Friend a Day – D’Lis Schmidt
Image from MRF Friends
D’lis isn’t on line at all so there is a decent chance that she will never see this post. She is not interested in the tools of modern society because she is perfectly content with the tools she already possesses.
I think D’Lis is the only person who calls me “Timothy.” She calls everyone by their full names whether that is how they prefer to be addressed or not. I think she views it as a sign of respect.
My birthday falls right in the middle of the Renaissance Festival season. When I turned 25, it was on a Saturday and as usual, I expected no fanfare because I never expect my birthday to be a big deal when it is on a show day. Halfway through the day, D’Lis came up to me in character (because when she is on stage she is always in character) and “accidentally” dropped something into my lap.
It was an astrolabe necklace. I still wear it as part of my costume.
Many years later, D’Lis had been given the Lee Walker Award, which is the highest honor you can receive as an MRF performer, and I was talking with Mark Lazarchic about her later that evening. He said she had given the best advice he’d ever gotten as a performer – do something that scares you every day.
These stores about D’Lis are probably the best way to explain how much respect and admiration I have for her. She is kind and thoughtful but also one of the most devoted performers I’ve ever known. When she was on stage at the festival, she was on stage.
She was always interacting with the audience. She was always interacting with other performers as their characters. She understood what it was to be a street performer in a way that few others really did.
D’Lis also taught me a valuable lesson about standing up and demanding what you feel you are worth. She was not the sort of person to look at a contract for performance and say it was “good enough.”
She has been off the street for the last few years, working in a shop. I try to stop by and visit her there but let me tell you this: that is not where she belongs.
She belongs on the street because she brings an amazing game there.
I’m fortunate to have learned from D’Lis. She’s a great teacher.
Friend a Day – Gary Parker
I met Gary Parker almost 30 years ago when I was trying to get into the Renaissance Festival academy.
The short version of the story is my family had gone on a one-month trip to Europe and I missed the first two weeks of academy in what would be my rookie year. I’d mentioned it would happen at my audition but by the time I got home, I’d been cut.
A normal person would have just tried out the next year. Not me. All my friends had gotten into the festival that year. I didn’t want to wait. So I followed Gary Parker, who was director of the academy at the time, around for most of the evening trying to convince him to give me a chance.
It worked. I think because he just got tired of telling me no.
If I’d not gotten into the festival that year, I wonder if I would have simply chosen to forego trying out the next year. I think it’s very likely I would never have gone back.
So Gary changed the entire course of my life that night.
That would be enough to call Gary a friend.
Since that time, though, he has been one of the most constant sources of encouragement and inspiration for me. I’ve asked him to give advice on a few things I’ve written over the years. At least once, he told me to trash the entire thing. Only the best of people tell you something you’ve written is awful.
He was right, by the way.
I would imagine most people who go to the festival have seen Gary but don’t even realize it. He works primarily with a mask, sitting on a chair and turning a crank any time someone drops money in his bowl. Mostly nickels and quarters.
Nickels and quarters.
The Dregs sing songs for five bucks.
Gary makes kids laugh for nickels and quarters.
For years, he was the leader of the festival academy where he taught a generation of performers how entertain an audience. On the first day, he would get up and lead a bunch of brand new people thought a series of wordless improvisational structures. They were the same every year. He would end with a story about doing one of them at the 1980 Winter Olympics. It was the same story every year.
And it never got old.
We usually only see each other at the festival these days but the first time I see him, he always tells me how his kids and grandkids are doing. Because he cares and because he knows I’m interested.
Every morning, he stands right by the entrance gates to greet the audience. He’s always been one of the first people to greet the audience.
If you’d never stayed late after an academy session, you probably didn’t know how good a piano player he is or that he writes some very catchy music.
When the festival initiated the Lee Walker award, I told anyone in a position to make a decision that Gary needed to get it first. To me, there was no name that could ever be first on the list but his. I’m really glad other people agreed.
It truly amazes me that I can count Gary as a friend. I wouldn’t be who I am today without him.
Gary isn’t online too much so I don’t know when he’ll see this. But you know, it isn’t so important that Gary knows how awesome he is. It’s important that everyone else does.
Friend a Day – Laurie Richardson
Photo by John Solberg
Laurie is one of those people who comes up with exciting crazy ideas and then actually makes those crazy ideas happen. Several years ago, she decided that we should have trading cards for Vilification Tennis. I said that was a great idea and if she could make it happen, I was completely behind it.
Well, she made it happen and it has been a crazy popular idea ever since.
She has a great impish smile that betrays a new idea. She can’t wait to tell you about it and I can’t wait to hear it. I’ve learned to never say anything so foolish as “you’ll never figure out a way to do that” because the fact is she already has.
