In the parlance of the geekarati, we went to a “Ren-Fair.” I’m not sure when the term was coined, as I’ve always called it “The Renaissance Festival,” and I’m still resisting the term this year.
Say what you will about these things, to me the Renaissance Festival has always represented cheap, affordable live entertainment in a pleasantly rustic environment.
    Certainly, you’ll see all manners of food impaled on sticks including not only the perrenial hot-dog but also “steak”-onna-stick and macaroni-and-cheese-onna-stick. Yes, and there’ll be wave after wave of local teenagers butchering a faux-British accent*. There’s the obligatory pickle pimp, and the creepy incense shops. Often the two are dangerously adjacent.
    But there’s also many stages hosting live entertainment, including a local favorite, “Dead Bob,” shown above. A little overrated, this cadaverous take on a ventriloquist act hasn’t changed his act appreciably in over a decade. But, as I’ve often said, if you haven’t seen it before then it is new to you, and with that in mind we took Sam to meet the fellow. Notice she was actually frightened of the apparition and I had to use the “KNEE” to hold her in place long enough to get this washed out and crappy picture. Eh, what can you do?
    Elsewhere in the fair was an abbreviated performance of MacBeth put on by three people in a mud-pit. The concept turned out to be far funnier than the execution; the only impressive aspect of the thing was the actors’ ability to pretend that they weren’t freezing their nuts off in the chilly mud-pit. I enjoyed watching their quivering tummies and lower lips.
    ”Zoltan the Mediocre,” a fire-eating block-head, was actually pretty funny and the juggling comedy duo “The Zucchini Brothers” made me laugh pretty hard. At one point in their act a troll, complete with prosthetic ears, teeth and grotesque contact lens, played a passable rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on an accordion.

    More child specific was this elaborate baby dragon puppet act. The baby dragon puppet was operated the same way Big Bird is, with the head being manipulated by the puppeteer’s left hand and the left hand of the creature being worked by the puppeteer’s actual left hand. Skillfully done, really. Samantha is the overall-clad girl with the pink shirt sitting in the front row on the left.
    There was also a “fairy tea” ceremony in which Samantha was plied with brownies and lemonade and presented with a fairly well done story-telling by a group of African-American women.
    Behold the parade.

* Because wood recording made during the Renaissance show that everyone spoke with 20th century British accents.

    Some of the various things SafeT approved of today.

    She went to the restroom and left me in her office. I’d already fixed her problem, so spent the intermission examining her horrible dolls. I love these sorts of dolls, they look for all the world like shellacked babies, but none of them look like my babies. It is very reassuring to know that my children have not been shellacked. I approve.

What follows is an email conversation, names have been changed to protest the innocence.

SafeT: We should redistribute the batteries sooner than later. Also, I have been told that you have batteries complaining of brown-out. Tell me about that. How does this make you feel?

Warton:It makes me feel… Well, Blue.

SafeT:So is it true, though? Is a battery or batteries complaining of brown-out conditions? Have you tested the outlet with a multimeter to see if there is a genuine issue?

Warton:Today, the two batteries in the new Broken Latch Rack whined about brown-out conditions. Tomorrow, it may be a different battery or nothing at all.

I no longer have a multi-meter. I burned it up by sticking it into places where I thought it belonged. : ) But, I wouldn’t have been able to check fast enough. It was only complaining for about 53 seconds.

SafeT: Oh. You should go get a new multimeter and then place it in a hip-holster for faster access.

Warton: I could duct tape the leads to my fingers. Then, if the power goes blinky I can make a dive to the outlet. Is this a good strategy?

SafeT: Yes, but you should actually apply the leads to rubber gloves and then wear the rubber gloves constantly. This would reduce the risk of electric shock while retaining that “always ready to meter” look you are going for.

Warton: Lead Condoms?

SafeT: Compatible, but inapplicable. Have at it.

    What if I were to tell you that there was a place on this Earth where 16 miles of pavement would be temporarily mobbed by 1.7 million people milling about while 40,000 old cars creep past them, showering the landscape with soot and geriatric pop music? And that this happens every year at this time?
    Would you say, SafeT! Count me in! That sounds great!?
    Oh, but there’s more, hypothetical and enthusiastic reader. The 40,000 cars are, for the most part, over thirty years old. This means that even the individual specimens that have catalytic converters don’t have very good catalytic converters. All the carbon monoxide you could ever want, just there for the breathing. Lean towards the road and inhale that history! That… toxic, crappy history. Still interested?

    It all started in the mid-90′s:

(In 1995) Car clubs, car buffs, oldies music fans and people of the generation who remembered coming of age during those heady days on Woodward were ready to reinvent the past.

-Woodward Dream Cruise official website

    Romanticizing the past is not uniquely American. I’ve read stories of Germans longing for a return to the “innocent” days of the GDR* and of Russian apologists idolizing Stalin. But we in the Detroit area go one further and over-inflate our nostalgia in the way only the country sporting not one but FOUR World’s Biggest Balls of Twine can.

    Ignoring the fact that our country’s past is a sexist, alcohol-stewed universe of institutionalized racism, mandatory military service**, medicinally applied mercury tinctures and music by “The Archies”, the Dream Cruise still bears as much resemblance to the weekend cruising of old as the Goodyear Blimp resembles a latex birthday balloon.
    Its not enough to re-enact the idle pursuits of our parents’ squandered youth, we need to make it so monstrously huge that it can be photographed from space and impacts the local economy as if it were Christmas.
    Remember how much you liked butter on your toast? Well, that memory should make you happy to eat an entire tub of margarine with this parfait spoon. Go ahead, I’ll wait. …ok, moving on.

