Clusterflock of Creativity

Thursday was National Bird Day. I know this because I'm a big fan of The Current and it was their coffee break topic. National Bird Day wouldn't normally inspire a response from me, but I've been thinking a lot this past year about how much birds have been a part of my life. Okay, not real birds...I really don't know anything about actual birds, and don't really care to know. The only birds I have any emotional response to is geese, and that's a negative response. I'm often a geese hater, at least when they threaten me when I'm running.

But birds keep popping up in my creative life. I'm currently a member of two bands with bird names: "Pigeons From Hell," a Pretenders cover band, and the newly renamed Clusterflock, (formerly known as "Painted Birds.") We don't dress up like birds or anything, or even do bird-themed songs, but we do have really awesome bird logos, thanks to my wonderfully talented artist friend, Wanda. And if anyone can tell me what Pretenders song contains the lyric "pigeons from hell" you'll win...my respect and admiration.

If either of my bands does play a bird-themed song, I will die of joy if it is the 80's one-hit-wonder "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)" by Icicle Works. For reasons I can't explain, this song is my theme song. Although I have no idea what the song means and I don't know anything about the band, the song speaks to me on a primal level and makes me feel ready to kick ass. I'm usually a big lyrics person, so it's funny that it's the sound of the song that speaks to me. Oh I've looked up the lyrics on the interwebs, but they were not compelling enough to stick with me. For all I know the song is about a flock of right-wing (ha, ha, get it?) dachshund-hating geese. But the drum part is totally awesome.

Birds keep appearing in my theater world, too. Last night was our last performance of "The Cage," a one-act by local playwrights that features a lot of bird imagery and an awesome bird painting, also by Wanda. The bird in the painting is so special that we had to give him a name, so he's Oake. (Another chance to be a winner: Can anyone guess who Oake is named after?) Actually, Oake is supposed to be a bad painting, but Wanda is too good of a painter to making a bad painting, but he is a weird a scary painting.


"The Cage" also features this great line (sadly, not my character's): "I like the birds in my paintings. They don't shit on anyone." Back when our band Clusterflock was Painted Birds, I thought "We don't shit on anyone" would have been a great band slogan. Maybe we can still get it to work.

I realize that all these bird references aren't really that surprising, as birds are great symbols that convey-a wide range or meaning. In fact, a few years ago I was in another bird-themed one-act by a local playwright called "Bird Icon" (one of my favorite acting experiences) and I guess that titles says it all. Birds are iconic so they're going to pop up everywhere, even in the artistic lives of those of us who are slightly avian-adverse.