: Get your Lent on!
“I’m going straight down to the Quarter, pour beer on myself and try to get on COPS, wearin chili pepper boxers and my Ray Charles shades” – from Fat Tuesday by Greg Horne.
Isn’t it exciting? We’re only a few hours of editing away from the anticipated release of Girls Gone Wild Part 52, Ta-Tas of Mardi Gras 07!!! We can finally catch up with all the recent escapades of our favorite millionaire date rapist. The last one left so many unanswered questions.
Jackass perverts aside, I hope everybody enjoyed their Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, or Carnival in an appropriate method: wandering in circles for miles while drinking yards of brightly colored libations, flashing flesh for plastic trinkets, getting pick-pocketed, relieving yourself in random street corners, throwing up king cake and muffaletta on a close friend. If you didn’t get to in reality, hopefully you did at least in spirit.
I hope you extracted all your ya-yas, cuz its time to kick it Lent style. It’s the perfect season to make all those personal improvements you’ve been slackin on since New Years. 40 days and nights to finally get rid of some of those nasty habits like smoking, drinking, swearing, eating oleo straight out the tub, puppy kicking, what have you. You can do it! If Reverend Ted Haggard can kick his nasty habit of snorting meth off of a rent-a-studs backside in only twenty one days, think what you can do with twice that much time!
Me? I’m gonna take one for the team by not participating in Lent this year (or next year, or ever) so that all you boozeless/meatless people can get your good times vicariously through me. All you have to do is find me out and about and ask me how much fun I’m having. Then you can watch me eat a burger, tilt back a glass of bitter, and I will tell you how friggin great I feel. It’s one of the many altruistic services I provide to the needing public.
Ok, I’ve got to put on my serious pants for a moment:
As of today, Knoxville is losing a couple of its best inspired creators, for the time being anyhow. Local musician, sound sculptor, artist, producer and engineer, Andre Hayter, and his wife, the gifted dancer, choreographer, performance artist and student of the healing arts, Angela Hill, probably right now enroute to their new home in Sydney, Australia.
Angela has danced just about everywhere a person can dance in this town. She taught dance and choreographed pieces for several studios around Knoxville, including UT, Go Contemporary Dance Works, and Circle Modern Dance, which she was a core member of for many years. She is a totally gifted mover and a bit of a poet as well. She is well known for her spoken word and dance solos she has performed over the years, often at Modern Dance Primitive Light, the annual holiday time performance of Circle Modern. To me she is always heavy in thought but light on the feet.
Like any good bass player, Andre was mostly heard and not seen around this town. His name may not ring a bell, but there is a good chance if you have been out and about in this town in the last decade or so, you have heard or seen his work. He has played in the scene with many bands, including Difficult Children, the Jodie Manross Band, Hummus, Mikel Grubb Band, and most recently, the short lived Teleskope. He is also a gifted engineer and producer that has worked on numerous local albums and demos. He, along with local Matt Roberts, created the interactive sculpture that surrounds the entrance to the KMA’s hands on children’s gallery. He also helped design one of the best backyard slip n’ slides the Bearden area of Knoxville has ever seen.
The most exciting thing these two incredible souls have done in the last few years was to combine their powers WonderTwin style in the form of Ahsquared Productions. With Dre’s musical mad science and Angela’s gifts of movement, the two produce pieces where the lines between musician and dancer gets blurred through the use of motion sensors, computers, and other technological hoo doo. I have been assured that Ahsquared will continue to blossom in the land down under. We back on this side of the world can keep up with all their beautiful exploits at www.ahsquared.com, when they get around to updating the site. (They have been a little busy as of late, packing up everything they own and shipping it as far as one can possibly ship something). If a butterfly can flutter in Tunisia and cause a storm in Miami, you can bet good money that the storm that comes off of these two’s wings will be mind boggling. So, to Angela and Andre, I say on behalf of Knoxville, we love and miss you already, safe journeys.
Tonight’s Picks: Yonder Mountain String Band is the big ticket pick for this evening. Then go have a glass at Sapphire and do some crooning of your own, Cabaret style. I have also heard rumor that Ben Maney and the Countless Sheep will be performing tonight at the Grotto, but I can neither confirm or deny that at this time.
G’day Til the Next Soiree,
Strapping Young Lad