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In dreams of late...blue cloud rooms full of light, being part of a social justice group that goes wrong, incoherent longing cloaked in piecemeal memory...and for some reason (actually, it's probably because C & I played 'where were you and what were you doing in blank year' the other night on the way to see Ocean's Twelve) this morning I woke up thinking about when I worked at the Renaissance Faires. Yes, I did; for two years, between almost eighteen and twenty years of age, I worked and lived at the two California and one Texas ren fairs, living out of my employer's truck and her father's warehouse in between.
I'd been living in South Pasadena when I went to my first fair and met one Feather; Feather ran a booth in the Trader's Market area, making and selling, mainly, Eastern Star and Oriental Spice creme, massage and moisturizing unguents that she--and later we--mixed in big vats in the warehouse and poured into little hand thrown ceramic jars and corked. We also made edible massage oils, mainly out of glycerin and flavor essences. We'd mix and taste, mix and taste in the windowless warehouse in the depth of night, getting slightly tipsy from the glycerin.
I looked like this on fair days. That's Feather beside me in the one photo. Feather had a big trunk of costumes; imagine how much fun: I got paid to dress up and sell things that smelled good.
Our booth was always in the Trader's Market area--where all the non-European, non-Brit fair types could be found. We lived there, camping in comfort (except for the port-o-potties) on tree and fabric shaded platforms for eight weeks at a time. The belly dancers were always bivouaced near us, so sometimes we'd get lessons during the week; also, the Teahouse of the Mullah Nasrudin's Donkey, owned by a Sufi man named Mullah, was always near us. I worked there sometimes, too, hawking iced Turkish coffees--'they give you wings!' (long before the Redbull commercials, now I think of it). And sometimes I also worked at the tightrope walking booth, helping people walk the thick rope three or four feet off the ground; when they made it across they could get a kiss from either a pretty boy or girl. As I recall, one Sunday Richard Hatch, nee Apollo, spent a good deal of drunken time there, at the Southern California edition of the fair, kissing the hell out of girl about one third of his age. blech.
In the off days between weekends we refreshed our stock, hung out, played games, and did drugs, psychedelics mainly--mushrooms being the fave. I smoked opium once and I just have to say, it's a good thing it's not readily available. A whole day gone on a light-flood of conversation, travelling words, and dreaming.
A combination of things ended this time for me. I was tired of having my stuff packed in a warehouse; Feather started drinking more heavily, and she was a mean drunk; and my geek self was frustrated beyond endurance by the lack of media. I remember desperately trying to get us to someone's house with a television for all the nights that the Royal Shakespearean production of Nicholas Nickleby was showing on PBS, then being crouched up near the television watching it while the pack of yahoos in the room behind me made too much noise and showed absolutely no appreciation.
It was a pretty amazing two years, though, sub-culture rich with lots of adventures, on the road and off. And it exercised, and thereby exorcised, an obsession with wanting to live in some unreal time past--from childhood through my teens I always wanted most of all to be one of King Arthur's knights doing heroic adventuring with loyalty in my heart and sacrfice in my bones.
I'd been living in South Pasadena when I went to my first fair and met one Feather; Feather ran a booth in the Trader's Market area, making and selling, mainly, Eastern Star and Oriental Spice creme, massage and moisturizing unguents that she--and later we--mixed in big vats in the warehouse and poured into little hand thrown ceramic jars and corked. We also made edible massage oils, mainly out of glycerin and flavor essences. We'd mix and taste, mix and taste in the windowless warehouse in the depth of night, getting slightly tipsy from the glycerin.
I looked like this on fair days. That's Feather beside me in the one photo. Feather had a big trunk of costumes; imagine how much fun: I got paid to dress up and sell things that smelled good.
Our booth was always in the Trader's Market area--where all the non-European, non-Brit fair types could be found. We lived there, camping in comfort (except for the port-o-potties) on tree and fabric shaded platforms for eight weeks at a time. The belly dancers were always bivouaced near us, so sometimes we'd get lessons during the week; also, the Teahouse of the Mullah Nasrudin's Donkey, owned by a Sufi man named Mullah, was always near us. I worked there sometimes, too, hawking iced Turkish coffees--'they give you wings!' (long before the Redbull commercials, now I think of it). And sometimes I also worked at the tightrope walking booth, helping people walk the thick rope three or four feet off the ground; when they made it across they could get a kiss from either a pretty boy or girl. As I recall, one Sunday Richard Hatch, nee Apollo, spent a good deal of drunken time there, at the Southern California edition of the fair, kissing the hell out of girl about one third of his age. blech.
In the off days between weekends we refreshed our stock, hung out, played games, and did drugs, psychedelics mainly--mushrooms being the fave. I smoked opium once and I just have to say, it's a good thing it's not readily available. A whole day gone on a light-flood of conversation, travelling words, and dreaming.
A combination of things ended this time for me. I was tired of having my stuff packed in a warehouse; Feather started drinking more heavily, and she was a mean drunk; and my geek self was frustrated beyond endurance by the lack of media. I remember desperately trying to get us to someone's house with a television for all the nights that the Royal Shakespearean production of Nicholas Nickleby was showing on PBS, then being crouched up near the television watching it while the pack of yahoos in the room behind me made too much noise and showed absolutely no appreciation.
It was a pretty amazing two years, though, sub-culture rich with lots of adventures, on the road and off. And it exercised, and thereby exorcised, an obsession with wanting to live in some unreal time past--from childhood through my teens I always wanted most of all to be one of King Arthur's knights doing heroic adventuring with loyalty in my heart and sacrfice in my bones.
