Byline: Chelle La Fleur — What Happened to Hanukkah???

Now, for three years previous to this one, Chelle here been faithfully tellin’ y’all about what’s going on in Riverview. You know: A city that’s not even ours. But Chelle’s done this, year after year, because those favorite boys of hers in ShapeShifter have been throwin’ themselves a benefit concert. They’ve worked their special ShapeShifter magic and gotten everyone involved to throw in their stuff for free. From the concert hall to the crew to the people who print the tickets, somehow, those cuties have been able to give every single penny to them Music in our Schools charities.

Chelle had even started pricing airfare to get her fat rear up to Riverview. Not that Chelle LaFleur’s ever been on an airplane and probably needs three of them narrow seats just for her fat self.

It won’t be happenin’ this year.

With Hanukkah set to start tonight, Chelle hunted down her favorite ShapeShifter, that deep-voiced Mitchell Voss. You know as well as anyone else that Mitchell’ll give up the goods for Chelle.

“Well, here’s the thing,” he said and sighed. “It got too big, too fast. Last year, with the change to the bigger theater, instead of everyone going, oh, now they can raise more money and let more fans in, it turned into I’m a rock star, too. Why can’t I come? All these stupid accusations went flying around and the next thing I knew, we were the bad guys for trying to make sure that kids can have a school band. We’re talking about those kids who’d think they were cool ’cause they’d play saxophone and it wouldn’t matter they had these faces all full of zits. Nope, they’d be cool ’cause of that sax. Or the trumpet.”

“The oboe is not cool,” bass player Trevor Wolff said into Chelle’s ear. “There has never been a cool oboe player. Not in the history of oboe players. I don’t even know why people play the oboe.”

We won’t repeat what Chelle’s cutie Mitchell said to Trevor. It ain’t fit for print and besides, I wouldn’t do that to you faithful readers of mine. You got delicate ears. Maybe not your mouths so much. I hear you at shows. I do.

Besides, you might not think so high of Mitchell if you’d heard what he’d said to Trevor. And now that he’s cancelled the Musical Hanukkah Celebration this year, that public image is takin’ a hit.

He left me with this, though: “We’re gonna take the year off, regroup, let some of the momentum die out, and then we’ll be back in 2010. The Monday of Hanukkah, we’ll be rocking out with our fans again.”

I’m-a gonna hold him to that. You should, too.

You heard it first and you heard it here: No Musical Hanukkah this year, but it’ll be back next. Go and donate on your own anyway, just in case there is a sexy oboe player out there. Chelle bets Trevor will love her.