WE ARE THE WHIRLYBIRD - WE ARE THE FUN

A couple miles outside Milford, Nebraska, and it's getting cold and slippery.

Jim Phillips - The Whirlybird.  Wonder what's up with The Whirlybird?  I've been telling folks, "Remember the song, "WE ARE THE WORLD" - well, "WE ARE THE WHIRLYBIRD"  The Whirlybird is not a place.  It is us.  It is our spirit.  It is our fun.  And, yeah, it is a place, too, a place for fun, and it is being worked on.... more about this later.

Most of my friends know the New Year's Resolution I have been challenging myself to satisfy for many years:  Have more fun in the New Year than I had last year.  And, for those that know me well, they know that is a tall order.

For 2011, I have been inspired to start a blog.  One source of inspiration for writing a blog is a favorite local hero - hero of the woods, and bayous and the wilds of Louisiana and beyond, Bill Fontenot - that is, Mr. William Rodney Fontenot to those of formal persuasion.  Bill not only writes one of my favorite blogs about the natural world he knows so well, Bill is just about finished writing a new rock-musical, ALRITE!, which has original music and is coming soon to Cité Des Arts.  This show is going to be a hoot - and I predict a hit.

Bill and I have been talking about how we live our lives here in Acadiana - about always making it "mo' betta", about stepp'n up the creative process, about looking for opportunities to increase the interactions between artists and writers, about dream'n up collaborations with others, about stretching our imaginations, about becoming more involved in storytelling - and hav'n more fun, of course. . .  Bill blogs about what he knows - I will blog about what I know - about the bringing to fruition my new year's resolution.  I will blog about fun and the things I have fun doing and the things that are fun to be involved in.

Most of my life, the majority of attitudes I have encountered regarding fun are not in sync with my own.  I hear one should keep fun in place, keep it where it belongs in a narrow social context - fun may be a valuable social ingredient, but, fun should not be put too high on the pedestal.  And, it should be put on hold (or at least throttled down) during a crisis; because, fun is mostly frivolous, superficial, shallow.  We must be serious about the crucial things in life.

To me - fun is crucial and fundamental to healthy human life.

Since Christy has become the program director at Cité Des Arts in Lafayette, I see so many more opportunities to crank the volume dial on the fun machine way up to 11 (reference- Spinal Tap) in 2011.  I will use this blog to explore thoughts and share ideas, and, to seek fellow fun-lovers to join me in the pursuit of the fun-da-mentals.

Key word for 2011 blogs:  STORYTELLING
  This is going to be a big year for storytelling.

Oh yeah, a little about "the place" called The Whirlybird - Glen Fields, is working with me - mostly on his own at present - to close in The Whirlybird so we can get all the Whirlybird paraphernalia and stuff safe from mother nature and her critters - hopefully, we will have an "event" before the snow melts.