And We Shall March

Countdown To Renaissance Faire Irwindale 2007: Glue Gun Girl Ascendant

Welcome to an entire week of posts about gearing up for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire 2007 season, which runs weekends April 7 through May 20 at the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area over in Irwindale! 45 years. Woo!

O you who HATE it when I talk about faire - and you know who you are - here's your warning to go away and come back next week. I will once again be rolling with my peeps of St. Electus (marvel at the glory of our kinda out of date website) and also with my other peeps of St. Ives (a.k.a. the people who not only manage to keep their website up to date, but who possess actual life skills that will enable them to survive the apocalypse).

If you are just joining us and have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the "Sundays With St. Electus" category over there on the siderail. Or, for a much shorter version with a few select pictures mostly swiped from the uber-fabulous Richard The Ninja Photographer, click on the "St. Electus: Holier Than Thou" photo album, also on the siderail. (The photo in this post was swiped from St. Ives.)

So, as with many others, Ms. Classy and her man are leaving California because they want a house and would rather not have to work nine jobs each and sell body parts in order to afford one. There's the usual mix of sadness/rejoicing  at this decision. There was discussion of a goodbye party, and it wasn't until I asked at what culinary venue it would be held (hoping they'd pick that awesome Indian place on La Brea) that I was informed it would be held at my headquarters.

To which I said HELL NO.  Show opens in three! Because my new costumes were approved last month, BGF HQ has been turned into a props workshop, with just about every available space turned over to one project or another. One thing I immediately realized I liked about doing faire is the excuse it gives you to make Stuff. The textile area is in the front room, the cutting/glue area is in the middle room, the wet & messy things are spread out between the kitchen and the bathroom, and the drying racks are in the bathroom and the bedroom. And, you know, I haven't even started the blood eggs, okay? So NO DINNER PARTY IN THE HOUSE.

Then Ms. Classy went into Bossy Mode. Few things are more alarming than watching two bossy black women trying to Out Boss each other; our bossy contests tend ot end in a stalemate. She sent the list of her favorite dishes (as if I didn't remember them). I sent her a pdf scan of my Franklin Covey for this month. She unleashed a flurry of Emotional Manipulation notes and calls. I made violin sounds and hung up on her. I held my ground until Mr. Classy called up to explain that no, REALLY, I needed to make this happen. In the end there was a compromise. I would cook a goodbye feast for just the two of them, she had to break the news to the rest that they could not come and needed to have a drinksfest/dinner somewhere that was not my house. While there was some whining from the peanut gallery at that, it all worked out. Yay!

We pick up our tale when they walked into Glue Gun Girl Central. Here's a slightly reconstructed exchange of that evening:

Ms. Classy: It's like a camp counselor went batshit in here.
Moi: Told ya.
Ms. Classy: Are those (redacted)? Beause they look like (redacted). Almost. If they were giant mutant (redacted)
Moi: Yes! I'm not going to finish off the tops until I get on site. I'm going to borrow some (redacted) from the horsies.
Mr. Classy: I don't get it.
Moi: It's for the (redacted). I think. I'm not really gonna know until show. I just want to be prepared. I might not use them.
Mr. Classy: ...
Ms. Classy: Boy, don't touch that. She like to kill you.
Moi: No worries. That's just bling for the hootch.
Mr. Classy: A little tacky, don't you think?
Moi: Yes. And? HAHAHAHAHA!
Mr. Classy: ...
Ms. Classy: What's this?
Moi: It's going to be a (redacted). One of the genius children at Ives told me how to do a much simpler version than what I had in mind.
Mr. Classy: What's an Ives?
Ms. Classy: Honey, the grown folks are talking.
Mr. Classy: ...
Moi: Here, have a pamphlet about Jesu. Check it for typos for me, sweetie?
Mr. Classy: ...

Then they both wanted to know how one of the redacted things worked. So I hooked her up to it, explained how it worked, and within a few minutes she went to town! Making this thing is that easy. All you need is time. I won't have the time to make it as big as I wanted, but thanks to a fabulous donation of supplies from Beast, it will be big enough.

Ms. Classy: You're going to do what with this?
Moi: Come back on Easter Sunday and find out! Oh, wait. You're leaving for where there is SNOW. You won't be here to see. You'll be buried in SNOW.
Ms. Classy: Call and give me the highlights when it's over.
Moi: I'll go into Great And Massive Detail!
Ms. Classy: Lord, have mercy.

Over dessert they critiqued the various pamphlets I've been collecting/researching since last season to help me make the final selections, both content and paper choice. There's one in particular I've been very much on the fence about, but they're right. The vast majority of our audience won't know that this one came out 200 or so years after our show is set, and a bunch of them won't know that Glasgow isn't in England. All they'll know is it *looks* right, fits their expectations of what a Bible thing from way back when would be. Ms. and Mr. Classy agree with everybody else that it's a bad idea to make six . Just have the one. So just the one I will have!