    I have friends who live close to this intentional redneck traffic jam*** who actually flee the area on a sort of forced-vacation every year. And I’ve heard that the local authorities will begin distributing Dream Cruise Survival Kits next year. These kits will include a small Chinese manufactured gas mask, a bottle of water, duct tape, 4oz of name brand corn chips and a late model Koontz or Grishom novel****.

    I should provide a disclaimer, here. I actually own a 1972 Buick Centurion, a massive barge of Detroit steel which barely fits in my garage. It was left to me by my grandfather, I drive it only on weekends in the summer, and usually only to a local park with my eldest daughter. I think it’s unique and special. I bet most people with classic cars think that they own unique and special vehicles.
    That’s what makes the Dream Cruise so great. What better way can there be to validate the specialness of your classic car than burying it in a crowd of 39,999 other old cars?*****

    So what do you think of this massive money shot on the alter of our Lord the Internal Combustion Engine? Good? Bad? Carburetted?

* Say what you will about totalitarian security states, but there’s a certain attraction to any society that would actually build and drive the 25hp Trabant.
** Say what you will about American military quagmires, at least there’s some small solace to be had in knowing that every American in this one actually volunteered to go there. …But I suppose that might be more of a sad statement of how desperate for employemnt and/or delusional our youth are.
*** His words, not mine. Not that I don’t agree, I just can’t take credit for it.
**** The survival kit may keep you alive, but not living well. No, not at all.
***** I’m assuming, in this example, that your car is the 40,000th.

    Aww… Lookit Sisco the cat. Not sure what he got out of such close proximity to my boots. But on the udder foot*, who could resist the odiferous charms of my Wolverines? I, for one, spend most evenings huffing my soul out and softening the resulting edge by consuming dishes full of Tostito Scoops and Salso**.      Gazing fondly at my foot coverings, I am once again struck by the notion that if I could bottle this stuff, I’d make a fortune. I don’t have time for the marketing effort, however, as this boot won’t huff itself.

    In other news: Vlad, a nice Romanian fellow who works for me, has had a baby son named Zanzuto. He’s at home right now, the beneficiary of genetic coupling with his wife Viorella. He is also enjoying a pile of perfectly re-usable baby supplies Riley has indicated either a declining interest in or has proven to no longer match the scale to which they were designed.
     Enjoy the baby food carousel, wind-up swing, baby chocks****, dog-eared copy of ‘What To Expect in the First Year,’ Bumbo seat, and collapsible bassinet*****, Mircea. See you next week… probably.

    In other animal young news, my company president, John Holmes, has adopted a golden retriever puppy named Leyla. We gave him no supplies, as none of our young were recently puppies.

* Also known as a mammaropod
** a more masculine salsa. I’m a MAN, god-damn it, and I will not eat like a Latina***.
*** Latino is the male form, you monolinguists.
**** They keep the baby from rolling. What else would you all them? Heather has a word, but I’ve forgotten it in a fit of rebellion.
***** You would think it would be hard to confuse one of these with a collapsible bayonet, but yet there it was.

    I’ve been working towards a rapport with some of the alpha carts from the local wobbles. This fellow let me stand next to him and seemed friendly. The camera noise startled him, however, and I was horribly gored mere seconds after this photo was taken.
    The camera operator, Vince, fled the scene disguised as a weekend sales circular.
    I don’t blame the cart, who is a feral beast and had no idea what my intentions were and was acting in accordance with his instincts. No, I blame Vince.

I’m going to make Vince drink a pint of color safe bleach.

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One of these items is NOT a true fact about SafeTinspector.     Click on the SFT buttons to reveal more…

• When I was 19 I drove a modified volkswagen beetle cross-country, resulting in temporary hearing loss and a noise pollution ticket from a bemused, yet sexy Michigan State trooperette.



TRUE

• I can swallow my tongue at will and frequently probe my own tonsils for foreign matter.



TRUE

• I lost my beautiful, blonde, bannana curls to the vagarities of testosterone poisoning at the tender age of 13.

This resulted in my current black, wispy, near-baldness.


TRUE

• At the virginal age of 20 I followed my testicles through San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands.

There they entered into a pre-arranged and sordid affair with a married woman 15 years my senior. They promptly abandoned me seconds before initial coitus and it was a full two days before I could perform sexually.


TRUE

• I once sold a short story involving the modern identity of the real Santa Claus which was never published. Instead, some weeks later I received a peppermint scented cease-and-desist order from an invalid Alaskan mailing address.



FALSE

Congratulations… Now go read the others!

• I was once able to leg-press 800lbs five times in a row on a regular basis.

This consumed most if not all of the oxygen in my blood stream and resulted in vivid hallucinations centering on the abandoned sun-tanning beds piled up in the corner. The beds looked like enormous oysters to me, and there was an evil, semi-sentient pearl involved.


TRUE

• How are YOU feeling, SafeT?



Still Shiny.





Still Bald.

    The fearsome Sheriff Dan Minzey says: Drive-offs Don’t Drive in Washtenaw County!
    This decal adorns the gas pumps throughout his jurisdiction, and I can think of no better deterrent than this image of Dan Minzey.