Trinity’s World

Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006, 10:17 AM

What a ride!

OK, I’ve finished my run of the Northern California Ren Faire. It was so much fun. I loved performing with the Belles. It was so good to be able to learn music again, to work at it, memorize it, and perform. I really miss it from my days of college and choir. And this time around it was a lot more adult and fun in nature. I loved being dirty, and loved the fact that my wife and I got to do it together.

Notes for next year’s faire, if I get to do it.

1. Air mattress is a must for sleeping on the ground, and other things as well.
2. Bigger tent would be nice
3. Figure out how not to rip inseam of my pants, every week.
4. Do not camp in the middle of Constable camp if you want to sleep
5. Camp in Constable camp if you want to get drunk off your butt.
6. The Guard ROCK!!!!, and have really good after hours BB-Q
10. Must work on accent

There were moments that I wondered if I was going to have a good time or not, but things always worked themselves out in the end. The group is a really great bunch of people. I’ve been asked if I would consider playing for them again, and I’ve said yes. So we will see what happens.

Posted Wednesday, September 13, 2006, 10:31 AM

This last weekend I went up to the Northern California Renaissance Faire with my wife. This was my first time ever working at a Ren Faire, and I have to tell you I walked away with some really interesting new experiences. Now, before you read any further, I need to qualify the rest of this post with the following statement: I had a blast, I loved doing it, and I’m looking forward to next week when I can just go and not have to figure things out for the first time.

My wife’s group, The Belles of Bedlam, has been gearing up for this faire for about three weeks now. Some of them had to go up and actually help build the stage they perform on, on top of the normal rehearsals, and trying to add a new show. There was apparently a dress rehearsal weekend that many, but not all, of the members of the group went to. I’m sure that things would not have been as hectic and frustrating for us on our first night at the faire, has either my wife or I attended that weekend. Little did we know how much trouble it would be, as a performing group, to show up the night before the faire opened. Almost every participant who works the faire shows up that night, and we figured it would simple to do the same.

After being told to park by an even staff, going to a check in counter, being told that we had to go to a special check in counter for ‘performers,’ and moving our car to the other side of the faire compound, we thought we had finally found the person who would be able to help us out. Did I mention that this was after driving 348 miles from Upland to Gilroy, on a Friday night after having already gone to work that day? I found the trailer of the person we needed to see sometime around 11pm. They, of course, were not there. So I started to wander the dark fair grounds (with my trusty flash light) in search of anyone who could help my wife and I out.

We wandered to the loudest, most brightly light section of the faire, and found a group in the middle of rehearsal. I put on my classic, “clueless, lost, and confused” face, and we were helped some one who gave us a name of a person to talk to. That person, the one who would give us passes to get in to the camping area, and passes to enter the faire the next day, was actually directing a rehearsal at that time. It was at this point that my wife went from frustrated to irritated. But a very helpful person, who we latter found out was one of the big wigs, told us to just set up for the night and we would be able to take care of it in the morning.

We found the tent area with out any problem, once we got directions from the third person who tried to explain how to get to it (sometimes simple things can be hard to explain). There was plenty of room in the tent area, so we parked our car close to the roped off area and set up camp. It was a nice night, not too cool or to warm, and when we climbed in the tent for the night we tried to start letting go of the frustration that we had been feeling. What better to help you do that than sleeping on the hard ground? But I was ready for that because I like camping. My wife, who’s idea of roughing it is a Motel 6, was not as comfortable with the situation.

Just when we were about to fall asleep, at around 1am, other people showed up to set up camp. They pulled the car up next to ours, and turned the headlights on to shine across the entire tent area, shining through our tent and into our faces. The were also completely clueless about setting up their tent. How do I know this? Because while I tried to sleep, they were setting up their tents not 3 feet from my own. They were three feet away when they had an entire filed to set up in. They could have been 10 feet away, and still had tons of space left over to choose from. But they decided to set up right next to us. And, they kept calling to other campers to help them set up their tent. It took a committee of 7 people to put up tent. And apparently one of them was celebrating a 21st birthday, so someone was singing the barbarian birthday song for them. At about 3am my wife and I had come the end of our rope, and yelled at them to shut up. And after a few comments about you should come out here and make us, the other campers joined in and the “shut the hell up”s outnumbered the “you can’t make me”s. In the morning we woke to find the tension wires from our neighbor’s tens staked only a foot away from the center of our tent door. We tripped on it all weekend long, purposely tying to pull it out. We discovered that these people were pirates. Figures!

That was the worst of it. From that point the weekend was smooth, and awesome. I got our passes the next day with no trouble at all, and the group did a great job with their shows. I made sure my wife and I were drinking water all day long, or Gatorade, and stayed away from the alcohol. When the fair was over, we hung around while people congregated around an ale stand, and even caught the tail end of a concert one of the jugglers put on for all the faire people (he was hysterical).

