Gainesville Hotels
Battlemonkey's travel blogs:
|
|
A Fair to Remember
Entry 1 of 1 | show all | print this entry |
White Christmas lights were strung through the trees. They dangled like
Spanish moss, weakly illuminating the way as our car bounced across the
field toward a member of the high school marching band who wielded a
flashlight. He directed us to a wide open spot in the field. Like one
of those guys on the tarmac of an airport, he slowly waved us in with
his light, crossing his arms and nodding when we were supposed to stop,
as if we'd needed his keen guidance to fit into the acre or so on
either side of us.
Dusk was beginning to creep over the swamp,
and hulking trees erupting up all around us became black silhouettes
against the fading light of the sky. Everything was beautiful, cool,
and green. The world smelled of pine and honeysuckle and spoke as a
chorus of unseen tree frogs and crickets.
The three of us (my
roommate Pat, our friend Casey, and myself ) hopped out of the car and
immediately heard calliope music in the distance. Either we were close
to our destination, or Anton LaVey was sitting around here somewhere
banging away on his organs. Small eddies of people swirled about us.
Parents and their screaming children. Old couples both cranky and
dapper. I still can't decide if I want to be one of those cranky Walter
Mattheau type old men or one of those suave Don Ameche type old men. I
guess I'll decide later on, but it's never too early to start planning
these things. I might have to get an ascot, after all.
A group
of teenage girls did the "scream, run, giggle" thing that seems to be
an art with them, while the group of strutting, baseball hat wearing
teenage boys tried to impress the girls with displays of their youthful
male virility, such as jumping up to slap tree branches or knocking
each other's hat off, all while repeating the teen guy mantra, "Aw,
dude!"
A truck pulled up next to us, and wo thirty-something
guys slithered out of the cab, the sound of Skynard still drifting off
them like wisps of sweet Southern pot smoke. Skynard follows guys like
this around like an aura, like a shroud. They ooze Lynard Skynard. They
exhale it with every stale, cigarette-scented breath. They sweat "Sweet
Home Alabama" and bleed "Freebird."
"God damn, it's a cold
mother fucker out here!" one of the guys said. He wore a ratty denim
jacket, but his friend was wearing just a tank top with a
motorcycle-riding grim reaper on it. Perhaps he thought the lucious,
flowing locks of his truly epic mullet would shield him from fall's
chilly night air, that he could wrap himself in those greasy, golden
tussles like an Eskimo. It simply hadn't worked, and he stood,
shivering and trembling, defiantly denying the obvious.
"Aw shit, it ain't that cold, man. You're a fucking pussy."
"I'm a fucking warm pussy. And that's the best kind!"
They
each shot the "awwww yeah" nod and traded high fives in celebration of
the quip. Then the guy in the jean jacket put his hands on his hips,
threw back his head, and let loose with a mighty primal howl. His
mullet, not nearly so impressive as his friend's but still worth
noting, flowed about him like a great mane, making him look like some
wild Southern werewolf. Lon Chaney in a baseball cap bearing a rebel
flag patch.
They took off across the field like Neanderthal
hunter-gatherers springing into chase after either a saber tooth tiger
or Racquel Welch in a fur bikini, stopping to hoot and terrorize a
group of old folks before sprinting off again. Wild men of Borneo on
the prowl. As we watched them disappear into the night, one of them
slipped on some gravel and went skidding out of control, landing on his
ass while his buddy filled the darkening sky with raucous laughter.
It
had taken the double-barreled blast of low-fi pro wrestling and a cute
girl like Casey to pry my ass up off the lawn chair in the front yard
and into the midway world after my harrowing experience with the
Gravitron a few months back. It happened in one of those fairs they set
up in K-Mart parking lots, the kind no one goes to because everyone
knows how seedy and unsafe they are. Weirdly enough, those were the
very reasons Rob, Dave, and I decided it couldn't be missed.
