Rush Hour Puppet Show

Supercloggers during rush hour on the US 210 Freeway in Pasadena, California
(Photo: Anthony Lepore)

Rush hour is no fun, except if you happen to be right behind the mobile puppet theater of Los Angeles artists Joel Kyack and Michael Hayden:

Starting roughly at 5 p.m. on designated days, lucky commuters will see the back of the pickup’s shell top swing open to reveal an energetic hand puppet dressed like a heavy metal musician. If they tune their radios to the frequency written on a cardboard sign on the tailgate, they’ll hear crashing guitar chords and a gravelly announcer’s voice say, "Welcome to ‘Superclogger’!"

What follows are four vignettes, each between 4 and 7 minutes long, in which characters discuss the vicissitudes of fame, friendship, snobbery, artistic integrity and love. An aging country singer laments the price of success; a naive young boy confronts upper class pretensions in a surreal conversation with a talking shrub; two construction workers shed their tough guy image with a karaoke version of Joni Mitchell’s "Both Sides Now"; and an isolated writer sets aside his novel for a lucrative screenplay and love.

Link: Story at LA Times | Official Superclogger website at LAX ART