A Few of My Favorite Things: The Maryland Renaissance Festival

A plethora of food that is delicious and terrible for you (most on sticks), comedy shows, musical shows, sword fighting, jousting, crazy costumes, crazy people, gard you can wear around muggles and at Faire. Seriously, what is there NOT to love about RenFest?

Wicked Faire

I know this is a little overdue but it’s going up now. I went to Wicked Faire in New Jersey last weekend!

The best way to describe it is that a RenFest and a Con had an interesting lovechild. I’ve heard it’s gotten tamer in recent years but it’s my first so I have nothing with which to compare it. It was split between two hotels, the Time Traveler’s Hotel and the Wicked Hotel. A shuttle ran back and forth between both.

This set-up was less than optimal because the hotel where my friend and I stayed was treated as an ‘over flow’ hotel. This meant that the entertainment was not at all comparable to the Wicked hotel. I think they folks running the show would do well to distribute the talent and panels more evenly.

The vendors are both places were great. The Bee Folk form RenFest were there so I stocked up on soap and got bamboo honey. I bought a bunch of great garb (never thought I’d look good in a drop waist), know a new corset I want order (they didn’t have my size so I wasn’t compelled to spend that much up front), and found a Jayne hat! I was serenaded when I wore it. Try that in a Nationals cap : P

The Wicked hotel also had a ball pit. That was crazy amounts of fun. The only downside is that when you’re 5 and people throw balls at you, it doesn’t hurt much. When adults do it, they give it a little more oomph.

Speaking of an abundance of balls (you try coming up with a better segway), I went to speed dating on Friday night. I told all my friends I was going for one reason. To hell with finding a date or someone to bankroll my meals that weekend. I wanted a good story. Ask and you shall receive.

I was the only girl.

It ended up being one of my shameless Rennie friends and one very sweet guy from New Jersey vying for my attention. The Rennie friend thought I had a boyfriend and was pleased to know I was fair game. When the Rennie and I went to leave, the NJ guy made one last ditch effort. He did a few magic tricks involving foam balls.

To paint you a picture, R and I are about to wander off to another event but I wait to see this guy’s show. R is behind me, has his arm around my waist while the other guy is doing the tricks in my hands. It was probably awkward if you weren’t me. If you were me, it was rather entertaining.

Voltaire

One of the big draws to the event was Voltaire. If you don’t know him, take a moment to Google him and listen to a song or two. I’ll wait.

He did a reading from his new book, due out in May, The Call of the Jersey Devil. The tag line: “Five suburban mall rats and a washed up goth singer find themselves stranded in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey where they discover two horrifying truths: The Jersey Devil is real and New Jersey (as many already suspected) is the gateway to Hell.” Every time he mentioned the singer, he would dramatically mouth, “That’s me.”

He did a great job with the inflections and voices. If there’s an audio book, I pray he does it. I would so buy that. He really gave the third of the book he read a lot of humor. I’m a sucker for being read to, especially when the reader does voices. Apparently it has it’s sad moments: “There are parts that are really sad to the point where I still cry and I fucking wrote it. What’s that say about me?” That it isn’t easy to kill your darlings.

The book actually started out as a screenplay. Everyone who read it loved it but said that it was a big blockbuster movie. Voltaire wanted to do it in the retro style of 1980s horror movie monsters where “Hell is a barn with a red light and a smoke machine.” He did the book to help generate interest in the screenplay.

Apparently the transition from screenplay to book is not the easiest in the world. To paraphrase, a screenplay will say ‘scene opens, night in Pine Barrens’ where  as a book has to paint the vivid picture film serves up on a platter.

During the reading he asked the time and it was 2:56, he had such a reaction that he promised the story after. When Voltaire was a kid, he wanted to do the stop motion animation but he couldn’t get the materials. Then he had this dream where he came upon a shop full of glass display cases of these stop motion creatures. He saw his favorite, a Cyclops from Sinbad (I think) and looked up to see the price on the bottom. It just said 256. No symbols, just those three numbers.

He wakes up, ends up telling the story to his sister’s New Jersey Italian boyfriend. The BF recommends they play the lottery and realize the numbers have already been drawn. Voltaire calls to see what the winning numbers are. They are 2, 5, and 6. He tells the sister’s BF who responds, “Don’t bust my balls.” Voltaire swore that he would never forget the look on that guys face when they called back.

Other fun quotes from the event included, “It’s like Justin Bieber saying, “This song doesn’t suck. Let me help you with that.” Poor Justin Bieber. Everyone needs to stop hating on Justin Bieber, myself included.” Like that will ever happen.

I also attended his concert. It was really fun. This Way to Egress was his back-up band. He of course did a bunch of his dirtier stuff like ‘The Trouble with Tribbles,’ ‘Zombie Prostitute’ and ‘Dirtiest Song that Ain’t.’ The last one required some fun call backs from the audience.

