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Kansas City Renaissance Festival, Act IV (Sunday of the week before last (Sep. 23)) was sufficiently pleasant and interesting, but with no extraordinarily memorable events (there ain't no such thing as a bad day at Faire, just some's better than others). There didn't seem like enough for an essay, so I skipped writing one.

The sky was overcast all day, the temperature never got out of the sixties, and there was a residual wind from a Canadian cold front that had blown thru with brief but heavy rains the previous night - a wind that added a not severe but still unpleasant chill. I started looking at garb cloaks for the first time (but didn't buy).

The ground was still wet in the morning when the gates opened, and the pedestrians' feet soon mixed big patches of it into mud that was just starting to get quagmirous in a few places. The previous week they had strewn straw all over the paths, but this week it looked like they had run out. No new straw appeared as the day progressed, and the mud oozed up over the old. People's garb was getting dirty on the bottom, I had to walk real slow so not to slip and fall, strolling required conscious effort. The number of patrons was down, and there were sad faces in some of the shops.

Probably the most interesting part of the day for me was seeing a huge and husky person in a bodice, skirt, and peacock feather headpiece, at least six and a half feet tall and a Brunhilde face, walking around operating a puppet on the shoulder that looked like a bird, with a head that could be turned and nodded with a control on the end of a flexible plastic shaft that he could work with his hands in front. People who stopped to look at it were told that it was a griffin, and asked if they would like to take him home with them. The voice was definitely male.

This person tried to talk me into buying one at the puppet shop nearby the first time I passed, then the second time beckoned me over and asked if I was a crossdresser or "planning on transitioning". I said I was just plain CD, had no intention of changing anything. A few sentences of conversation later came the words, "Let's talk", with a gesture toward a bench nearby.

Talk we did, her name was Teri Lynn, she was a post-op transexual, her mundane job was Mississippi towboat driver, yes, it was a macho scene, but she managed. She told me a long tale about getting fired by a company she had worked 5 years for because of her operation, and how she immediately found a new job and was able to get their respect in three weeks, and now they use feminine pronouns and call her "Big Mama". Listening to him was like Mark Twain updated.

The rest of the day I mostly walked around and watched and heard things I had already beheld before, but this time with more attention to detail.

But I guess every storm must have a calm before it, every bowstring must first be pulled back, because both days last weekend (Sep. 29 & 30) were a soaring high that had me glowing in the dark both nights after.

To sum it up: I wore women's clothes. And I danced. And I got applause and people in audiences coming up after to warm my fuzzies with praise. And in so doing found two good basic acts to be in this movie doing. And I figured out a lot about where my place on the set is.

The weather was absolutely perfect both days: sunny, afternoon temps in the 70's. The theme for the weekend was "Pipes and Plaids", and kilts were swirling everywhere. In the afternoon of the first, I came across several of the paid actor girls lying on their backs on the ground, one of them holding a sign that said "kilt crossing". None of the kilts crossed, but a lot of them were asked to by the girls. I walked over them in my long chemise and skirt, but they didn't seem interested. It was too bad, too, because they would have found I was going regimental.

Saturday was the crowdedest that I had seen so far this season. By the early afternoon the streets were packed to the point of having to zigzag and dodge to go forward. There was no getting any kind of food without waiting in line behind ten, twenty people. One of the main reasons I don't want a sex change was demonstrated in the lines in front of all the ladies' privies. There were school buses galore in the parking lot, and some excellent school singing groups performing inside. Teri's store sold all but 4 of 75 griffins over the weekend. There were tired but smiling faces in the shops.

When I first came in, I watched as I had before the peasant girls dancing around the maypole, and I reaffirmed that the girls had more fun than the boys and the peasants had more fun that the nobles. The royal dances were so stiff and stilted, the peasants got to pony step with smiles on their faces to Irish jigs. I don't think I will ever want to wear either tights or farthingales. No velvet for this insect.

I walked past the pirates singing without really stopping after that, over to the other side of the gate courtyard where several of the bands were jamming all together. I warmed up with a dance to a jig, then got to join in singing the choruses to some vocal numbers. The energy was high, but I remembered the appointment I had made with Okie Rennie to have my picture taken, and I was sure I had waited too long when I tore myself away.

I got over to Arachne's to find only one person there who hadn't seen Okie Rennie, so I said to myself then - shift to butterfly mode and hold all day. Flit from one thing to another, don't make plans, and just let things happen to me. As it happened thus, I ran into OR while we were both watching Minstrosity, but she had forgotten to pack her camera. I kept a lookout for a bright orange skirt and never found it in the crowds, so I don't know if AtTheFaires.com ever photographed me. Late in the afternoon Arachne asked her coworker (what's his name again? I'm dyslectic in remembering them) if he had a camera, and he did. But he said he wasn't sure it was going to work, he had dropped it once. Otherwise, I saw cameras going off all over the place whenever I was out there dancing, and I was asked to pose in my garb with groups of mundanes around me thrice - but never by someone whom I knew and felt comfortable asking for copies of afterward.

I was set to listen to Minstrosity again, but I heard some bagpipes in the distance, and regretted to them that I would have to go for I was being called. I went over to the Royal Pavilion and found The Rogues ("we're from Houston, y'all", breaking out of the Scottish accent on the last two words), and they treated us to hours of absolutely kick-arse piping. Two people playing rapid reels and jumping jigs in perfect unison down to the grace notes, bodhran and high pitched Scottish drum, all with machine like precision. They had my bum cheeks wanting to do do the jig even as I was sitting on them.

