Summer Vacation Part 2: Pennsic
Thursday, 24 August 2006 10:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maugornOverall, Pennsic was good this year.
I hesitate to say great, because financially it was kind of cantankerous, difficult, and not at all as as profitable as last year.
It was kind of to be expected since
1) I didn't have a new CD ready (and almost everyone who wanted one got one- thank Eris for almosts)
2) The economy is definitely sluggish (alot of merchants said this too)
3) I lost several days of work to CPC, and then to tent problems.
However, I started out armed with a good attitude that succeed or fail, I'd be okay, 'cause I had over 8 gigs lined up for once I got home. (and alot of them are the decently paying "Clipper City" gigs).
There's a plot twist in the gig thing, but that's for a later post. The point was and still is that win or lose, Pennsic was not going to be my sole income booster this summer. That led to alot of not having to push myself past reasonable limits or resorting to desperation measures like amplifying, which I don't like doing at Pennsic for many reasons (only the least of which is "authenticity")
So as is inevitable, Pennsic has spawned some epic tales:
It's Tuesday night, I'm driving to Pennsic. I'm an hour away from arriving, just about to get onto 79 when i realised something.... I forgot to pack the tent poles. (sound track cut sound= "5 note descending chromatic riff on trumpet") I call up Sonya just to make sure that they actually are at home, and yes they are. She's arriving late Wednsday, so not a huge deal. I sleep in the van for two days since they rarely start towing before then, and my camp is way they hell down in the woods and quite off the road at that.
Fast forward to Sonya getting there and we go to set up our camp and.... (sound track cut sound="drum roll") .... and .... and....
Each and every elastic on each and every tent pole is broken.
So on to Plan B.
"What is Plan B?" you ask, along with a chorus of startled gremlins.
Well, on Tuesday night as I arrived, after stopping in to say Hi to the dancers in the barn, I was headed down the hill to camp and I passed by the coffee place. Whom should I see but this gal whom I've had a major crush on at Pennsic for oh, a decade perhaps. Anxious to go say hi (and to see if I could do so without the usual stuttering and drooling) I park the van and go say hi. As we're catching up, I chanced to relate my tale of woe about having forgotten the tent poles. Who should overhear us but Bambi, who just happened to be on site with about 20 of those 10'x 10' and 10'X 20'carport thingies that people sometimes use as pavillions, FOR SALE, CHEAP. (a failed event was liquidating) So I get her info, because I'm thinking that a couple of these things could come in handy for MDFF and possibly as a Plan B if the tent didn't work out somehow.
Yay for Major Crushes!!!!
Thus Plan B was born. As luck would have it, yes MDFF did want some carports, but also, since we didn't have a tent anymore (at least not at Pennsic. Sonya thinks we can get replacement poles from Coleman), we purchased three 10'X 20' carports. We spent all of Thursday doing this, hauling it to camp, erecting one of them, moving our stuff in, etc.
All in all it cost the entire day, and made staying on track for my modest Pennsic goal that much harder the rest of the war. It worked out ok, but I had to work to keep the war from being UNprofitable.
I like our new "Pennsic McMansion" It's spacious, comfy, reasonably durable to weather (especially once I perfect my floor plan for it)
Fortunately one more night slept in the van didn't cause any major problems. When Baron Frog, head of Pennsic Physical Plant says to the head of Parking "Dude, there's a guy in my camp sleeping in his van until he can get his tent replaced, don't bother it OK? It'll be out of there by the weekend", then there's no problem with my sleeping in my van for one more night.
Katriana wasn't there again this year, and so playing for the dancing was once again an order of magnitude less fun. If you read this and speak to her, tell her I said that. I'm not alone either.
I've lost some stamina for late night dancing of late. I've been nodding off on stage by 1:00am. Not good. Must look into fixing that.
I was in fact, kinda sluggish and sleepy this whole war. I think the apnea is taking more of a toll lately. Must look into fixing that.
Overall, dancing was fun. There's some fun new music in the pile and I even got to sit in and play guitar along with Wolgemut on the night they came to play in the barn.
Because of my work I don't get to alot of parties, unless I'm invited to play at them.
I've finally learned one last time to get some sort of payment in advance if I'm to be payed.
