Oregon Country Fair 7/13-15/12

[Drunk Monk]

This has been on my bucket list for nearly two decades. It's at 43 year old festival that began as a Renn Faire, and then was psychedelicized by local Ken Kesey. It was mind-blowing. Over the three day run, it is the largest city in OR. It has kept the flame of the Grateful Dead alive even better than Further.

I took the train up Wed night and just got back this morning. It'll take me a while to get my story straight. Stay tuned...

[Drunk Monk]

I meant to post this in media...

I..um.. I didn't sleep much.... maybe I should take a nap.

[cranefly]

Wow. DM is really out of it if he thinks he mis-posted this.
I just did a search and found the movie poster for it.



Digging a little further, I discovered that this is one of many many sequels -- not certain how many.
Here's the Oregon Country Fair movie that came out in 2002:

And in 2003:

And 2009:

And my favorites, the two posters for the one that came out in 2011:



I will admit to being a bit disappointed in this year's sequel. The poster makes it look incredibly tame by comparison with previous years. And it's not that I have anything about white makeup and letting a face go completely to weed. But still, would it have killed them to add a wee bit of the feminine mystique? I look at the poster for OCF 2012 and am instantly thinking, "This movie isn't gonna have any nudity." None, nada. Not top, bottom, full frontal, full sideal, not even partials and I doubt very much whether there's even a bottom-up shot of bare feet. And no, movies aren't just about nudity, I'll grant you that. But still, if you tame that part of the celluloid, you've likely tamed things across the board -- which begs the question: Why bother going? Why put up with all the commercials they make you sit through in the theaters these days before they give you the title? And if there's no nudity, what do you suppose takes its place? Tons of product placement, that's what.

When I go to the movies, I want breasts, et. al., not Mountain Dew!

[Drunk Monk]

"This movie isn't gonna have any nudity." None, nada. Not top, bottom, full frontal, full sideal, not even partials and I doubt very much whether there's even a bottom-up shot of bare feet. And no, movies aren't just about nudity, I'll grant you that. But still, if you tame that part of the celluloid, you've likely tamed things across the board -- which begs the question: Why bother going? Why put up with all the commercials they make you sit through in the theaters these days before they give you the title? And if there's no nudity, what do you suppose takes its place? Tons of product placement, that's what.

When I go to the movies, I want breasts, et. al., not Mountain Dew!

The biggest fashion at OCR was breast painting. Women would go topless and have their upper bodies painted in all sorts of fantastic ways. When I went, my boss Kim Jonny Il said I would see a lot of floppy tits. I texted him on the way back to say "floppy 20% perky & painted 80%" and that doesn't even begin to count those in pasties. I have never seen so many painted breasts in one place in my life. It was all very tasteful. Seriously. It's a family event. I'm thinking of taking my family next year...

[Drunk Monk]

Dm took the coast starlite out of Oakland, which was and hour and a half late, so he boarded around midnite. All his gear was in his brand new backpack - this was its maiden voyage and it not only performed superbly, it received numerous compliments and drew some tips from some serious backpackers. He wound up sitting next to a charming young lady from Fremont who was also headed to OCR, which was delightful because it was coach, and better to sleep right next to a hottie. She wound up sleeping most of the way. It's was a nasty ride as dm couldn't sleep well. Those chairs were like some kind of torture - they reclined all sorts of ways except for one that you can sleep comfortably in. Dm awoke to the glory of Shasta, and from there until Vancouver (as dm has taken this ride before) it is gorgeous. The train was a freak show - about a third was OCR people who were already starting to fly their freak flag freely. Upon arrival in Eugene, dm was picked up by one of his crew. The four-man crew was dubbed the A-Team by the main enabler, aka Hannibal. He was actually working but he arranged the rest of the crew to be 'observers' which meant they were given all access staff passes and not expected to work at all.

The A-Team had graciously carved out a coffin-sized nook by the stove for dm to lay his tent. Then the crew took dm out on walkabout. The OCR is extremely complex, with lots of little nooks, crannies, alleys and wormholes. There are main thoroughfairs, but even those get confusing as there's something to engage at every step. The architecture is like Neverland, funky booths built respectful of the majestic oak grove, fully integrating the trees into the design. There were fairies, pirates, lost boys (and girls), mermaids, injuns. There were also deadheads, star wars fans, musicians, jugglers, acrobats, and circus people. It was nuts and dm never quite mastered the map as that would have taken a lot of the fun out. That eve, dm was escorted to a pina colada party with a live bluegrass band, stilt walkers, and this was just a space in the staff lot.