The bodhran player did the announcing, and he was fond of put down humor, mostly about Englishmen and Oklahomans. At one point in his patter he picked me out from the audience and started to rib me about my garb, e.g. "I'm trying to figure out just what you are. I might say you were an English fairy, but that would be redundant".

After that, I knew I just had to find a place to go out onto the stage in front of them and give them a few feminized flings, and the chance came soon after another playtron named Donald, impeccably dressed in formal kilt and jacket, had gone on to do some precisely executed traditional dance steps. I gave him some lead time, then I went out on the stage and started to accompany him - in my pink rose patterned bodice, lavendar chemise, and aqua skirt - and we got to jamming together. I got a laugh as soon as I stepped out, and the two of us soon had the crowd cheering. The pipers concluded their set soon after, however, to make room for the arrival of the king and another scene in the drama they were moving around the shire. Before they left the stage, they presented me with a black tank top that said "Roguette".

The pipers resumed shortly after the noon parade was over, Donald was there again, and the pipers beckoned me to come up as soon as I came. We kept it up for an hour, at the end the pipers had us start a conga line thru the audience, they shanghaied us into passing the tip can for them, it was a drum case about 4 gallons big, and it was two thirds full of bills when it went back to them.

A while later they did a last set, and at that one we got several dancers up on the stage, many with practiced technique. Some did excellent solos, it was all spontaneous and electric, my feet were kkilling me, but it was pain o ecstasy. I was stopped by several people as I made my way thru the departing audience afterwards and given enthusiastic compliments. My ego was gluttonizing on it. My ecstatic emitter was on max positive and my bliss transistor was conducting at saturation current...

I knew the next day couldn't match the peak of the first one, but it was a long slow descent, resuming as soon as I was thru the gate Sunday. I danced my way down the street pausing in front of several groups of musicians as I made my way to where the pipes had been, and the Rogues played again. I waited until the second to last number for a time that seemed right to enter, the announcer had a few rehearsed routines he was doing and I didn't want to be a monkey wrench. They launched into a slip jig, and that was my cue. I did well, but it wasn't quite up to yesterday, a few things were disjointed. But I still fielded plenty of compliments after.

I wondered if my feet were going to make it thru the day, but afternoon turned out to be a time to sit and study others. There was a Scottish folk dancing group from Kansas City, and it featured a crossdressing female in short male kilt doing man's steps. Her long legs and wide hips enhanced the bend-the-knee and lift-the-foot movements of a highland fling, and she looked better than a lot of men I've seen doing them.

Later at another stage behind, another group of women did country dances, and I studied their feet trying to figure out the Irish pony step which I still don't have down to where it's fluid. I watched all the precise classical traditional dancing, and knew that my act was jazz. I have never studied dancing formally in my life, my gig is freeform variations on a few traditional steps I've seen, but I don't follow a choreogram well and I won't try something in front of others that I don't feel confident about yet. But I still look among others' traditional patterns to find new licks.

On the way home both days, I hardly even minded the long detours the cops on the road outside sent us down as they tried to handle the traffic returning from the NASCAR race a few miles away. Bagpipes were just buzzing in my brain the whole way.

At times thru the trip on Saturday, I contemplated how one year ago that very day I had been in the veteran's hospital in Topeka, 3 days after I had been told I had congestive heart failure, at a point where my blood pressure still wouldn't come down enough and I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was going to make it. (the whole story is on my website.)

There was a point in that bygone day, after I had found that what little religious faith I had was a far way from confidence, and that praying may or may not work because It might have plans that went beyond just me, when I just asked myself, "Do you really want to give it up and just go?" And my basic being said "hell no." From that point onward my recovery began, they found the right mix of meds and got the blood pressure down, I started walking the halls to get my legs oiled again, I got out of the big building the following Wednesday, and went back to work on 4 hour days and started to go on with my life, appreciating the gift of it much more.

As down as I was that day a year previous, so was I up that day this year. All the way from the valley of the shadow of death to the mountain where I could see the promised land. When I was really thinking my feet were going to give out late in the day, I said again, "hell, no". And I made it home to a nice bed and a radiant glow, and feet that responded very well to some good stretches the next morning.

The weekend was an epiphany for me. The Spirit had given me a heart condition, but saved me from the Abyss, and now has commanded me to dance. I'm starting to want to say back, "hey, you let Hercules off easy with only twelve labors!", but I have to say again to that, "hell no".

Needless to say, even tho I only scored 21.9% FaireFolk Corrupt on the Renaissance Purity Test, which leaves me only A Renaissance Virgin in their assessment, I know in my mind that I have jumped to full RenRat status. I'm rennie for life, whatever remains of it. "Seize the day" it says, "Carpe diem" Well, carpsi hanc diem, et optimum venit, et amo omnes qui mihi cum eo advenerunt.

And the rank of RenRat is the place for me to stay. My act is best done as a paying patron. I'd go stir crazy working a booth. I wouldn't be able to dress the way I do if I were a paid actor (wouldn't be period). I've seen the equivalents of Addict and In Need of Professional Help while faring amongst the Rainbows and Deadheads, and I don't want to go there in Rennieland either. I shouldn't quit my day job. I have to be free as a butterfly to do the best, and I can be thus only if I limit my level of involvement to what it is now. I have to keep my life in The Real World and not quit my day job. All must be in balance, or I will trip and fall as I dance.

And the play continues...

More anon.

-Butterfly Bill

"Greetings, milady...or is it milord?...or..um...."
homepage: http://www.grapevine.net/~butterflybill/BB.htm
music on mp3.com: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/247/butterfly_bill.html

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