Of course he also did some of the less offensive stuff like ‘Mechanical Girl’ and ‘Death Death(Devil, Devil, Evil, Evil Song).’ What makes it funny is that it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. He also did a song from his upcoming album ‘Raised By Bats.’ It ties into Call of the Jersey Devil. The washed up goth singer fronted the band Raised By Bats. I’m looking forward to it.

He closed with my favorite, ‘The USS Making Shit Up As We Wish.’ He makes fun of every incarnation of Star Trek. The man did his homework for that one. He’d been drinking so much throughout the course of the day that he forgot the bonus verse for the latest movie. Someone had to get on stage with a phone. It was hilarious.

The next day I got to meet him. I was at the Wicked hotel to check out the ball pit and I saw him talking to a woman. I stood off the side and he was nice enough to take a picture with me. He actually took it himself.

And for those of you wondering, I was wicked enough to have a good time but not wicked enough to be embarrassed about it later. If you want me to take my clothes off, you have to earn it. What I’ll do with them on…well, that’s another story.

Current Music: When You’re Evil by Voltaire

Single in the Shire

A short while back, I was blogging about how men are getting stupider and stupider. It’s official. It took a month but I found the third example.

The same charmer from the haunted house blog was to join me at the Maryland Renaissance Festival today. He confirmed these plans on Friday and again yesterday. The National Book Festival was this weekend and I kind of wanted to go to the second day but I was willing to go to RenFest for him.

When I go I always get there close to when it opens. It’s common knowledge about Cherry. I texted my date jokingly about if the famous procrastinator was going to make it. He texted me back 45 minutes later that it didn’t look good. 

20 minutes later I get a phone call. He’s not going to make it. The earliest he could be there was noon and the latest he could stay was 4:30 and it just didn’t seem worth it to be there for four hours. Glad to know seeing me at all this week just wasn’t worth it. Very informative about where I stand.

I told him that he was the reason I came, I had other things I could have been and wanted to be doing, and I just lost a day off my pass. He hemmed and hawed and didn’t really apologize so I said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to say” and hung up on him.

I knew he wasn’t an early person, didn’t live nearby, and had an evening commitment. I figured he wasn’t going to be there for more than four or five hours. I guess I was the only one with any foresight because he had ample time to cancel and didn't. I love the RenFest but it’s suddenly less desirable when you’re shanghaied into being there.

It was still one of my favorite places to be and I know several people who are there almost every weekend so I tried to make the best of it. In doing so, I got to catch a band that was on their final day, get an adorable new cape, had a Rennie* a photographer tell me how pretty I am (which my date has never done), and catch up with several Rennie friends. I also got reminded why I love RenFest people so much.

I was stopped by a woman in garb who was interviewing people about their high points and low points of the day. I told her that it was early so the high point was probably yet to come and the low point was when my date bailed. She said he wasn’t worthy and I should go and find another date there. 

At one point I was sitting by myself people watching before finding my friends and one of the wandering performers came by and gave me a little show of contact juggling (links below). I got my own private performance. It was neat. I’m a dork. 

Later I was venting to my BFF on the phone while I was waiting for my friends to find me and two gentlemen heard me say, “If he does this to me again, I’m done. I don’t need this crap.” One guy said, “Stay strong!” My voice carries so this happens more than you’d think. I ended up explaining exactly what happened. One guy said he’d have been here for four hours if he’d had a date. The other guy said he’d have been there for 20 minutes. I’m young enough to be his daughter so no phone numbers were exchanged.

As for my date? It's 9 PM and I have not heard a peep. One friend wants me to give him another chance because he seems like such a nice guy. Another thinks he needs to make it up to me. I lost track of the people who thought he behaved like a jerk, asshole, and/or douche bag after five. 

I’m not beyond giving him a second chance but I’m not eager to do it given his reason for bailing. We'll see what he does over the next few days. I doubt he spent much of today thinking about me or what he did. 

As for making it up to me, I’m not an idiot. Would it be nice if he made it up to me? Of course. Have I dated enough to know better than to expect such behavior? Absolutely. I don't know if and when I'll see him again but any plans I may make won't be any I can't afford to break.

UPDATE: I did hear from him three days later. He didn't realize he was trouble! My friend texted him saying "You either need to call me or call her and apologize. Otherwise, it was nice to have met you." Less than 10 minutes later I had a text with an apology and a promise to call. He called, we talked, and he knows why it was a big screw up. We fine but not great.

*Rennie = A hardcore Renaissance Festival person. They attend almost every available weekend and are always in garb.

Visual reference on contact juggling:

Single Ball

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Current Music: Undo It by Carrie Underwood