So… Saturday was wonderful (I’ll save The Camp of the Mullet King for later). I’ve never had fun at a faire. You kinda walk around, look at stuff. It’s like a mall, only people annoy you. More than they do in malls.

So, anyway, it’s real windy. I bump into Lee. Zombie fled to watch a minstrel, and I caught up a bit with Lee and his goings-on. Patently necessary, you will soon learn, young jedi.

By the time I find the crew (Zombie, Katy, ‘Auli’i, and Kasey) they’re half-way through a bottle of honey mead. I detest honey mead. Tastes like piss. Roy’s always trying to get me to have some. But eager to catch up, I try some.

It tastes wonderful. Sweet. Chilled. That’s right: chilled. Roy always serves it piss warm; thus the piss taste, but cold? Wonderful!

Then ‘Auli’i accomplishes many drunken antics for the next two hours. A complete detail would be impossible. Highlights include her spanking the centaur and trying to pull the sword from the stone. When brute force refused to work, she knelt down beside it and spoke sweetly, “I love you…” The sword had obviously had his heart misled by a woman before, and refused to budge.

We eventually left the faire and absconded to Austin. I napped a little bit, maybe. Roy, Renee, Zombie, Leah, and I ate dinner at Magnolia. It’s still as good as it ever was. Zombie and Leah stayed in. Roy and Renee went to Elysium with Thad and Stacy. I hung out with ‘Auli’i.

We ended up at Kerbey Lane on the drag. It’s newish. How I wish they’d had one like that when I was there. Talk about rock. The waitress was really nice and beautiful. Not necessarily physically, though she was attractive, but she was one of those people who exudes this tremendous amount of good energy that just warms you from every angle.

She comped us our chips n’ salsa, two teas, and a vegan cheesecake that was awesome. All in exchange for some cloves. We even tried to pay, but she wouldn’t let us.

I wandered in late again. I was almost getting used to it, though my body still rebels. But I did get to discuss red neck culture some more.

“I just got my woman her shots and dewormed.”

“Kewl. Now you can sodo-mize her again and urinate in her mouth.”

“And lick her testicle eye.”

Good times… good times.

We took first watch while Zombie collapsed, drunken and abused by shrubberies. The camp of the Mullet men had quieted, but we were wary, still.

It was late. Even the belligerently drunk red necks had tired of harassing their significant others for sex and collapsed in tents and trucks across the campground.

‘Auli’i was digging in her bag, feverishly.

“Looking for cigarettes?”

“No. I have those.” She holds them up as proof and hands me one before diving back into the bag. “Looking for my lighter. Here lighter… Where are you…”

I couldn’t see her face. It was black, silhouetted by moonlight dripping through the trees to the East. I wondered if she could see mine.

Mild laughter drifted over from a campground not too far away. They had tiki torches, and I could see the dappled orange glow of a fire.

“We can get fire over there,” I suggested. She continued digging. “Want me to go get a light?”

“Well…”

“Come on. We can get a light over there.”

Now, the camp of the Mullet men could never be described in the mere mortal words of man, its awesome majesty too majestic, urging even the Angels of the Lord to avert their eyes in reverence. Perched ‘round the central fire, a flock of tents, the finest nylons and polyesters from far away kingdoms such as OshLands and as captured from their Acadenemies. And they had tiki torches, cast like pillars to hold back the dome of the sky. And they had logs.

By its grandeur, I knew this camp could only belong to Taz, King of the Mullet Men. I was drawn to his magnificence as a smoker is drawn to a flame.

I led, quietly, being careful not to wake his sentries, cleverly disguised as drunken, East county, fat hogs of men, asleep in dome tents.

“Who goes there,” bellowed Taz.

I stepped forward. “Good evening. Just wanted to steal your fire.” Three mullet peoples squatted on logs around a fiercesome Taz, lounging in a lawnchair.

“Do you know where you are? What camp this is?”

“Uh… Of course I do.”

“Who’s camp are you in?”

“This is the greatest camp there is. Only a fool would not know what camp this was.”

“You. Are in. CHAOS.” He paused to let his words rumble and echo. Absent any appreciable echo he continued. “I am Taz.” Pause. “Our camp is bound by these lines you see here.” At this he turned his attention to a rapier stuck in the ground before the fire, trying to wrest it free. “Dammit. Uh. There.” Gesturing wildly towards the lines encircling the camp. “This is our domain. We are all powerful inside these ropes!”

“Well… you’d think chaos wouldn’t be bound by anything.”

“No one dares enter the camp of CHAOS!” Pause. “They’d quickly find themselves surrounded. Our weapons’d be out. They’d be in a bad place.” Gesture, gesture. Occasionally his mullet subjects would lean away from the gesturing.

“This is my sword. Don’t let it worry you. It’s only out for cooking. Otherwise you’d never see it out. Well, cooking, and of course to fight.

“You don’t want to see me with my sword out,” he gestured wildly.

“And there was last week, we were going to a hand-fasting. There you saw this Horde of Chaos marching along, all of our weapons out.

“They thought we were going to kill someone.”

At about this point ‘Auli’i came into view, also having made it past the cleverly disguised Sentries of Chaos. “What woman goes there! Come forward.”

(Taz’s amazing strengths in gender perception have been discussed previously. c.f. Ch.1 Mayhem of the Mangy Mullets).

You could see her pondering on whether to use her deep voice. “Hey.” She kind of stood there.

“Come forward.” Two steps closer. “Come forward.” A couple more. “More. Come here. Let me look at you.” A step forward. “Come closer.”

At last, the wily Taz had lured her within his reach. I watched with trepidation. He’d surely notice she had no mullet. The game was up. The kill was his. She would be cut in two with his next gesture. They would dine on freak stew. I had led us to an agonizing mullet doom.