Finally, as we all worked our way through the second bottle of Reisling, they got to mock as I fail to get all the way through Edwards' When the Wicked Shall Have Filled Up the Measure of Their Sin, Wrath Will Come Upon Them To The Uttermost, which is one of his sermons. (A good chunk of time since last season has involved reading about the Puritan founders and their works. That's turned out to be very interesting and fun.) I really wanted to memorize one Edwards and one Turrentin sermon, but there are simply no short ones! All of these preachers went on and on and on.  They would have fit right in at the churches of my childhood. Eventually I decided to focus on just the Edwards one, in part because it's in chunks that could be delivered quickly and on the fly. However, I have done a sucky job of memorizing just the bits I selected due to levels of busy. (When I would practice on the phone with James, he'd say "you don't sound wrathful enough," and I'd tell him that's because he can't see me waving my arms around in hysteria, which is part of the whole. He'd usually reply that neither  Bill, Malcom, Jessee or MLK needed to fling themselves around to convey the power of their words, and if I was relying on physicality it meant I sucked. Needless to say, I'm still working on it.)

Aside...I was really surprised that I couldn't find a free version of "A Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" out there on the internet(s). It's as if this thing has never fallen out of print and into the public domain for billions of years. The academics have it locked up in their journals which require academic creds to access. Bastards.

Ms. Classy and I ended the evening by crying all over each other. I gave her the mudcloth placemats I made for their new home, she informed me that the box set of Deadwood season three has been pre-ordered and will show up on my doorstep on release day, we cried some more, and eventually Mr. Classy managed to pry us apart and drag her off into the car. They hit the road two days later. I am going to miss my friend.

Tomorrow - workshops!

Why No, We're NOT Done Talking About Renaissance Faire

Wherever did you get such a silly idea? We'll be getting back to that on Sundays very soon.

This would be one of Richard's pics, of course.

For My Peeps In The Elect

So, what I like to do when I'm spending the day laying on the couch throwing up and dripping with fever is wander around the internet(s) making things using the Thing Making Things people put out there. Here are two I've made in the past:

Today, between bouts of vomiting, I found the Official Seal Generator and made these:

The zombie hunter color scheme is cool, but it's got too much red. I think the black & white color scheme obviously fits best for us, but I can't adjust the color template thing properly. Going from the outside in:

• I want the braid border black
• I want the braid fill grey
• I want the background where the type is black
• I want the letters white
• I want the background behind the tablets white
• I want the tablet fill grey
• I want the tablet outline and Hebrew script black.

But I can't figure out how. The "choose colors" buttons are not working when I click on them.

Anyways, what do you think? Should we come up with a bunch of different slogans, order stickers, then find a way to sneak one onto the Queen? I volunteer Brother Shekel for that task as he's small and very fast. He might be able to get away before the Yeomen pulp him into the dirt....

Renaissance Faire Irwindale: Burn Baby, Burn

It's Sunday, so we're still talking about faire, much to the irritation of at least nine people I know of. Again, if you think faire is that stupid I strongly suggest you find something else to read for the next handful of Sundays. My blog, my space to talk about whatever the hell I feel like blabbing about. Sometime this week I'm gonna be talking about my cat! You have been warned.

For those who have recently joined us, glance over at the "Categories" section of the siderail, click on "Sundays with St. Electus," and  scan to catch up, if you are so inclined. What's cool about today's entry is it lets me combine two passions! That's why it has the Glue Gun Girl tag.

I don't have sourcing on all of these pictures because it's been too many weeks and I did a crap job of keeping track. Most of them came from Richard, but I don't all of them did. If you see your picture here and you want a link or a removal, drop a note.

Today's ramble involves what I consider our second most successful group gig. What you have to understand about The Elect and group gigs is we are The Guild Of Cats With ADHD. It is enormously difficult to get all of us together at the same time and place to do something together. Part of that is because we are a small guild attempting to cover a huge site. We have a lot of stuff to do each day, and not enough people to do it all. But a bigger chunk of that is probably due to we being the sort of people who distract easily, get caught up in the performance and forget to be somewhere.

Anywhoo, the idea was simple. Hey...what if we tried to burn down the troll glade?