I was waylaid and begged to come to this one party at a certain notorious campsite, and offered money if I did. I agreed, but turned down cash if they could promise me some CD sales. Well, no one but this guy knew I was coming, and they had LOTS of other entertainment lined up AND there was no CD sales to be made. I got a few tips playing by their bar and acquired a couple of new fans, but the whole affair still gets a mild growl.
The Wulfgard Scottish Rebellion OTOH - Man I ALWAYS feel the Love there. Wulf is one of the finest of humans and bless him, he loves me too! I got to play some great new Scottish material, and a bunch of old favorites too. They fed me decently. I sold some CDs. I got a couple of sips (again) of my absolute all time favorite mead. My performance shone and I really kicked ass, again. And I even got to give some tips on pursuing music and learning to sing better to a sweet young thing who was just a little too young and just a little too starstruck to have me sitting comfortably.
MAN I hate trudging up that damn hill. I love where I camp. I love the people and I just love those woods, especially how fey and mischievous they are when the people aren't cluttering them up. But my commute to work at Pennsic, as many of you have heard me say, either involves a >1/2hour trudge around the lake or a climb up "Fucking Runestone Fucking Hill".
Well, no denials that I need the exercise. And hauling my stuff in a wagon instead of on my back did help.
And it does get easier as the War goes on.
Well, anyway, one of my the ingredients in my formula for successfully enjoying an event is to do something new, some new experience, or to bring back some new thing in my life. I've been taking a new look at Runestone Hill since the Western PA Faerie Fest. I always knew it had that marker thingie on it, but I never actually visited it until WPAFF and what's more I never really let myself "feel" the magick of that space.
All that has been rectified. As I walked over that space by the stone last Friday night, I could feel a real tingling in my feet. It's a magick space all right, and it's been steadily charged for decades now with a very positive and very reverent, and very fun energy. And it shows. Children are drawn to the space, and if you watch them, you'll see how that they react differently there than to other places at Pennsic. They frolic and they'll even dance- and always holding hands in a circle or a spiral, and often weaving themselves in a celtic knot.
And all these years I've been walking by that little grove cursing the slope instead of stopping to enjoy it as a place I ought to be naturally in tune with.
Sometimes it takes a little interference, a little nudge, a shaking up of one's routine to really appreciate what's under your nose or even under your feet.
My advice- don't wait. Go visit that space and enjoy it. Feel it. Lose yourself for awhile in it's timelessness. And don't go there alone. Bring a friend. Someone special to enjoy being there with, to share, to talk for hours and lose track of the time, to be close to.
This is a very powerful place, and the more special that person you share it with, the more likely it is that the place and your memory of being in it are to become a source of strength and joy - a happy oasis that your soul can retreat to and draw sustenance from.
Just sayin'
I've also found a new way to have LOTS of fun on that hill. But that's another story
I really should just let the one little dark cloud pass, but you know, it pissed me off and dang it, I'm gonna fuss about this, 'cause I'd like people to know that this *does* happen to me and that it's one of the reasons why I can be the way I am sometimes.
There I was, in the food court, playing my heart out as usual. Now the deal with busking is that if you really don't like it, you don't have to listen, and you can in fact go on and have a nice life because it's not such a big deal, right? All you have to do is nothing.
And the food court is big enough and loud enough that you don't have to go too far to have a meal where you can't hear me anyway, especially if I'm not amplified.
If you like what I do, you're free to help me out, and if you really don't like what I do, well, I won't starve without your quarter so you don't even have to feel guilty for passing me by and not contributing. I'm out selling my art, not desperately keeping the Dire Wolf from my throat one song at a time.
Anyway, there I was playing "Barrett's Privateers" which, while not strictly period continues to be a "Pennsic Hit" and being on my Pennsic Play list because it, and it's powerful story, moral, and catchy chorus are really appealing to Pennsic folk. So there walks by this cute young thing, who's singing along, smiling and seeming to really dig what I'm doing. She stops. Sings every word along with me. Claps her hands when I'm done, and then asks me if I do a song called "Pennsic's Privateers"- a 'parody' or 'filk' to the same tune.
Uh oh.
I smile and shake my head and admit "I'm sorry, M'lady. I don't really do 'filk'. I'm far too much more of a regular folksinger. I know LOTS of great songs if you'd like to hear another."
