A Fairly Rare Fair

Wave a dollar in the air and watch Robin and Angela run for it!

So during our indentured servitude with the Witches of Ellsworth Street, we were compelled to do all manner of crazy acts in public.  One of them was to bespoil the fun and celebratory atmosphere of County Fairs all over the Bay Area by sitting under a moronic-looking canopy purchased from the local flea market, waving our hands like idiots and saying things that made no sense whatsoever.

Every student, minister, soon-to-be-minister, minister-who-might-not-really-be-one and anyone else the Witches can drag by the ear had his or her turn in the summer heat under the plastic canopy (which only made the damn sun feel even hotter).  No matter if the weather was windy, rainy, cold, hot, snowy, or even if the goddamn place was on fire, you would have to show up at the fair as your name was written in blood on the signup sheet.

Once you put your John or Jane Hancock on the dotted line (and that signature was no more voluntary than the "voluntary donations" you were required to place into the infamous envelope of doom) there was no backing out.  Are you sick that day?  Well, that's just energy that says you can't have a fun day at the fair so show up anyway and infect your colleagues while the Witches assign a hapless lackey (who was probably in the dog house anyway) to "heal" your Ebola or whatever ailment kept you on a "non-havingness modality".

Just plain tired?  That's no excuse!  The Witches didn't care if you were up until dawn the previous two nights and got yourself a whole two hours of sleep.  Trance it away!  One hour of trance is equal to eight hours of sleep!  Get rid of that energy that keeps you from sweating in the heat or freezing in the cold rain so the Witches can scoop up the money you earned from the readings people paid for.

Yes, the Witches of Ellsworth Street have sent you to the county fair to attract those $15 readings for your own benefit.  There would be no excuse for your absence.  No excuse for you to take in the fair for a few moments so you can enjoy it either.

For those of us who had been there for a while, the specter of the humiliation and degradation we would face as soon as we got home was enough to keep us working every moment of the day.  Anyone caught just walking around the fair enjoying himself would catch a whole new kind of personal attack when he returned.

And it wasn't just from the Witches.

One fair summer day at the  Napa County Fair in Calistoga, I was out for a little wander while I snuck out  for a piss - and you pretty much had to sneak out as many of the "booth control" monitors were scared stiff there would be an onslaught of people seeking psychic readers and no psychic readers to do them.

So, after my little leg-stretch, there were a few members of the public waiting for their turn for a psychic reading.  I took my place and began the psychotic and perverted task of psychic reading.

Later, one of the psychic readers present was assigned to "give me a reading".  Whatever.  This person was one of the more snarly, surly and psychotic persons in the cult, which I guess could have been any damn of of them.

reader:  "you have an irresponsible spirit in your space.  Do you want healing?"
me:  "Nahhh...  leave 'im.  I think I'll find a use for the fucker this weekend."

reader: "there is late and wandering energy in your space.  Do you want healing?"
me:  "Yeah, what the fuck.  Oh shit.  Actually, no.  Well, maybe.  Hey can you see if that's the right answer?"
reader: "which?"
me: "you know, one of them."
reader: "uhhh....  the color is yellow and it represents certainty"
me: "Good.  Leave his ass too."


Now that little back and forth happened during a particularly awful time when Joy and I declined the cult's offer of sleeping in a stinking tent pitched in a cow pasture (where they handed out cow turds for pillows) with grease balls fried in lard for a comfortable hotel and well-made meals.  So most of (well, ALL OF) the women at SRF were pissed - mostly because they didn't think of it themselves.  Those same women were unleashed at me all weekend to ensure whatever the fuck I was infected with wasn't contagious.

I think that disease was called "common sense".

Because if the weather outside was over 100 degrees (as it was then) and if you were in recovery from a serious medical condition (which I was and still am) and if your spouse-to-be was none too pleased with the prospect of sleeping in cow shit, you'd probably want to book a hotel too.


So the memory of those SRF fairs have left all of the former SRF-ies with a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to attending a County Fair.  Truthfully, it had in mine as well.

So, the cure was as simple as the disease.  We went to the Alameda County Fair.

Yup, we went there for all that disgusting deep-fried whatever on a stick.  We casually perused the exhibits.  We took in a fabulous show from a country music star and just wandered around to our heart's content.

No thought of Witches, no threat of retaliation for enjoying ourselves, no need to be present for whatever humiliating public displays the cult demanded and no need to sleep in a fucking tent coated with ten years of cow turds, either.

We'll go on to other fairs.  That's a big part of California life and part of my family's Central Valley  heritage.  County fairs were places for my ancestors to display the best of their crops and to gather for good company, great entertainment and to just have fun.

Why let a nutty, useless and idiotic cult like the Spiritual Rights Foundation ruin generations of fun?  Go on, take in a fair this summer.

What with the cult down to the rotund and vacuous martinet and hit man, two lazy Witches and a guy far more interested in his essential oils and perfumes to give a damn, you'll have no risk of running into any of them at a fair of any kind - they just can't pull themselves together well enough to make any kind of appearance outside their own iron gate.

And while you are there, have a corn dog with extra mustard and just take it all in.  Let the mustard run on your shirt too - you'll fit in with everyone else.