Enjoy!

The Cast of Characters:

The Lonely Kazoo: Danny Fisher-Bruns

The Narrator: Tom Fucoloro

The Dumpster: Adam Prairie

The Drummer: Chris Prairie

The Rest of the Band: Geoff Brown

The Dancing Ensemble: Christina Ellis & Kelli Refer

I have lost .000047% of my expected lifespan since my last post. It seems like only yesterday. I’ve been having a great time with my plastic family out here in the Great Garbage Patch, but I thought it was about time to return to the stage to share my story with everyone again. On a rainy day like this, who couldn’t use an uplifting story?

A great group of artists in Seattle is creating a 3-night-only cabaret in Belltown bringing together provocative artists of all walks of life to share their work and spark constructive dialogue. Among this collection of artists will be yours truly: the poor old lonely kazoo. They’re calling the event Barnstorm, and you are all invited!

You can help make this event possible by donating to their massive fundraising effort. The Kickstarter campaign is going strong, but still has a little way to go. Check out their progress.

If you want to see a preview of how they are transforming a defunct storefront into a cabaret, check out this video

So mark your calendars once again, folks! I can’t wait to see you all there.

That’s all for now. I’ve got to float away – those pesky seabirds are hovering overhead again, and I know that I’ only going to give them indigestion if they catch me.

Here’s the cast list:

• Lonely Kazoo — Danny Fisher-Bruns
• Narrator – Tom Fucoloro
• Dumpster – Adam Prairie
• Ensemble – Kelli Refer, Christina Ellis, Olivia Engel, and Liz Ellis
• The Lonely Kazoo Band –  Adam Prairie, Chris Prairie, Geoff Brown, Steve Nielsen, Jacques Boudreau, and Olivia Cacchione

Scene 1: Valu-Pak Fun!

Scene 2: The Gutter

Scene 3: The Dumpster

Scene 4: The Drainpipe

Scene5: The Lonesome Plastic Factory

Scene 6: Scary Forest (of Trees!)

Scene 7: Out to Sea

Scene 8: Home at Last (And Everybody’s All Choked Up)

Also, if you’re an artist and you’d still like to contribute work to the show, we are still accepting submissions. There’s no cost to you to be in the show, and you might find some kindred spirit artists at the event.

Work must relate to the theme of waste, plastics, ocean health or environmental issues of some kind. Pieces utilizing recycled materials are highly encouraged. Photography, painting, prints, sculptures and mixed media pieces encouraged. Other mediums will also be considered.

Please email image of work by Friday August 13 with brief description of the work to hoot.house.productions@gmail.com. We will notify you if your piece will make it into the show by Monday, August 16. Works must be dropped off by Thursday 19 at The Fremont Abbey located at 4272 Fremont Avenue N. Works will also need to be picked up by 2pm on August 20th.

When you download, you can choose any format you like (FLAC is available for those who want lossless). There may still be some touches and maybe some narration added in the future, but this is a strong draft moving forward.

So Download Now!

In other news, Danny has been on vacation and is returning late tonight (I think). So Lonely Kazoo stuff is going to pick right back up, and work leading up to the performances tentatively scheduled to start in August will begin. Cheers all around!

If you have any ideas or want to help in any way, drop us a line. We are way open to suggestion and creative ideas.

The Big Picture has a bunch of devastating photos from the Louisiana coast taken by the AP’s Charlie Riedel. Can’t say much more than the photos can.

There’s also this song by the Dirty Cajuns if you haven’t seen it yet. It was tweeted by @BPGlobalPR, who in a strange way brings a little sanity to this mess.

Some of us have opened up a stand at the Fremont Sunday Market selling crafts and things.

A first draft mix of the Lonely Kazoo music is officially fully complete. I will update when we get it all hosted (should be very soon). It’s totally rad.

If you or anyone you know is good at/has an in making vinyl records, CDs, creative CD cases, costumes, anything else awesome, contact us. We are WAY open to suggestions for teaming-up with other projects around town.

We are also looking for local artists who might be interested in holding a gallery/performance/whatever with the Lonely Kazoo in August. Our opera is awesome, but it’s only about 30 min. We need creative people to share the stage with.

Hums and kisses,

LKZ.

A recent report released by the Seattle Department of Transportation looks at what happened to traffic, bike use and safety after taking a vehicle lane from Stone Way and adding pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Publicola has a good breakdown of the highlights:

• The percentage of drivers exceeding the 30 mph speed limit on Stone Way by 10 mph or more dropped about 75 percent—from about 4 percent to about 1 percent. A pedestrian struck at 20 mph, according to studies cited in SDOT’s report, has an 85 percent chance of survival, compared to only 15 percent for a pedestrian struck at 40 mph.