"Oh well," she says not even a slightly snidely, sticks her cute little nose up in the air and saunters off huffily, no tip, nothin'.
I suppose my answer was slightly off-putting, I perhaps should have said "filk is not my forte", which is easier to swallow, but it was hot, and two weeks in the sunshine was beginning to wear on me. I was saving all of my energy for song delivery.
Anyway, I'm sure somebody knows someone who knows her and I'd really appreciate it if somehow this message got to her:
Dear------
I was prepared to like you and I was prepared to sing my heart out for you again. But to decide that an artist fails your test because their art does not happen to include something you want or like is very very selfish, especially in view of the fact that you *seemed* to like what I was doing up to that point. As it is now, your snide little snit has made me hope you never darken my stage space again.
You could have smiled and thanked me for my song and walked on, but no, you just HAD to do that snide little snooty bit, didn't you? Why?
And what's more, your behaviour seems to suggest that you actually hold my artistry in contempt which is very confusing. I poured a piece of my soul into that arrangement of the song I did play for you and it's a powerful arrangement that people really do respond to. I'm proud of it and for good reason. You responded too. But that wasn't for enough for you somehow and I don't get it. My arrangements are not disposable, nor are they for cutting and pasting. Some folks do that, but not I. Why must I anyway? For me, at least, the arrangement and the lyrics are a whole package. You might not realise that I *do* know some folksongs that share melodies and similar phrases, (as does happen in folk music) but that I treat the different songs as different entities because they ARE different, even if they share somethig. To then turn around and act as if you wouldn't be happy unless I knew and played something that I would feel vandalised the arrangement that I set to those lyrics to satisfy your agenda seems very petty to me and very vain.
I understand that you can't know all that without speaking to me, but you didn't really give me that chance, did you?
And what's more, you're reinforcing a very bad stereotype and a very bad example. Because I have friends who are filkers (some of them close and good friends, colleagues, and even bandmates) I've had to work very hard to overcome projecting your attitude and this kind of reaction that you put out- onto them. They are fine fine people, even if we don't agree 100% in our tastes of musical and lyrical styles. And some of them are damn good musicians even if we don't always like playing the same things. The problem is that your attitude is nothing new to me, and it's taken alot of patience with me on the part of my friends to help me get past those bad attitudes and respect what they do.
I work very hard to NOT equate "filk" with poor musicianship and an attitude that encourages cheap musical and lyrical vandalism over originality and craftsmanship.
But you, little missy, with your little huff, seem to want to undermine this work and just cause more frustration as I try to feel accepted and appreciated in that community, even tho I am.
YOU and your snit seem to want to bring out a past that is NOT congruent with my present experience, and for that you should be spanked like the petulant little child you played and sent to the corner to think about how you should be treating people.
Maybe you've learned that snide people are "cool" somehow. They're not cool, they're cold, and that's because they're sucking the life out of others in a vain attempt to warm up their own icy little hearts.
And for what it's worth, yeah, you bugged me, but I'm not going to learn your damned song and compromise my style just for you, and what's more I'm not going to starve without your quarter. And what's more my real friends (some of them filkers) will understand and support my decision. And what's more, I'll keep working on my art and myself and can guarantee that the next time you see me I'll be even better and better at what I do.
So, If you felt compelled to snipe at me because my ability and because the quality of my work is somehow threatening to you, then I suggest you avoid me in the future lest you feel even smaller than how you acted the other day.
On the other hand, what I really hope is that you grow some too. Yeah, You pissed me off, but I've already got enough enemies. Don't be one of them. They're not happy people.
Because of my work, I'm often away from camp and wind up not contributing as I should to camp maintainance, and even breakdown, if I'm still working. And because I was so late this year, I didn't get to help with any setup. I feel bad about this as it keeps happening year to year. Frog has been more than generous and more than understanding, but the fact is I WANT to help. So this year I got to!!!!
I stayed over on Sunday night and on Monday morning I broke down Frog's campsite as he did work with the Pennsic Staff and the Coopers.
And thus I got to stay -and as long as I was discrete and not too greedy, do a little trash scrounging too. I got to sit around the campfire with some major Pennsic staff and listen while they talked about stuff and people I couldn't possibly relate to.
And then leave Monday with some extra stuff and a cooler full of chocolate milk!
