Phoole's Pilgrimage: Muncaster Castle Festival of Fools 2010

(Photo, by Tom Charney, of an inchworm on my hat, on the windowsill in our room in the Coachmen's Quarters at Muncaster Castle. Every time I look at this pic, I get the Danny Kaye song stuck in my head.)

With heavy hearts and even heavier trunks, we left Muncaster Castle and the soul-ignitingly beautiful Lake District behind today. We're wasting a little time in Manchester until next week; Tom's having a well-earned nap, and I should be re-packing my mountains of gear, but I couldn't wait to share a few pictures. These were all taken by my brilliant husband Tom Charney; he performed (dazzlingly) with me almost all day every day as silly Italian Fasso Latido, so he didn't get that many shots, but hopefully some of my new Phoole Photog friends will be sending along more images I can share too.

Phoole on Film! AND Tom's Band, the OUTTA STATE PLATES!

Phoole protege Chloe Arbiture's senior film project, CIRCUSWORLD, won 3rd place out of lots of entries last night at UWM's Student Film Fest. I'm exploding with pride. I'm hoping to check out another screening of the short piece tonight!

Where: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Union Theatre, 2200 East Kenwood Boulevard, Milwaukee, WI, between Stowell Avenue on the east and Maryland Avenue on the west, on the east side of Milwaukee.

When: 7:00 p.m.

The theatre's website doesn't have a world of useful information on it, but if you must have a URL, here it is, but you gotta scroll all the way to the bottom, and the page is absurdly long: http://ping.fm/CVosd

I'm hoping to time things out so that I can catch the screening and then make it over early to My Husband Tom Charney's band's gig.

Tom's band, the Outta State Plates, plays at Milwaukee's Conway's Smokin' Bar & Grill tonight from 9 p.m. on! Check their site at http://osplates.com/ for more info!

Hopefully I'll see you at both happenings!

Update: Alas, I won't be at the CIRCUSWORLD screening...Chloe's film will likely not be shown until 8pm (all of her class's projects are showing), and I want to be available to help Tom load in, set up, and probably tweet lots. But do go see the film and then come to Conway's! Let's pack the house!

Art for You to View: Kenilworth Arts Building, 4/18/09 10-4

My brilliant sculptor husband, Tom Charney, and my genius protege, Chloe Arbiture, display their sculpture/video collaboration installation at Milwaukee's Kenilworth Arts Building tomorrow, 1925 E Kenilworth Place (Kenilworth and Farwell on Milwaukee's East Side, above Urban Outfitters and sort of across the street from Izumi's Delicious Sushi-Land), April 18, 2009, from 10am to 4pm. Please go view the fruit of their collaborative effort!

Giraffes Love JtP! JDRF Walk at the Zoo - Revue

On Saturday I donated my performance at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk to Cure Diabetes at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Eradicating Type 1 Diabetes is something that should have happened long before the 21st Century arrived, but here we all are, with tiny children still having to endure many needles a day for a disease we should have beaten by now. My husband was diagnosed with Type 1 when he was 14 years old; most of the kids we met on the Walk were diagnosed much, much younger.

It rained right up until we were done, which was at 2:30 p.m. As if on a timer, the rain stopped and the sun came out. My dress soaked up about 10 gallons of rain, some from getting rained on, some from absorbing puddles I couldn’t avoid standing in or near. It should be dry just in time for my weekend at the Stronghold Olde English Faire, October 4 & 5, but it's still drying now!

We met little Monica, who loved to give hugs to Jane and Fasso, and whose friend Jessica was six and was diagnosed with diabetes at age two. We met angelic little Erica, diagnosed at three years old, now four years old. And so on and so on. Each little child had a team: family, friends, physicians, neighbors.

Fasso (the very funny Fake Italian played by my husband) told the little children with diabetes, “Ehhh, you know? I been diabetic twenny-four-a years-a now. ‘S easy. Notting to worryabout. You gotta take care a yourself; you gotta test-a you bloods alla time; you gotta have a good team and a good family look out-a for you, you can do it, no problem. ‘S easy. I believe inna you.” They smiled and hugged us, and I cried inside, and it was moving and delightful.

We also met Leader Dog, a group of people training helper dogs, and their dogs. Their dogs all loved Jane the Phoole, and I hope they send me the photo they took of me petting All of the Dogs at Once, including a tiny black Labrador puppy named Keelie who like chomping my hem with tiny puppy needle-teefs.

When we visited the giraffes (Tom’s most favorite animal in the whole world), the giraffes (who love to look at bright, contrasting colors) all came over to look at ME, and one of them squeezed its head through the fence, put its face about 14” from mine, and just GAZED, for about three minutes. It was fantastic. I’m glad I made the hat so sparkly!

Working Backwards: Cast Party Fun Times

I keep trying to marshall some time and mind to get the details of Bristol's closing weekend down, but I get distracted easily. So I'm going to remember the most recent things first, and I'll work my way backward.

Tom DJ'd the cast party, and he was a Super Genius Mastermind. Admittedly, we arranged a lot of the tracks ahead of time, at least into vague groups of times-of-night, because we've done enough parties to know what the Bristol crowd wants at certain party phases. We don't play country, and we don't condone any line-dancing sort of behavior, probably because it reminds me too much of large battallions of marching Nazi soldiers. That must be it. Anyhow, this was really Tom's first DJing venture where he was running the show mostly on his own, and as soon as the big crowds arrived, he packed the floor and kept it hopping all night.

