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DIPPETY DOO DAH: A Parade Album of Celebratory Anarchy The flamboyant, farcical Doo Dah parade was founded in 1976 as a sassy retort to Pasadena’s prim and proper Tournament of Roses. Think Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade meets Burning Man—and if your synapses don’t short out, you’ll have an inkling of the madcap revelry unleashed when over 1200 free spirits gambol down Colorado Avenue.
The motley crew of over 100 parade entries included political activists along with marching bands, floats, wacky cars, and the wildest variety of homegrown satirists and freedom-loving members of the counterculture imaginable.
To cook up some delicious Doo Dah jambalaya, just stir in a Star Wars Stormtrooper, a Chinese dragon, the Bastard Sons of Lee Marvin, and CSI scientists sporting signs that ask, “Come the Rapture, can I have your car?” Then spice it up with a quartet of nearly nude nymphs in pasties, carrying a bed of roses, and mix well!
Before the parade, I chatted with the lovely Erica Valentine, runner-up for Queen, “always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” who towered over my fairly respectable, five feet, six inch, height.
As the participants in this year’s 31st Doo Dah Parade lined up in preparation to begin their march, the legendary Nina Hagen took her position with the Kucinich for President supporters.
Spotting Nina, a member of the Back-to-Disco Drill Team, ran up to her, gushing, “WOW! What a great costume! You look JUST LIKE Nina Hagen!”
To which the “Mother of Punk Rock” responded, “I a-a-a-a-a-am Ne-e-e-e-e-ena Ha-a-a-a-a-agen.”
www.merylannbutler.com Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author and educator who counts First Lady Dolley Payne Todd Madison as well as two signers of the Articles of Confederation among her ancestors. Mary Ball, mother of George Washington is in the ancestral lineage of Butler's great grandmother, Blanche Ball. Grateful to know that the blood of America's founding mothers and fathers runs in her veins, Butler has been newly filled with matriotism as a direct result of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Lest she appear too uppity, it should be revealed that she also has family ties to James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill. Butler has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled enlightenment for the past two decades. A native of NYC, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006). They don't call quilts "comforters" for nothing! www.90minutequilts.com Butler was faculty advisor for "The Love for All Mankind/Anti-Apartheid Quilt" project at ENMU (1993), now in the collection of the Hon. Nelson Mandela. As Arts Advisor for the Center for Improving U.S.- Soviet Relations (CIUSSR) Baltimore, MD; her activities included the "First U.S.-Soviet Childrens' Peace Quilt Exchange" (1987-88), an historic project chronicled in the media of both countries. Citizen diplomacy trips to the U.S.S.R. in 1987 and 1988 included lectures and presentations to fashion designers, craftspeople and artists in Odessa, Moscow, Kiev and St.Petersburg, in which she focused on the topic of creating global peace through international art exchanges. Butler is the proud mother of a daughter and seven stepchildren (all grown), and a passel o' grand younguns. It is to these new generations that she dedicates her political activism. Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here.,
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