Michigan Fandom welcomed the Great Pinata Riders with a full house audience on October 13th.
Before we say anything more on this stunning spectacle of costuming fun and gaiety, I pause to thank profusely the volunteers who made it happen. A lowly muster guy this time, I had the best experience so far with working masquerades this past weekend and that’s all I have to say about myself. THANK YOU!
That said, I personally thank Red for dragging the Pinata Riders off a wet gutter in Atlantic City, sobering them up and getting them new duds, and marching them back onto the stage not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES for an unprecedented multi-con tour in 2007. The road was rocky, and it sure wasn’t paved with gold, but that’s what happens when you go where lesser fen fear to tread. Bravo and great job on the NOCTURNE project. You know they love you.
First and foremost among the non-Pinata people I want to thank is the GREAT LUKE SKI, who rebounded from a cancelled gig elsewhere to join us in Romulus and pitch in for the halftime show. Luke took the time to plan with us the moment we found him, and succeeded in featuring two songs from his latest release in our intermission. Wotta way to buy time for the judges. Heartfelt thanks to Luke.
Our PinataRiders staff was a skeleton crew this time around, with several people who’d rather be costuming ending up backstage preparing for the show. So we found ourselves doing double-duty on both sides of the curtain and believe me, the old farts still had the mojo. Major accolades are due these guys, and I get to thank them each twice here because they did twice the work of ordinary masquerade volunteers. Thanks to MC SHARK for also overseeing his handpicked minions Tor and Ron with stage construction, and also fabricating props on demand and marching off to find costumers from throughout the hotel. Thank you Guild Vice President BART GIAMATTI for wrangling muster equipment and being a general masquerade leg-man, and GEON for promoting the masquerade via a fabulous Dead-or-Alive campaign for his halftime act. Thanks to RED for (deep breath) creating the hand-made medallion awards, dreaming up the Urban Mardi Gras theme and decor, outfitting Tiffany Aaron with appropriate attire, drawing a crowd by firmly planting our costumers footprint in the programming schedule with related panels, finding a fill-in replacement judge with minutes to spare, and keeping every promise she made to each of our hosting conventions. Take a bow, you nut.
More kudos to author TIFFANY AARON, Fan Goddess extraordinaire LADY DIANA FRKAN, and Renfaire personality SAMUEL TRAVIS CLEMMONS for allowing themselves to be called judges - though Trav had to bow out because of a curious scheduling glitch that simply should not have happened. We’ll be in touch with him to make up for this and he looks forward to it. Which brings us to our emergency judge, XAINA FAIRY, who came from backstage to expose herself once again as a spontaneous spark and discerning eye at our judging table. How she got past the Dorsai hall monitors will forever baffle us, but as such she came forth when others could not.
And of course, none of this could have happened without our audience and helpers, who filed in behind DAVROZ and filled the room as early as 8pm to witness the glory of JENNIFER DYE’s kids programming theatrical production — while we prepared the masquerade backstage. Everybody knows SPACETIME THEATER runs long, except it seems the room blocking folks had us sandwiched between the ‘Roper Valley PTA’, DJ CHARLES STOHLMAN and the venerated AEGIS demo panelists for much sought after room space. All of you performers and gophers scheduled around us, and everyone watching the show, THANKS for your patience while we made the absolute best of what we were given. If we felt stuck like pigs, you were right there with us and never once did I feel like you wanted to be somewhere else. As we proved yet again for you last Saturday, we’ll do anything with you on our side. I give you a round of applause.
Lastly, extreme thanks for me bruddah George for singlehandedly slaying our audience with a rendition of MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW which had fully half of the adult crowd at this con humming tunes for O Brother Where Art Thou for hours afterward. It was a pleasure and an honor to be the dude holding a shotgun to your head the entire time. You got plenty more applause than I did following you, and you deserved it.
Photos and comments soon I promise.