« « Previous Post: Solaris Farewell Extravaganza: A Tiny Slideshow | Next Post: Thayer Sarrano and Nate Nelson: Behind the Scenes » »
After completely disappearing for almost a whole year, Samuel Burdett, the Scrimshaw Kid himself, showed up at the last night of the Save the Monkeywhale Festival. I could not believe it.
Start from the start : Tales of the Scrimshaw Kid Chapter I.
We had a crazy week. All of us here at Monkeywhale Studios were exhausted by Saturday night. I was the M.C. that night, and I was singing and playing accordion on the sidewalk with Katharine Whalen, rehearsing, when someone firmly grabbed my shoulder.
I had lipstick on my face like war paint, and a huge sombrero (monkeywhale’s lucky sombrero, in fact) on my head. The hand on my shoulder startled me, and at first I thought it was the door guy getting fresh. What surprise must’ve been on my face when I turned to see Burdett. What astonishment!
The last time I saw him, he was with a bartender named Betty, and he just started explaining to me his reasons behind finding us here at Monkeywhale Productions- his sighting of a Save the Monkeywhale sticker on a car on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
His friend and mine, Davey Wilson (the man responsible for getting Burdett in touch with us), was driving Burdett around the mountain highway, showing him the sights. Wilson was pointing out a cabin on a cliff where he used to live when he smacked into the back of a Volvo. Everyone was okay, and while both drivers exchanged information, Burdett looked away from the mountains to examine the damage when he saw the sticker.
Save the Monkeywhale. His family had hunted monkeywhales. He had EATEN monkeywhales. He had made scrimshaw out of monkeywhale bone.
Upon asking, “what the hell does that mean?”, Burdett was referred to our website, and learned the truth. There are only around seventy monkeywhales left on the planet. (Click here for the facts.)
“Oh my Gandhi!” I exclaimed upon seeing the Scrimshaw Kid in front of my face on the sidewalk at the Save the Monkeywhale Festival. “What are you doing? Where have you been?”- and then Katharine and I had to get up on stage.
I didn’t see him again that night. With all the hubbub and festivities and M.C. duties and what have you, I lost him in the crowd. Maybe he never came in.
I still haven’t had a chance to speak with him extensively, only one short phone call. It turns out Burdett decided to stick around here. He said something about living somewhere with someone in Summerfield, NC, just outside of town. At least that’s what I think he said.
We are planning to meet this weekend, so I may finally record an interview. February 14th of last year was when I first met Burdett and the first time I tried- unsuccessfully – to interview him.
Wish me luck.
To be continued…
« « Previous Post: Solaris Farewell Extravaganza: A Tiny Slideshow | Next Post: Thayer Sarrano and Nate Nelson: Behind the Scenes » »
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. This trio from Boston came into our kitchen with homegrown produce and organic chocolate and a willingness to help begin the restoration of our ad-hoc badminton court in the backyard. They’ve opened for the Avett Brothers and their album, “The Carpenter Bird” was listed by the Boston Globe as [...]
Back in the days, Joshua and I used to do what we called “work” at a pizza joint. Work usually consisted of running a pizza in the morning for breakfast, collecting cigarette boxes and 20 oz bottles of soda in our cars and when it was really slow Josh would bust out his Saxophone [...]
Here’s something I’ve been looking forward to for months. Thanks in large part to our neighbor Heather and the kind staff of the Weatherspoon Art Museum we gained access to the inner workings of the art installation process and were able to interview Leo in our kitchen.
This was a collaborative effort as part of our [...]
Two songs just aren’t enough. They came to our kitchen, braved the cold and the drizzle in the back yard and ate Indian food with us before returning to Brooklyn, NY. Fear not, they’ll be returning to Greensboro on March 13th as part of our Monkeywhale presents series …
Many thanks to Jocelyn, Emily and Jeremy [...]
For the past 2 years monkeywhale and our kind neighbors have thrown a Halloween party. Nothing fancy. A couple of gazebos, a keg, strings of lights across the lawn and a few lanterns. We also project films on the barn that have fallen into the public domain … like, Nosferatu for instance. Creepy and a [...]
An Apache Relay is the pre-colonial version of a courier system. Chiefs would compete against each other to see who could have a message delivered in the shortest amount of time. A Relay of 8 scouts could hand a message over a quarter of a mile in 3 minutes. Apparently. Just imagine if they [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
The Return of the Scrimshaw Kid. http://bit.ly/1PloTr via @AddToAny #holymonkeywhale
This comment was originally posted on Twitter