It
was April then, and the frost had just broken. Winter was reluctantly
releasing its brief but definite grasp on North Central Florida, and we
were beginning the brisk trot back to the familiar atmosphere of
sweltering one-hundred degree days. To mark the occasion, one of those
parking lot carnivals set itself up in the sprawling lot shared by the
Albertson's grocery store and the bankrupt, deserted Gainesville Mall,
which had never really even been a mall and was about to get torn down
so they could build a new K-Mart.
Legendary death traps these
carnivals, run by grimy, weasely vagrants who couldn't even hold a
steady job down at Coney Island. Green-toothed cacklers who lived on
the carnival trail like nomads, going wherever the rides took them, one
step ahead of delinquent child support payments and determined skip
tracers.
Or so the rumors would have you believe, and truth be
told, it's a hell of a lot more fun if you go in thinking that these
guys aren't paying attention to the ride you're on because they're busy
burying their latest victim or finalizing some heroin deal. It's
certainly more interesting than the army of fake, smiling teens who run
America's big amusement parks. Why would we trust them but not some
grizzled old man with a cracked glass eye and a baseball hat with the
phrase, "Eat Shit and Die" silk-screened on the front?
We had to
go. We went every year. We'd go if we were driving down the highway
somewhere and just stumbled upon one in some other town. We even
skipped class to go to this one because, well, fuck class.
The
place was deserted. At first, we couldn't even find any employees.
Cool. Our own private carnival. You can't beat that unless the carnival
comes with one of those cool, spooky, gypsy girl with whom you are
destined to become romantically entangled despite darkness on the
horizon.
If you are female or not a lesbian, then substitute in
some dark, handsome, knife-throwing gypsy guy. Both of them will
probably be able to play the tambourine, and they'll both have that
gypsy thing for bandanas. If you prefer not to get involved with sexy
gypsies and dark forces, well then fuck you. What's your goddamned
problem, anyway?
Eventually, we ran across the lone employee,
who was not a cute fortune telling gypsy girl. Oh well, maybe next
time. Having just watched The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped
Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies, I wasn't much in the mood to be
turned into a hooded sweatshirt wearing maniac with a tendency to
frolic pointlessly and indulge in lame dance numbers.
The
employee was pretty much the opposite of a cool gypsy girl. He was this
huge, Nordic looking body builder type. It was all going for him.
Platinum blond Ric Flair hair pulled back in a pony tail. Those
polarized Oakley mirror shades. The skimpy tank-top only body builders
can wear, with a picture of a totally buff man-gator on it and the
words "Get It Going!" written in puffy pen.
"What's going on, dudes?"
I
was disappointed that he didn't have a Scandinavian accent like those
guys on the World's Strongest Man competitions. I decided to call him
Yolaf despite the surfer guy voice.
"Are the rides running?" Rob asked.
Yolaf,
who had been sitting with his feet propped up on the ticket counter,
leaned forward and peered at us through crystal blue eyes over the tops
of his Oakley sunglasses.
"They work," he said, almost in a whisper. "They work like Rocky. Which one you want?"
"How about the Gravitron?" said Dave.
Yolaf smiled as if he'd known all along that was going to be our answer. Maybe he was a fortune-telling gypsy after all.
"You want the Gravitron? You think ... you THINK you can take the Gravitron? Well come on in."
I
fucking hate the Gravitron. I always have, and always will hate the
Gravitron and any other spinning ride. They make me sick when I could
be having fun on a roller coaster or something else. The only thing
that has ever been able to get me on a spinning ride is a cute girl or,
apparently, a Nordic body builder. I'm always trying stupidly to
impress both.
I guess deep down a part of me really wants to be
liked by Nordic body builders, wants to have them thump me firmly on
the shoulder and proclaim, "You're all right, little man!" Granted, the
whole cute girl thing is a lot more important to me, but it's rarely
been a bad thing to have Nordic body builders on your side.
Oh
well, I figured, I can handle thirty seconds on the Gravitron. I'd
certainly done worse. Trying to impress this one girl with my ability
to ride those fucking Disney World teacups was a particularly bad
moment, and this wasn't going to be that bad. It just spins around and
sticks you to the wall for a little while.