To haul around our crap this year, Sonya and I finally broke down and bought one of those big "yard cart" style wagons you see people at Pennsic hauling their kids around in. You also see kids hauling ice in them, and fighters hauling armor, etc.
Our wagon chose it's own name: "Nellie", the first time we tried to wheel it down a hill when it was full of stuff. Man those wheel bearings are good.
"WHOA NELLIE!" we cried as we struggled to keep if from taking off.
Naturally I got ideas.
Many of you know of my daredevil streak and have heard Sonya admonish me saying things like:
"NO! You're NOT going to:
- Jump out of a plane with jet engines on your feet
- Order a jet pack off the Internet
- Build a "ski-cycle" like the Beatles used in the snow scene in _Help_
- Jump out of an airplane for ANY reason
- Go hangliding over an active volcano or anywhere else
- Strap helium balloons to your belt and go 'bouncing'
- Bungee jump off of anything
- Build a lightning powered anything
- Retune bagpipes to play using Propane and light the gas coming out of the pipes
.....Ride down Runestone hill on the wagon.
So there I was on Sunday evening. Cooper's Lake Campground was deserted. I was alone by the Bathhouse on Runestone Hill. I had just put a couple of scrounged items onto the wagon and there was just enough room for me to sit at the front. And there was the hill. (Not all of it, I don't want to take all of it until I perfect my brakes)
At the moment that I was about to sit down and take my ride down the hill,,,
My cell phone rings.
It's Sonya.
"Hi. So watcha doin' tonight?"
I was SO busted. How the hell does she DO that?
So, I had to suffer some disapproval and nagging, but I got my ride. Man is that fun! Calvin was really onto something.
No, I didn't wipe out or get hurt.
But I think I'm right about wanting brakes if I'm to make this a hobby.
Another reason to actually *like* Runestone Hill.
I hesitate to say great, because financially it was kind of cantankerous, difficult, and not at all as as profitable as last year.
It was kind of to be expected since
1) I didn't have a new CD ready (and almost everyone who wanted one got one- thank Eris for almosts)
2) The economy is definitely sluggish (alot of merchants said this too)
3) I lost several days of work to CPC, and then to tent problems.
However, I started out armed with a good attitude that succeed or fail, I'd be okay, 'cause I had over 8 gigs lined up for once I got home. (and alot of them are the decently paying "Clipper City" gigs).
There's a plot twist in the gig thing, but that's for a later post. The point was and still is that win or lose, Pennsic was not going to be my sole income booster this summer. That led to alot of not having to push myself past reasonable limits or resorting to desperation measures like amplifying, which I don't like doing at Pennsic for many reasons (only the least of which is "authenticity")
So as is inevitable, Pennsic has spawned some epic tales:
It's Tuesday night, I'm driving to Pennsic. I'm an hour away from arriving, just about to get onto 79 when i realised something.... I forgot to pack the tent poles. (sound track cut sound= "5 note descending chromatic riff on trumpet") I call up Sonya just to make sure that they actually are at home, and yes they are. She's arriving late Wednsday, so not a huge deal. I sleep in the van for two days since they rarely start towing before then, and my camp is way they hell down in the woods and quite off the road at that.
Fast forward to Sonya getting there and we go to set up our camp and.... (sound track cut sound="drum roll") .... and .... and....
Each and every elastic on each and every tent pole is broken.
So on to Plan B.
"What is Plan B?" you ask, along with a chorus of startled gremlins.
Well, on Tuesday night as I arrived, after stopping in to say Hi to the dancers in the barn, I was headed down the hill to camp and I passed by the coffee place. Whom should I see but this gal whom I've had a major crush on at Pennsic for oh, a decade perhaps. Anxious to go say hi (and to see if I could do so without the usual stuttering and drooling) I park the van and go say hi. As we're catching up, I chanced to relate my tale of woe about having forgotten the tent poles. Who should overhear us but Bambi, who just happened to be on site with about 20 of those 10'x 10' and 10'X 20'carport thingies that people sometimes use as pavillions, FOR SALE, CHEAP. (a failed event was liquidating) So I get her info, because I'm thinking that a couple of these things could come in handy for MDFF and possibly as a Plan B if the tent didn't work out somehow.
Yay for Major Crushes!!!!
