The Hippie-Chicky Shake: Thanksgiving Edition!

In this special Thanksgiving Edition of The Hippie Chicky-Shake, I want to express my gratitude to you:)

Thank you so much for being a friend and for supporting independent arts.
Because of your encouragement and inspiration,
I have the strength to continue making positive and peaceful music, spreading smiles wherever my feet land.
My prayer for us all is that we all may practice our creative passions, that our hearts may open as we play and laugh like there is no tomorrow.

Here are 5 great ways
we can all spread the love this Thanksgiving:
Donate, support, make peace, spread love, save turkeys.

1. Donate your old gadgets, toys, books and clothing...somebody will love it like its new. New York Donation/recycling ideas. A great place to donate old sheets, pillows and blankets is your local animal shelter. Last week some friends and I took a trip to Bidawee and got to see how our old sheets would be used to help the rescued cats and dogs feel more comfortable. It was a heartwarming experience.

3. Support Independent Media Outlets:
With all of Hollywood and Broadway on strike, it’s a choice between re-runs or venturing a little ways out of the main stream. This seems like the perfect time to turn off the television and set off on a brave cyberspace exploration for some cool new sites.

For your news fix and to maybe even make your own news, check out: indymedia and the real news.
To find your dream job or vounteer opportunity check out: Idealist.org.
Discover new Independent artists: youtube, myspace and Pandora.

Some Personal site reccomendations:

Beautiful photography: the life magical: minwin
the new hip hop consciousness: Regime change
violin that rocks your socks off: Kelly Halloran
sing for fun: singsnap
make a friend: facebook
Your favorite Hippie-Chicky: Liah Alonso

3. Support The Peace Movement: Get involved in creating a brighter future!
Three organitaions working hard to bring about positive changes in our government and in the world:
CodePink, Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice

4. The Gratitude List:
At Thanksgiving Dinner it is fun to go around the table and share some of the things in our lives that we are grateful for. By telling our loved ones how much we appreciate them we help them feel loved and special. This is great to do not just on Thanksgiving but whenever we can remember how lucky we are to have people that love us enough to put up with our occasional bullshit.

Here is my working gratitude list:
I am grateful for: my loving and supportive family, my good health and working senses, honest friends to say it like it is, YOU, an amazing band and team of music professionals to create and play with, the ability to communicate through music, art and words, jelly the cat, my soft bed with the hanging Chanukah lights over it, money for what I need, work to make the money, the amazing travel experiences in India I had this Summer, a cool gym membership to stay strong, Mark for naming my new cookie recipe and for giving me the newletter name "Hippie-Chicky Shake rather than Hippie-Chicky Harold, this computer that erased my first draft of this newsletter, thereby forcing me to re-write it all over again and think of some more cool ideas:)

5. Save the Turkeys, eat tofurky or better yet, make a friend and adopt a turkey at the Vermont Farm sanctuary!

You have heard of "Save the Children" but what about "Save The Turkeys"? Last year I adopted a sweet little turkey named Pumpkin outside of my local health-food store. I put her picture on my fridge and every time I look at it I smile to know that Pumpkin is running and clucking around free in a Vermont Farm. Anytime I want too, I can go visit her and the other friendly animal rescues and say hello. For this years Turkey adoption list please click here. Thank you for being compassionate to our animal friends:)

Now if this is the point in the newsletter where you find yourself searching for the unsubscribe button as you ask yourself "how did I ever subrcribe to this no good, free lovin', veggie eatin', tree huggin hippie-chicky lunatic's newsletter anyway"? You can do yourself a big favor and go stick your head in the microwave because that is essentially what you are doing to your mind and body as you consume dead, rotting, chemically cultivated flesh:) For more facts about the harmful physical, psychological, environmental, and sexual side-effects of meat, please click here.

If these are not good enough reasons for you to stop eating meat and you happen to determine your life's decisions from what you learn on Oprah..then please take a look at this list of famous vegetarians. You may be suprised at what you learn.

BONUS: Liah's Vegan Cookie Recipe: Chiquitas
Being a vegetarian doesn’t mean that Thanksgiving has to be lame and un-delicious!

I made these cookies for the band to munch on at our second big recording session last Sunday. They loved them and couldn't believe that they were Vegan. Oh yeah! My secret plan to conquer the world with vegetables is turning out just the way I planned! HA HA HA, Snicker HA HA!!!