He also achieved something as a DJ that I've never accomplished: he got Rush Pearson (Billy Billy Von Billy of the Sturdy Mud Beggars) AND Phil Johnson (MoOnIe the Magnificent) on the floor -- and they stayed, for song after song after song! I've never played to a room that had them dancing in it. Tom surpassed my amazing DJ prowess and left it in the dust.

I will take credit for the floor-packins resulting from my insistence that Daft Punk's "Harder Faster Better" be heard. But the rest is all down to Tom. He bolstered his amazing throw-down with a spankly new CD duo-deck from NuMark, with a nifty feature that automatically cues the other deck as soon as you start your cross-fade. So good!

The hotel booted the music at midnight -- Extremely Lame -- and closed the pool, so there were not the usual legendary 4am hi-jinks, at least not for my coterie. But a handful of the best people -- JulieBeth, Frank, Kiffen and the fierce Ms Teri -- and Tom and I adjourned to Marina Gardens for 2am waffles-n-bacon, and while we waited, we received heaping helpings of entertainment from none other than His Most Royal Majesty King Xavier and Crow from the Nation of Dark Cloud! They're hilarious, dangerous and crazy, and that's what we like in our barbarian hordes.

It was much less exhausting an evening than I'd anticipated it being -- which is fine, considering the dusty weekend ground us all down to weak mole-baby-eyed sniffling wheezing raw li'l nubs.

I'll try to push my memory back to the part of the weekend with patrons in it. Briefly, I do remember the audience being completely delightful, and I know I had brilliantly fun times goofing with the best characters, including My Lord Earl of Bath. Something happened involving a very, very tiny hat up on top of Bath's head, and he's exceedingly tall, and I know I laughed until I almost fainted. I know I saw faces from long ago and far away, and I know I made new friends too. And I vaguely recall receiving excessively-kind praise and learning "bad monkey" in up to 31 languages total. For the details, I shall have to restore myself further.

Bests & Worsts: Weekend 7, Bristol Renaissance Faire 2008

Worsts:

Saying farewell to Richard Weber for the remainder of the season.

Onslaught of mean drunks all day Sunday, beginning immediately at the Gate and continuing consistently throughout the day.

Meeting a real-life Veruca Salt and getting a big shun from her and her entire entourage of 5-year-olds after playing some of my best material for them.

Mean drunky drunkersons -- some of whom insisted a fellow female cast member was actually a man in drag, and then insisted that I was a man in drag. Really horrible awful people. I love drag queens and trannies and all sorts, do not mistake me. The spirit in which these aspersions were cast was hostile.

Being stymied by the drunkersons in the last item -- I found myself so insulted, offended and outraged that I didn't have a comeback. Felt awful for not being able to defend the other cast member.

Tea party. Whoa. Seriously.

Sunday seated audiences generally were silent and hating every single thing. I have no energy left today. They took it all. Much good may it do them.

Awful bad drunkies. Hateful, mean drunk people.

Bidding "Au Revoir" to Etienne, who was a delightful houseguest to Tom and I and just a really great guy to talk to about everything in the world.

Bests:

The Queen gave the Mayor a puppy! And a beer! But he got a PUPPY! And the Queen knighted him! But -- a PUPPY PUPPERSONS! Prosh li'l puglet! OMG CUTE!!!1!

The many patrons who stopped me and gave me amazing, kind, generous compliments. So, so good!

Doing an old-school, solid Ye Olde Street Bit with Genesee Spridco's mask character in Farnham Way. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end! It got in, got it over with, and got out! It had 360-degree staging and nice loud volume! It attracted a small crowd and then included the crowd! It established the Who, the What, the Why and the How in under 30 seconds! It rocked. So Proud of Us!

The Jane the Phoole show on the Midsummer on Saturday was made of Win and Awesome, even though I nearly choked to death on food in the middle of it! I usually can't bear to watch video of me working, but Tom video'd the whole thing, and we viewed it that night, and I realized, "Oh! I do do something. No wonder people pay attention to me." I also realized my new sleeves make it look like I have little Tyrannosaurus Rex flipper arms. But knowing is half the battle!

Funny Person Says I'm Funny!

My husband is an extremely funny person. His wit is lightning-fast, his lexicon is vast, his energy is comfortable and comforting if he's on your side and devastating if he's not, and he deconstructs everything he hears and mines it for comic potential with complete ease. His humor isn't the kind that makes you tired, except possibly from laughing until you cry. He's hilarious. Only the best will do for me, in other words.

He spent a good part of this past weekend performing in the streets with me, and he paid me this compliment today in an email:

"I keep thinking about how awesome you are with the audience. You are extremely rare in your abilities with the crowd. Your sense of comic timing is astounding! And so is your ability to read people and groups. You know exactly what to say and how to react. I am in awe of how skilled you really are! I think I get to see more of the self-deprecating A-E and less of the skilled professional improv artist that you are, which makes those "Jane" moments so impactful!"

My face, it hurts from the smiling. Good, good Tom, and good Tom-Phoolery.