I mean, let's talk PARTY!!! With the exception of a few, brief lapses into unconciousness which we laughingly called "sleep", it started around 7pm on Friday night and didn't let up 'til 7pm Sunday night, when the security guards threw us out of TRF. And then we only moved beyond the ticket booths at the front gate to talk for yet another hour before we all finally decided it was high time to go.

(Photo, left: Ryleh looking much the worse for wear on Saturday afternoon, with a beautiful barbarian woman on his arm).

This year, Mike and Pam surprised me. Unbeknownst to me, they had decided to camp out at TRF that weekend. Now I had always heard that the campgrounds at most Faires are just as much fun as the Faires themselves (just don't expect to sleep much!), but I haven't had much opportunity to really give them a try (I would've camped out at Withrow this Fall but the weather suddenly turned wet, cold and just plain miserable, not to mention I worked both the faire and my dayjob, too!). So that Friday afternoon I found myself following Mike's van through Houston's rush hour traffic, arriving at TRF shortly before sunset. We quickly found a likely site around row 10, unloaded our equipment and began pitching our tents...

The drums began pounding at dusk. We were still setting up camp -- two tents with a pavilion between -- when they began: intermittently at first, then slowly gaining strength and endurance. But that was just the warm-up! By the time we had inflated our own air mattresses, arranged sleeping bags and stowed our gear, they had removed from the campground to the large, empty parking lot nearby, formed the drum circle around an iron tripod bearing a Coleman lantern and were drumming in earnest. With our camp in place, there was no way I could ignore the "Call of the Drums" any longer.

Let me be honest here: I am "hardwired" for drums. Set up a drum circle, make it LOUD, make it FAST -- and I am totally entranced. I love feeling the drums: feeling wave after wave of raw sound crashing into my ears, chest and belly again and again and again. Make it wild and fast and there is No Thought for me -- mind, body and drums become One, a total mind/body Experience. It's much akin to the thrill of surfing: catching the crest of the biggest, baddest wave in all Creation, then riding it -- not for mere seconds or even minutes -- but for HOURS at a time! The louder the drums, the faster the beat, the higher the crest is for me. All I want then is to go higher and higher and higher. Ah, but Ye Gods, when they stop...

It's like hitting a brick wall at 600 miles per hour!

Friday night's drumjam was small, with less than 100 folk gathered that evening around the circle. But what we lacked in numbers we more than made up for in sheer enthusiasm! Mike and Pam, for example, had come up with a brilliant idea for our own "audience participation": bring homemade musical instruments to the drumjam. Pam put a handful of coffebeans into an empty, one-pound coffeecan to create a rattle; then Mike suggested using little plastic film cannisters as shakers, so I emptied out my film supply, we put some rice and beans into each one and presto! We had instant "instruments" which gave off a soft sound like crickets chirping when shaken.

We didn't keep our "instruments" to ourselves, either. During the jam, we handed out the shakers to several others who were also rocking to the beat. You could tell who they were: the ones bobbing up and down in tune with the drums. It was a joy to see them really get into the spirit of the circle then! And surprisingly, that little bit of extra sound actually seemed to enhance the drumming, even when the drums spoke so loudly they drowned out all other sound.

Somehow in all this, I wound up with the coffeecan in my hand. That simple rattle was quite versatile, I found out that night. Shake it left and right with the can held horizontally and it made one kind of sound. Shake it up and down with the can held vertically and it made another. Tilt the can horizontally to let the beans inside tumble slowly back and forth and it made a hissing rattle like a rainstick. Swirl the can around and around and it made another hissing kind of noise. You could even pound on the top or bottom for the sound of a (very small) drum/tambourine!

Fast or slow, all those sounds seemed to fit the drumjam that night...

Of course there was dancing in the circle (Photo, right: click on the pic for a RealVideo view of drumjam action). As usual, the dancers were mostly young women with just a couple guys joining in. I didn't mind at all since the lasses had some really great moves which only got better as the pace picked up as the evening wore on! Early on, tho, one young fellow put on a brief but remarkable performance which I'm not sure everyone in the crowd really picked up on.

The drums were still going somewhat slowly when he suddenly leaped into the center of the circle, then capered and pranced about the lantern wildly several times before disappearing back into the crowd. While he was dancing, it suddenly flashed on me: with his exaggerated moves and stylized posturings, he was actually doing an improvised hunting dance -- even holding his right arm cocked backward as if holding an invisible spear. It was primitive, it was tribal...it was real savage, like!