She’s been a performer with Vilification Tennis for several years and is always writing new material that is clever and unique. I can hear a joke and know it is a Laurie joke.
One of the things Laurie is really passionate about is animals. She’s worked for veterinary clinics and the Humane Society most of the time I’ve known her. When someone lost a pet, she cried with them. When someone abandoned some kittens behind a gas station on a cold winter night, she took the survivor into her home, nursed it until it was healthy enough to find a home, and then found it a good home (ours).
That’s just one animal she rescued. There have been many others.
She understands the bond people form with their pets and shows amazing compassion for pet owners and their animals.
She’s also spent many hours renovating her home. Her house has been transformed by hours of hard work. It takes a lot of drive and determination to buy a house knowing that it will take years to turn it into the house you really want and to continually work towards that goal.
I like Laurie because she does things. She is an idea person who makes the ideas happen. It makes her a really fun person to be around.
Laurie doesn’t have a web site but right now, she is raising money for the annual Humane Society Walk for Animals. It’s something she’s very passionate about. So if you think she’s as cool as I do, you should go to her page and donate a few bucks.
Friend a Day – Eric Knight
Photo by Ryan Haro
Eric and I started at the Renaissance Festival in 1985 and we have been friends ever since. This year both of us will celebrate our 30th season. The years of service awards at the Festival are that much better because I get to share the walk with a good friend.
Eric is well known for being pedantic but that somewhat derogatory term points to how good he is at the little details of so many things. He doesn’t miss much.
He’s been my assistant director for Vilification Tennis for the last several years and the reason is because he will tell me when he thinks I’m doing something wrong. I don’t tend to take such conversations well but I usually come around to his way of thinking because he is usually right.
When I’m working on a new project or a new idea, Eric is one of the best resources for me because I understand the language he speaks. His criticisms and comments are clear and honest and they help me become a better writer.
At the festival, he is a gifted up close performer. His Concierge character is not a boisterous character that draws a crowd but instead, he is a character built around the idea of improving the festival day for everyone who walks through the gate. Every interaction he has with a patron is a positive interaction.
Conversations with Eric typically aren’t short. We used to hold monthly Festival get together parties and Eric was frequently the last person to leave. Often it would be as the sun was rising and he hadn’t yet overstayed his welcome.
Eric is also a gifted costumer, a movie fan, and one of the founders of the CONvergence movie room, Cinema Rex.
I’m lucky to have known Eric for almost thirty years. I’m hoping we’ll be friends for at least thirty more!
Eric doesn’t have a web site but he sometimes tweets as @PedanticEric.
Shit that Pissed me off this week- 8/23
It’s actually been a pretty boring week. Not too much that really annoyed me. Perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong places.
They Cut Down a Grand Old Tree at the Renaissance Festival
This is not a “fuck the management of the Renaissance Festival” screed. While I sometimes feel that way, the issue here is not one of any idiot running the festival but rather the cost of our human needs.
Near a group of rocks at the MRF grounds, there was an oak tree that provided shade for years. That tree stood over the old peasant banquet and sing-along and it even provided some shade to the old juggling booth. All of those things were long gone but the tree remained. Until now.
The tree wasn’t sick (so far as I know). They cut it down because they had to run new power lines on to the site and it was in the way.
I don’t know if they could have run the lines somewhere else. Even if they could have done so, it probably would have resulted in some other tree being destroyed.
But that tree had history for me. That tree meant something to me.
That tree there. They one right between these two lovely ladies (photo by Eric Knight).
And it is the inevitable cost of human progress that we destroy things that get in our way. Over and over and over again. It isn’t a problem with the Renaissance festival. it is a problem with the way the world works.
I guess it doesn’t piss me off. It makes me sad.
Shit that pissed me off this week – 8/24
Todd Akin says “Legitimate Rape” Rarely Results in Pregnancy
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people are talking about this one so it may seem pointless that I even bring him up so late in the week. Ignoring his messed up statistics and knowledge of biology for a moment, what really has me upset is the concept of “legitimate rape.”
Now by this I assume he meant to insinuate that many women who claim to have been raped are lying. That is a pretty common tactic. Point out that some cases of rape are not legitimate (which is true) and you cast doubt on all claims of rape.
Because we’re stupid, we think that if one woman lies about rape, any claim of rape must be viewed as suspect. That’s what Akin taps into here. He is trying to diffuse the question of abortion in the case of rape by suggesting that women are lying about rape in order to get an abortion.
He may have issued an apology but the language was no accident. He knew exactly what he was saying and to whom he was speaking.
Note that Akin has brought all sorts of other stupid people out of the woodwork who have interesting thoughts about pregnancy and “legitimate” rape.
Grail Diary 