KCRF Fifth Weekend: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

  • . It’s been a very long time since I’ve performed with someone who gives so much to a show. Not only does he literally throw himself around, but his energy is infectous (ewww….), and the rest of us are uplifted by it. The wine wenches across from the Pub, apparently, have dubbed him The Boy Who Falls Down A Lot. I prefer to think of him as The Boy Who Keeps Us Interested In The Show.
  • Great audiences this weekend. Not a dead crowd in the bunch, and we were really packin’ them in, too. Especially nice was the pub show this weekend, where the fact that we’d be followed immediately by and her fellow belly-dancers made for HUGE crowds. Hell, we had a large crowd at our Mermaid Stage show on Saturday, and when it started downpouring, only about 2/3 of them ran for cover. The rest STAYED.
  • Going out to dinner on Saturday night for Italian with , et. al. As I said then, it was the first time that she had come out for dinner, and bluntly, she could have suggested that we go to Sonic and I’d have been there, for the company alone. The fact that it was tasty post-rain comfort food was a HUGE plus.
  • On Saturday, I made it over to the lanes by T’gers to witness the much-vaunted Strumpet Nibblies and “Muerte and Chuy’s Story Time.” Really nice to get to other parts of the Festival.
  • giving me a stern talking-to at closing cannon, about taking care of myself, so I can keep doing this. Blunt, unflinching, and motivated by caring….in short, everything she is.

The Bad:

  • Apparently over-did it on Saturday, exacerbated by the cold rain late in the day. OW. PAIN. This is really very frustrating, because I want to wander the site, interacting with other characters, seeing other things, being a full participant in the experience. But no, I have to sit between shows, otherwise I’m just in too much pain. I know that a lot of this could be reduced by dropping at least 50 pounds off my fat ass…and preferably 100. I need to do that. It’s not just the weight, though…I’ll eventually need to see a specialist of some sort, and may even need corrective surgery. However, the total lack of insurance on my part makes that pretty much impossible right now.
  • Yet again, our name and time didn’t appear on the sign at Crown & Rose, until I fixed it myself.
  • The geniuses-that-be have us performing all of our shows within a stones throw….Crown & Rose, Gallows, Pub and Mermaid. So much for getting to sample audiences from other parts of the Festival. We spend most of our time in one area.
  • Especially annoying is our 1:30 show at the Gallows, which occurs literally right across from the Lord Mayor’s Company, performing another Shakespeare-based comedy show, on the Crown & Rose, starting at EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING TIME. *sigh*
  • doesn’t come out and play often enough. Boo.

The Ugly:

  • Experienced (20+ year) performers being given admonitions for being “too bawdy” in the lanes. Apparently, the Master Slaver balancing his feather-staff on his head, and using it to hook the basket on the head of a rose-wench was “too suggestive” for the opening gate. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

The Opening Lines Meme

Taken from :

“A few other writers on my friends list have done this; the idea is to post the opening lines of works in progress. The allure of rich, creamy narcissism is too much to resist!”

Here’s what I’m working on:

Black Powder, Black Magic

The rope snapped taut.

His neck didn’t break.

Mercy was as conspicuously absent from the prisoner’s death as it had been during his life. No sudden snap and enveloping darkness for him, but rather the seeming eternity of strangulation as his feet danced an involuntary jig for the amusement of the crowds gathered at the scaffold outside of Newgate Prison.

Heroes of the New Wave

Welcome To The FUTURE!

Welcome…to 1985.

OK, sure. At the time, it wasn’t the future. It was the present, and from where we stand now, it’s the past—but at the time, it sure looked like the future to me. Neon and chrome and digital watches and pastel colors and everybody had Really Cool Jackets. No doubt about it, kids, this was the Future-with-a-Capital-F that we had been promised, back in the days of Popular Mechanics and Analog.

Before the dawn of the tarnished millennium, before impeachment, before the flannel-and-coffee crowd beat the joy out of rock-and-roll, a long time ago in a decade far, far away, Ronnie was in the White House, God was in his Heaven, and all was right with the world.

(Untitled Fantasy)

The old man had wandered in from the desert, or so they say.

That’s how it always begins.

The teller of the tale usually pauses then, allowing for the statements of disbelief, which someone always dutifully makes, even though they’ve heard this story a thousand times from a thousand different tellers since the time of their birth.

He wandered in from the vast waste, caked in dust, breathing sand, and entered through the Gateless Gate, the unbarred way traditionally left open as it faced the endless nothing to the south of the city.

It’s true, someone always says. My Father’s Father (Uncle, Brother, Friend–the rite of the tale here is open to interpretation) was a guard, and was manning the Gateless Gate on that very night (Occasionally, in less reverent tellings, it is at this point that some wit remarks that for each time he’s heard that to be true, there must have been an entire Legion at the southern gate that night).

In from the desert, in through the Gateless Gate, walking from where no man walks, caked in dust, breathing sand.

There’s a bunch more stuff in various stages of completion, but if I posted it all, your friends page would be miles long. So, there’s a snippet.