I can’t wait for next weekend. Not only will I be playing guitar for the group, but we will have all the passes and everything taken care of. We can go, set up, and relax. Not nearly so frustrating.

Posted Wednesday, August 2, 2006, 09:37 AM

I had a wonderful experience this last weekend. My wife’s group, The Belles of Bedlam, did a DVD recording of their three shows in Escondido. After accepting an initiation to join the group three weeks ago, my wife has been thrown into a whirlwind of chaos to get ready for this last weekend. She had to make her costume herself, which includes a skirt, an underskirt, chemise (blouse/shirt), bodice with boning, on top of having to learn a large number of songs and lines for one of her character’s parts in the show. Needless to say, her life has been consumed by getting ready for these shows this weekend.

We left around 3:30pm on Friday from our home in Upland, knowing that it was going to be at least a 1 1/2 hour drive down their (it was 2 hours in traffic). The problem was that the dress was not 100% complete. So my wife had to put the last touches on it while we were driving. She gets car sick if she reads, so you can imaging how good she felt driving down there and sewing at the same time.

We got there, and finally found a parking space, and realized that we were the first one’s to the theater. Funny, because we were also 5 minuets late. Turns out we were not the only one’s who had problems. One person had a blow out on the way down, and had to change their tire. Other people got caught in the worst traffic possible, because they could not leave as early as we did due to this thing call “their day job.” Also, the Director of the group was running really late because she had to go all the way to Burbank first to pick up cameras and stuff for the shoot. This was a recipe for disaster ready to blow up in everyone’s face.

Thankfully, nothing did explode. There was an issue the first night with the camera, because none of us had ever used a pro-camera before and had no idea that we had to set the white-balance. But the group made it though the two shows they had plan to perform, with only a few mistakes, which is a miracle considering there was not dress or tech rehearsal for this first time run of the second show. The audience was small, but enjoyed themselves.

We retired for the night, after dinner at Applebee’s, to one of the cast member’s homes. My wife and I got a room to ourselves, but almost everyone else slept on the flour of the living room. We had about 12 people in the house (2 bathrooms), so by the time everyone had showered and we got to sleep it was about 2:30 in the morning. The next morning we were up and running at 8:30 to do a show in a local park that is more geared for kids. There were a small amount of fans that showed up, and a few kids. Not a good of a turn out as the group had hoped, but enough to have a lot of kids on the camera.

That night was magical. After a day of performing in the heat, and humidity, and feeling like there was very little turn out for this event, the theater was packed to the gills with people. One of the ladies in the group (and her husband) belong to a clan who goes to Ren Faires, and the whole clan showed up. The audience was loud, rowdy, and loved the show. The energy in that theater was amazing that night, and it was truly one of those performing moments that you just know there is nothing you can do that the audience will not love. The next day was also a good performance, coat tailing of the energy from the previous night, but for much smaller audience.
So what did I do while all of this was going on? Well, I could have sat on my butt and just watched as the group pulled things together, but I don’t well with the sitting still thing. They needed someone to help set things up, I was there, so I helped. I did set changes, set up cameras, moved props, loaded and unloaded stuff from cars and trucks, and did general back stage stuff to make sure that things were easy to find and use. I absolutely loved it. It really made me realize how much I dig the feeling that I am useful. I was not expected to do anything, but I was right in there in the trenches doing what ever needed to be done. Many times during the weekend the group members made it a point to thank me for my head work.

Yes, I like to hear thank you, but that is not why I did it. I honestly liked doing the grunt work. I felt like I was taking a load off of the people who were there, and helped make things more livable. Those people were working their asses off as it was, I helped relive a little bit of stress so that they could shine when it came time to perform. That’s what I do best!

Want to see pics for the weekend?

Here is the link for pics from the park: http://www.renaissancefaire.net/20060729-Belles-Felicita/index.htm
Here is the link for pics from the theater: http://www.renaissancefaire.net/20060729-Theatrx.htm

I can’t wait for the big bear fair in 2 weeks. It could be very fun.

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 10:26 AM

I’ve been sucked into the vortex known as Ren Faire. It all started with my wife joining a group called The Belles of Bedlam. Well, they have need of a substitute guitar player for their run at the Northern California Renaissance Faire. I play guitar…

So now my fingers are blistered. I have not play my guitar in a while and have to build my calluses back up. The music is not complicated as far as what cords are being played, I’m just finding it hard to settle into the right style (I’m much more of country boy than I ever realized).

What does this mean? It means that I will soon be one of the people on stage at the Ren Faire! Yes, I will not be counted among such people as Actors, Thespians, and Carnies. Woo Hoo!