The troll is, to put it blunt, phenomenal. I know I've talked about him in passing at least on the old site. He doesn't say a word the entire time he's on his set, which is a glade of trees with a center and outer circle and stumps to sit upon. The entire space is an art installation which he created and changes throughout the run. He's an artist in real life. Sometimes it's just him, but I remember a couple of years where he had a couple of others dressed out as trolls. This year it was just him. Small children LOVE  him and he is so deft with them I had always assumed he was a teacher of some kind away from show. Nope! He's an artist, the sort of artist who figured out a way to make a living traveling the country, dressing up as a troll, enjoying himself and selling art. THAT is an art in itself. Think of how many whiny I Went To Art School And Nobody Appreciates My Pain navel-gazing minicomics we could have been spared from enduring if this man gave workshops to the alt comics crowd! ANYwho .. His is a very serene and fascinating area. When I used to come to show as a customer, my friends and I would always sit and watch him for a while each visit. You could easily sit there for an hour and be entertained every minute. He has always been one of my favorite street performers, but if the man has a website, damned if I can find it. Thus, no linky.

Thing about this idea of burning down the glade is his is a unique and peaceful area at show, and we cause disruption. This would be a much, much bigger disruption than the small gigs we'd been doing to him all show, such as walking up and loudly discussing wether or not he's an escaped spawn of hell or just just baker Bob's crazy son who likes lives by the river and likes to cover himself with mud. Every once in a while we'd show up and ask audience members to vote on wether or not we should leave him be, or set him on fire right now and let God sort it out. That sort of thing.

Unlike the smaller gigs, there was no way we could storm up and burn down his glade without his consent. We sent the cute one, Sister Abstinence, to make the initial request, he said yes, gave us the day and general timeframe that would work for him, and we got to work. As I think I've said before, we don't do scripted gigs, only improv. So the general frame for this was Show Up And Try To Set The Troll On Fire.

And that's where Glue Gun Girl comes in! If we're going to burn down the troll glade, we'd need torches. What with the county having laws against running around with open flame  at the park, they had to be fake, but I wanted them to look good. (Here is where I'm stealing from myself...quicker to cut/paste from the Angry Mob post earlier in the run.) I made six torches! Raw materials were gathered from stuff here in the house and at the .99 store. Plastic shaft, loofah sponge, cork, styrofoam cups, burlap, thick twine rope and straight pins. I tried to make a version with a mechanical thingy inside that would use a hidden fish tank pump to agitate and recycle, but I lacked the time to figure out why the prototype wasn't working correctly and eventually abandoned that idea and went with the simple approach. I'll keep working on that idea for next time around, though. I'm *sure* what I have in mind can be done. (End cut/paste.)

But how to make the torches look *real*? We got 60 pounds of dry ice from a place in Glendale to create the smoke effect! It was reduced to about 45 pounds by the time we got it to the site, but it was still enough. The ice was broken into chunks distributed into each styrofoam cup, and I followed behind the mob with a pot of hot water so I could keep an eye on how each was burning and set them off  with more water when needed. I also had a basket with extra dry ice hidden inside to refresh each torch as we raged through the shire.

And by now the rest of you have figured out what only two have so far: what bothered me about that picture I talked about earlier (the one abov) is that you can see loofah sponge and unraveled rope! It showed how the torches fell apart as the day went on. They worked for the prime gig, but weren't strong enough to hold up for the backup gigs. And somebody got a picture of the destruct. ARRGGGHH!

That's the reason I consider this our second most successful group gig of the show. Our props eventually self-destructed because the way I constructed them, they weren't strong enough to last for more than a few hours. Even though I now fully understand that everybody who saw this LOVED it, the props falling apart irritates me every time I think about this gig. Adding to the pressure (for me) was one of the entertainment directors came to our launch when we rolled it out because she wanted to see what would happen. All I kept thinking was if this doesn't work, I will look like an idiot! At that time I did not know if the dry ice would boil as needed in such a small space as a styrofoam cup. There was no time to test it ahead of time, and I was a bundle of jangly stress worried that we'd get out on set and NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

Anyways, we launched from the gate at the guild ghetto, running between the Queen's Court and the Friends of Faire garden, past a stage and up part of the clothing row, screaming typical Angry Mob things about destroying the troll. (Oh! We also had other props, a pitchfork borrowed from the Mongers, and Sister O'Really had a huge wooden spoon borrowed from Clan McColin.) Zipped into a cut through, reloaded all the torches, back out and down the road to the troll glade. In this picture, taken later in the day, you can *just* see the smoke coming out of El Homo's torch. But when we launched the torches were BOILING!! Pillars of smoke came out of each, at least for the first half of the run. It looked great! People stopped in their tracks and gaped. Thank you Baby Jesu! Unfortunately, I've not been able to find any pictures of the first leg of the gig.

We had help along the way, too. The Queen's Court heated up the water for us to start. The coffee vendor  threw hot water in the pot when we got just outside the glade, and one of the food court vendors did the same when we got down there. As I mentioned in the Easter Bunny post, there's a lot of Got Your Back at faire. People see, they throw in to help on the fly. You usually don't have to ask and often you *can't* ask in advance. The whole run of show, I never ceased to be amazed by that aspect of faire. Not the kind of thing I'm used to seeing in everyday life.

