Quick Update. More to Come.

Hey All! In case you missed it, here is a recent interview I did for the570.com Thank you to Alicia Grega for taking the time and interest.

http://the570.com/index.php/2012/10/upclose-personal-meet-bunny-bedford/


Also, if you've been couped up in your house all week and are looking for some Halloween fun, make sure to get your tickets for BOOlesque on Saturday, November 3rd!

I'll be writing more tonight about Hurricane Sandy, BOOlesque and my little boy's new video game obsession later tonight so please check back! I hope you and your loved ones are safe and secure and getting back to normal life after Sandy. Thanks, Bunny

I'm Having "One of those Days"

Today I'm sharing a rant--against my better judgement. That's right, I'm "sharing it", posting it for comment. It's too big to condense the feeling into a tweet--but I'll make sure you get the link! What's the point of experiencing an emotion if it can't blasted across social media networks and yet, that is exactly what I am indulging in. Why? Because I can. Because I don't have anywhere else to go with it. Maybe we'll share a cathartic experience or maybe it will just be another blip in my online presence. Whatever.

This morning I unzipped my son's little suitcase from his weekend trip to Grammy and Pappy's house and got punched in the face by the scent of Yankee candles and Snuggle fabric softener. His crisp white freshly laundered socks folded neatly one inside the other staring up at me saying--this is how the good moms do it. This is what devotion looks like. Seriously, if I had the finger dexterity and upper body strength to rip fucking socks like sheets of paper I would have made a room full of confetti. My mother in law's house always smells like that--clean laundry and Yankee candles. You're there an hour and you leave smelling like Herbal Essence shampoo and apple pie. I don't know how she does it. Usually I find the scent familiar and comforting but today it smells like judgement. My house never fucking smells like that--never. My house smells like dirty dishes, Resolve carpet cleaner and dog. It's not her fault she keeps a nice smelling home and I love her and she loves me. It's not her fault. She didn't do anything, except some kind of secret "good mom" origami sock folding shit I can't figure out. I'm never going to ask about the sock folding ever cause that would be some kind of admission of defeat. Plus it's not her fault, I have to keep telling myself that today. Today is a "me thing". I'm going through a "me thing".

I don't know what I am doing. I don't know what I am supposed to be doing. I am 32 and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. There are so many wonderful things I have to be thankful for but today it is not enough and even that feeling is making me want to break shit! Why can't I just be grateful for what I have? Because feeling grateful and feeling fulfilled are two different things, I suppose. I am grateful--yes, I know it is all relative and blah, blah blah. Even if my house smelled like a French perfume factory next to an Italian bakery and I could folding fucking socks into swans I would still have a deep feeling of being lost.

There's a lot to be said for being a woman who works in the home, raises her kids and makes her family her career. Seriously, yes, I get it--it's like, my full time thing. I don't know if I am good at it or not and I don't think I will ever really allow myself to own being good at it. It gets difficult ending everyday not having finished all the stuff I wanted to get done and guess what--it gets boring. Yeah, I said it, it gets fucking boring. I need a hobbie, right? An outlet? I chose burlesque.

Again, there are a lot of things I adore, respect and am grateful for when it comes to being a burlesque performer. It's something I want to continue to do in some way. Although I am beginning to wonder if it isn't all a bit of fluff. Everyone wants to be respected, paid as a professional artist and for their contributions to be taken seriously and I agree. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication for very little money in return. With the exception of a small legion of fans and insiders, I don't think the audience is there to take anything they are seeing seriously and really aren't going to do any deep level thinking about the emotional or cultural impact of burlesque after they leave the show. They are there to have a good time, see sparkly costumes and body parts. Audiences want to be entertained, see something clever and unexpected and go home. No one is going to pay top dollar for that. No one is going study your body of work for years to come and debate the meaning of your acts and research your influences unless they want to do burlesque themselves. And because our society bases value--whether it be on a personal, spiritual or artistic level--on how much they are willing to pay for something or how much something costs, it's always going to be about money. So if it's not going to make you money it should at least make you feel fulfilled, right? I'm just not feeling it right now. I want to move forward with the things I am working on but honestly, how many sparkly costumes can one make and how many clever three minute songs are there? There are so many hard working, beautiful, creative burlesque performers out there in the world. I don't know that I have anything to add to the lexicon.

