Chapter Twenty-Eight.

     I've arrived at that age where I actually have to pay attention to aches and pains. In the first place, they don't go away after a couple of days, the way they did twenty or thirty years ago. In the second place, a sore neck used to mean that you'd overdone it the day before when you were waterskiing, or sky diving, or having sex in the back of your Datsun 280ZX. These days a sore neck is almost assuredly the beginnings of rheumatoid arthritis. Or dementia. Or ED. Or something.

     So this week's chapter of Making Sh*t Up: An Improvised Life, is about a time when I didn't have these concerns: when I could frolic as the Village Drunk, or dress up as the world's sickliest Santa, or even have sex in the back of a Datsun 280ZX without worrying the next day that my sore neck was a portent of doom. (For the record, I never had sex in the back of a Datsun 280ZX. Because I'm not an Oompa Loompa.)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Drunks, Wenches, and a Face for Radio

    

One of my most memorable jobs was as the Village Drunk at the Texas Renaissance Festival in Plantersville, TX. If you’ve never been to Ren-Fest, or Scarborough Faire, or any of the hundreds of other similar festivals around the country, then try to imagine all the geeks you knew who used to play Dungeons and Dragons, and all the chicks you used to know in high school who liked to dress up as Stevie Nicks, all collected in one place out in the middle of the country, where they can basically let their medieval fantasies run wild every weekend for a couple of months. Dudes dress up in armor and beat the shit out of each other, on the hour, for your viewing enjoyment. There are jesters, who juggle and pick your pockets, and (sometimes) return your wallets. There are musicians playing instruments you never heard of, mostly melancholic tunes of a bygone age that has had the shit romanticized right out of it. And there are wenches. Holy shit, the wenches.

     I haven’t been to the Renaissance Festival since I was 18 years old and employed there. I’m told it’s a lot more family-friendly now. But I remember a time when a guy could walk up to a buxom wench and whisper something in her ear. Money would exchange hands. The wench would then whip the guy’s shirt over his head, remove it, and then tuck it into the front of his pants, providing a makeshift curtain over his crotch. The buxom wench would then get on her knees, and go underneath this makeshift curtain. You can work out the rest for yourself. And all this took place right out in the open. God bless America.

     What I was supposed to be doing at Ren-Fest was selling collectibles, and camera film, and any cheap plastic piece of shit with the Renaissance Festival logo imprinted on it, never mind that cheap plastic didn’t exist during the actual Renaissance. But getting folks to walk over to our out-of-the-way booth was a challenge, especially because I was not a buxom wench. I took to hopping out of the booth and, with an empty beer stein in hand (which one could conveniently purchase from my booth), proceeded to stumble around like a drunkard, saying funny things and generally making fun of people, which, oddly, people really seemed to enjoy.

     The more loud and obnoxious my character became, the more people would gather around, and the more they would buy something from the booth. The guy who ran these booths knew opportunity when he saw it, and pretty soon I was playing the Village Drunk at all the booths, rotating every hour or so to whichever location he deemed to be moving merchandise too slowly. I loved being able to say to strangers whatever I thought of them at first glance, which was usually something very unflattering (the guy with pit stains under his arms, or the woman with the moustache), unless it was a hot chick, in which case I could be completely honest and tell her how hot she was, and not be worried that her gigantic boyfriend was going to try and kick my ass. Because I was a character.

     I once had a drunk guy at Ren-Fest pay me twenty bucks to French-kiss his very attractive girlfriend for three minutes, while he recorded the deed for posterity on video. I’m pretty sure I wound up making out with this hot chick for five minutes, and I’m pretty sure she wanted those last two. Another time I was on my way to an under-performing booth to do my act, when I was halted by a couple of extremely buxom wenches. They informed me that they were in dispute as to which of them were more, um, endowed, and asked me to settle the issue. Before I could utter a word they both dropped their tops, revealing four of the most awesome breasts ever seen by man or god. And, again, in full view of the attending public. As I was literally struck speechless, and as I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by declaring a winner (and, by extension, a loser), I feigned light-headedness at that most marvelous sight, and fell over backwards in a faint. Lord bless those wenches; so concerned were they at my plight, they attempted to revive me by rubbing their bare breasts all over my face. They did revive something.

     I had another interesting job – albeit briefly – my senior year. I was a disc jockey for a local AM radio station (You’re on the move with KMUV!). The format was soft rock, and I didn’t completely hate it. I read PSAs (that’s Public Service Announcements to you civilians), talked about community events, and even learned the rudiments of producing radio commercials. Some of my friends’ parents would listen in, and even call in occasionally to request a song.

     You know these days how a lot of “radio programs” are on television? That shit would never have flown with the crew I worked with. They were in radio for two reasons. The first is that they all had unique voices. I don’t mean sexy, or announcer-like, necessarily. I mean that, whether it was because of pitch or timbre, meter or accent, they all had interesting voices. The second reason is that none of them gave a shit about what they looked like. It wasn’t uncommon for a DJ to show up for a shift in their pajamas, especially if they had the sign-off shift. Shaving was unheard of, and that went for the women as well as the men. Yet somehow I felt like I fit in with these outcasts. I was performing, of a sort, and I was getting paid for it (kind of).

     For Christmas that year I got elected to do live events for the station. These events consisted of me dressing up in the most hideous Santa Claus costume ever made by a sweatshop full of Malaysian children that never even heard of Santa Claus, and standing out front of local stores doing “remote broadcasts.” At the time I weighed 140 pounds soaking wet, and I probably looked like Santa would if he’d spent some quality time in a concentration camp. The station icon was an antique Model A Ford with the station logo on the doors, which was driven to all the live events (not by me). We would set up speakers and antennae, blasting the likes of Chuck Mangione and Carol King and Neil Fucking Diamond, occasionally breaking in for live updates. As the dancing monkey, my primary job was to provide a photo opportunity for the many children who wanted a snapshot with Santa. I drew the line at letting the kids sit in my lap. I had a very traumatic experience as a small child, in the lap of a bearded fat stranger dressed in red, and was not going to perpetuate the cycle.

This is the EXACT moment when the need for therapy started.

     The job didn’t last long. Evidently the guy who owned the station wised up to the fact that, after all, a local AM radio station didn’t really need on-air personalities; it just needed someone to punch the buttons for music and commercials. Most of the DJs – including yours truly - were given the heave-ho, and so ended my brief sojourn in radio. Probably my most important takeaway from the experience was this: radio doesn’t get you laid.

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