"The miracle that is
centripetal force!" muttered Rob as we piled onto the Gravitron. Yolaf
turned around and whistled, and I swear out of thin air half a dozen of
his massive body builder friends appeared, hooting and shouting
motivational phrases, along with the occasional requisite "Yeah, baby!"
So there we were. Three skinny punks and half a dozen body builders,
their permanently oiled-up skin glistening like chrome in the Florida
sun. In another world, these guys would be kicking sand in our faces at
the beach. But on this day, at this instant, we were united by a common
bond called the Gravitron.
Yolaf surveyed the scene from the operator's control stand. He hadn't even bothered to hassle us for tickets. He grinned.
"Get ready to rock."
He
started up the Gravitron, then started up a nearby boom box turned up
to ten. The familiar keyboard intro of Van Halen's "Jump" swirled about
us as we spun faster and faster. Slowly, we were plastered up against
the wall, our feet dangling a good six inches above the ground. The
body builders were shouting and doing the "test of strength" thing
where they try to push their arms out and away from the wall. One of
them was stuck to the wall, his arms crossed over his barrel chest and
a content "I'm a suave mother fucker" look on his face.
Now how
long does the Gravitron go? Thirty seconds? Maybe forty-five, tops? Not
much more than that. We went through "Jump" and the next three songs on
the 1984 album before the ride finally ground to a halt. I was so sick
that I couldn't even think about throwing up. It was an entirely new
sensation for me, so far beyond the point of nausea that my body
decided the mere act of throwing up wasn't nearly enough to express how
sick I truly was. I was in a cold sweat, seeing colors, feeling that
even the slightest jolt to my system would cause me to puke up my
entire digestive tract.
The body builders were equally as sick
save for the suave guy, who simply slid down the wall, arms still
crossed, took a deep breath, and nodded.
"Time for a cool-down ride," Yolaf said. "Let's go over to the little planes."
The
little planes were those kiddie ride plane-shaped cars that roll around
slowly on an uneventful track. Seemed like the perfect way to let my
stomach settle -- provided I could make it across the midway. The body
builders squeezed their hulking frames into the little planes, which
had been designed to comfortably seat your average six-year-old. We all
looked like a bunch of Rat Fink characters. Giant heads sticking out of
little vehicles.
The suave body builder, of course, came up with
an altogether different approach to the little planes, easing himself
in with his legs hanging off either side, like he was on an inflatable
raft in a pool. He leaned back, arms still crossed, and nodded as Yolaf
kicked the little planes into gear.
Yolaf did the wide-legged
body-builder sprint - the kind of lumbering stride that comes with
thigh muscles the size of people - and assumed his position in the lead
plane. We rode around for the rest of 1984 and then the first few songs
off Diver Down. Three laughing punks riding the little planes with a
gang of shiny body builders.
"I don't know what y'all want to do," I said to Pat and Casey, "but I'm not setting foot on the fucking Gravitron."
We
wandered down a narrow dirt path lined with more white Christmas lights
and some fake lanterns. The sound of frogs and grunting alligators was
slowly drowned out by the carnival music, the grinding and clanking of
metal gears and rides, and the voices of men yelling inspirational
insults into their bullhorns in an effort to get more little kids to
throw a ring around a fish bowl and then spend the rest of the night
wondering what the fuck they were going to do with this goldfish in a
baggie they'd just won.
We rounded a bend, being careful not to
slip on the gravel that had foiled the Southern rock fan's manly
advance, and came out onto an asphalt patch with a fluorescent lit,
squat concrete building at one end. The Alachua County Fairgrounds. The
Alachua County Fair, which was a hell of a lot better than the last
thing I'd been to at this place: the Alachua County Renaissance Faire.
I'd
gone once, in a predictably futile attempt to woo this cute drama club
girl in one of my classes. Nothing ever came of the relationship, and
for my lust I had to endure countless hours of community theater
aficionados in chinsey medieval garb eating mutton and singing filk
songs.
