Saturday, September 11, 2004

Kids Love Puppets

I'm just about to pass out from exhaustion. I feel like Mick Jagger after a high energy tour. Yesterday I did six puppet show/sketch performances at three different elementary schools all about The Pledge of Allegiance. I recorded a rap that explained what the words of the Pledge mean. Here are some highlights.

- The hip 4th grader who asked me if I was doing any rap concerts.

- The little boy who raised his hand desperate to ask a me question and then babbled pure gibberish when he spoke. I couldn't understand a word so I asked him to repeat what he said. But when he "repeated" himself he spoke entirely different sounding gibberish. I quickly said "I agree. Does anybody else have a question?"

- My friend who played a little girl improvising funny lines about proper Dodge ball etiquette.

- The 9-year-old, Hispanic girl who asked "What's that shiny string on the puppet's neck?" I explained that the puppet character likes to dress like his rap idols and those were supposed to look like gold chains. "Oh," she said, "you mean Bling Bling."

- Holding my up and moving a puppet for over two hours to the point where I could barely lift my arms.

- Making my puppet stutter for almost a full minute and having the kids laugh at it the entire time.

- When Giggles pointed out that my white shirt was so completely drenched in sweat from the heat that it became see-thru. And that my nipples had been 100% visible to all the kids during the last two performances.

The great irony being that I am personally against blindly following a symbol or pledging allegiance to anything. The pledge reminds me of the Nazis. But the rap was about as subversive as a pro-pledge rap could get. My rap included the line "Liberty and Justice go hand in hand so don't touch my freedom Mr. Government man!" I wanted to put up a sign that said "A Buck Fush Production," but thought better of it. Yo! I got paid, so it's all butta.


2 comments:

kranki said...

I can't believe that. Some punk kid really did ask Giggles if he was a pimp. That's about the age that I'll be teaching. Starting Monday. 4th graders! Crap.

Anonymous said...

MallRat:
There is a link in kranki's post in red that tells about the pledge. It's what we make the American kids say before school. It's actually very Communist if you think about it. There is a big fuss over the inclusion of the words "Under God." As if God is only watching over the Americans. Not lately.