As I said, I was in the back. I'm told I'm told what happened was that the first of us to get to the glade and shove  screaming through the crowd  encountered the troll doing his usual thing, interacting with children.  But at that moment he was with an angelic little girl who couldn't have been more than four. She draped her arms around him and screamed you can't hurt him! He's my friend! with such vicious desperation that our bretheren actually stopped for a second! The rest of us arrived in time to completely ignore the traumatized wailing child and  Call Down The Hate on the crowd. He had a HUGE HUGE crowd, he usually has a big crowd, maybe about about five deep all around the circle. They turned on us like you wouldn't believe! It was awesome.

We berated, we begged we chastized, and then we ran off yelling burn the fairies!

The plan was to burn out the troll first. If we had ice left, we'd go burn down the fairy tree and cairn in the food court where the Fantasticals were based, then go over to Ives and try to burn down the whorehouse. By the time we showed up, the fairies aren't there! We found out later the poor dears skipped their breaks waiting for us to show up so that we could battle. About 10 mins after they realized they would fall out of the tree if they didn't get some food, we show up. Same with the whorehouse. We showed up, none of the whores were there becuase they were doing their street gig. It was hilarious. It was also a very typical faire thing. So we wandered around looking for someone to burn. Pictured, we happened to come across Commedia, so it was Burn The Italians! That turned into a neat gig using The Questions Three. Then we chased other people at random, customers and cast, trying to burn them.

We returned to the food court later to burn down the fairies. They kicked our asses quite dramatically, with the help of the pelters from Friends of Faire (more on them in a future post), who did another fantastic job defending the shire against the Puritan stain. How good? The children in the food court who came to the defense of the faries did not realize that the FoF folks were throwing stale buns at us. SO THE CHILDREN PICKED UP ROCKS AND THREW THEM AT US. Most of us got dinged with rocks. We fled. As well as we could flee, that is, since we were tied with ropes and nets. Pretty cool!

Besides the torches breaking, the only other potentially bad thing about this gig was my act of stupidity. I thought it would be cool to seed a few chunks of dry ice all over the troll glade as we left, leaving them to smolder as if  they were small fires that had just been put out. But you know what dry ice is? REALLY dangerous to touch with bare hands. And you know what the troll glade is always filled with? CHILDREN who wander around TOUCHING EVERYTHING because it's  an interactive show and touching is encouraged. So the troll had to break from what he was doing, try to figure out where the hell I threw the dry ice as I was running away, and find all of it before the children did. I would like to once again apologize for that.

You know, as I get to the end of this, yet another really long post, I wonder if this should actually qualify as our most successful group gig, and the cool stuff we did around Easter Sunday services should be second. Typing it, I am bubbly with the memory of how much fun it was, we were able to sustain it over a significant period of time and spin it into sub-gig, and unlike Easter services there was an audience to eat it up and enjoy it. That's the most important thing, I think because it's about giving people a good time.
Just because I'm pissed off that my props broke doesn't mean that this thing didn't rock... So rather than this being about my need to have my Glue Gun Girl skills validated and not look like a dork in front of the boss, it should be about contributing to the quality of the overall show experience.

One more thing just hit me! When we set the day and time for this gig, every single one of us on site that day was in the hootch and ready to go about 10/15 minutes early. That. Never. Happens. We came up with a gig and we all liked the idea of it so much that we all showed up for it EARLY.

It's official. Burning down the troll glade was the most successful group gig of the show. Woo!

Have I Encountered A Need This Glorious City Can't Provide???

Finally had to admit last week that properly repairing my nifty new skull walking stick - one of the five things that happened during faire that came THIS close to making me cry  - is beyond my skill level. Recognizing this has sent me on a search for local artisans who know wood, can understand what I need to be able to do with this stick, *** and can fix it so that it's stronger than before and can endure what I need to do with it. But after a hunt I 'm starting to think the only people who can fix this are way the hell off in the 909. Larry White would have this thing whipped into shape before I even finished explaining what I need done. FUCK. Who has the time to get out there? I don't. *grumble*

*** Not just for faire. There's this secret thing I've been working on for several months, another push and try to go beyond what I think I can do/my comfort level, thing. One of those "sometimes you fall, and the fall kills you" sorts of callings. (Points to whomever can identify where that quote comes from!)  When El Homo and The Lady handed me this skull stick, I KNEW this was what I was looking for even though something like this wasn't on the known list of things needed for this effort. Accidentally breaking it a few hours later on the table of the priests was, to me, Confirmation By The Universe. And it all comes back to stuff The King of Hippie New Age Crap has been saying since nearly day one. You know, I don't know anything anymore. All my paradigms are in flux. For the most part, I don't really like what's happening, even though I'm the one who called it all down. I shall ponder.

