Dear Fans of SoD,

Steve now loves Tivo'ed episodes of "Degrassi:The Next Generation" and Halo/X-Box more than his Blog.

I still love you best.

Love,
Robyn

I've had an interesting couple of days...Wed night Steve took me to see Prince at the Staples Center. I preface everything that follows with the observation that it was the equivalent of my mother going to see Neil Diamond in 1979. The crowd was mostly late twenties and beyond, with the emphasis on about 40-ish. Even a few rocking grannies! And many ladies, and not a few gents, were quite turned out for the evening. We saw lots of fabulous outfits, with purple being the dominant theme. A secondary theme were spiky shoes that looked like they REALLY hurt by the end of the evening. I just can't revisit those killer 80's spike heel shoes this time around. I really miss the chunky, clunky shoes of the mid-nineties. It was so much more comfortable to wear high heels. You could dance all night, and then walk home!

It was an awesome stadium show. The new Staples Center is truly state of the art. We took the subway there, which is amazing all by itself, and it let's you out right in the middle of the parking lots. Once in the building, there were plenty of places to get food and beverages, so even though the place was packed, the lines were half as long as I expected. They even have plenty of restrooms. Once inside the arena, we were so close to the stage that we had to look up to see the jumbotron boards. He was right there! In front of us! In all his glory. And Prince is the consumate showman. The show was "in the round," but it seemed to me that he was facing us the most. He kept it rocking for 2 1/2 straight hours, with just a few minutes between for costume changes. The band ultra tight. He has a whole horn section, and he really gives James Brown a run for the money with the absolute tightness of the band. He also had an accoustic set in the middle. The only thing I could say is that he stayed away from his more "sexy" songs...but he has so many great songs, it really didn't matter. The sold out crowd was on their feet dancing the entire show. Even the grannies!

Hanging out for an evening in a predominatly black and latina crowd also does wonders for the body self-esteem. I saw many fabulous women that night with plenty of junk in the trunk. White pants that no caucasian girl would ever dare wear, stretched to the limit and looking sexy and hot. It reminds you that it is all in the attitude.

They gave everyone a copy of the new CD, Musicology, and it does not disappoint. It was great and memorable evening.

The other big thing, is that I just finished a job staying up all night with Lisa Davis making basketball uniforms for Robert Parrish. The designer dropped off the fabric at 10:15pm, and ripped the finished garments out of our hands at 5:15am. We realized later that we didn't even stop to use the bathroom. It is for a promo spot for the upcoming NBA playoff games. The commercial has a bunch of old timers in "uniforms." This morning, I was standing twenty feet away from Kareem Abdul Jabar and Robert "00" Parrish. He is from the days of Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, on the Boston Celtics. Growing up in New England, it really was a thrill. They still looks great.

All in all, the past few days have had a retro 80's theme for me.

I'm really bummed about the whole Spanky the Clown thing. I'm hoping that it turns out to be a hoax. Everyone is sending me the link.

I'm a graduate of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College, and they work very hard to weed out people like that. There was an extensive psychological written exam as part of the application process, and once we were there there was a 1:1 ratio of student to teacher. They were in our faces and heads for two months. We had one freaky student who actually made to the college, but you can bet he didn't make it past that. Steve Smith and his talented staff made sure of it.

My understanding is that the school has been defunct for a few years, so I'm not really sure how they find new clowns to go on the road. He is sporting the Ringling-style of make-up, so who knows. Has Kenneth Feld cut corners so tight once again that another PR nightmare has sprung up? In 1994, a circus train went off the track killing 15 or so people. It was huge news until a day later when the Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan thing erupted. And I know he continually has problems with animal rigths people. Nevermind Cirque du Soleil taking his audiences and his best acts. Or Roy getting eaten by his tiger. (Guess who produced that show as well?) I cry no tears for Mr. Feld, but whenever a story pops up (pro or con) that has to do with anything he produces, I try and read between the lines a little closer.

I do not work as a professional clown. I do perform sketch and improv quite regularly, and hope to someday be on tv in a comedic capacity. The folks I have met who work as professional clowns all tend to be a bit eccentric. The least crazy are the ones I met through RBBBCC. A couple of my classmates, Lisa and Benny, spent a few years on the Red Show, and now are stilt walkers in Las Vegas for the Paris Hotel. Lisa owns her own home, which is more than I can say for myself.

On a related note-where are these pictures of children coming from? Are they pictures of kids on the beach or in public somewhere? Or are they artfully staged photos of children in come-hither poses? If so, WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? What parent or guardian is pimping out their kid? Has anyone seen that series on A&E about Stage Parents? That one guy who let's his kid hang out with Michael Jackson because it will help his singing career...Or that girl whose parents run a site where you send her an outfit, and she prances around in it on a web-cam. It is a pay site, of course.

Creeps walk among us. Bad things happen to kids, and then they grow up to do bad things. People are so greedy they will sell their own children. And it has been happening forever. And so it goes...

I apologize to the readers of SoD that I have been inattentive to new postings, but my job at Crank Yankers was pretty much all consuming. Today is a "behind-the-scenes tour."

I worked in the puppet shop, creating the puppets you see out there in TV land. Crank Yankers works on the Muppet/Sesame Street model, in fact, most everyone in the shop has worked for the HensonCorp east coast or west coast at some point. The puppets are like Mr. PotatoHead with blank puppets of all shapes, colors and sizes, ready to have faces created and dressed in clothes.

I didn't make any of the base puppets, they were already built, and we had a full time position in the shop for the building of anything new. Every week, there were a couple of "gags" that needed to be created. Say, a rotted zombie head, or a gigantic, naked Mrs. Birchum. Matt, Dave or Robin were kept busy.

I worked with Simone, Lisa and Rebecca putting together the puppets. We were given "art" or little cartoon sketches, and our job was to "make like art." There were bins and bins of noses, eyes, wigs, etc to go through and see if anything matched up, but many times we would end up making new features. You can see the over one hundred bins in the backround of almost every photo.

Carol ran the shop, and part of her job was shopping and making design decisions on the appearance of the puppets. The clothes all came from thrift shops, and we would"smallen" them. Sometimes we could use children's clothes, but usually the neck holes and arms were too small. Most were adult size garments that we cut down to fit. The puppets have no shoulders, so it makes for an interesting challenge. Things get altered so severely, that it is almost like making a new garment. What usually survives intact is the collar, front button placket, and maybe the cuffs.

What's nice about working with puppets is unlike actors, they never complain that something makes them look fat, they are NEVER late for fittings, no one has a Diva Fit, and they don't care if it pinches under the arms or in the crotch.

We use double stick tape, straight pins and saftey pins to attach all the features, clothes and wigs.

The shop was a fun place to work. The hours were very long-8am to 7pm, sometimes later, and sometimes Saturdays, and it takes a lot to be creative, productive and fast for 10 hours. It's not like doing crafts at home where you can walk away from it for an hour. There was not a lot of "down-time" built into the day. The closest equivalent of "surfing the net" time was when we had to take apart puppets, and when you make 12 puppets a day, 12 come back from yesterday, and they all need to be broken down into their components and put back into stock. So it is more of a "Zen" task, as opposed to a "goofing off" task. It was the people who make all the hard work fun.
Rebecca and her friend.
Lisa with Halie the Dog.

Love, Robyn