ART writes--
Squatch & Friends had a week to rehearse for their appearance at the
Evergreen State Fair in Monroe Wednesday night. Once Adam let the mayor
know they would do a concert the PR machinery went into swing. In our
minds this was only to be a little production, just to let the world know
that Squatch & Friends were still alive, Adam and the kids were planning on
playing for free as a favor to the town. But in the minds of the media
world and the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, this was to be A BIG Event.
Especially when it was announced that the Hot New Bigfoot Babe, Masnia,
would also perform. Adam wanted to encourage humans to consider Nokhons
as fellow human beings and the best way to do that was by maximizing Nokhon
exposure in popular culture. Just as blacks had become accepted by White
America once attractive black movie stars and musicians, both male and
female, had broken down the prejudices between races. Masnia was clearly
attractive to humans.
Suddenly there were TV spots five to the hour promoting the "concert of the
year", local radio DJs hyping the concert as if the Beatles were back. Si
Bintzen scored a deal with NBC for exclusive television coverage, Rolling
Stone Magazine sent four reporters. What had begun as a simple local show
took on economic and cultural consequences never intended.
Adam said they should just roll with it. He also said that according to
his Vision it was important that they accept no money for this particular
performance. There had been a devastating earthquake in Eastern Europe
two days before, so any money being generated could be donated to those
victims. The PR Squatch & Friends garnered would be far more valuable
than more cash.
But first the band had to survive a week of rehearsals with Melly unable to
tolerate the sight of Adam. It had gone well the first evening, but when
Adam announced that he wanted to do one duet in Nokhontli with Masnia,
Melly reacted badly. She insisted that she was not jealous and was in fact
quite supportive of Masnia doing the number, but she treated Adam with
scorn that became worse each evening.
On Monday, however, was that incident in which Melly and Lissandra stumbled
upon Adam making love with both Masnia and Magga in the woods, evidently a
display of potency and heavy-duty pounding that shocked the girls, both
finally deciding that a squatch-human sexual relationship was dangerous and
unrealistic.
As far as Elaine and I were concerned, we had always been uncertain about
the wisdom of squatch-human sexual relations, but had accepted that Melly
and Adam were more passionately involved with each other than almost any
other couple we knew. Adam's coerced promise to her father, although
terrible for them, may have saved them from the true disappointment that
even if they could have sex it was far too dangerous for Melly anyway.
Now she thought so too.
One positive effect of their traumatic revelation was that Melly at least
tried to behave better around Adam, having accepted that they were now
only life-long friends instead of lovers. She was still only neutral at
best towards him, but band practice could continue and sometimes she even
laughed and seemed to be quite happy making music together.
The kids wanted to go out to Naked Lake, especially since it might soon be
for the last time, depending on how much summer weather was left. Adam
was pleasantly surprised to learn that the lake scene was still happening.
"The logging teams are behind schedule so they won't start cutting until
Spring," Lissandra informed him, "so we get the whole Summer season. But
that's probably it."
"Still, living for the moment is often what life is all about," Adam
philosophized.
"Yeah, one day at a time," Pokey quoted AA scripture.
Masnia and Magga wanted to know what was so special about one particular
lake, so they went along for the day.
The regulars on the dock were delighted to meet the now-famous Bigfoot
girls. Most of them had known Adam for years, so other squatches were
also welcome. It was a very relaxed meeting between races, instead of
the intense and crowded version they had experienced in town.
They had a picnic, as did the others on the dock. There was sharing of
food and drink because everyone wanted to offer the girls some new taste
thrill. Magga was cautious but Masnia tried everything, even a joint.
Melly went to the other side of the dock, avoiding Adam, and Lissandra had
to be faithful to her friend. But there wasn’t enough room on the dock to
really be isolated, especially with three Sasquatches sharing space with
20 other people.
Lying on the dock beside Pokey and Maki, Adam asked: "So are you still
going to AA?"
"Nah, not right now. Mainly because I'd have to be honest and it's not fair
to brag to all those other alcoholics about how I got cured by a magic wish.
Unless you're willing to heal them all..."
"I don't know how smart that would be--there might be limits to how many
promises I can get away with. But of course I'll try to help Maki," he
caught her eye, "if you want."
"Uh, thanks for offering, Adam," Maki said, "but let's wait on that. I seem
to have it under control and there's a self-respect thing about doing that
myself."
"Good girl," Adam commented, impressed.
They all went for a swim together, even Melly trying to be a good sport, out
to the rope swing--which had been made thick enough to bear even Adam's
weight years before--so both Magga and Masnia tried it. Many, many times,
laughing and being silly. Such a simple but wonderful thing did not exist
in Squatchland.
When the day was done the Nokhon girls had enjoyed the scene very much
and were also sad to learn that it was doomed because of the way
Civilization worked.
The City of Monroe's Evergreen State Fair had already started and would run
for 12 days; our concert was to be held on a Wednesday evening, the 3rd of
September. The local arrangers tried to talk us into playing the weekend
instead, but the Full Moon would be on Monday and we knew that the squatches,
including Masnia, would be dealing with their infamous shyøma at that time
and should definitely not be around humans.