I'd never heard of filk songs, and at first I thought it
was just some clever Oldde Englysh pronunciation of folk music. "Filk"
sounded too close to "felch," and while I make no judgment on what some
people like, filk and felch are two things I've found I really can do
without. Filk music, for those of you lacking friends with a tendency
to don frilly shirts and jerkins and insist you refer to them as
"Aragorn," is when people get together and sing medieval chants and
folk songs about their role playing characters and Dungeons and Dragons
campaigns.
I hate to harsh on anyone's fun, because God knows I
do some stupid shit. I realize this, but in the back of my mind, I
couldn't help but hear TV's Frank yelling, "Bite me, Frodo!"
Just
when I thought the day could get no worse than sitting in a circle of
mandolin-plucking goths singing about the heroic exploits of Torbin the
Dwarf of Nordir and his mighty Hammer of Thynn-Nhal, my chubby
45-year-old manager from the bookstore pranced up, wearing a king's
robe and speaking in lilting Old English.
A few days later, the
girl actually asked me out on a date. It was to see a free outdoor
concert by Billy Squires. I thanked her, politely said I couldn't make
it, and accepted that it probably wasn't going to work out.
It
was much better to be here, now, with two good friends, gearing up for
an evening of prize-winning livestock, the annual Pork Queen beauty
pageant, rickety rides, and of course pro rasslin' underneath a striped
tent. I'd always dreamed of dating a Pork Queen.
I remember a
strange conversation I had with a couple friends in which we all
admitted to a desire to date either a Pork Queen, an Amish girl, or a
Krishna girl. Something about the undying attraction of the
unobtainable, I suppose. Some of those Gainesville Krishna girls were
really something, though.
We paid our $4 admission to yet
another member of the high school band and filtered into the event
hall, the universal prelude to every state and county fair everywhere.
A warehouse packed with 4-H displays about soil, FFA displays about
bovine cholera, and local merchants hocking everything from riding
mowers to electric foot massagers. It was like walking into a Caroliner
Rainbow album made flesh.
Casey and I stocked up on free bumper
stickers from the Marines and signed a few friends up to receive more
information and calls from the local recruitment office. Somehow, we
also ended up with a bunch of John Deere stuff, but unfortunately no
hats.
We wandered through the Hall of Champions from the
county-wide elementary school shadow box and diorama contest, lingered
a spell at the cobbler stand (I had peach), and caught the tail end of
some cow judging thing.
"I've already got my four bucks worth," Casey remarked.
The
midway was a big field crisscrossed with extension cords and cables
strategically placed to trip up as many visitors as possible. The one
of a kind fair smell was heavy in the air, that enticing yet sickening
smell of farm animals, axle grease, and deep fried fair food.
Casey
and I immediately launched into the greedy consumption of a funnel cake
while Pat stalked the up-and-coming ECW superstar Rob Van Dam, who was
wandering the midway, taking in the local color and chomping on a corn
dog.
We passed time in the House of Hell. I've always wondered
why these things are allowed to have air-brushed paintings of naked
women on them. I mean, this is a place for kids, right? Although mostly
only the hood teenagers go to the Houses of Hell. And why do all these
rides still think we're scared of gorillas? This isn't the 1930s, when
gorillas seemed to scare everyone and constantly chase around both
Buckwheat and the Bowery Boys. Buckwheat couldn't go one week without
being chased by a gorilla, usually after some "let's scare Buckwheat"
scheme of Spanky's had gone awry. They always tried to scare Buckwheat,
and a real gorilla always got in the mix somehow.
After that, we
rocked out for a spell on the Himalaya with it's early 1980s hard rock
soundtrack. It seems like county fairs everywhere are steadfastly
frozen in 1982. I don't know what it was about that year, but they all
decided to stop. Walking down the midway you could still play Frogger
or buy a "Ghostbusters" t-shirt (regular or baseball-sleeve). You could
still hear Billy Ocean and Ready For the World. I can't believe people
pay money to relive the lamest aspects of the 1980s in Old Wave clubs
when they could just pay a couple bucks, go to the local fair, and also
win a big Pink Panther stuffed with those weird little pellet things.
