acroyear | drunktoberfest bullets (Reply)

I'm going to use

thatliardesmond 's name for this weekend, 'cause its just far too darn appropriate.

highlights:

a nice friday evening @ the home of the bee folk, for the queen (and drone) bee's baby shower
getting a laugh out of diego whilst morris'ing. took a good minute to come up with a line, but at least it was the right one. :)
helping out with faire so a fellow performer could go home and handle what could have been a major tragedy (fortunately, it ended up not nearly as bad as it could have been, but it was still bad). doing my usual -- connect a few dots, figure out what can be done, and lets go do it.

this entailed moving our 4pm saturday set from boardwalk to section A, and then just as we were getting ready Vince and the Angels showed up, so instead of doing our own show as normal (albiet slightly short so we could make our 430 call at the show we subbed for), we were...
having a great jam with Vince whilst the Angels were in the air. after doing a few tunes to warm up while the angels are getting the equipment ready, Vince calls the next tune: "6/8 Noodle in E-Minor" (translation, make it up). really nice to feel how far as a musician i've come, even just mostly playing a tambourine, to be able to explore new ways of playing on the fly rather than the quite rehearsed stuff i have for morning dance.
the "SUV" parking lot outside the white hart (translation: the families just started lining up the kid-carrying wagons in a row; there were about 6 there at its peak).
scotchtoberfest. great night, great way to get the late-afternoon drunks out of our heads.

i'd comment on Emrys's ability to judge a scotch, but I think it would be better to just abstain.

very cool: there was another party happening on site for participants, a fundraiser for dan the master joiner, and so cyd had something to do rather than sit bored whilst i drink; in the auction, she won a case of marzen from clipper city, donated by BeerPam, along with some clipper-city swag. the evening raised over $8500 for Dan, which should really help with medical bills and getting him a decent used truck.
sunday: KIDS. geeze, there were a lot of 'em. and with that came a LOT fewer drunks than saturday.
the deputy exchange -- best "street bit" i've seen among the cast so far

the evil sherrif was teaching Shep how to be an "evil minion", whilst daisy was teaching the sherrif's deputy to be a proper gentleman: stand up straight and tall, compliment the ladies of the village, and buy daisy more ice cream!
decent crowd at our 1pm
playing for friends on the boardwalk @ 4
a much better pub sing audience than saturday (though really an "average" audience on the whole) -- had a few friends in my corner to play with.
damon praying for us @ pubsing.

ok, the bad stuff:

drunks on saturday. damn. i've always tried to place how different the octoberfest drunks are to any other weekend for those that don't work there. some regulars can see it, many can't. but they are different. ALL of their energy is centered back on their own little groups, and we there as performers are often interruptions into their conversations. their reactions vary from violent/aggressive, to "hey nifty" and then turn around and talk again, to "yeah, whatever", to total silence. though they don't see it and its hard to describe why, this form of silence is a form of violence in its own way, rather than the silence of the attentive audient. they simply don't see just how much of a brick wall they put up.

case in point: pub sing. my back corner that had been extremely responsive and active throughout the season simply died. 25 people, all on the 2 tables, and only 1 was actually singing "health to the company". Jack Rackham actually *gave up* trying to talk them through the chorus half-way through, seeing that nothing was coming out of them. there was simply nothing we could do to connect, and they simply didn't realize just how much they were hurting the show by not being part of it. i've had it bad before, but this was the worst pub sing audience i've ever worked against. thank god we didn't try any of the real audience-participation songs (wild rover, nelson's blood, etc), 'cause the whole show would have fallen flat out of the deadness of the back of the pub.

yes, note the use of the word "against". i really find myself to be working *for* a pub sing audience, but this one was different.
actually, that pretty much does it. i've hated octoberfest for years, and i still do.

my scotch (a double-matured 13 year old Talisker) did well in the tasting. its only down was that it was served too early in the night and thus got low marks from the amatuers and peat-haters. it was, however, referred to as "my happy scotch" from claudia of gypsofilia, so i can take that honorable mention with me... :)

the real odd thing -- saturday almost hit 20K (just came shy), but the thing that really got to me was how the lines were. the beer lines were 20-40 people long no matter where you went (the wine garden and its neighboring soda and draft-beer stands were one indistinguishable mob of about 150 people), the food lines were long, the games had lines, the stages were packed...

...but the privy lines were empty. this really wierded me out, and i simply gave up and went backstage for a while to avoid the crowds 'cause there was no way for me to play in the streets with a crowd of a size i personally can handle. usually doing a round of "privy duty" can kill 20 minutes with a little humor, but there was simply no need for it. and given the crowd, i couldn't understand. by pub sing, i figured they were simply just holding it all in, to maximize their collective alcohol content.

i hate octoberfest weekend.