The Muppet universe is hardwired into my brain. I named this site after a Muppet Show tap dance bit starring Kermit. Last year, I caught the Muppet Movie at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH. The theater is an 1878 pre-film performance space built by a local beer baron, and the movie brought back timeless memories of old friends I knew when I was a kid. I got teary eyed when Kermit sang “Rainbow Connection.” I couldn’t sit still in my seat the whole show, and kept talking to the screen. The people sitting around me looked at me at the beginning, but then got into the laughs and comments much like we all enjoyed watching Statler and Waldorf heckle the Muppet acts. And on the SLR trip up to Portland last month, I checked out a real Studebaker in a junkyard, humming “Movin’ Right Along.”
While being sucked into other parts of the interweb this week, I had no idea that The Muppets where about to take San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) Screening Room this weekend and next. I just found out yesterday that master puppeteer Dave Goelz and his pal Gonzo will be in the house tonight and tomorrow night. I made plans tonight and will be off at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival tomorrow for my own puppeteering stint with Jonathan (getting a stipend even)! Can we smack our heads, open our mouths up to the sky, and run around with foam arms flailing and head swaying?
I hope to make some of the films when I return. Jonathan already knew about it and had it in his schedule.
Man, am I out of the loop sometimes….
On the way up to Portland’s Village Building Convergence, Jonathan wanted to stop at the “Bus Graveyard” to meet the owner. I wandered around the yard, snapping photos, and came across the legendary Studebaker. Fozzie and Kermit hit the road in it, landing them smack in the middle of the Electric Mayhem (which Jonathan had dolls of on the dash of the Wonder Truck).
We stopped at Mt. Shasta to take a few photos of the van. Such a photographic moment! The running joke up this way was that UFOs where landing on the cloud-covered mountain, and the seagulls at the rest stop where the aliens.
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Wow. Who knew that independent journalist/blogger Josh Wolf would score an appearance on the Stephen Colbert show Tuesday. I watch the Colbert Report about once a week, maybe twice a month, so found out after the original airing. I didn’t have time to sit in front of my laptop and watch the segment, but did manage to catch the re-run Wednesday evening on Comedy Central.
I watched Tuesday’s Daily Show first, killing time while the soup cooked at Laura’s place. We where still tired from the Health and Harmony Festival up in Sonoma County, so I soaked in the left-leaning alpha waves to relax. The repeats unsettled me, not in any way that you’d think a lefty show would unsettle someone.
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May 18, 2 am
OK, so the trip to Portland got a bit sidetracked today. Jonathan got caught up in working on sponsorship for the Sustainable Living Roadshow (SLR), thus pushed about all of the to-do list to the bottom of his priorities. Then Zack, SLR co-producer, left town a day early, making Jonathan the go-to guy for the first tabling event for Bill Graham Presents. That meant we had to organize the truck, get biodiesel, and hand-make a canvas sign before 3 pm. That gave us enough time to drive up to the Concord Pavilion for the Stevie Nicks concert, opening night for the Pavilion.
Had we been scheduled for the Saturday BGP event, we would’ve gotten passes for the Bjork show at the Shoreline. As it stood, we got the inaugural gig up in Concord, a visit with the always good-to-see Sam Bower from GreenMuseum.org, and 1970s/80s top 40 hits. Go to a Stevie NIcks concert and you’ll realize that she had a lot of songs in rotation back then.
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