Thus Plan B was born. As luck would have it, yes MDFF did want some carports, but also, since we didn't have a tent anymore (at least not at Pennsic. Sonya thinks we can get replacement poles from Coleman), we purchased three 10'X 20' carports. We spent all of Thursday doing this, hauling it to camp, erecting one of them, moving our stuff in, etc.
All in all it cost the entire day, and made staying on track for my modest Pennsic goal that much harder the rest of the war. It worked out ok, but I had to work to keep the war from being UNprofitable.
I like our new "Pennsic McMansion" It's spacious, comfy, reasonably durable to weather (especially once I perfect my floor plan for it)
Fortunately one more night slept in the van didn't cause any major problems. When Baron Frog, head of Pennsic Physical Plant says to the head of Parking "Dude, there's a guy in my camp sleeping in his van until he can get his tent replaced, don't bother it OK? It'll be out of there by the weekend", then there's no problem with my sleeping in my van for one more night.
Katriana wasn't there again this year, and so playing for the dancing was once again an order of magnitude less fun. If you read this and speak to her, tell her I said that. I'm not alone either.
I've lost some stamina for late night dancing of late. I've been nodding off on stage by 1:00am. Not good. Must look into fixing that.
I was in fact, kinda sluggish and sleepy this whole war. I think the apnea is taking more of a toll lately. Must look into fixing that.
Overall, dancing was fun. There's some fun new music in the pile and I even got to sit in and play guitar along with Wolgemut on the night they came to play in the barn.
Because of my work I don't get to alot of parties, unless I'm invited to play at them.
I've finally learned one last time to get some sort of payment in advance if I'm to be payed.
I was waylaid and begged to come to this one party at a certain notorious campsite, and offered money if I did. I agreed, but turned down cash if they could promise me some CD sales. Well, no one but this guy knew I was coming, and they had LOTS of other entertainment lined up AND there was no CD sales to be made. I got a few tips playing by their bar and acquired a couple of new fans, but the whole affair still gets a mild growl.
The Wulfgard Scottish Rebellion OTOH - Man I ALWAYS feel the Love there. Wulf is one of the finest of humans and bless him, he loves me too! I got to play some great new Scottish material, and a bunch of old favorites too. They fed me decently. I sold some CDs. I got a couple of sips (again) of my absolute all time favorite mead. My performance shone and I really kicked ass, again. And I even got to give some tips on pursuing music and learning to sing better to a sweet young thing who was just a little too young and just a little too starstruck to have me sitting comfortably.
MAN I hate trudging up that damn hill. I love where I camp. I love the people and I just love those woods, especially how fey and mischievous they are when the people aren't cluttering them up. But my commute to work at Pennsic, as many of you have heard me say, either involves a >1/2hour trudge around the lake or a climb up "Fucking Runestone Fucking Hill".
Well, no denials that I need the exercise. And hauling my stuff in a wagon instead of on my back did help.
And it does get easier as the War goes on.
Well, anyway, one of my the ingredients in my formula for successfully enjoying an event is to do something new, some new experience, or to bring back some new thing in my life. I've been taking a new look at Runestone Hill since the Western PA Faerie Fest. I always knew it had that marker thingie on it, but I never actually visited it until WPAFF and what's more I never really let myself "feel" the magick of that space.
All that has been rectified. As I walked over that space by the stone last Friday night, I could feel a real tingling in my feet. It's a magick space all right, and it's been steadily charged for decades now with a very positive and very reverent, and very fun energy. And it shows. Children are drawn to the space, and if you watch them, you'll see how that they react differently there than to other places at Pennsic. They frolic and they'll even dance- and always holding hands in a circle or a spiral, and often weaving themselves in a celtic knot.
And all these years I've been walking by that little grove cursing the slope instead of stopping to enjoy it as a place I ought to be naturally in tune with.
Sometimes it takes a little interference, a little nudge, a shaking up of one's routine to really appreciate what's under your nose or even under your feet.
My advice- don't wait. Go visit that space and enjoy it. Feel it. Lose yourself for awhile in it's timelessness. And don't go there alone. Bring a friend. Someone special to enjoy being there with, to share, to talk for hours and lose track of the time, to be close to.
