On July 18th, before the start of another epic night of Shift Thursday hosted by River Beats at Cervantes' Otherside, Tuesday Tea returned after a six year hiatus.
The event kicked off out front of the venue, with Spun Out Social Hour, where the Spun Out Fun House was parked and the Floss Boss was unveiled for the first time by capt’n nocap’n nick phillips. For a 120 year old ostrich he handled the attention pretty well. Especially since he'd been lost in the floss for so long. The Fairy Floss that is... or cotton candy as most folks know it. He got lost in it after trying it at the 1904 World's Fair where it was introduced commercially for the first time by William Morrison, a dentist, and John C Wharton, a candy maker. Before that it was known as spun sugar, a treat that used to be for the upper class and wealthy.
Unfortunately, we still make our fairy floss with sugar and capt'n nocap'n nick phillips explained the origins of the sugar being used to produce our fairy floss. We give it away for free because we don't sell drugs and well... that is what sugar is. More specifically added sugar...
We gave everyone a proper warning and the sugar was spun out...
When the spinning stopped and everyone had their fill of our fairy floss we moved the party to the back patio for a Tea Talk. capt'n nocap'n took to the stage to introduce Tuesday Tea and the Spun Out Public Benefit Corporation behind it all. The Public Benefit Corporation is described pretty thoroughly on the website here and the nonprofits that we chose to support this year can be found here as well.
This month's event celebrated the 162nd anniversary of the original telling of Alice in Wonderland on July 4th, 1862. Alice even joined the party for tea and helped serve some delicious tea she had made, in addition to the tea we acquired from Frandala Tea. The Group ActiviTea followed the theme and those in attendance were able to choose our own adventure in Wonderland. You can try it out, too, by following the prompts in the slideshow found here. Be sure to check out the corresponding music for each ending!
We had a guest speaker appear virtually before our eyes at our Tuesday Tea soiree. The legendary Dr. Thomas Novotny a fellow advocate, alongside capt'n nocap'n nick phillips and The Thompsons (the plushies from South Park that nick totems around with him), in the fight against filters on cigarettes. With a background in Public Health Service and a long history standing up against Big Tobacco, he came to our group sharing wisdom about the health and environmental impact of cigarettes and vaping, in addition to educating us all on the current efforts to ban the filter. You can learn more about Dr. Novotny by following this link to his bio on his organizations webpage, The Cigarette Butt Pollution Project, in addition to links to research and ways to get involved.
With so many talented people in attendance we were fortunate and grateful to have a few performers for our CommuniTea Showcase! We asked folks to keep their time around angel numbers, like 3 minutes and 33 seconds or 4 minutes and 44 seconds ,and were absolutely treated by our participants. KOSM1K kicked off the showcase with a great track, one of their originals. You can find more of their stuff on their SoundCloud here. Next up we had Mikey J, who stepped up and inspired us all by sharing his personal origin story about how he found himself called into activism and his current Master's Degree pathway. It was really cool to hear about how him and his friends in Paris, took hold of an issue and went viral with a solution/ a means of raising awareness to it. We are looking forward to seeing how he inspires us all next and you can follow along, too, by following Mikey on Instagram here.
Think Whimsy took the stage next with their motley crew of puppets and puppeteers to read a book that makes adults say funny words. From left to right, in the picture above, we have Austin with his pal, Balooga, then Madi, with her puppet Pete, and Davis with his buddy, named Booger. Those in attendance were all ears and giggles during this segment trying not to miss any of the shenanigans. Find more silliness from the Think Whimsy team here.
Rainbow Boy was our final performer who stepped in with a freshly loaded USB and dropped a couple tracks for us that may have made it on his newly released album! You will have to give it a listen on SoundCloud, here, and be sure to watch for him playing on upcoming lineups!
There was a lot of Spun Out Fun to be had with Ariella of @bekindbodypaint further beautifying our beautiful attendees with her talents behind the brush and T. J. Liegler showcasing his light photography skills. Check out his epic work here. He hung out with the Floss Boss to create this pic!
We couldn’t have done this without the support of our friends and family. We had delicious tea snacks whipped up by our friend Steph Caldwell in collaboration with Cosmic Snacks. Sound courtesy of the multitalented Andrew Phillips, who you should find on SoundCloud, here, and watch for his name, Astrodot, on lineups. Couldn’t have done it without the support (before, during, and after the event) and leadership of Alice, Cecilia Gonzalez-Gordon. Big thanks to everyone at Cervantes for believing in this and for River Beats for inviting us to join an already well curated event. We were treated that evening with a great lineup, inside and on the patio for the silent disco!
You can relive the event yourself by checking out the video below and we hope to see you at the next one!