And under a clear, Texas night sky filled with stars, with the drums pounding in our ears and the bright, flamelike glow of the lantern like firelight warming our circle, it was AWESOME!

For me, however, the highlight of the drumjam came much later. For most of that evening, I simply skulked around the fringes of the crowd with my coffeecan rattle, accompanying the beat while trying to find the best position to hear the drums. Somewhere around 9pm --about halfway through the drumming-- I suddenly noticed that "Dragon" (one of the leaders of the "Knights of Chaos" and our Master of Ceremonies during both nights' drumjams) was motioning in my direction. I looked around to see who he was trying to signal... and abruptly realized it was me!

Gulp! I wasn't exactly sure what he wanted, but I moved up to him. "Stand there!" he commanded, pointing to the ground at the front of the crowd, right next to the drummers. "Now shake!" he said. So I did. And it was WILD: the drums were to my immediate left, I could feel every beat, clear and loud, and the pace was fast and picking up faster. I wound up swinging Mike's rattle in great arcs up and down, making that old coffeecan sing. By the end of drumjam, I was drenched in sweat, my legs felt rubbery and both my arms and my back were beginning to ache. It felt good to be alive! Then somewhere along the line, three guys dragged an empty ice chest up to the circle, sat down around it and all three began pounding on that...

Unbelievably, it sounded GREAT! All together we just kept building the wavecrest higher and higher, piling sound on sound!!! I know I was grinning like a maniac the whole time -- and I had to laugh out loud when someone shouted: "(expletive deleted) it! We'll play 'til they come for us! Then everybody RUN!" Which was greeted with cheers and shouts by everyone there. By then, we were all caught up in the sheer exuberance of the night, with the drums racing forward madly like a freight train out of control. The whole crowd was caught up in the beat -- we could easily have played all night and drummed up the morning sun!

Alas. All good things must come to an end. In this case, the end came somewhere around 11pm with the arrival of the local sheriff, who merely parked on the roadway near the circle and waited. We got the point. With three last resounding cheers of "HIP! HIP! HUZZAH!", we broke the circle and slowly began trudging back to the campground, still excited but feeling drained and exhausted. The abrupt silence was deafening.

Ah, but the night was still young!

Back at camp, we broke out the reinforcements --adult refreshments of an alcoholic nature-- then sat around the pavilion catching up on old acquaintances. Mike; his friend, Don; their neighbor, Linda; the lovely Lady Pamela, Mike's wife; and I were all there, including another couple camping next door (whose names I regretfully can't remember now!) who Pam invited to join us.

It so happened that this couple was under a geas. As members of a local photo club, they had traveled to TRF to take pictures of the colorful characters and exciting events at the Faire. Other members of the club were due to arrive on the morrow. Now the geas took the form of a competition between these members. Each had a list of twenty items--a colorful costume, an act, a child and the like--which they were supposed to capture on a single roll of film in just one day at TRF.

Whhooo-EEE: talk about a challenge! Myself, I carry no less than four rolls of film to Faire just for the "grab" shots alone; never mind the extra batteries and tapes for my camcorder and tape recorder!!! Film is cheap so I figure to just "burn up" those rolls at every opportunity, throw away half the final prints as duplicates or "below standard"...and still wind up with 50 to 60 useable views for these pages. But then, I'm trying to record an event. My photos illustrate my reports, capturing those unique characters, events and moments which personalize a faire like TRF for me. I'm not out to create "high art", just report the facts, M'am...

Each to their own. TRF is such a huge Faire, there's plenty of room for everyone -- and we don't get in each others' way!

About that time, the lovely Lady Regina and her boyfriend, John, arrived (Photo, right: Lady Regina as the fairy "Aviana", in her updated Faerie garb. She and her mother spent many long hours putting together her costume, with gratifyingly wond'rous results. Fairegoers especially loved her homemade, handcrafted wings -- she could have sold a dozen pairs on Saturday alone, had she been a vendor!). Again, there was much hugging and getting reacquainted all around -- we hadn't seen them since Hawkwood! Then after catching up on the news, we helped them pitch their tent. Ye Godz, our encampment just kept growing and growing larger! Meanwhile, the drums had started up again...

It was well past midnight by that time, I realized then. Don had already crashed, Regina and John were ready to retire and the couple from the photo club had returned to their camp for the night, leaving only us "Old Navy" types and other party animals to hold down the castle. It was high time for me to wander!

Naturally, I headed for the drums first.

