know, "Hey, we used to go to church together & I just have to say, my son thinks you're the bee's knees."

I didn't want to go home and say, "Hey! Guess who I saw!" and not also get to say, "Guess what he told me!"

So, thank you Mr. Cooper. My son will leap with joy tomorrow when he wakes up and I tell him how I got to talk to his hero, and how his hero had a story for me to relay back. You made my night because I know just how much it means to my little boy. And I promise, the next fundraiser we win tickets to, I won't accost anyone. Totally promise. I'll also not wear a hoodie to semi-formal event...probably.

As a side note: The banquet was beautiful. I don't know that I've ever had someone put a napkin on my lap for me before. The Boys' & Girls' Clubs in the Phoenix area raised close to a $1 million (if not more)! It was neat to see a large group of filanthropists still giving gobs of money to worthy causes in spite of rough economic times. Also, Shaquille O'Neal is really, really tall. like. Wow. Also, best word of the night: Shaq-lock-holmes. Also, here's a bee--for funsies' sake.

Hello. I made corn.

Sentences like, "I made corn," make me think that I did something wrong in my pants.

Does this make me juvenile? Sure. Can I do a higher form of humor? You bet. My theory is that the world has a lot of class, high society, and fine, respectable culture in it. It really does. It might not have enough, but it has a lot. Sometimes my job as a human is to add to that fine culture, and sometimes it's not. I choose most of the time to not, not because I think "oh I want a cheap laugh from the audience," but because I truly enjoy giving myself that cheap laugh. And honestly I don't think it's usually a very *cheap* laugh. I think it comes at a great expense to everyone's intellect. However it does come with a certain amount of bravery.

As a mild example, I don't know many people who talk about babies choking to death with humor. While, I'm very serious that babies should not choke to death (I really don't recommend it--in fact I'll go so far as to say I truly oppose choken babies--yes, choken.), I don't have any problem making light of a serious situation. I wonder if people read things & pay attention more when they're funny. I think they might.
Hey want to give that 6-month-old a finger puppet because you love them? Oh better not, that one girl was like, "your baby's going to die from your love." And she was right. She being me. The right one.

I know when I'm writing shows or even writing listings for my etsy shop (yes, I'll plug it) I'm supposed to have a message that plays to the top of my audience's intelligence, but there's a time and place for that. I think right now my time and place requires that I talk about corn like it's in my pants. That makes me happy. Maybe it will make other people happy, too.

Fun.

First of all, I would like to say that after a week of watching Care Bears 2, A New Generation, several times a day for just about a week, I am ready to blog about it. Which might be a step slightly above gouging out my eyes. The inconsistencies between the two movies is just an abortion. And why do the Care Bears and the Care Bear Cousins fully mature from infancy in a week? Oh, I could go on for hours, but I won't. This journal is supposed to be about puppetry, not writers who feel they can throw out everything we know and love about the Care Bears & the Care Bear Cousins just to help Kenner sell some Baby Care Bear plush toys. I only curse them because it worked.

I seem to get involved with projects I'm not allowed to talk about. Torture. Pure torture. So yesterday we did this thing with a video camera and it was super fun! I promise it has to do with puppets, but I can't promise that I'll ever be able to tell you what it really is. But I do promise that there's no nudity involved, but I can't promise that no one will ever see that lack of nudity. I'm not lying. Anyway, it's one of those things that was just so much fun that I want to tell everyone about how much fun it was and at the same time I can't, so I just have to be really really vague and hope that my rambling here about nothing whatsoever is mildly entertaining and just confusing enough that nobody really knows what I'm talking about and yet therapeutic enough that I get it out of my system with no questions from anyone. Longest sentence ever.

Sometimes words just come out of my brain. No other explanation.

So...I guess you deserve to look at Meatloaf.

Two days & broken promises

I'm totally writing something today even though I wrote something yesterday. If I keep this up, you people are going to think I'm a whore for blogging. So maybe I am? What of it?

Thanks to the schmancy Google Analytics, I found out that the average time someone spends here is just under a minute. 53 seconds to be exact. So to help out with the necessity of the peek & dash, I'm going to not write an epic novel today. Or maybe I am, who knows, its like 1am, I could do something incredibly crazy like that! Wheee!

I have some kind of exciting secret thing coming up tomorrow that I'm excited and secretive about. Let's just say I'd rather not have broken out with bad acne tonight. That shouldn't give you any real kinds of hints, but...yeah. I'd just rather not have it. Not like there's a good time for a break-out, there are just more inopportune times than others.

Did I mention that I participated in a 24-hour film challenge that the IFP in Phoenix put on? I'm not linking anything because I'm terribly lazy. Google is your friend if you want to visit the site. You're lucky I'm even backspacing for typos at this point. Anyhow, IFP stands for Independent Film Project. I've done two of these before, both with puppets. This time we got our film in on time. The idea is to create a film in 24 hours. I've been sick for nigh on a crow's age, so I didn't participate in the entire 24, so I haven't watched it yet. All I will say is that it's done in stop-motion animation, which pleases me to no end. I will do more of these. I will.

We also tossed around one idea that we didn't use that I'm bent on using. I'll use it! I will!

Hey you should go look at the naughty puppet in my etsy shop. Again, not linking...I think its off to the right if you really want to look. scroll down a little. pictures of puppets--that's my shop. I think I'm funny sometimes.

take the poll. please.

I'm not sure what this post had to do with puppetry. Hey look at the top! Its a puppet! There. worked that in. Smooth, aren't I?

I'm not a promise-keeper.

Spring Cleaning

It's time to clean my workspace. It just is. Especially since Puppet Pie is my main job at this point. Not something I'm looking forward to (the cleaning--I actually look forward to Puppet Pie. I mean, c'mon...it's pie...made of puppets!)

Goals:
To find storage solutions that work.
To utilize the storage that I have--and make it work.
To create a system of organizing information. Basically, create a way to put my due projects up on some kind of board that keeps track of them....like maybe it could have some sort of spongy and yet wooden material that maybe I could stick push-pins into....hmmm

I've already created a schedule of what my work-week will look like. My goal is to make at least 9 finger puppets/week and hopefully 4 smaller hand-puppets/week. I hadn't planned on making any more smaller hand puppets, but I think its okay now that the CPSIA's mandatory testing has been postponed by one year.

We've received lots of bad financial news in the last 3 weeks...like the rest of the world. First, the hours at the theater getting drastically cut. Second, the theater is losing grants that they've already been awarded by the state (way to screw over the arts, Arizona!). And we also learned that our house is worth significantly less than it was when we purchased it 5 years ago--actually before the housing prices jumped so high (at one point it was valued at $240k). Which isn't a big deal unless we have to refinance because of the loan maturing...and we do.

I'm hopeful that everything will work out, though. I'm investigating some nerdy-sites to possibly advertise my little shop on. Sadly, failblog.com is out of the question at $600/week.

I'm feeling rather motivated. After more than a week of being sick (it's lingering still, but I think I'm on the rebound), its good to feel that motivation again!

Also, I think I'm funny for the following reasons: