The Project Jicaro benefit Friday was fun and a success. We raised 1,500 dollars, which will go a long way toward food and supporting one or two project apprentices in Nicaragua.
Sunday night the Cheezits had their first public performance, at a Benefit for the Lotus Seed Yoga School. We went on at 10:30 PM, by which time there were maybe 20 people there, less than either of the talent variety show parties where we had performed so far, but they loved us and more public performances are in the offing in 2008.
A movie recommendation: Lars and the Real Girl. How to briefly yet adequately describe this film? In one sentence, maybe like this: a curious yet warmly affecting fable about a sweet but delusional young man who learns how to be in human relationship. Through his relationship with an anatomically correct mail-order rubber woman. Okay , I know that on the face of it this sounds like the premise of a bad juvenile comedy. But in fact it is a perfectly serious (though also funny and touching) film. It is about a number of things, including the delusions we take for real, the tricky territory of relationships and family, and the important roles of (non)judgement and acceptance in human communities and individual lives.
And by the way, Bianca the plastic girlfriend is deeply religious and so she and Lars have a chaste relationship and sleep in different rooms.
This coming February 2008 I will be going to Nicaragua to help build a cob library near a village called Jicaro. Natural Builder Carey Lien of Portland is the chief builder on the project. It sounds like a fascinating and worthwhile endeavor, which is why I am going to participate. I will post more information about it soon. This Friday 12/15 from 7 to 9PM we are having a benefit event at Liberty Hall (311 N. Ivy) to raise some funds for project supplies and food. There will be a silent auction, bake sale, music, and a puppet show by Bruce Orr of Mudeye Puppets (with me doing the musical accompaniment, a gig I've been doing for the past couple months. It's been great fun, lots of rehearsal then shows at a bunch of shows at Kenton Firehouse and the Backspace. Friday we'll be doing a shortened version of the Argyle Clockwise Puppet Show. The full version is 40 minutes, we'll do a 20 minute.)
I do a lot of things but lately no one single thing. Recently I have part of a silly but semi-serious dance troupe called the Cheezits. The Cheezits performed for the first time at the Thanksgiving variety talent show at friends' Dave and Heather's house in Washougal in 2006. This year Cheezit member Chris New is out of town for several months so Jody (Van Riper) Cheezit asked if I would take his place alongside BobbyCheezit and Sabrina Cheezit. We came up with an all new routine to a hilarious and little known 1980's version of the Tom Jones song "Sex Bomb." We wore authentic Navy Uniforms and labored many hours to perfect the original choreography. We also did the routine from last year, a Richard Cheese (silly lounge style singer) version of a Beyonce song.
Last weekend we performed the routines again at Jody's big 40th birthday variety-show bash. We may perform them again in the future. This could be the start of something. In the sense that everything is the start of something. Every moment is a new beginning. It is always the moment of Creation.
My hippie mystic mind always strays to the cosmic woo woo.