ARF Recap

2008 marked the fifth year I worked the Arizona Renaissance Festival. This year was the 20th Anniversary of the Arizona Renaissance Festival. As always it was fun, and probably the best weather we had for an entire run. At least since I started working there. We had no rainy day, a couple overcast and cold days. No snowy days like last year. No days canceled like the last two years. A couple days were on the rather warm side but no hot days.

I was out there with the Lion Share, an improve troupe of Pirates Honest Merchant Sailors. We were up to our normal shenanigans like Robbing the taxes, Invading the Royal Pavilion, Blowing up bridges, Kidnapping the Lord Mayor and the Lady Lord Mayor. Swag Stacking, and getting patrons to walk the plank.

Swag staking is a game we play with a bunch of swag, or booty, (pause so you can giggle at the word booty).... Ok it's a bunch of junk; cups, candle sticks, plates, other various pieces of metal that we stack on top of one another in an effort to see how tall we can get it. The record was 24 pieces of swag. The record was set by 2 kids, 7-8ish, up in Flagstaff during Ren in the Pines. This year we set the record to 29 pieces of swag after 2 other kids set a new record of 27. We were determine to beat the record after the kids set to 27 with dumb luck using no reason to pieces they selected to place on top of the previous piece.

This year we were part of the open gate show. We started the show. It starts with us stumbling drunk towards the gate singing what do you do with a drunken sailor as loud as we can and then demand to be let in. Then we remember we have the keys to the village that we won from the Lord Mayor in a game cards the previous night. But none of the keys work. Then Dittle runs us off. We return with a bigger key. Two kegs of gunpowder. Then as boy is trying to lit the fuse Dittle comes back and calls for the Lord Mayor and we run off. We then dress boy up as a princess and sneak in with the Royal procession only to kicked out as opening canon goes off.

Toll Free Troll Bridge
Another bit we did, not a new idea mind you, but still it's fun. We sit on a bridge and wait for patron to cross the bridge, then you stop them and get them to pay a toll. The toll was One Pirate joke. If they don't know one help them with it. We start off by saying, "What's a Pirate's favorite..." Then wait for them or ask them to fill in the blank with a noun. After they say something, we say "We don't know, what is a Pirate's favorite (insert patrons noun)" Then they usually laugh because we just caught them not knowing the punchline. But it doesn't matter whatever they say, whether in makes sense or not We laugh like its the funniest thing we ever heard and tell them they may pass. If I had a dime for every time I heard the one about the pirate walking into the bar with a ships wheel hanging around pelvic area. Well I'd be a rich man. For those that don't know the punch line, it's driving me nuts.

With the recent success of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean there are too many pirates. Everyone wants to be a pirate, and well we kind of are redundant. So next year, the Lions Share Pirates maybe a dance troupe. Assuming we get enough musicians and dancers.