This year’s Anderson Valley Variety Show rolled out over two evenings, Friday March 6th and Saturday March 7th. The poster for the event posed this question, “What will you find?” The answer turned out to be plenty. I attended the Saturday performance and I can report (as a veteran attendee of at least 20 of the past 33 shows) that this was the best Variety Show ever. Yes, there were some technical difficulties but even these sometimes added to the pervasive merriment. A standing room only crowd filled the Grange Hall to overflowing with laughter and smiles. Congratulations to Captain Rainbow, the Variety Show Crew, the performers, and the Grange on a job well done.
The opener found Keevan Labowitz trying to organize Captain Rainbow’s thoughts — a daunting project. We watched lots of crazy thoughts bumping around his hapless yet fiendish mind. A First Responding Alligator was giving, “Gator Aide,” a pair of giant dice were dancing alongside a sexy lady skeleton. Many other phantoms flew by. Finally some oddly disjointed characters emerged. There was a giant red “A” (Ali), a pirate shouting “Arrrr”(Abeja), a sheep (Ananda) shouted “Ewe” and a leather jacketed village person with a big red A shouting “A” (Derek), and an old-fashioned golfer shouting “Fore” (Bill). They kept rearranging themselves until they finally found the sweet spot coming together to ask the audience, “Arrr ewe red “E” fore A Variety Show?!” And yes, we were. Enthusiastically.
Captain Rainbow, host for the night introduced his co-host Charlene Rowland in her sparkly mini-dress and we were off! Charlene teaches agriculture at AV high school. She admits that she taught in Point Arana for 10 years and, yes, she was a Pirate but she assured us that she is a Panther all the way now,
The Psychedelic Relics featuring Barbara (Takes a licking but keeps on ticking) Lamb, Judy Baseshore, Kathy Borst and Linda McClure were the first act. They had an original take on the perennial West Side Story tune “I Feel Pretty” ably accompanied on the piano by the beautifully red gartered Sue Marcott of Yorkville. “I don’t hear well, I don’t steer well…don’t have bright eyes, don’t have thin thighs…” You get the idea. Hilarious. Clever. These four experienced troopers got us off to a great start.
Next, the Anderson Valley Folkloric Dance Group came out and filled the stage with color and stomp dancing youth in traditional costumes. They waited calmly through a sound system failure. One small girl pointed her finger at the tech booth and scolded, “That’s wrong!” It got a good laugh.
The Devries Family Jugglers also had to cope with sound failure also but the audience didn’t mind a bit, as juggler Cody, frozen in mid pose closely resembled a Greek god. “Show us your muscles!” the girls in the audience were shouting. He could juggle about a million balls, dropping some, but he managed to look fabulous doing it. When his less muscular younger brother came on he literally stood on top of his brother to juggle his glowing colored light balls. It was all good.
“Queen of the Roost” featuring Misha Paget was a wild competition between three worthy “hens” that “cracked” everyone up.
After this things got serious for a moment while the Captain read out the names of the “Dusties” — people we had lost over the past year. Nathan McMath with his fabulous pit band played “What a Wonderful World” in the background and it was very moving. Thank you also to the band for those fabulous Great American Song Book songs you shared with us over the evening. Very classy.
The next act, “Wava Jane Reacts” involved a police call box, a baby, a toddler, a mom and dad, a dog and lots of polka dot pom-poms. It was a “Wave-a-chain” reaction. Wava was mysterious, funny and sweet.
Then the AV Community Chorus under director Jennie Windsor sang a Leadbelly song in swinging harmony, which was clean, precise and delightful.
Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd arrived to wisecrack and chase each other around. There was a unicycle, a rifle and some carrots involved to the tune of vintage cartoon music. It took us back.
Katy Tahja told us two wry Northwest Coast Native Folktales about Raccoon and Coyote.
Bringing the first half of the show to a close the Comptche Ding Dongs arrived. We found ourselves looking at a shiny black fur face apparently wearing a men's suit jacket with flesh hands coming out of the sleeves. What was it we were looking at exactly? It took awhile but finally we “got it.” There was a big black dog inside the suit — a very tolerant and patient dog. A person hidden behind the dog in the suit had his hands through the sleeves. It looked like the dog was sitting at a table waiting to be served at a restaurant. To make a long story short the man/dog gestured hilariously and finally ate a big plate of spaghetti with his big red tongue hanging out. His “hands” used the silverware and gestured expansively. Maybe you had to be there, but those of us who were could not stop laughing.
The Ding Dongs brought the house down. Adding to the general mayhem and providing a very professional clowning touch were many talented family members (human) playing the violin, saxophone, piano and trumpet. Word is out that this family travels Europe busking on the street. The pacing and the polish of their act pointed to professionalism. What is it about Comptche? Is there something that encourages talent in their water?
After the intermission where we caught up with neighbors and filled up on homemade Grange sweet treats we were back in our seats. Gabriella Lena Frank played her own Peruvian inspired compositions masterfully on the Grange Grand Piano.
Dusty Rhodes rode in with her Handsome Cowboys and injected some political humor when she showed us her “No Kings” undershirt when we were expecting to see much more…
Twenty-five local fashion models strutted their stuff across the stage modeling outfits designed and sewn by 96 and a half year old Helen Papke of the Cheesecake Community (Philo). The crowd went wild honoring Helen.
Wade Lemons won the Raffle donating all $588.00 right back to the Grange. Thank you for your generosity and community spirit Wade — above and beyond.
Catless Michael Charness and his guitar roamed the stage while he shared his free form vocals with us,
That bought us to the Country Music Song Title Quiz with Quizmaster Mark Scaramella. Were any of the improbable titles Mark read to the contestants true? Titles like, “If I Can’T Live Without Her, How Come I Ain’t Dead?” Some were real song titles! It was a close contest won by only one point. A bonus was the spontaneous singing by contestant/singer Olivia Allen who ad-libbed tunes to some of the titles on the spot in true country character.
Moving in on the end of the show Cody and Michelle, a young husband and wife team — he on guitar and she the songstress and dancer. She was ethereal and he was a confident player, a wonderfully balanced team.
To finish out the night Todd O (Charlene Rowland’s husband) played his guitar and sang. As his parting shot he quoted Mark Twain in a way that I will not soon forget.. “Loyalty to your country always, loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Friday night which I did not attend was special for many reasons. I heard there was some smoking hot talent. Also, there was a tribute to Gail and Bill Meyer who have been stalwart golden members of our community for the past forever and a day. They have contributed so much and always discretely and with humility. We are so sad that they are leaving but understand that their future is with their TWO! sets of twin grandchildren. On stage together were Bill, Gail, daughter and twin’s mom Scarlett, son-in-law and twin’s father Travis and the twins — all four of them. The Grange awarded a giant golden key to the building and a lifetime of free pancake breakfasts (which the Meyer’s helped originate). Happy house hunting to Gail and Bill.
The acts appearing on Friday are listed below. Maybe someone who attended on Friday would enjoy writing these acts up and forwarding their reviews along to [email protected]
- The Amazing Ayla on Piano
- The Raging Grannies
- Bert & I
- Aliens
- Boont Dusties
- Becoming
- Ki Aikido of Anderson Valley
- Kirk Lumpkin
- Fairytale Mix-Up
- Phantom of the Grange
- Greased Lightening
- Reckless Souls
- If We Could Dream
- Dating Game
- Story from the River Depths
- Cordelia the Kooky Crooner
- Somerset
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