Adam had also informed us that he and the other squatches would be going to
a Kha-rat, their monthly social event (orgy), although where it would be
held was yet undecided, but several days needed to be dedicated to that.
The band had rehearsed all their original songs and several standards so
that they could play for at least two hours, although the concert as
arranged was only supposed to be one hour long. Just in case-- and it was
a good thing they did.
Wednesday about noon we all piled into a school bus the City of Monroe had
put at our disposal and were shuttled to the Fairgrounds. When I say "all"
I mean 6 humans, 6 squatches and musical instruments, that little school
bus was filled up. Fortunately the Fairground Scene was providing sound
equipment and a grand piano.
The idea was to let our squatch friends experience an authentic Nokhso
State Fair, with all the agricultural and technical displays, razzle-dazzle
carny amusements, cotton candy and scones. They could meet rural Nokhso
folk who are somewhat in touch with nature, as are the Nokhontli. Then in
the evening, attend a live concert to see and hear their own cute little
Masnia wow the world with her skesk-powered voice singing in their own
language.
It had been arranged to limit how many journalists and media folk would be
allowed to muddy the waters, otherwise our squatches would never see more
than a wall of cameras and microphones pointed at them. When we arrived
at the Fairgrounds we saw that something had been misunderstood: the wall
of cameras was already waiting for us.
Adam took that in stride, talking the Nokhons into posing for pictures and
the journalists to leave us in peace after that, at least until the concert.
He welcomed media coverage of the concert itself, which would generate money
to be donated to the earthquake victims.
It was a good day, we all had fun. Rather than try to move around a
crowded Fairground in one huge flock we split up so that we were max two
humans and two squatches together, sometimes swapping around when we'd bump
into the others. The squatches were generally fascinated by cows and
horses on display, real country bumpkins.
As for the concert, rather than bore you with my lack of critical
perspective for my son, the genius musician and his divine accompaniment,
I'll allow a local music critic from the Snohomish County Daily Bugle in
Everett to offer his review:
Fair to Middling Orgasm
I had great expectations for Squatch & Friends, who gave a concert at the
Evergreen State Fair in Monroe last night. Mind you, I was at their
now-famous concert at the Palladium Northwest in Seattle last August and
that had absolutely blown me away, along with millions of other music
lovers since then. As a professionally uncharitable music critic, let me
be clear about this from the start: that was the most exciting concert I
have ever experienced in my life. And while I'm being candid, absolutely
the most erotic.
Last night, not so erotic. Well sure, a county fair is by default more
family-oriented, lots of kids, I can't blame them. But I had taken a
really hot date along (my fiancé), figuring, well, you know (we met and
got engaged at the first concert). We were both hoping to feel that magic
charge again.
Oh, they played and sang well enough; the sound was adequate for an open-scene concert in a fairground. Live concerts are not always perfect, there were a few glitches, but they did a professional performance, considering the odd
instruments they play. Their musical set was merely a reshuffling of those
songs we all know from the CDs, Take Me Seeking, Babylon, Potential Duet and of course the crowd-pleasing I Like To Run. Actually, that one got me
up on my feet along with everyone else and then...
No wait, I'm attempting to be harshly critical here, hard-to-please
because I didn't get my erotic-fix this time. So I was going to say that
the concert was (ho hum) all right, but no banana (Freudian symbolism
here?). Truthfully, it was better than all right, it was even good. I enjoyed
it. Wouldn't have missed it for anything. But I was also disappointed.
It wasn't just the erotic magic that was nowhere to be had: one of the things I
LOVED about the first concert was the eye-play between Adam and Melly.
Those two try to play it cool about this, but absolutely everyone could
FEEL just how OVERFLOWINGLY IN LOVE they were and the entire audience fell in love with them right back. I certainly did. And that was not
happening at all. Which almost hurt.
...but back to I Like To Run, everybody on their feet and just
ROCKING to that fantastic beat, not wanting it to end. And then.. and
then.. (if I sound excited, I was! We were!) ..it didn't end! They kept
going with it until Masnia (don't tell me you don't know who she is)
came on stage and sang the words in her own Bigfoot language. And there were four more Bigfoot-folk in the audience, who jumped up and sang along with her!
Spectacular? Oh, indeed.
I complained that eroticism was not happening. It wasn't, until she
showed up, all sleek and sexy with a fetching new hair-style and wearing a
tight-fitting low-cut white dress right out of the 30's, doubly sexy because
it was revealing glossy FUR instead of skin. This is a young woman so
exotically lovely that we have to redefine the concept of beauty. And talent,
yes, that girl can SING: I'm tempted to compare her with Celine or Piaf, but
she sounds like neither one, she's got her own sound and it works wonders.
Whew! There's my heartless criticism of a fair-to-middling concert. I think
I'd need a cigarette now, if I smoked.
Larry Sloane,
Music Critic, Snohomish County Daily Bugle
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It seems that Masnia has struck a chord in the zeitgeist, becoming "This
Year's Face", the camera loves her. But although sought out, she is still
in seclusion with us at the Hacienda, which only makes her "unattainable"
and therefore even more "exotic and mysterious". The media world wants her
to become their new icon, but fortunately she has no use for them. Yet.
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