Me and the Monkee!

Am I the only girl in the fam who really loved the Monkees? Well, I had an interesting and special opportunity the other night. My old roomie Shane was in CA on the Pippin tour. I called him and he got me and J comps. So we drove down to Costa Mesa (2 hours plus change during traffic, 30 minutes post-traffic) to see what turned out to be a pretty terrible show. Shane was great. I was also totally, jaw-droppingly surprised to see my old college friend Andre as the leading player. He looked and sounded amazing. The best part of the show by far.

I digress. Also in the company was Micky Dolenz of "hey, hey, we're the Monkees fame." He played Charlemagne. That's all I'll say about that. Shane, J, and I all went to this bar by his hotel to grab some food and catch up. And who walks in? That's right...the Monkee. I did get a little excited because I really did love that show. I listened to their music all through high school. I can, to this day, sing all of the songs on their greatest hits album by memory. So, when Shane offered to introduce me and Joey offered to take our picture, I couldn't resist.

When asked what he thought about being on the show, he replied, "I've been told it was great. It was the 60's, you know. All I knew was 'oooh, look at the colors.'" He was a genuinely nice guy and I was really happy to meet him. In all of my NY restaurant, theatrical, and film work, I've met about a billion celebs, but this is my first actual picture with one. So enjoy!

That's clever

Juli's last blog posting was clever: "Ding Dong the despot's dead." I liked it. When the munchkins sang that in the Wizard of Oz it was indeed a celebration; it was the death of fear. Death is always symbolic. It is more a time of transformation than an actual ending (other than for the person who actually died). Death is for the living. We are the ones who have to survive it.

When I turned on my computer that morning, I was kind of surprised. I had only heard snippets about it on NPR, and thought absently that it still must be months away. After all, how long did it take us to get Slobodan Milosovic in prison for his crimes against humanity? What about the Rwandan genocide, and the leaders of the tsutsis and hutus, who fed young men full of drugs and sent them out to commit genocide with machetes? Anyone seen Blood Diamond? Go. They trained children to gun down women and children with automatic weapons. And last but not least, Darfur.

Juli is right. He is not alone. This planet is full of fearful people who do incredibly evil things to protect themselves from change. But like death, it is inevitable. And like death, it will transform. I saw the article and cried. Not because I feel that what he did was right. It is despicable. We must use his death as a call to create peace in our own lives. Like attracts like, and peace has no choice but to follow.