THE NEXT PUPPET SHOW (&C.)...

In Shakespeare mode… Draft script for the next Great Intergalactic Puppet Theatre performance is done—“Cinderpiggy,” a retelling of the Cinderella story by the cast of “Pig Wars.” Darth Vader in the title role, Luke and Hansolo as the evil stepbrothers, Chewy as the evil step-Wookie, Leah as the airhead princess desperate for a boyfriend, and Yoda (with his cute little wings) as the Fairy Whatever. (Got a Magic Mirror, too—obviously robbed from a different fairy tale, but poor Leah, alone in the castle, needed somebody to talk to. And like Nietzsche said, sometimes when you talk to the furniture, the furniture talks back.)

Yes, had to do some gender reversals, because our “troupe” only includes one girl, Princess Leah (though Yoda and Chewy, being aliens, are of rather indeterminate—or indiscriminate—gender). At least this script is way better than Jerry Lewis’ “Cinderfella,” which was a real turkey. And it includes several plugs for reading, since this is a performance for the county library’s summer reading program. Friday, June 17, 1 p.m., by the way.

Next step: a song. People have requested a reprise performance by the sock-puppet band, and I do like to give people what they want. Need another one-verse, one-chorus “Southern Pigfish” original—with a Cinderella motif, of course. Last one was rock ‘n’ roll; could we do country music this time?

The Deathgrass CD is selling—slowly. Of the sales (11 so far), two have been through two of the Retail Outlets, two online through CDBaby, one by mail, and the rest in person to people I know. There are three Retail Outlets now, and I might sign up a fourth and fifth after the holiday weekend.

Message has gone out to the “joelist” telling them the CD is available, and how to get it. Haven’t scheduled a CD Release Event yet (my previous favored date, June 4, is one when drummer Chris is going to be out of town), and when the Event happens, it’ll be late enough that we’ll probably have to call it something else. The CD is Out There already. Got to recover those production costs.

However, the purpose of the CD Release Event (whatever we call the thing) is still important. It’s an opportunity to promote and sell the CD. (And as usual, I’ve got an ancillary purpose in mind; I want to stream (or podcast, or both) the concert, because I don’t think anybody’s done that before, at least not around here. And that’s an opportunity to multiply the listener base.)

Notice to the “joelist” for the Thirsty Lion performance June 14 is done; so is the Rap. I should do something similar for 45 Degrees North (our concert in Ilwaco is June 18, after all); I do have a poster done, but don’t know if everybody likes the logo yet. If not, re-designing the logo is one more thing I have to do. The advertising needs to get out—we have less than three weeks before the Big Gig in Ilwaco.

Practice with 45 Degrees North Friday night and Sunday; we’re doing it again Tuesday. Jane’s done a setlist, and I edited it. I think it’ll be good. Now to practice. We need quite a bit of practice. We’re not good yet. (I’m not good yet. I need to know for every song exactly what I’m going to do, so the finger movements are automatic. I’m not there yet, for most of our songs.) Standard to hit for, I think, is to have every song come off as perfectly as the group does “Armadillo on the Interstate.” That Heavenly Do-Wop Chorus is just beautiful. (Works really well on “Writer’s Block Blues,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus” and ”No Good Songs About the War,” too. Tried those last two at the Rainbow Lotus Sunday night.)

45 Degrees North has been tapped to perform a 2-hour show at the Rainbow Lotus Sunday, July 24. That’s a week after our (and Deathgrass’) performance at the Wheeler Music Festival, and a week before Garibaldi Days. The summer is definitely filling up.

Joe