“Hmph.” He looked her up and down. “You are acceptable.” Eyeing me with a drunken squint and one good eye. “I’ll have to steal her from you.”

One of the mullets spoke. “You can’t do that, Taz.” From the soft, round face I could detect the feminine, or a mullet man on muscle relaxers.

“Eh… Well, that’s alright. I’ve got one back in my tent.”

I lit my cigarette on a tiki torch. “We’ve got to get going.” ‘Auli’i lit her cigarette. “We’ll probably see you tomorrow at the Faire.”

We scuttled into the welcoming darkness…

In your Obi Wan voice: “The drama is strong with this one…” — R. Williams

The longer I sit and look at the world around me, the more amazed I am at the world’s fundamental magic. Everything around us seethes with energy, and without even thinking we move through and manipulate things with the most minor force of will.

I had more Indian food for dinner with Roy and Renee. I smelled myself this morning just to make sure I’m not starting to smell like Curry. The mint tea scare has been proven a hoax. The soap at the apartment smells oddly like minty green tea, so I have assured myself, it was the soap, and not an absorbed herb that made my hands smell minty, for days…

After dinner I went and saw Roy’s band practice. Pretty cool. Think bad faeries ignoring the king’s edict and wandering into the city’s of man for bad women, hash, smoky bars, and lots of psychedelic music.

Being bad faeries they play dark, dissonant music, a chaotic whirlwynd of wrything (that’s how faeries spell it) angst somehow in time with the other five wrything whirlwynds of angst.

Vocals reminiscent of Frank Black, kind of. I hear the doors, Missippi blues, Heart, the Doors, snatches of punk, folk, and metal, all played with two acoustic guitars, an electric bass, a drum kit, and a hand drummer. Quite impressive. They play March 21 at Underworld at Numbers and March 23 at Sin 13 in Dallas, despite not being a goth band.

“You don’t understand what a cornocopia of rot your cunts are…” — A. Peguero

I went back to the apartment and spoke with an acquaintance, Steve, who informed me Amelie was by the sane director who did Delicatessan and City of Lost Children. Why did no one tell me this before!?!

There, I thought it was some lame-ass French romance meant for chyx and guys hoping to get laid, when in reality, it’s this kick ass, slightly dark and comedic romance by an awesome visual artist meant for chyx and guys hoping to get laid.

I would have seen it 15 times by now.

Meanwhile, back in reality, I’m still way behind though I did get two invoices out, and paid all my bills. That’s good right?

I slept horribly. I would’ve been grouchy, but my girlfriend was in from Austin. I picked him up and we had lunch at this wonderful Indian restaurant. The decor was gorgeous. The staff was attentive without being annoying. The food was great.

Well, actually, the Naan was decent but not as tasty as the place near Roy’s and the Daal was Daal. Not spectacular but wonderful over the yummy Indian rice.

We went to CD stores. I found Stoa’s Portus VII, which is generally hard to find. Might be easier to order. Why would you care? Because it’s a brilliantly beautiful album.

I demanded Alex purchase a copy of This Swelling Soul. I think he likes it. I told him he would.

We had no dinner. Inertia and apathy kept us (Roy, Kasey, Alex, and I) in Roy’s apartment, except for the brief coffee jaunt to an uber-hip indie, mom n’ pop coffee hole in the wall down the street run by eco-concious neo-hippies and libertines. We met up with Sunanda there.

We retired to the apartment, because, really, we have Southern Comfort. Renee showed up later. So did Leah. So did Sam and Amy. It was another one of those kick back and chill with cool people nights. It rocked.

Moreso because some kind soul gifted me with some hummous and sourdough (called ambrosia by the greeks) and a fortuitous bottle of Southern Comfort. And yes. I was comforted.

Thankfully, my energy waned, so I was unable to go a viking. Everyone left. I slowly drifted off to the sound of everyone else just sitting there listening to Dead Can Dance.

When I woke, everyone was gone. It was like a dream. I’m still not sure any of it happened.

“I used to have an outy, but after a procedure, now I have an inny. It looks like a vagina.”

“Vaginas are cool”

“No really. It looks like a vagina.” Brooke is one of those rockin (like Dokken!) people who’ll whip out her lighter where you really expect a pair of devil’s horns to be, and use the flame to illuminate her vaginal belly button. “Look!” It did look like a vagina. I felt dirty looking at it.

But my shame was shortlived. Last night rocked. All the people I hadn’t seen in a while crawled out beneath the gray skies and impending rain. It was like homecoming night for me, only there weren’t any obnoxious brightly colored dresses out of tacky fabric.

Zombie suggests I enable, so I enabled someone new: a young girl, Robyn, reticent at first, but came a round soon enough, and lives close enough to the Woodlands to be an honorary tribe member.

Of course, I made a drunken call to Zombie around 11:00 pm. “You only call those you love when you’re drunk.”

Kean and I shared fond Jester reminisces and bits about Kinsolving before rocking to ‘Supernaught’. And Jeff rocked for playing it, as well as requested Elesde and Juno Reactor. It was like our own private club.

The night started off well, me grinning like a maniac, moseying down the freeway, bouncing to Celluloide. “I was seven and forever…”

Maddy and Joel, Batty and Brett, Brandon and Danielle, Ramiro, DJ Dead, Jason and Karen, James, Carmina and David. We were only missing a few lost souls. And I really hadn’t seen anyone in ages.

Even with minor drama, everything was wonderful. I boasted a huge, obnoxious smile for most of the night. I’m happy. Really happy. I was home. Finally. And these were my people.

Whether my happiness drew from some mania, or something like mania makes no matter. I’ve been happy. What else do you need?