 I am looking for fulfillment on a different artist level. I know that sounds so....pretentious maybe? It's not having a clean house or smelling like Yankee candles, it's not being an all-star mom, I don't need a little part time job or a "girls night" or more money or more rhinestones. I feel guilty saying that because I think it is a mind set that most women fall victim to. I love what I have. I love my son, I would be truly lost without my family but those things cannot be the whole of what I have and who I am. As women, we are conditioned to believe those things. Men have a whole other set of supposed benchmarks. Those of us who are subject to the inner grinding of needing more, I think it is fair to say, also feel a lot of guilt about it, resentment towards people we think are living it and a lot of self doubt over if we will be able to achieve it. For me this adds up to a level of frustration that has brought me to tears. Seriously, I'm just being honest. I need to find "the thing". Whatever that is for myself and whatever manifestation it takes.

I wish I could say that it's an exciting prospect, but true to my personality I feel frustrated and unsure which is just amping up the feelings. I need to get something out of me. I don't know what it is. I know what it isn't. Talking about it in a public forum is making me feel very self-conscious and silly.  It feeds into the habit of making every thought or emotion a social media event which has completely permeated  our daily lives. Maybe there is no going back from it, maybe this is the new course of human interaction . I just needed to get it off my chest so I don't try to rip up my kid's socks. I feel better now. 

Heiny-Koos: Inspirations on Ass Tassels

I was inspired to write a haiku about my ass tassels and came up with these; although, they really aren't haiku poems in the strictest sense cause they don't use imagery from nature and the seasons and lots of other important literary things and such. So literature lovers will have to pardon me bastardizing the form a little. Rather than haikus I'm going to call these....heiny-koos. Enjoy.

Three Heiny-Koos

Whirling golden threads

slicing the stale beer vapors

turbines of the ass.

Propellers cycle

straining to reach altitude

burdened by two hams.

Neon green eyes shed

fringe tears streaming down wide cheeks

cracked in the middle.

You Win Some, You Poop Some..or maybe you hold it

Ok, ok, ok.......so I haven't time to update this in months, bad Bunny. I'm going to do a quick recap of where I have been and what I've been doing in this post. Next I'm going to write a haiku about my ass tassels; then I'll move on to what I am looking forward to next. Just so we get square with eachother, mmmkay? Here come bullet points!

• Silk Tease! Fortunately, I've been busy performing at a monthly burlesque show at the Allentown Brew Works Silk Lounge created and produced by Jacqueline Hyde called....Silk Tease. The audiences are wonderful, the stage time is great training time, the other performers---including ladies from Dragontown Burlesque and other regional artists---have been gracious and fun to work with. I like bar shows.

• I have an internet radio show!!! Well, maybe not a show, but a segment on WKAD Radio's Cerebral Circus with Kenny Jay. The Cerebral Circus is a comedy/current events/music show that airs twice a week on the station and I come on sometimes and do a segment called The Bedford Files which is me talking about my burlesque adventures and other nonsense like almost getting sprayed by a skunk and skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee in a sorrowful attempt at humor. Basically it's me sitting on the phone in the basement laughing with my friends, but it is kind of awesome.

• I won First Runner Up at the very first PA Burlesque Festival in Philly! Truly badass. I learned so much from meeting and watching the other performers, got to experience Philly on like, the hottest weekend EVER and came away with some prize money. Oh, and I got to watch Bam Margera act like a dick in a restaurant. Good times!

• My four year old son is regressing on the potty! Fueled by OCD and scarred by a short bout of constipation, my four year old, who has always been successful on the toilet, has now decided he would like to hold his poop indefinitely rather than suffer through the humiliation of taking a dump. Try as I may to explain to my little poindexter the finer points of the digestive and waste elimination system, the fact that all living things produce waste AND that he cannot shit himself at soccer practice--he just can't seem to get around the blockage (mental blockage that is). Don't offer me a single suggestion because I can guarantee I have tried it with little to moderate success. I do sympathize with him and we are starting to get back on track a little but this has turned my house and our daily activities upside down. I think, though, that I can honestly add crisis management and hostage negotiation to the "other skills" section on my resume. 