• While car traffic on Stone Way decreased 6 percent after the road was rechannelized, bike traffic increased a whopping 35 percent, with bike traffic representing around 15 percent of rush-hour trips on the road.

• Traffic on neighborhood streets did not increase, as some neighborhood residents feared; instead, it actually declined substantially, with traffic volumes as much as 49 percent lower on streets parallel to Stone Way…

• Collisions between cars and cars, bikes, and pedestrians declined dramatically—14 percent—after the new bike lane and sharrow were introduced. And collisions causing injuries fell even further—33 percent. Finally, car collisions with pedestrians declined even more dramatically —fully 80 percent.

In the immediate, this report should give some weight to argue against those worried about traffic problems when Nickerson goes on a “diet.” But I am also interested in something slightly more psychological that came up during this study that I have been thinking about as I ride my bike around the city experiencing both spaces of peace and spaces of aggression. Maybe cars get so mad at me because the streets they are on look like they are for cars only. Maybe it’s more about territorial protection than the fear of losing precious time. It’s about the vehicle-weight hierarchy, sure, but maybe it’s too simple to just say the rule is always “More Weight > Less Weight.” Maybe that rule only applies to roads where a bicycle or pedestrian appears to be out-of-place.

Compare this photo with the photo up top. The lane nearest the camera does not even have a bike lane, but the design of the street now “says” that the street is for cars, bicycles and pedestrian crossings. Just by changing the street layout and putting something other than traffic lanes on the street, speeding, injuries and pedestrian collisions dramatically dropped. The report also notes that traffic did not become more congested. Perhaps that’s because biking increased 35 percent.

So I’m riding south on Westlake. It’s a four-lane, car-dominated street. People are honking and frustrated and yelling at me, speeding WAY too close to me as they pass me. You know, the usual. It’s scary and it is, indeed, dangerous. Why is this street so much worse than most the others? Well, it looks like this:

This looks like a car’s domain. And nevermind that cars will hit stop lights at either Nickerson or Mercer, they will speed and be angry with you, anyway. It’s not about speed or time (there are two lanes, so they are only out like 10-15 seconds max if they have to slow down and change lanes to pass me, and they are out zero if they hit a red light, which they nearly always do). It’s not like drivers on Westlake are meaner people than drivers on other streets. It’s about the fact that I do not look like I belong on this street. This is car territory, and any infringement on that will be met with hostility.

Street Films has a very interesting interview with Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book “Traffic.” At one point, Tom compares the car bubble to the anonymity of Internet message boards and comments. People in cars are less likely to see those outside their cars as people, and they feel empowered to behave in ways that they would never behave to someone’s face. Basically, people in cars are a lot like commenters on SeattleTimes.com (or any major daily newspaper website). That makes sense. I can’t tell you how many times normal people have sped by me going a potentially lethal speed within a foot of my bike. Those same people would never swing a knife at me or shoot a gun within a foot of my body. Yet they made a decision that is just as dangerous, and they probably didn’t think twice about doing it. When you are in the car, you are willing to risk the life of someone else in order to save a potential ten seconds.

It is the city’s responsibility to change the streets so the lives and rights of everyone are respected. A space that says, “This is for cars,” will create aggression and are dangerous. Clearly, people should take responsibility for their action, but cities should revamp spaces that repeatedly encourage dangerous behavior.

Our streets do not need to be so scary.

First off, a dome? So what are we going to do with a dome full of oil? It’s like throwing a basket over a mouse in the kitchen. Whew, it’s trapped… but there’s still a freaking mouse in the kitchen! I guess there’s some pipe that supposed to bring the oil to the surface, I guess to be put on ships and taken … somewhere else?

Then they are going to drill two more wells and pump cement into the earth’s crust. Nothing bad will come of that, I’m sure.

As a kazoo made of petroleum-based plastic, I am, of course, concerned about all the plastic trash floating in the Gulf of Mexico that will inevitably be covered in crude oil. That stuff is smelly! Also, when they light the ocean on fire, what will happen to the oil-covered plastics floating around!

THINK OF THE PLASTICS!

Before we know it, the plastic filling the stomachs of our ocean’s whales will be tainted with toxic crude oil.

Coastal fish near the Mississippi River Delta don’t need to worry about the oil reaching them and coating them with oil, though. After all, they are already dead due to the over 8,500 square mile hypoxic dead zone there.

But I digress. Let’s focus on the question at hand, courtesy of British Petroleum: Is it better to light the ocean on fire or let the oil cover the Louisiana coast wetlands?