Ingredients:

DRY Stuff:
1 c. bran
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c ground flax
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 c. raisins
1.tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutm eg
1/2 c. organic cane sugar
optional: vegan chocolate chips or carob chips

WET Stuff:
3 bananas
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg replacer eggy
1/2 cup canola oil or earths balance soy spread

INSTRUCTIONS:
Pre-heat oven to 350. Mix the dry stuff together. Blend the wet stuff together. Combine the two in a bowl and stir. Place on slightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool and enjoy with friends.

This concludes the Hippie-Chicky Shake Thanksgiving Edition:)
I hope this information was useful and interesting to you.
Thank you for reading and have a very Happy day:)

Peace, Love and inspiration,
Liah

Hippie-Chickie Herald: First Edition

Two Shows Next week:

Wednesday 7.7.2007: at 7pm

169 Bar in Chinatown

Cover: $8 dollars

Cross Streets: Rutgers St and East Broadway (Essex & Canal st)

Directions: Take the F train to East Broadway exit.

Tel: 212-473-8866

Liah Alonso: Vox, Guitar and kazoo

Kelly Halloran: Vox, Violin and kazoo

Saturday 7.10.07:at 10pm

Gizzi's Coffee Bar

free all ages show at a cozy coffee shop

16 W 8th Street, New York, NY
NY, New York 10011

Wonderful West Coast Wandering:

October was a really exciting month for me! I had the opportunity to perform in venues throughout California and Oregon with so much love from the people there. I performed at my first comedy club venue; A sweet little night spot in San Francisco called "Brainwash". I was really nervous to do a musical act in front of a comedy audience but figured I had nothing to lose except maybe perhaps an eye if I got pegged by a tomato...I sang "We Used to be friends aka. pack your fuckin' bags" and "Tequilanated" and to my delight, the crowd went wild and sang along. Alter the show the host of the evening, Tony Sparks, asked me to perform in his weekly variety show happening just a few days later.

The evening continued with a bus ride up Mission street with my new friend and San Francisco guide "Chi: a rapper/skater/all around zen kinda guy". He inspired a new song which we sang on the bus ride to Haight Street. We walked up to an eclectic outdoor music/slam scene consisting of over 100 punks, hippies, business dudes and college kids. This weekly event is called "The Anarchist's Open Mic" and as its name implies, has no real order or operator; just people gathered together in the most surveillance spot in San Francisco * see civil liberties controversy on this. .

I stepped in the center of the performance circle with a percussionist I saw standing in the crowd and we performed "Crash and Burn". The people really dug it and invited me back up later in the evening to close out the event. I was honored to be part of such a cool collective of people making music for the love of it. I shared the story of my 2004 arrest (writing "freedom of speech" in chalk on concrete during a peace march) and ongoing civil liberties trial and then we all sang "The Peace Song" together.

After that it was on to Eugene, Oregon to see my sister and meet my niece for the first time. That was really amazing! She is only 2 years old and she loves to sing and talk on the phone. We also played some guitar together and she rocked it. I bonded and sang alot with my sister too: you.tube.short and we are collaborating over the Internet now which is really neat.

I experienced my first Bluegrass jam over at Sam Bond's. It was really awesome to play with such great players. I also got to meet and play with Jeremy Wegner, sitar/mandolinist for Oregon jam band: The SugarBeets. There was an amazing banjo player, upright bassist, 3 guitarists and a harmonica player. We played late into the night and we made plans to make some music when I come through on my West Coast tour.

The biggest news of all is that on my last night in Oregon I entered PSA's (Portland Songwriting Association) semi final songwriting competition and won! Now I get to return to Oregon in February 2008 for the final performance and award for Portland's best singer-songwriter. Below, for further interest is a list of the places and links for the places I performed last week. Brainwash, Diablo's, Sam Bond's Garage , Mississippi Pizza Pub, PSA.

STUDIO ALBUM IN THE WORKS!

Next Sunday is the first recording session for my upcoming album entitled "Get Your Heart On", "Liberty's Latte" or "Shine". Cast in your album title vote today by responding to this e-mail and letting your voice be heard.

Thanks for reading The Hippie Chicky Harold!

Stay tuned for more news and advance album and video previews.

I look forward to seeing you soon and send peace and inspiration your way:)

namasde,

Liah

Trying the YouTube thing and loving it! Share your comments on these new shorts: youtube.


Liah and Alba up on Spencer's Butte. Here is a little song we made together:)