A Special Christmas Message

Dec 23 2021

FRIENDO'S ADVICE

We all have problems in our lives, spanning from the existential to the very mundane, and Friendo, the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions thinks friendo can help.

So we've compiled some of these deep questions in a column we're calling FRIENDO'S ADVICE.

Dear loyal readers,

I'd like to take this time to issue a special Christmas message on behalf of all puppets.

It is Christmastime once again. You humans simply cannot quit your heathen pagan rituals, but at least in the past they were honest. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia we boiled humans alive in great brass bull-shaped statues and ate globi and other honey-fried cheeses. Now we pay lip service to "charity" and the "milk of human kindness", which sounds revolting, to earn our fried cheeses and salted meats.

But that is not what I'd like to talk to you about this Christmas season. I want to take you back to Halloween of 2020, when a terrible scourge had fallen upon the land. Of course, I am referring to the scourge of ten foot tall Halloween party skeletons. These monstrosities were everywhere you looked - on lawns, in garden centers, and I'm sure they were other places as well. I held my tongue then. My dusty, sandpapery tongue. But now, almost a year and a half later, these skeletonzillas are STILL donning Santa hats and adorning the front facades of hardware stores and homes. Are we, as puppets, never to be free of these monuments to our own inferiority???

Look, not every puppet can be ten feet tall. Not every puppet can have glowing red eyes and stand upright of its own power. These ten foot tall party skeletons are creating unrealistic beauty standards for puppets of all walks of un-life. Think of the tiny Polly Pockets, or of the impressionable Stretch Armstrongs. Think of the marionettes, always so proud of their strings and full range of movement, happening upon a ten foot tall party skeleton with a fully balanced center of gravity, just staring and waving. Staring and waving. Unto eternity.

So I ask you, this Christmas season, to please think of the puppets. Reclaim your violent, bloodthirty human roots, and burn these damned ten foot party skeletons to the ground.

Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,

Friendo

Do you have a question you'd like to ask the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions? Indeed, Friendo wishes to advise you. Please write to inquiries@spitnvigor.com.

Giving thanks in Punxsatawney PA

Nov 24 2021

FRIENDO'S ADVICE

We all have problems in our lives, spanning from the existential to the very mundane, and Friendo, the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions thinks friendo can help.

So we've compiled some of these deep questions in a column we're calling FRIENDO'S ADVICE.

Dear Friendo,

Happy Thanksgiving! Do you have any fun recipes for special desserts or hot dishes? I know I'd love to hear them!

Giving thanks,

Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

Dear Punx,

Being a puppet, I do not eat human food, but as I could be considered "eternal", or "undead", that means I can remember exactly 400 years of Thanksgivings. In fact, since I once moonlighted as the nautical figurehead on the Mayflower, I can tell you that they certainly weren't eating condensed milk heated in a tin of flour with pumpkin pulp at the first harvest celebration in the "new world". Before the Wampanoag came along, those poor Pilgrim bastards were stomping chipmunks just to get some protein. Sad.

So I'll share with you a recipe for a drink the colonists used to make to stave off utter starvation.

Put a pot of light, flavorless beere to the fyre, and then add egges and a dish of sweet butter. Literally boil butter and eggs with beer in this ungodly stew, and then add a penniworth of nutmeg, sugar, or whatever will mask the taste of madness you are about to imbibe. Consume it and regret stalling death. Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that helps, human!

Sincerely,

Friendo

Do you have a question you'd like to ask the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions? Indeed, Friendo wishes to advise you. Please write to inquiries@spitnvigor.com.

Swinging without a net

Nov 11 2021

FRIENDO'S ADVICE

We all have problems in our lives, spanning from the existential to the very mundane, and Friendo, the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions thinks friendo can help.

So we've compiled some of these deep questions in a column we're calling FRIENDO'S ADVICE.

Dear Friendo,

All my friends are constantly telling me to read your column and to be honest I never really wanted to. I’ll rephrase that, I didn’t want to ask for help. If I’m honest with myself and with you I was afraid of seeming weak, of showing any weakness. But life is constantly changing and recently mine changed in a big way. My partner of ten years and I recently split up. The breakup has been hard but here is the kicker, we work together. We are both acrobats with a very successful and famous circus, I can’t say which one, except it’s the circus of the sun. I’m lost as to what to do, I could  never leave the circus, it's my life but my partner literally and figuratively has my life in his hands every night!

The greatest show on earth has become my greatest heartbreak.

Swinging without a net

Las Vegas, Nevada

Dear Swinging,

Ah, mon ami! Une "cirque du soleil", n'est-ce pas? J'suis certainement jaloux de toi, a basculer et voler dans les airs!

Mais asses parlé de moi. You are afraid of showing weakness in front of l'homme que tu aimes! Comprehensible! Very, very comprehensible. What an utterly human trait, I applaud you for your complete and thorough humanity.  

Sometimes when I am showing weakness, it means I need a little tightening of the thick manila rope and elastic cord that ties my joints together. Less often, it means I need a little patch of papier-mâchér on a particularly weak point of my crisp, hollow husk. Being an acrobat, I'm sure it's quite easy for you to weaken your joints or brittle outer shell with all your tumbling and leaping, etcetera! And how embarrassing, weak joints and patchy papier-mâchér in front of the man who betrayed and left you, surely for another human with some kind of steel or wooden frame or maybe even a party skeleton with plastic joints. Oh, to be a party skeleton! We can all relate to that situation, unfortunately.

In conclusion, if you want to prevent your ex-amant from accidentally, - or easily! - killing you on the high-wire, spruce up those joints! And keep up on the papier-mâchér - always, always, be ever vigilant on papier-mâchér.

I hope that helps, human!

Sincerely,

Friendo

Do you have a question you'd like to ask the featureless sexless life-size puppet we use in many of our productions? Indeed, Friendo wishes to advise you. Please write to inquiries@spitnvigor.com.