Renaissance Faire Irwindale: A Loooong Post Mostly About The Rest of Easter Weekend

So! I've already talked about spending Easter Sunday trying to murder the giant bunny, but other stuff went on that weekend. For those keeping track, this is Part 2 of the Bloodlust entry. It's also the last entry that will be chronological. Too much time has passed for me to remember what happened on a specific weekend; subsequent entries will be thematic until I run out of incidents remembered. New 2006 faire entries go up on Sundays until I run out.

All righty! Let's get started on our post-Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California in Irwindale roundup.

JESU ROCKS! Our Lord Jesu showed up on Easter Saturday, and just like Mary Magdalene I was the first to spot him. A gang of us were walking down the narrow road comprised mostly of clothing merchants when I turned the corner, glanced up, and saw him shopping in a jewelry booth. I remember my head freezing just for a second trying to what I was seeing. It just seemed too entirely perfect that Jesus was walking around faire on the day after Good Friday.

That's when I did A Very Bad Thing. I made a beeline for the shop, grabbed him and dragged him out, the entire time screaming  HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN! JESU OUR LORD AND SAVIOR! HE IS RISEN!! Which is great, except that one of the unofficial rules at show is anyone in a shop is strictly off limits. Audience members who have been coming to show for a long time know this, and often run into a shop just to make us go away. Once a person steps off the street and into a vendor booth. no performer is supposed to keep after him/her because the hope is this person is spending money, thus beefing up that individual vendor's bottom line and, by extension, helping feed the economic baseline of the rest of the show. In theory you could have a show with just alestands, stage shows and street performers like us running around, but if you want to do a good show, you need the vendors. In a way it's similar to CCI. We could do CCI without the retailers, but it would really suck all sorts of ass. Thus, people are allowed to shop in peace. I think this unofficial rule applies to all performers, not just us. (Though it wouldn't surprise me to discover it was instituted back in the past BECAUSE of us. Heh.)

I knew I was going to violate that rule the instant I spotted Jesu.  Because it was Easter weekend I figured I could get away with it. As I didn't hear anything from the vendors of that particular book or El Homo (our guild master ) later, I think I made the right call. However, when we were talking about the day back in the hootch, the Jedipino rightly pointed out that I was technically in the wrong for snatching a customer out of a booth, which means perhaps it's more accurate to say I didn't get away with it, but neither I nor my guild got in TROUBLE for it. Either way, EVERYBODY WINS.

Jesu was an extremely good sport. When we asked him the Questions Three (I'm not going to explain that) and asked him whom among all these sinners at faire he would like for us to go smite , he kept trying to explain that we were misinterpreting his message. He  claimed actually meant that everybody should love each other, and we should be accepting and tolerant. This Jesu completely eschewed the whole violence and smiting thing. So eventually we chastised him for being nothing more than a disobedient son who thought he knew more than the Father, and he should be ashamed of himself. Thus we lose and look like idiots. It was great!

We also offered to grab women to offer to him until we noticed that he had a woman with him dressed as Mary Magdalene. What I and a couple of other of the Elect did instead when we saw him on the streets later was to always first approach Mary for permission to approach Jesu. This allowed her a chance for interaction so she wouldn't be left ignored on the sidelines. I do remember once asking her if she would  like for me to smite the hussies who were throwing themselves at Jesu's feet. (And there was a LOT of that. Look at the pictures! The man was a hottie. There were tons and tons and tons of women in Bodices Far Too Small For What They Contained offering themselves up to him.) Mary declined our offer to destroy the slatterns on her behalf. I think she enjoyed it the whole thing.

The pictures, provided by Jesu's friend,  are from preach-out at the end of the day. I haven't yet found any pictures of us dealing with Jesu when we first spotted him. If I do, I'll return and update. Word is that he was like a rock star on site throughout the day, as well he should have been.

Easter Sunday Services! Due to the schedule change, show hit during the holiday for the first time. Management made the smart decision to acknowledge Easter in some way. Well before opening day we members of the Elect were told by various & sundry that the plan was to hold an actual Anglican service for Easter Sunday, an event that involved a real priest and actual period Anglican church service stuff. We were told this about 15, 20 times a weekend leading up to Easter Sunday. Here is a wildly exaggerated (but not thematically inaccurate) example exchange..

Them: It's a REAL priest doing this service.
Us: Cool.
Them: No...it's a REAL PRIEST who will be doing a REAL ANGLICAN SERVICE.
Us: Awesome. So we'll just stand in the back and heckle for a little bit -
Them: NO! NONONONONO! All of you will STAY AWAY from the service! You will NOT heckle!! You will NOT do ANYTHING to interrupt this service that involves A REAL LIFE ANGLICAN PRIEST!!!
Us: Oh. <pout> Okay, then. <pout> Got it.

Technically, we did what we were told.

