Legendary Poet Dan Seaman opens tonite's show

Just a few hours from now, the 7th Annual Day of the Dead Dinner Show gets underway at the SmokiMuseum Pueblo.

Once again, the festivities kick off with a spoken word performance by Papa Dan Seaman. These amazing poems about death, those who've left us, what remains of them with us, continue to bring the audience back year after year.

As I've stood by the offrenda, or altar for the visiting dead, and listened to him expound, many times the tears just ran down my face.

You really owe it to yourself to come check out this Arizona treasure.

If you can't make it, because - say, you're reading this sitting in your den in Swaziland, you can hear a poem Dan had on one of our radio sows this year, "Poetry as Performance Art."

To hear it, simply click
here.

Milton J. Squirrel- A Mini-Bio

Milton J. Squirrel, poet, revolutionary and father of 82, was born an entirely unremarkable rodent in the Blurry Valley City Park. He would likely have lived his entire life climbing trees, hoarding nuts and avoiding dogs had it not been for a meltdown at the city's nuclear power plant. A cloud of radioactive fallout seeped into the nearby Picker's Nuts packing plant, irradiating several tons of lightly salted & honey-roasted mixed nuts. In full compliance with EPA guidelines, the nuts were dumped into a storm drain in the park.

Upon eating the contaminated nuts, Milton and the other squirrels in the park underwent a startling mutation. Their brains swelled from the size of marbles to the size of . . . well, slightly larger marbles. Endowed now with hyper-intelligence and an unquenchable thirst for power, the mutant rodents formed the Squirrel Liberation Front, a revolutionary terrorist organization of which Milton was the leader.

Demanding full voting rights, access to affordable veterinary care and "40 acres and an i-Pod" for every squirrel, the rodents began a campaign of terror that went largely unnoticed by most people. They were, after all, squirrels. The revolution was quashed when the squirrels were overcome by the obvious hypnotic power of the A&E "Biography" Don Knotts episode.

His coup foiled, Milton tried his paw at a music career, fronting the goth/glam/grunge/garage band Squirrel Jam. Their debut album "Squirrels Just Wanna Have Fun," with it's lead-off single "The Squirrel Can't Help It," failed to make any kind of impact on the charts. The CD is out of print now, but bootleg copies can be found on e-Bay. (Just do a search for "bad pun album titles.")

Following this disappointment, Milton made a small fortune with his controversial "Squirrels Gone Wild" video series, which features rodent nudity, binge drinking and assorted other bad behavior.

Nowadays, Milton balances occasional attempts at world domination with commercial work. He has been a spokesanimal for such products as Zippity Pea-Bu caffeinated peanut butter and Triple Frosted Crackle, the breakfast cereal that pops in milk. ("Packed with as much fun as the FDA will allow!") A potentially lucrative deal to be the new voice of Verizon Wireless fell through following Milton's recent drunk-driving arrest. While being cuffed, the intoxicated squirrel made comments which were allegedly "anti-beaver."

Milton's latest thrilling attempt to conquer the world (or at least Crest Top, Arizona) can be heard in "War of the Squirrels," the centerpiece of Coyote Radio Theater's 7th Annual Day of the Dead Dinner Show on November 11. That's this Saturday, people!!! Get yer booties down to Show Business Video or New Frontiers natural foods and grab up some tickets before they're all purchased by Milton's (literally) rabid fan base.

Pat Beary Returns with this Year's Song of the Dead

Singer-songwriter Pat Beary, a celebrated figure on the Prescott,AZ coffeehouse circuit, returns this year as the DoDDS Musical Guest, playing a mordida or song of the dead.



Last year, Pat mesmerized the crowd with his cover of They Might Be Giants' "Turn Around" at the Hotel Saint Michael.

Since then, Pat has completed his amazing handcrafted bar at the Raven Cafe (day job), began repairs on a house of his own and gotten married. A lot of good in Pat's life these days. Since he attended last year's Day of the Dead Dinner Show. Is there a connection between these two facts? Hey, we're not saying there isn't.

Get the mojo on your side, baby. Pick up your tickets for this year's Day of the Dead Dinner Show today.

And, for your information, a live recording of Pat's mordida last year is on the 2006 Coyote Radio sampler CD each VIP ticket holder gets for their very own.

Buy the swanky tickets and take the mojo home with ya, shazah.