This is a very powerful place, and the more special that person you share it with, the more likely it is that the place and your memory of being in it are to become a source of strength and joy - a happy oasis that your soul can retreat to and draw sustenance from.
Just sayin'
I've also found a new way to have LOTS of fun on that hill. But that's another story
I really should just let the one little dark cloud pass, but you know, it pissed me off and dang it, I'm gonna fuss about this, 'cause I'd like people to know that this *does* happen to me and that it's one of the reasons why I can be the way I am sometimes.
There I was, in the food court, playing my heart out as usual. Now the deal with busking is that if you really don't like it, you don't have to listen, and you can in fact go on and have a nice life because it's not such a big deal, right? All you have to do is nothing.
And the food court is big enough and loud enough that you don't have to go too far to have a meal where you can't hear me anyway, especially if I'm not amplified.
If you like what I do, you're free to help me out, and if you really don't like what I do, well, I won't starve without your quarter so you don't even have to feel guilty for passing me by and not contributing. I'm out selling my art, not desperately keeping the Dire Wolf from my throat one song at a time.
Anyway, there I was playing "Barrett's Privateers" which, while not strictly period continues to be a "Pennsic Hit" and being on my Pennsic Play list because it, and it's powerful story, moral, and catchy chorus are really appealing to Pennsic folk. So there walks by this cute young thing, who's singing along, smiling and seeming to really dig what I'm doing. She stops. Sings every word along with me. Claps her hands when I'm done, and then asks me if I do a song called "Pennsic's Privateers"- a 'parody' or 'filk' to the same tune.
Uh oh.
I smile and shake my head and admit "I'm sorry, M'lady. I don't really do 'filk'. I'm far too much more of a regular folksinger. I know LOTS of great songs if you'd like to hear another."
"Oh well," she says not even a slightly snidely, sticks her cute little nose up in the air and saunters off huffily, no tip, nothin'.
I suppose my answer was slightly off-putting, I perhaps should have said "filk is not my forte", which is easier to swallow, but it was hot, and two weeks in the sunshine was beginning to wear on me. I was saving all of my energy for song delivery.
Anyway, I'm sure somebody knows someone who knows her and I'd really appreciate it if somehow this message got to her:
Dear------
I was prepared to like you and I was prepared to sing my heart out for you again. But to decide that an artist fails your test because their art does not happen to include something you want or like is very very selfish, especially in view of the fact that you *seemed* to like what I was doing up to that point. As it is now, your snide little snit has made me hope you never darken my stage space again.
You could have smiled and thanked me for my song and walked on, but no, you just HAD to do that snide little snooty bit, didn't you? Why?
And what's more, your behaviour seems to suggest that you actually hold my artistry in contempt which is very confusing. I poured a piece of my soul into that arrangement of the song I did play for you and it's a powerful arrangement that people really do respond to. I'm proud of it and for good reason. You responded too. But that wasn't for enough for you somehow and I don't get it. My arrangements are not disposable, nor are they for cutting and pasting. Some folks do that, but not I. Why must I anyway? For me, at least, the arrangement and the lyrics are a whole package. You might not realise that I *do* know some folksongs that share melodies and similar phrases, (as does happen in folk music) but that I treat the different songs as different entities because they ARE different, even if they share somethig. To then turn around and act as if you wouldn't be happy unless I knew and played something that I would feel vandalised the arrangement that I set to those lyrics to satisfy your agenda seems very petty to me and very vain.
I understand that you can't know all that without speaking to me, but you didn't really give me that chance, did you?
And what's more, you're reinforcing a very bad stereotype and a very bad example. Because I have friends who are filkers (some of them close and good friends, colleagues, and even bandmates) I've had to work very hard to overcome projecting your attitude and this kind of reaction that you put out- onto them. They are fine fine people, even if we don't agree 100% in our tastes of musical and lyrical styles. And some of them are damn good musicians even if we don't always like playing the same things. The problem is that your attitude is nothing new to me, and it's taken alot of patience with me on the part of my friends to help me get past those bad attitudes and respect what they do.
I work very hard to NOT equate "filk" with poor musicianship and an attitude that encourages cheap musical and lyrical vandalism over originality and craftsmanship.
But you, little missy, with your little huff, seem to want to undermine this work and just cause more frustration as I try to feel accepted and appreciated in that community, even tho I am.