I happened to be at front gate in Ives when the procession started. Clue? A whole bunch of people lining up and the Queen was with them. It was maybe 10:30/11 a.m. Even with the Ninja Queen activities added this year  - more on that in later posts - the Queen is NEVER out that early. Second clue? More than one person shot me Warning Looks.

At first I decided to just stand on the sidelines and bow like everyone else. As I babbled in an earlier post, being close to the Queen makes me nervous to begin with, and as a sophomore I didn't want to do anything stupid that would result in all of our passes being revoked. But I did bow with body language of disapproval, as that's what my character would do. The Queen said something to me about acceptance/tolerance to which I Frowned Appropriately.

I noticed that several people in the procession were shooting me looks of either high amusement or I will KILL you if you try anything. The only person NOT giving me looks of worry or death was the guy in the beautiful red Pope-like outfit. He tossed over a glance best described as bemused puzzlement. The clue switch in my head didn't click, though.

Once the Queen passed, I took off through the cut-throughs (the equivalent of backstage shortcuts) to find as many of my brethren as I could. A quick huddle revealed we all had the same general idea in mind, but how far we'd push it we'd discover as we rolled. Then we raced to catch up with the procession and crashed the very back of it, glaring at everyone we passed and demanding that they reverance to us. Since at this time in the morning everyone we saw were other performers, the looks on  their faces was priceless. I personally have to give kudos to the Washing Well Wenches, who must do yoga or something because every time we screamed !lower! they went waaaay lower until their chins were practically on the ground. Neat! More on the WWW in a future post.

The way faire is laid out, there are certain roads people must walk through in order to get from one side of the site to the other.  We knew on which stage the Easter service was to be held, so we knew that the progress had no option but to walk down the narrow road linking the troll glade and Mordor (short for The Absolute Other Side of The 20-Acre Site). There's a stage along that road a tree in the middle of it, shops on both sides and a whole bunch of hay bales. It's an extremely narrow road. It was as if the Heavens gifted us with that road.

What we did was break away from progress  at one point and flat out run through another series of cut-throughs to get to this road before the procession did. We did a version of The Wall of Black - all of us lined up in a row on the hay, with the Jedipino planted on the bale under the tree - and called down the hate. (I might get into what that term means in another post. It was invented by Sister Abstinence, and is perfect.)

We called down the hate in silence: glares, scowls, bodies shaking with rage, teeth clenched, some people red-faced with veins popping on their necks. The Jedipino, on the bale in the middle of the road, had one fist on his hip while the other clutched a white cross thrust  We sent hate and black thoughts to the procession with every single fiber of our beings, and the array of looks on their faces as they turned the corner and saw us? PRICELESS. A few of them honestly looked as if they were afraid we were going to attack. Others did big eyes and stifled grins, while still others had a contonnace of disapproval that to this day I'm still not sure if were done in character or 'real life'. The guy in the beautiful red robes just smiled wide and made the sign of the cross at us as he passed. He made eye contact with each of us as he walked by. I'm not sure, but I swear I heard him giggle. That's when it hit me that HE'S THE REAL LIFE ANGLICAN PRIEST! Way I figured, if we made him laugh we're in the clear, no matter what hell might rain down on us later for pulling this stunt.

The Queen said something and El Homo said something back, but I don't remember what it was. This is because it was around then that I realized that priests in black proceeding of the real priest were actually on cast, most of the yeomen! One of them was Jason, whom I will mention in some detail in a future post. I was FLOORED. When he saw I recognized him he gave me the biggest  east shit HAHAHAHAHA grin. It was beautiful Once again, I almost broke.

Because it was Easter Sunday and early, there was no audience around to see any of that stuff. Thus, no pictures. (That day the bulk of the audience didn't show up until after church had let out.) It turned out to be the sort of gig done just for the performers. Normally I disapprove of us playing out to each other and not to the audience, but on this day it was fine.

Must say, I think that was the most successful group gig we did the entire show, and is one of my favorite memories. We did it on the fly, and it rocked six ways to Sunday.

The only down side is I was actually curious to see what a period Anglican service is like. There was no way I could sneak over and try to stand quietly in the back just to watch without risking causing some sort of disruption, even if I just stood there. One of the side effects of being in my group is that, as the villains, we are *always* viewed in the context of potential threat. Just as people "only see the red" when dealing with the yeomen or militia, they "only see the blacks" when we're around, even when we're trying to be low-key. Sometimes even backstage, which is supposed to be an out of character/off duty safe zone, or in the parking lot hours before show even opens, people will do stuff like throw things at us or hurl insults. It's exhausting to be perceived as always being on call, and I don't get why some folks think that way. I think the only other person at show who might understand what dealing with that is like would be the guy who plays Southampton, the noble who is the arch-villain for show. (Disclaimer:  as I've never spoken with the man outside of character, I *could* be wrong on assuming he has to deal with this, too. I wanted to toss questions at him about this general topic and prod him for advice, but since I never saw him off the streets throughout the entire run I didn't get a chance.) I need to find a way to get tools for handling this, pretty much the only downside of being in my group, between now and next year's show. This year I handled it by pretending I was deaf and ignoring them (unless something was thrown at me IN THE FREAKING PARKING LOT), or if it was early morning and the coffee hadn't yet started working it's magic, by being bitchy. I would like to find a better way.

