FRIDAY NIGHT WITH TOOTS AND ROBIN

Hi guys

We are @ the SJ Center for the Performing Arts enjoying the Shen Yun troupe from China. Its cool because there is 1 distinctly non-Chinese dude in the troupe. The choreography is quite clever; the honky is tall and sort of hook-nosed (beakish, I guess you might say). They keep him in the shadows, in the last row (Chinese dance is really regimented, all that China Youth "Raise the Red Lantern" stuff was not new or revolutionary, it was just more of the same of what the Chinese have always done..... The difference was the lack of makeup and physical adornment during the Cultural Revolution.. Oh yeah, AND the clubs, daggers, burning books, dunce caps and cudgels used to menace and subdue the smart and rich guys!!

Anyhow, it is a very long 20 minute interval and I did not want to go shuffle about with the hoi poloi. So I am giving you guys a little "looky loo" into Toots and Robin's "Most Amazing Friday Night on the Town".

The show is corny and cute and sooo Chinese. The audience is mostly Asian.. Sitting in my seat, I look around and I see the familiar faces of my people, the people of my people. Their slanty little eyes crinkle up into tiny crescents when they laugh, and they LOVE to laugh!!!!!!!! We chuckle in unison throughout the show. Sprinkled through the audience are Occidentals sitting with their Chinese lovers and you can feel them cringe because our sense of funny is, well, Chinese... and it defies explanation.

I look at Tootsie sitting beside me. I know that the day will come when she is no longer there. And I wonder if I will still be Chinese without the proof of this magical woman sitting next to me. How many times have I said, "I am half Chinese. See that lady? She is my Mother!". Though to my mind, Toots resembles Cochese and Geronimo much more than Mao or Chou En Lai...... And I don't have a child to tell about how we are an east-west cocktail, like "a little bit Country and a little bit Rock n Roll"...
The closest thing I will have to my racial identity is Sheri Nakamura and she's Japanese!!! Perhaps my next dog will have to be something obvious like a Chinese Crested......

We are out of the theater now. We are sitting in the parking garage waiting for the bulk of the cars to clear out. We are unusually patient this evening. I mean, the departing cars ARE being driven by MY PEOPLE, quite possibly the scariest, most predictably UNpredictable drivers on the planet! Screwball funny, but universally recognized as the very worst behind the wheel. Being Chinese, Toots and I laugh out loud at the concept.

Suddenly I realize that I am getting excited about our trip. We leave on Wednesday and I'm feeling itchy to start writing "Robin and the Cottontops do the Turkey Trot"..

Tonight was just a practice piece....
Are you guys ready for Turkey Tales?