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John Philip Sousa cabinet card, c1880s

Captain "Sesame Seed" Rogers is the founder of Shamlicht Boys and co-founder with Sister Hooter of Shamlicht Kids Club. He is also the conductor and founder of Bonobo Boys Band.

Name[]

The conductor chose his name to have elements of various children's shows, the shows's hosts, musicians, fictional heroes, and others. "Captain" is from both Captain Kangaroo and Robert S. Cottle as Boston children's show host Captain Bob; "Sesame" is from the musically-oriented childrens' show Sesame Street; "Seed" comes from prominent seed references in musician and poet Shel Silverstein's work, Elizabeth Mitchell's "Little Seed: Songs for Children By Woody Guthrie," and the idea of seeds needing nurturing to grow; and "Rogers" is from Mister Rogers, composer Richard Rodgers, and wrestler Buddy Rogers. "Captain" and "Rogers" also both refer to fictional heroes Captain America and Buck Rogers.

Bonobo Boys Band[]

Rogers attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston University, and briefly the Boston Conservatory. He taught band and other classes at a junior high school in the Boston area. Rogers became increasingly dissastified with the academic emphasis on perfection which he saw as conformity to the exclusion of those who loved performing music but who weren't considered talented enough. He had battles with school officials and even the school board. At a meeting of the latter, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen; a junior high school band is for learning, not for entertainment." He resigned his position under threat of termination.

He became increasingly concerned about the fate of boys who felt they weren't "good enough." He became inspired by stories of Discordianism and San Franciso's Emperor Norton I told him by his friend Sister Hooter. Norton turned economic failure into non-conformity and acceptance. In 2005, Rogers decided to form an informal "anyone can play" band in Boston, Massachusetts. For various reasons, the band was boys only and was called the Boston Boys Band. Finding the name too conventional, this was changed to the Bonobo Boys Band. Partially this was because of a comment of a passerby during one of the band's informal concerts in the park. A woman said, "that's not music; they're a bunch of noisy wild monkeys." The band used the principle of "harmonic discord," that discordant sounds coming together could be harmonic "if you only listen hard enough, or perhaps not too hard."

The official beginning of Shamlicht Boys, which overlapped with the Bonobo Boys Band, was August 20, 2005. On October 3, 2005 (officially the date was October 3, 2007), Rogers and Hooter linked their two groups as Shamlicht Kids Club.

Shamlicht Kids Club[]

Main article: Shamlicht Kids Club

Captain "Sesame Seed" Rogers and Sister Hooter, who oversaw a home for trouble girls and founded Shamlicht Girls, "officially" merged their groups to become Shamlicht Kids Club (SKC) on 3 October 2007, although the two groups were conceived together and were actually joined on 3 October 2005. SKC is inspired by Discordianism and is a disorganization for kids. Its motto is "Be Prepared for Anything," and its purpose for members is "to prepare myself for a life filled with order and disorder and to live in a spirit of love and harmonious discord."

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