For the record, we  - and by that of course by 'we' I mean El Homo, since as our leader it's his job to take the hit when we fuck up -  got no complaints from the bosses about this Easter services at all. Score!

The Fairy Queen! One more thing besides the bunny hunt worth noting happened Easter Sunday. There I am, having been defeated in another attempt to snag the Easter Bunny, stomping through the crowd. I spot Shakespeare, berate him for something or other, and I spot a fairy a few feet away admiring sparkly items in a booth. These pictures are from Richard.

Pause the first: Personally, I love it when customers come dressed up in costume (with the exception of the creepy ones), and the whole fantasy element thing doesn't bother me. I think the fantasy element - represented by the troll for example - is an additional layer of entertainment, not a detriment to the whole living history experience. Fairies are a popular costume for customers. Older fairies I'll chase around a bit, while baby and toddler fairies tend to turn me into a puddle of  ooo you're so cute  goo. This fairy, pictured above, I was gonna chase and threaten to tie up or something, then I'd wander off to continue the rabbit hunt. That was the plan.

Pause the second:  Somewhere in an earlier post I mentioned the Fantasticals, a new performance group brought in for 2006. WHO ABSOLUTELY ROCK BY THE WAY. We didn't know what they looked like until they showed up on the streets, and at this point in the run I had encountered three of them. We knew there were four of them. For show purposes, our characters cannot see the Fantasticals, as they are mystical creatures.

Pause the third: One of the reasons I'm doing faire is because I want to learn how to do improv, which involves processing information deadly quick and acting upon it. Faire is total immersion improv. That means when I saw:

• The most elaborate fairy costume I had yet to encounter ...
• Worn by a drop-dead gorgeous woman with an excellent fantasy makeup job ...
• Who had struck a karate pose when I screamed at her and pulled my rope taught ...
• And looked me dead in the eye, signaling a level of Ready To Engage usually not displayed by regular customers, even those in costumes ...

The Clue Switch should have flipped in my head.

But it didn't. Instead I do a big cartoon lunge after her, (probably) shouting about ridding the shire of its insect infestation. As I do, behind me I hear Shakespeare yell "Titania! Run!" and I realized  I had just screwed up. All I could think to do was to freeze, pivot (still in lunge mode),  break character and whisper to him. Our exchange went something like this:

Me: Is that the fourth Fantastical?
Shakespeare: Uh-huh.
Me: The fairy queen?
Shakespeare: Yup.
Me: Fuck! I'm not supposed to be able to see her! What do I do?
Shakespeare: <raises eyebrows, grins wider, looks over my head at the fairy queen, gives a mocking laugh, but unlike me manages to do all this without breaking character>

Basically, what Shakespeare conveyed was you're in it, now...do something! It was a very important lesson I carried with me throughout the rest of the run, and I'm very grateful to Dan for doing it that way, as opposed to telling me *what* to do.

I decide that, being social climbing hypocrites, it's perfectly fine for one of us to be able to see the Fairy Queen. She's royalty! Thus a mistake is turned back onto itself. To just walk away as if I hadn't spotted her would have been all sorts of ass, especially since she was still standing there in a pose of Ready For Combat. The point is to try.

So I pivoted back around and lunged for her. Being the Fairy Queen, she beat the crap out of me. Everybody wins!

Still, I have no idea why I spent the entire run calling her character Tatiana,  and yelling at everyone who called her Titania. I blame society.

Thus endeth the latest faire entry. What will I talk about next Sunday? Guess I'll figure that out next Saturday night!

Don't Mind Me...Just Testing This Nifty Thing I Found On The Internets

If it works, I know what to do with the Easter weekend Jesus pictures ...

Yaay! It works!

Renaissance Faire Irwindale: That's A Wrap!

Despite what that man claims I should have expected, it certainly was a shock to Moi when I hit the 605 on Sunday night and burst into tears.  On the other hand, after having them hijacked for three months, I'm about to get my weekends back.

Here's a fantastic shot taken by Richard, one of my fave pictures from the whole run. Pictured are Southampton in the brown, Shakes in the blue and one of the whores from the Belle, but I don't know her character name. I think this is a beautiful image.

Okay, I suppose the headline is not entirely true. Show's done, but I'll be chatting about it on and off for the next handful of Sundays, an act that will continue to irritate the

All right! Off to catch up on, well, EVERYTHING...

