Weekend #...whatever

I think I was at the Ren faire this weekend, but I'm not sure. I know I covered the ground between the gate, the white tent and the pavillion. I made it over to the guard camp for Anj's amazing food and twice down to the Puke and Snot area to pick a losing fight. Other than that, I have no idea if anyone was in any other area of the grounds because I never made it there. Instead, I convinced somewhere around 1300 people to drink copious amounts of wine.

You'd think I would love Wine Weekend but sometimes...umm....not so much. The weather absolutely sucked. Rain does not deter a certain sector of the diehard fans. It also doesn't deter the drunks. I love the diehards who are still willing to interact and have a great time despite the fact that they're soaked. I hate the drunks because the rain encourages them to drink more as if changing the ratio of alcohol to red blood cells flowing in their veins would suddenly make the clouds go away. By Saturday night, I was completely fed up with drunks. They are loud. They are loud for no good reason. Their faces contort into hideous expressions not unlike taking a smiley face cup that has been shattered into hundreds of pieces and gluing it back together. They do the same stupid gestures over and over again. It isn't funny the first time. It's not going to be funny the sixth time you do it either. And stop asking that same fucking question "Where'd you get the glass?" I'm going to stuff it straight up your ass if you ask again. Now, not only are Linda and I plagued by this question, but other cast members are hounded too. I received reports from two different cast members claiming to have been asked that question at least 12 times and it was only 11:00am. Here and now I announce that I will stop telling patrons to go ask the King what I did to get the glass so they can get one too. This madness has to stop. That and I don't want Johnny mad at me.

It's a good thing that lots of awesome things happened during the weekend too otherwise I may come off sounding like a complete arrogant, whiny little pissant. Antonia's back. Antonia's really back. You've all been warned. Luckily she's very persuasive and I'm easily swayed so we ended up doing the free wine tastings at the Pavillion and I'm quite confident in saying that everyone had a really good time. We finally sold out some wine shows (our Royal Wine Tasting show) and both of them just about brought the tent down. Kudos must be given to the three poor saps we brought out on Sunday after Antonia had a spark of mischievousness and decided to call up three performers who were hanging around the back of the tent. D'Lis is perhaps one of the best people to ever work with. She had no idea what to do and said as much while walking (skipping?) out to the middle of the tent exclaiming "I have no idea what we're going to do but I'm SO excited!" Little did she know that in the near future she would be bent over with two grapes resting on her tushy like a fluffy cotton platter for George to eat off of. The third poor sap, Jake (aka Matt) had his own wife suggest that he get nailed in the balls with one of George's clubs and before she could finish her request, the job was done and Jake was on the ground. It's a good thing that an announcement was made at cast call for us to tone the bawdiness down. I can't imagine what would happen if we were given free rein.

Gretta, Ethel and Jake did a wonderful job with the grape stomp and while we may not have had a large crowd for it, they were definitely into the event and it became a lot of fun. The free-wine-tasting people were really fun to work with. They merrily went along with whatever we did with the crowd. Thank goodness they didn't expect us to actually recite factual information about the wine. That could have been a train wreck.

I sloughed off on my closing gate duties this weekend by hanging around the smoker too long but I'm considering it a learning session. Watching Shamus and Lazslo come in and just do something without any bells or whistles and entertain a large group of people was inspiring. I watched a similar scene last year during a rain weekend and had the same feelings. I want to find something, some type of thing I can do at the drop of a hat to entertain for a few moments and then move on to the next group. I have some initial thoughts, possibilities, but it's definitely going to require commitment and tons of practice on my part. Well, the good stuff always does though, doesn't it?

Boy am I glad Antonia's back. I needed that shot in the arm, I was starting to get lackadaisical.