YOU and your snit seem to want to bring out a past that is NOT congruent with my present experience, and for that you should be spanked like the petulant little child you played and sent to the corner to think about how you should be treating people.
Maybe you've learned that snide people are "cool" somehow. They're not cool, they're cold, and that's because they're sucking the life out of others in a vain attempt to warm up their own icy little hearts.
And for what it's worth, yeah, you bugged me, but I'm not going to learn your damned song and compromise my style just for you, and what's more I'm not going to starve without your quarter. And what's more my real friends (some of them filkers) will understand and support my decision. And what's more, I'll keep working on my art and myself and can guarantee that the next time you see me I'll be even better and better at what I do.
So, If you felt compelled to snipe at me because my ability and because the quality of my work is somehow threatening to you, then I suggest you avoid me in the future lest you feel even smaller than how you acted the other day.
On the other hand, what I really hope is that you grow some too. Yeah, You pissed me off, but I've already got enough enemies. Don't be one of them. They're not happy people.
Because of my work, I'm often away from camp and wind up not contributing as I should to camp maintainance, and even breakdown, if I'm still working. And because I was so late this year, I didn't get to help with any setup. I feel bad about this as it keeps happening year to year. Frog has been more than generous and more than understanding, but the fact is I WANT to help. So this year I got to!!!!
I stayed over on Sunday night and on Monday morning I broke down Frog's campsite as he did work with the Pennsic Staff and the Coopers.
And thus I got to stay -and as long as I was discrete and not too greedy, do a little trash scrounging too. I got to sit around the campfire with some major Pennsic staff and listen while they talked about stuff and people I couldn't possibly relate to.
And then leave Monday with some extra stuff and a cooler full of chocolate milk!
To haul around our crap this year, Sonya and I finally broke down and bought one of those big "yard cart" style wagons you see people at Pennsic hauling their kids around in. You also see kids hauling ice in them, and fighters hauling armor, etc.
Our wagon chose it's own name: "Nellie", the first time we tried to wheel it down a hill when it was full of stuff. Man those wheel bearings are good.
"WHOA NELLIE!" we cried as we struggled to keep if from taking off.
Naturally I got ideas.
Many of you know of my daredevil streak and have heard Sonya admonish me saying things like:
"NO! You're NOT going to:
- Jump out of a plane with jet engines on your feet
- Order a jet pack off the Internet
- Build a "ski-cycle" like the Beatles used in the snow scene in _Help_
- Jump out of an airplane for ANY reason
- Go hangliding over an active volcano or anywhere else
- Strap helium balloons to your belt and go 'bouncing'
- Bungee jump off of anything
- Build a lightning powered anything
- Retune bagpipes to play using Propane and light the gas coming out of the pipes
.....Ride down Runestone hill on the wagon.
So there I was on Sunday evening. Cooper's Lake Campground was deserted. I was alone by the Bathhouse on Runestone Hill. I had just put a couple of scrounged items onto the wagon and there was just enough room for me to sit at the front. And there was the hill. (Not all of it, I don't want to take all of it until I perfect my brakes)
At the moment that I was about to sit down and take my ride down the hill,,,
My cell phone rings.
It's Sonya.
"Hi. So watcha doin' tonight?"
I was SO busted. How the hell does she DO that?
So, I had to suffer some disapproval and nagging, but I got my ride. Man is that fun! Calvin was really onto something.
No, I didn't wipe out or get hurt.
But I think I'm right about wanting brakes if I'm to make this a hobby.
Another reason to actually *like* Runestone Hill.
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no subject
2006-08-24 17:34 (UTC)I'm looking at Sonya's list of banned things, and the words "long-suffering" come to mind. Thankfully, she has the art of Maugorn-injury-avoidance down.
no subject
2006-08-24 20:16 (UTC)no subject
2006-08-24 18:21 (UTC)Not to mention birth trauma, learning to walk and talk (and sing and play instruments) from scratch, having diapers changed in cold rooms/tents or other uncomfortable environments, etc. Aren't you lucky to have Sonya? :^)
no subject
2006-08-24 20:14 (UTC)no subject
2006-08-24 20:09 (UTC)(Don't tell Sonya I encourage you....)
no subject
2006-08-24 20:13 (UTC)