Oh, wait! I must put this bit in now. Funniest said to me the whole weekend? The HNIC called. He said you can have your membership card back. I'm thinking of putting it on a T-shirt.

Renaissance Faire Irwindale: Ministering to the Naked

So, in one of the early posts about this year's faire, I mentioned looking forward to seeing some of the audience members from last year, and how pleased I was when I did and they remembered me. Several people pointed out how curious it was that nearly every single one of these people were described as being naked in some way. These people obviously don't know me at ALL.

One of my favorite nearly naked people*** is this guy above. He is *very* funny and from Australia. He has a website but to this date I have not been able to find it, even after writing the address down in my 1611. Last weekend, after me chastising him AGAIN for not giving me the right URL (as Puritans, it's always their fault, never ours) he handed me a CD. Among items is this picture of us from last year.

Other items on it? THE JESUS PICTURES FROM THIS PAST EASTER WEEKEND!! God bless the naked. I will share those pictures and a post about that next weekend.

So, in celebration of this closing weekend of faire, I leave you with The Naked Guy With The Fuzzy Cape, one of my fave audience people at show.

*** There is a continuum of nearly naked people at faire. Some of them are great. Some of them are creepy. What a lot of us do is just pretend not to see the creepy ones and spend our time entertaining the fun ones.

Renaissance Faire Irwindale: Me. Debra Wilson from Mad TV. Me. O. MY. GOOOOOOOOD!!! *swoon*

I gigged with Debra Wilson on Saturday.

Me! I did it!

She is awesome. She is nigh unto the mountaintop. She stripped. I was gonna, but I was wearing far more clothing than she and I could only one layer of skirts off before Donna hilariously stopped me.

Omigod. I gigged with Debra Wilson, she of Mad TV and a whole hell of a lot of other stuff. I gigged with Debra Wilson IN FRONT OF THE QUEEN (sort of, and it's possible I'm in trouble for that).  I gigged with Debra Wilson and I almost held my own!!!

That photo of course is not of me gigging with Debra Wilson (which I will detail for you later ... and by then maybe I'll have found a picture to go with it please o god please). That is one of Richard's photos from earlier in the run which I'm using because I feel it perfectly illustrates My Current State.

I'm so far behind on my original plan to provide weekly reports of this, my second year as a performer at faire and my attempt to learn how to do improv. This is because I'm wicked busy with day job, other deadlines and general life, almost overwhelmed & teetering on the edge of exhaustion. Not to mention disappointing people left and right because I've had to cancel stuff in order to just try and get the basics done. Thus, I have failed to keep up the pace.

What this means, for those of you who drop emails telling me how stupid you think faire is and how sick you are of seeing posts about faire and how you can't wait until it's over and I stop talking about it? You're going to be Annoyed. This coming weekend is the last faire show for the year. Whether or not I'm going to be there is an unknown at this moment of typing (don't ask...just send Good Vibes), but I do know that just because I couldn't keep up during the run doesn't mean I can't get into it after it wraps up! That's why, when faire is over, I'm still going to go through the missing weeks and post highlights I can remember. What was cool, what worked, what I screwed up, what I learned, and whom I injured. I'm behind on five weeks, so that means at least five more Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California posts. It's possible I'll throw in a couple of extras detailing to Glue Gun Girl activities related to faire. Perhaps all these posts I will actually put up on Sundays so that the tag makes sense for once!

It's my blog. I can geek about faire if I want to.

I'll say this much now about gigging with Debra Wilson - that eye contact thing Richard & Shelby taught us as being critical to this type of performance? I think that's why I was able to roll with it. She looked me dead in the eye and she never let go throughout the entire thing. A complete stranger -- more importantly a pro to an amateur -- yet she was able to communicate enough to me through eye contact and verbal assault for me to attempt to keep up and gig with somebody at her level. I mention this so that I remember to bring it up in detail when I get to her post down the road; I won't get into it now but all show I've been seeing connections between that fits into the Learned Craft/Natural Gift thing that roils in the writing world every once in a while.

And now, to laundry. Joust Hooligans, which we did Sunday, is also known as the Costume Destroyer. Our guildmaster likes for us to keep our whites crispy and sparkly. "Puritans should keep their blacks black and their whites white" is what he says. My partlet is currently covered with the remains of black, green and blue paint, splatters from blood packs and lots and lots of grime from the dirt in the joust arena. Oy. Bring on the bleach pens!

In case you didn't click on the second Debra Wilson link, here's what she looks like. You've probably seen her on television or in movies. In this pic she's posing with the guy who runs Zulu Tattoo. I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A BLACK GUY AROUND DOING TATS. Making a note of it, even though I can tell from scanning his site that I'm not gonna be able to afford him until I sell a couple of novels.