• I performed at the New York Burlesque Festival Star Search Competition at Asbury Lanes! Holy crap--talk about awesome! Twelve performers, including myself, each competed to win two available performance slots at this years New York Burlesque Festival. The level of talent was amazing, it was a stand alone good show other than the excitement of competition. I got to meet and share the stage with burlesque royalty Angie Pontani, World Famous Bob and Tigger! In addition, it was my mom's first opportunity to see me perform burlesque as she lives right in the area in New Jersey. No I did not win. But I got to have a chili cheese hot dog and a vanilla ice cream soda from the Circus Drive In and any day that happens is a good day. I may have had some onion rings too.....

See guys? Busy! Good busy. Except for the pooping thing. If you would like to find out more or see more of all the above goodness, except for the OCD toilet regression cause that would be gross and weird, there are links to all the stuff and people on my website!

Thanks for reading. I'm going to try to be more attentive to sharing stuff here for those who are interested or at least find me by accident when they type full frontal and mom in the keyword search on Google. 

Hand Sanitizer Mom

I owe a big apology for not writing here more regularly. To myself and to those who may happen upon this blog and are trying to figure out what the hell it's all about! So many ponderous, exciting and stressful stuff is swirling around and unfortunately the opportunity to sit and write is less frequent than I often hope. I guess it is a testament to being busy. Having said that, I thought I'd share something today.

My son turned four on Friday. The weekend clicked and clacked along--his first big boy bike with training wheels, family party, dinosaur cake, balloons, amazing sugar high and the inevitable crash into a cheeto-fingered, sweaty heap of sobbing. By Sunday night the whole house was overtaken by a cake and candles hangover, not ready at all to face Monday.

So this afternoon we took some time to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the playground. Simple. As usual the park was bustling with kids and the chatter of well-put-together stay at home moms in short sleeves and khaki capri pants and fresh pedicures. Jockeying their three-wheeled strollers around the playground equipment adorned with hand sanitizer and juice box hood ornaments, offering well-balanced snacks from hermetically sealed plastic containers to their jovial scamperers while making easygoing conversation with eachother. I never bring hand sanitizer anywhere. I just don't think of it, in fact, I'm not sure I even own a little squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer. I just figure that unless he's playing in dog shit or licking the port-a-potty he shouldn't contract an infectious diseases before we can get home and wash his hands. My mother never had a two liter bottle of hand sanitizer with her, I don't think they even made it in the 80's.

Today, however, is the day I so wished I was hand sanitizer mom. Instead of bolting for the swings my boy shuffled his feet around the park benches deeply focused on the little bits of this and that he could kick up out of the dirt. I thought he had reached down to pick up a stray penny or something only to find a flattened cigarette butt poking out between his fingers! That's very dirty! Don't touch that! I got the dead pan face. He turned and began bobbing up and down filling his fists with cigarette butts, straw wrappers, bottle caps--I said don't touch that! Put that stuff in the garbage can and go play! This time I got the squint-eyed scowl. I can't play until the Earth is clean. We have to take care of the Earth.


Now had I anticipated this moment of environmental concern I would have come prepared with gloves and such, but no, no I am ready to chase my four year old around the monkey bars. I'm proud, though, and want to be encouraging for the next five minutes or so and then I really want him to stop touching trash. But no. For the next twenty-five minutes my four year old insists on cleaning up litter from around and underneath the park benches. I mean everything--cigarette butts, used tissues, soda cans, broken pencils, you name it. I'm trying to coax him into finishing up in a soft voice firstly because it's totally grossing me out and secondly because I don't want the other moms to see me letting my son touch cigarette buts or worse--think I am making him clean up cigarette butts as some kind of weird pre-play chore. He'll hear nothing of it. We have to take care of the Earth. 


Ok. Let him clean up the Earth (next time be hand sanitizer mom for once goddamnit! Hand sanitizer mom is ready for this kind of situation). Pretty soon he has me assisting in the clean up process. We're almost finished cleaning about a 10 foot length and we happen upon a large wad of chewed chum. He immediately goes for it. NO! You cannot pick that up. No. That has germs, it's sticky, your fingers will get all yucky, absolutely not. He stares me straight in the face and says, Get a stick. A low under-the-breath argument ensues, negotiations end in me putting gum on a stick if he promises that this will be the last piece of trash we are going to pick up and that then he will go play like a normal child.

By now the noontime sun is pretty strong and I am getting hot from trash collection and embarrassment. I decide to take off my sweatshirt only to remember that I am wearing a tank top underneath with no bra. Come to think of it, I forgot to get changed after my morning chores. Come to think of it, these may be the same clothes I had on yesterday...........that I slept in...........and then threw a sweatshirt over to take my darling son to the park. My four year old son who now has me reduced to scraping oozing chewed gum off the pavement in a sweatshirt and no bra in the name of cleaning up the Earth.

