Such a
beautiful sunny day yesterday, keeping so many of my people in their gardens
and back yards, or biking with their families, allowing them only brief moments inside,
which may or may not have included dropping by MKAC for the few short moments
that I have focused the last two or three months of my life upon. The gallery
was filled, but maybe in my quest to keep the secrets of the My-i-electronic
stew of the show covered tightly, I forgot to make sure you knew that this was
something not to be missed. Even the little bit of repartee with Slug Queen Sadie was priceless and not graceless as I had feared. She's so wildly talented.
I will try to deliver a pale substitute elixir, but those twenty minutes are here and gone now, as ephemeral as the wobbly items that graced the pedestals. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome something sublime:
I will try to deliver a pale substitute elixir, but those twenty minutes are here and gone now, as ephemeral as the wobbly items that graced the pedestals. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome something sublime:
iJell-O Script version #165b:
Here we are after 25 years of the Jell-O show,
checking in with the Radar Angels as they make their Jell-O Art. Let us go to their
“site” and see what is streaming...
Picture that iconic album cover, loosely interpreted with a bit more fluff and
glitter, including people with Jell-O on their heads, and shiny gold lame. (We
missed you, Gil.)
We're Radar Angels one & only Lonely Facebook Band
Stand back & let the evening jell...Bumpbumpbumpahdumppahdump
Yes, the whole songs, with a band, maybe not
quite the original lyrics, possibly a few more kazoos than the Beatles
recorded. You might know how this goes from previous shows. The sight gags here involved oversize thumbs, from texting
all our friends, you dig?
I’m going berserk, ( I ) just can’t communicate this way
I’m going berserk, texting what it takes
just a minute to say
Musical transitions
occur between the five songs, leading you gently through our narrative. Comedy skits, written by the participants, attempt to
connect you with what is coming next, not that you will feel prepared for these
types of surprises. Soon you see three hot *girls* letting you know that
Friday night is Facebook time!
Rumbeando, escalada, try to keep up here as it goes viral.
Likety like it!
Oh look, I’m a hottie-oh a lookie
oh a lookie at me! Lookie at me!
Then prepare yourself for the ordinary disappointment
which suffuses the virtual world. Unfriended by your second cousin in
Louisiana. Not invited to the dang event! Sitting in your kitchen on Grinning
Singles not finding anyone in your age group who looks the least bit appealing
and is also not pretending not to be married. You have been there, and this you
know because the entire audience responds with the most empathetic groans and
moans to our heroes.
Will you “LIKE”
me? (Thumbs up, then
down.)
Will you be my “FRIEND”?
(Thumbs up, then down)
Would you like to have a loving
“CHAT” with me? (You guessed it, no way.)
Must have been those velour pants, with the expectant junk (actually we didn’t even consider that sight gag, too obvious, not family friendly. We like a modicum of decorum. We used a tiny violin.) Anyhow, he can’t get a Real Connection.
They tried and they tried. You know this song and dance:
When I’m browsin’ on my phone
You know I’m feeling like I’m so alone
But I keep surfin’ more and more
I’m losin’ my imagination
Need some physical sensation
I can't get no, oh no, no, no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say
Hey hey hey, that's what I say
Well, as you
might imagine, we did have a compassionate and nonviolent response for him,
poor fellow. Him and the hot girls, who also posted the mostest but still
couldn’t get anything real. We responded the best way we could imagine, by
feeling. Feeling gooey.
Hello humans,
Where ya goin?
Time to watch your flowers growing.
Time to touch, to dance, to be
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' gooey.
No me mails to read,
No you-tubes to view,
I am the real me and you are the real you
We are sharing our lovely gelatinous goo
Where ya goin?
Time to watch your flowers growing.
Time to touch, to dance, to be
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' gooey.
No me mails to read,
No you-tubes to view,
I am the real me and you are the real you
We are sharing our lovely gelatinous goo
We love Jell-O,
All is gooey.
All is gooey.
And then, as
everyone begins to make Jell-O art in their aprons and wings, and the website
for the Jell-O Connection loads, and we forget to use all the many carefully
constructed and brilliantly designed props like a spinning hourglass, made by
someone who had no clue how many things you can’t do in a 20-minute show,
(*taking a curtsey here for the meticulous and clever set design and execution,
however misguided and borderline obsessive*), and fog and bubble machines do
get turned on, as far as I know, and:
Crickets and frogs begin to fill the swampy site with
sounds. A fat frog who looks very little like Kermit steps up to the mic and
appears to eat it, surrounded by fairies and elves. He/she warbled and croaked
out this little ditty:
Why are there so many questions about art?
What’s on the artists’ minds?
Artists have visions, sometimes delusions
Art leaves you nothing to hide
Here on our website, we’re going to show
you (and here, not to be
obtrusive, I must tell you that the fat frog stripped off his/her painfully and
(borderline, whatever) cleverly constructed concealment to reveal, yes, you
guessed it, The Queen of Jell-O Art
herself! In costume! And let me tell you I had about six layers of costumes on...that was interesting.)
The Secrets of all Jell-O goo:
Today you can find it, the Jell-O Connection
The artists, the Angels, and you.