Actually, the drumming had started up again just as soon as the sheriff was out of sight (talk about "security": the only time we ever saw him at the campground was when he showed up to shut down the drumjam!). The drummers had simply moved their circle back to their own campsite and continued on as soon as he was gone, but more subdued out of regard for their neighbors. Too bad! While I really enjoyed their drumming, it just wasn't fast or loud enough now to get me back "into" the music. Still, I hung around the fringes of the crowd -- there were about twenty folk in the circle -- for awhile, watching and listening, before moved on.

Mayhap it was the cider still resting warm and comfortable under me belt, but the campground at TRF looked truly magickal that night! There were at least a dozen Medieval-style pavilions set up, opensided, with groundcloths laid down to create a "path" up to each pavilion. On either side of this path, the campers had set up Tiki torches for light -- several had even gone so far as to bring a Renaissance-style chair or two, arranging them within their pavilions like thrones in an open-air audience chamber. Being late, most of these were deserted...

But not all!

At one, there were still revelers -- in garb, already! -- still awake. Within their pavilion were their King and Queen, seated casually on Romanesque thrones: those big, sturdy "U" style chairs of the Charlemagne era. Below them, sitting cross-legged on the path leading up to the pavilion, were about two dozen of their followers -- nobility, gentry and a few peasants, all conversing quietly amongst themselves. Talk about your "Time Warp"!!! For a brief moment, my head seemed to snap back to some other age, remote and far removed from the present.

For all at once it flashed on me: they could have been an ancient warlord with his trusted captains and lieutenants, planning war strategy for battle on the morrow while his army slept all around them. Or the Royal Couple discussing weighty matters-of-state with their advisors before receiving an embassy from a neighboring kingdom in the morning. That sudden feeling of "being there" was so REAL, so Medieval, so authentic what with the setting and their costumes by the flickering light of the torches, it caught me totally by surprise.

Maybe it was just a fleeting, pastlife regression...or simply the chips I'd tossed down that evening, roiling around in the cider. Whatever it was, the campground suddenly took on an "otherworldly" aura, as if I'd somehow slipped inbetween during my walkabout. Even with cars, campers and RVs present, the illusion couldn't be dispersed. It was an AWESOME feeling!

The Knights of Chaos brought me right back to earth. By the time I arrived at their camp, they were definitely feeling no pain! They were rollicking around a metal half-barrel filled with smouldering logs (wasn't there supposed to be a burn ban in effect that weekend???!?), while one of their number kept waving a plastic head --with glowing electric-red eyes already!-- on a pole, overhead, back and forth repeatedly. A truly barbaric scene!

I saw Dragon there, naturally. And someone pointed out Shaggy and Freddy, I believe. A lot of the conversations overheard seemed to start out: "I know I won't remember telling you this in the morning...". And they were sincerely trying to be quiet in that way those who are well far gone into their cups try to be. In other words, failing miserably and still having a good time at it. It was both amusing and nostalgic for me: reminding me of other times and other campfires with old comrades now long gone...

Ah, memory!

It had to be at least 3am by this time. I started feeling chill as the warmth of the cider wore off, so after hanging out a bit longer with Chaos, I wandered back to our own campsite. Mike, Pam and Linda were debating the pros and cons of sleeping arrangements when I arrived, but by then I was well past caring. I went for my cloak!

Aye, I brought my thick, $10 Wal-Mart special, rough-woven polyester cloak to TRF. It's actually a small, black blanket -- but what with the "faux wool" look complete with a truly crude job of heming; and the addition of a Celtic broach to keep it in place -- yet it still passes inspection as a cloak, at least from a distance. And it is WARM!!!

Now some folks might question my sanity at this point. Even I had considered leaving it behind. Only that afternoon, for example, the temperature in Houston cracked 100 degrees according to various bank signs. But I knew nighttime temperatures plunge with the setting sun! By 3am, I estimate, it had to be somewhere in the mid-50's, so I was right glad for the extra warmth that old cloak provided.

Meanwhile, we sorted out our sleeping arrangements. Mike, Pam and Linda (Mike's "second wife" -- don't ask!) would bunk in one tent, and I'd crash in the other with Don. So saying our "good nights" and "see you in the mornings", we trundled off to sleep. Myself, I merely kicked off my shoes, wrapped myself snug in my nicely-warm cloak and fell gratefully onto the first available air mattress in the other tent. Just before lapsing into unconciousness, I heard geese honking somewhere in the night sky overhead as they came winging south for the winter.

It was the perfect ending for my first night camping out at TRF...!

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