Patrons see a small portion of the grounds only; they are there from 10 to 6 or so. But the staff, the staff goes nutz all night long. There are additional shows, both officially staged by the fair and unofficial by various staff camps. It never stops. Some of the food booths stay open all night. Its three straight days of hedonism, exhibitionism and many other unnamable isms. To be honest, it's all rather blurry. There was a showing of footage of a Grateful Dead show there in '72, with a clip from the '82 show too, after hours on the mainstage. That was amazing footage and sound. It was over 100 degrees and the instruments were coming out of tune, which opened the door for Jerry to let loose a warped Darkstar, a real show stopper. There was also 20 mins of recovered footage of the very first fair, which began as a Renn Faire, until they were sued by the CA Renn Faire. Dm caught some wonderful music, most of it played on corners, bluegrass style. One of dm's campmates was a rigger and tipped dm off to the shows at his stage - Stable, which was this wonderfully weird aerialist, Umo, which was this skit/play with kids, clowns and some borderline dominitrixes, and Nanda, which was acrobatic juggler ninjas (and they were awesome - can we say swordfights? oh yea, baby. watch for future KFM coverage. Caught several bands that were previously unknown and will remain so as while they were competent and entertaining, they weren't memorable enough for their name to stick. Saw a really bad magician, a lousy clown and a mime too. But they can't be all good. It's hippies after all. Dm ate really well. The A-Team were serious carnivores - two of them split a pound of bacon between them for breakfast - so dm's vegetarianism became very amusing and he played it up by eating stuff like a vegan philly cheesesteak (which was delicious, but not anywhere near what dm remembers as a cheesesteak, however as that booth had the balls to offer such a thing, dm couldn't resist). Saturday night foudn the A team bouncing back and forth between two staff shows, one local jam band that the rest of the crew was into but dm found repetative and a bluegrass jam band that played some dead favs.

Sunday, dm took the shuttle out early, walked across eugene to fix his ticket (the web only provided one that transfered in sacto) and chilled at the steelhead brewery. The ride home was very pleasant as dm figured out how to be comfortable in that stupid train chair...or maybe he just passed out when the sun went down until sacto.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It looks like I will be seeing Nanda tonight in North Hollywood. DM got me some passes, but since I hadn't heard from the Nanda people, I figured they had let it slip and I was going to let it go. But I just received the email telling me where I could pick up tickets.

[Drunk Monk]

Let me know if they are actually flying any Tiger Claw ads. If there's one in the program, please score it for me and I'll get it reimbursed to you with the next paycheck. Between you, me and DOOM, those cats were pretty flaky on the follow through. But it was their first tour, and they're young.

Here's the article for those who haven't read it (Greg & CF - the punkass publisher's posse): <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1061">http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/a ... ticle=1061</a><!-- m -->

Hope you enjoy it! I sure did. But then, I might just have been under the influence a little, so it might be like your reaction to the Grateful Dead - 'the jams are too long' roflmao - I'll never forget that comment, bruddah. :-D

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Maybe I needed to be under the influence? Maybe DM and I are experiencing to completely different realities? Speaking of drum solos being way too long . . .

But first what is really important. They had your ads in the back of the pamphlet. I have two of them. There was a KFM slide being rotated through all their other sponsors being projected on the screen before their performance. And Daniel, their producer, while introducing 'The Jacket' mentioned all the sponsors including KFM. Go KFM!

From when they monofilament broke that was supposed to raise the jacket out of it's holder at the start of the show to when they were dropping their clubs during the juggling routine at the end of the show, I'm going to have to go with the show needs a lot of rehearsal time. I'm sure for a Ren fair type of environment this was probably a pretty good show. There was juggling and mime and sound effects and sword fights without swords and a weird story about a magic jacket. But the whole thing sort of gets lost on a bigger stage. I kept thinking there should be more stuff on this stage.

There were some bits that were funny. I did like this two man juggling routine but it was one of the things I had seen on youtube. I like the bits with the robot but again needed a bit more rehearsing because everybody kept caught in the laser beams (Also known as red painted wires).

And they needed a bit of editing. Every scene seem to go on too long. Who said they were great martial artists? I saw a lot of flailing about but I didn't see anything that made me go ooh.

the problem might have been the small crowd. The house was only half full and the troupe might do a lot better in front of big raucous drunk ren fair crowd. I fear that in the coming shows the crowds might get smaller if that was all they could drum up for opening night, even after doing two morning TV shows.

But we got to see juggling. Lots of juggling.

There was an opening act. His name was Brankor Lee. He goes by Brankor. He is the human beat box juggler. Holds the record for juggling six balls off the ground for an hour and some odd minutes. Nothing fresher than juggling and beat boxing. And not at a really stunning level. He was a bit more polished and his act more cohesive than the Nanda guys. Probably a result of all those Disney Cruise Ship shows.

So we saw a bunch of juggling. Have I mentioned that. Some mediocre fight choreography with some amusing sound effects. And a troupe that needs more practice.

On the up side. I left my house to disprove that whole rotting hermit theory. The Queen got all dolled up and had wine like a big old grown up. So, that was all good.

[Drunk Monk]

I saw a completely different show. It was to a packed house - 400+ perhaps - at a major stage at OCF* where they are hugely popular. And didn't really have a narrative thread, just odd skits - martial arts, acrobatics and juggling - the content was about 1/3rd for each. The Jacket was only a short skit within all of that.

This is their first tour and I was wondering if they could expand that skit into a full show and then sustain their show on the road. Apparently not. My guess is that they are all injured now and are defaulting to juggling, much less demanding than the acrobatics and martial arts.

At the very least, I hope you and tQ had a nice night out - like seeing a bad movie, only live - still can be fun with the right company, right?

Glad to hear our logo was out there. I was wondering as their correspondence was a tad slack. Please forward one of those programs to me.



*while OCF was born of a Renn Faire, it's more like Burning Man now.