Hand sanitizer mom would NEVER  let this happen to her.

My mother is stalking me on the world wide web

Mom, I can see your keyword search to find me lol! I love you.

Hey, while you are here, check out this recent article in the Express Times!

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/entertainment-general/index.ssf/2012/02/burlesque_is_back.html

The High Priestess of Self Talk

The Most High Voodoo Priestess of Self Talk is the one you need to watch for.

Not me or her across the room.

In your silent dragging across the kitchen floor, tea kettle whistling

She stands in silence beside you.

Her soft swirling whispers tugging at your ear,

while child tugging at your sleeve,

you are yet unaware of her consuming power.

A conjurer of heartache, pain and fear

she holds a mirror up to the face of others

--even to the face of God.

So wherever you look to condemn

you are seeing your own face.

The Most High Voodoo Priestess of Self Talk dances across a fire

the flames fanned by the same hands you fold in prayer

and wash away the dirt from your feet.

The singed edges of her skirt

will soon become your shroud

and maybe mine as well.

For she hides a pinch of salt and glowing ember between the ruffles of each heart.

A little 2011, but really 2012

Hi. It's 2012. I could have done a big long year in review thing and gone paragraph by poorly constructed paragraph through each triumph, tribulation and hang nail of 2011 but I will spare you. Here is what I have for you instead:

2012 Goals
1. Continue to listen, learn and grow through the world of burlesque--wherever it chooses to take me.
2. Be a good mom and blah, blah, blah and stop cursing at the dog in front of my kid and be a good example and make the kid brush his teeth. Teach him to read, maybe...
3. Serious writing project using proper punctuation and grammar, maybe...
4. Make some fine art projects. Large in size.

Ok that's out of the way. Now on to something vastly more interesting and important. When I started this "project" at the end of last fall I was pretty much out there on my own. Aside from my theater training the best burlesque-specific education I could give myself was gleaned through hours sitting in front of YouTube, hours of reading and hours of practice in my bedroom, alone. And it was a lonely endeavor. I didn't have a support system, a mentor, a girlfriend to laugh along with me and give me a pep talk when I was feeling insecure. Me and my video camera. Hours of recording, reviewing, rethinking---all for a shot at three minutes on the stage.

While I felt accomplished last  year, I know I would have made even greater strides ifI had access to 1. real education and 2. real support.  Peer support and peer review are two of the most valuable tools in learning any new skill. This is why I am so incredibly proud and honored to have Jacqueline Hyde bring her International School of Burlesque and Cabaret Arts to Jim Thorpe Arts in Motion.

Burlesque is a vehicle for women's empowerment for sure-- on many levels. It allows for playful exploration of sexuality, gender roles, definitions of beauty, power struggles, contradictions in popular culture and so on and so on. Burlesque is female driven and artist driven. It's one of the few art forms I know of where the performer can take on the role of director, producer, marketing agent, writer, costumer, instructor, choreographer and jump between these roles with relative ease--although with no lack of stress! 

As I write this, the Master's Program students are preparing for their first pin up photo shoot with a professional photographer tomorrow morning. They have worked over the last twelve weeks to develop personas, learn costume construction, stage makeup, movement technqiue, professionalism, the history of burlesque and cabaret, etc., etc., everything I had to teach myself huddled in front of my computer late at night. Not only do they have a world class mentor and instructor in Jacqueline Hyde, but they have one of the greatest contributing factors to success--eachother!

 Ms. Hyde could  take her program to any location with success, and with the launch of online classes, she will. I think by being in the right place at the right time this past year, I have contributed in a small way, to the continuing story of what burlesque was, is and will be. Bigger than my own "project", or this blog, or whatever aspirations I have for myself--providing a space for education, empowerment and friendships is my biggest accomplishment of 2011.

In celebration of their achievements, Jacqueline Hyde is presenting The Burlesque Graduate on Saturday, February 18th, 2012 at Memorial Hall in Jim Thorpe. This is a night of tassels and tease featuring performances by each of the graduates as well as special appearances by Dragontown Burlesque! Please join me in congratulating each of these women by attending.

I wish everyone health, happiness and prosperity in 2012 and am so excited to see where the "Full Frontal Mom" will go this year. Thanks for reading!