(She sang this, on the mic, in front of thousands, or dozens anyway, of our
area’s finest art patrons and lovers of all things Jell-O. I know you sent your
representatives to see this personal transformation, since after fifty or so
years of saying this was something unimaginable, I became one of the
*performing* Angels. But I’m interrupting her song)
We say that every wish can be made in Jell-O
if you have the right recipe Here on our website, we have the apps you need,
and we give our secrets FOR FREE!
It’s so amazing, the joy you’ll be raising,
See what it has done for me! (Songwriters can get away with a little self-indulgence, if they are still in their first innocent year of queendom, so I put this line in, and took it out, and put it back in, with appropriate gestures. Apparently it worked.)
Today you can find it, the Jell-O Connection,
the Jiggle, the Angels, and You. (Repeat
three times and hit those high notes, though not those ones in the soprano
range that you wished you could hit like you did in the bathtub. Maybe next time.)
Big finish, as everyone steps in from wherever they were (your narrator
had some peripheral vision problems, you might say, as she pretty much saw no
one else, in her incredulity that she managed to finish her song with no tears
or all those other unrealized fears, mostly by not looking at any of her loving
fans in the audience or anyone else in the real world…)
We’re Radar Angels Lonely Facebook Band,
We hope you have enjoyed the show, etc. (Royal wave,
the wrist action, etc. Remember to bow to the band, and yes, you do have to
leave the beloved stage, new diva.)
Wild applause, a
few tears, euphoria, many levels of gratitude all around. Take some pictures, pack up all of that Jell-O and those
new artifacts for the Jell-O Art Museum, and go have a cast party. It's over. Sent into the Jellozone, never to be repeated, but legendary, and nowadays probably available online in a few weeks. You get 15 minutes plus, thanks to youTube, which only has 5 billion users or so. But that isn't all that interesting. Go check your Facebook.
We did more
singing. We expressed our thanks and looked at our unbelievably cute pictures
on a big screen. We went home and tried to sleep, and I can report that I
cannot remember the last time I lay in bed, surprised to find a smile still on
my face long past midnight. I’m still smiling, though I doubt I will be able to
do a single productive thing today (Wait, what? This isn’t productive?)
You just have no idea how may blogs full of insights
and powerful, life-changing realizations I could put here if any of us had the
attention span necessary. I love being almost 63, and being able to say that I
did something I never knew I would love so much as this, and feared so long as
this.
Working in a group of highly creative, giving,
brilliant individuals making something from thin air, germinating ideas,
embellishing, discarding, being diplomatically critical, being dependable or
not, committed in varying degrees, terrified, reluctant, exhilarated, satisfied,
perfectionistic and realistic, and getting together repeatedly to focus on
something so ephemeral, this is an amazing, and probably fairly common
occurrence. Stepping out of the safe background into the maelstrom of risk, taking part, participating in something outside your own little world of safety, this is an everyday action.
Board and committee meetings are something like this,
minus the singing and dancing maybe. School projects. Opening days of Saturday
Markets. Every busker knows what I just learned. Laugh if you will at old
people who state the obvious. Every learner is a curious, semi-aware newborn
puppy at some point in their process.
Performers do this, playwrights, chefs, teachers,
activists, students, parents, Jell-O artists, lots of people do this. I am
happy to say that nothing in my life so far felt like a Radar Angels
production, so fully engaging all of my talents and gifts and passions, filling
my days and thoughts, leaving me so ecstatic. And yet, it is something so very
unsubstantial, so unremarkable, so ordinary and insignificant to the larger
worlds that go out from me in this kitchen with this old and clunky laptop. I get that. Do not feel guilty for missing my stage debut. Watch the video somday.
I am here to tell you that you already know the
secrets of all Jell-O goo. You feel something, a fear perhaps. You are drawn to
it, and repelled. You are terrified and intrigued. You are compelled, however
long it takes, to move into it, and through it. You saw those Radar Angel-type
people in your neighborhood, you wanted to join them, but you were not asked,
or coddled, or that properly nurturing person in the interface did not see that
you needed nurturing. I’m sorry. Do keep trying.
Fears are there to be conquered, though it matters not
a bit to the larger world if you do so, except maybe on the grand scale of
collective consciousness it does matter, a lot. Who knows?
Jell-O Art Show is over for this year. Next year is a
very long time away, and a 26th anniversary is not too significant.
Fifty, now you’re talking, but that would make me 88, and that is a challenge I
don’t have much control over. But I urge you to save the date. That one will be
huge.
Thank you all, my fellow Angels, the ones who skipped
this year as well, because you are still in it. You are here with me, humans,
from frog to queen as if it were as easy as stripping off a converted Ducks
graduation gown and a decorated baseball hat or two.
You’re all Queens, and Kings, fairies, whatever you
want to be, because the secrets of all Jell-O goo are that there are no rules,
no winners and losers, no criticism, no rejections, no judgments, no
negativity or violence at all. That is the world we are making.
That is the world we are living in. That is the world
we have chosen. We are so happy to share it.This world is collaborative. And gentle.
Time to stop trying to rewrite and describe
something not describable, and uneditable. I have to go
cry it out now, and then scrape the Jell-O off my kitchen floor. There are a
few things to do before next Saturday, my next public appearance. I hope if
find it every bit as heart and soul-warming as I expect to. Maybe see you at that one. Love you.
Mwuah!