You know that shit's gonna be leaking out all over your carpet by
month's end, yet still you must have it.
Like the decor and
music, the prizes at amusement parks have not progressed with the
times. They're all still Bullwinkle, Scooby Doo, and Quickdraw McGraw.
Things we never think about but suddenly must win when we hear the
carnie yelling at us to throw darts at a balloon.
Then it was
time. We headed over to the red and white striped tent. It was cool but
not cold, a perfect night to take in some rasslin' at the fair. Forget
the glitz. Forget the pyro and the million dollar contracts. Nothing
the major feds have to offer can measure up to the simple pleasure of
lo-fi rasslin' in a tent at the county fair.
We lost our front
row chairs to Rob Van Dam and his unfortunate opponent, who needed them
to plaster one another. The twelve-year-old kid next to us impishly
tripped mad woman Luna Vachon, sending her sprawling to the ground in
her leather cape and leotard. She stood up, hissing and spewing
obscenities, grabbed the kid by the coat, and hauled his ass out to the
entrance and threw him out of the fair. I'm just happy she didn't think
I was the one who did it.
We watched Jerry Lynn and his mullet,
both of which would later become mainstays in WCW. We watched cherubic
Greg "The Hammer" Valentine come out to get his ass ceremoniously
whipped by local legend and 65-year-old wrestling star Dory Funk Jr.
The
main event for the night was a grudge match (aren't they all) between
local NWA star Steve Keirn and former WWF star and current NWA
heavyweight champion Hercules Hernandez, who was just as red as he was
during his WWF tenure but with a lot more flab. The two had been
drinking together all day, and many fans caught glimpses of them with
arms around one another, laughing heartily and downing the Jack.
By
the time these two mortal enemies were supposed to be in the ring, they
were so shit-faced they could hardly stand. They spent most of the
match giggling and stumbling around the squared circle until Keirn
settled into his role as heel and started harassing the crowd.
Wrestling
is among the most interactive sports around. Fans expect to be involved
in matches, to have wrestlers yell at them and to be able to yell back.
We expect to be bumped by Rob Van Dam as he gets thrown into the front
row and has to use our chair as a weapon. Watch any wrestling broadcast
and see wrestling fans scramble to pat their favorite wrestler on the
back whenever he comes within arm's length. No other sport is as weird
or maligned as wrestling, but no other sport involves its fans in such
an intimate way, either.
Of course, there are lines that can be
crossed. Our friend Henry was admonished for his "I Hate You One Man
Gang - You Smell Like Pee" sign during one show. And at the previous
year's county fair, our friend Todd heckled The Missing Link to the
point of a near physical altercation. But what other form of
entertainment affords you the chance to make a statement like that?
Steve
Keirn was a much better sport, or at least a sport who was drunk enough
not to care. In a deft display of heel prowess, he was able to choke
Hercules with his shoestring and harangue some twelve- year-old kid in
the front row, all at the same time. In accordance with wrestling
tradition, the kid gleefully returned the jabs, commenting on Keirn's
receding hair line and love handles.
The exchange ended when
Keirn challenged the skinny little kid to a match, which was met with
more heckling and the kid flexing his nonexistent muscles. Keirn then
yelled, "Ahh, shut up you pencil-necked faggot!"
Only at a
rasslin show at the county fair can a drunken grown man call a
twelve-year-old kid a "pencil-necked faggot" and be unanimously cheered
by the entire crowd, including the kid's own parents.
As always,
the simplest moments are the ones that end up meaning the most to me.
Sitting under the carnival lights with good friends, watching two drunk
men in bikini tights stumble around as we ate funnel cake and hurled
jeers at them. That's a damn fine way to spend a night.
At the end of the evening, the kid went home with an autograph; we went home with smiles that lasted for days.
And Steve Keirn? Well, that night, ol' Steve went home with the NWA World Heavyweight Title Belt.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by battlemonkey, from Florida, United States or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
