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Michigan Pirate Fest, August 2012 - Grand Haven, MI

Photo: Sos Boss
Folks flying pirate ship kites on Saturday
Chapter 3rd: Saturday afternoon. Thoughts about the weather (I'm sure that's why you read these Journals - to hear about the weather); Of the battle preparations and the battle - focusing particularly on the rather unorthodox story line; Post-battle deconstruction; An in-depth profile of someone the author never met; Some photos of our event hosts the Dufrenses and What happens when the Beach Boys discover mermaids.

Saturday was windy. I mean it was really windy. It kept blowing over pop-up vendor flies, although it also made for great kite flying weather. In fact there were a number of rather impressive-looking pirate-themed kites being flown in the open field bordering the encampment as you can see in the photos here. What made it all the more impressive is that pirates were flying the pirate kites. (You never knew they did that, did you?)

Photo: Rootjack A fanciful red pirate ship kite

Photo: Rootjack ♫ "Hoist highhhhh... the Jolly Roger!" ♪

Photo: Sos Boss The hook makes it a BIT harder to fly...

The pop-up vendor flies were not the only things that collapsed. Mark Gist had erected a fly for me to keep my table out of the sun. Given the weather conditions that morning and the knowledge of the fly, I hadn't even bothered to put on suntan lotion that morning. However, between the wind and the rain-softened ground, the stakes kept pulling out and the fly kept wrecking behind me. On its fourth falling, we gave up and left it on the ground. I was actually in the middle of a presentation on that last parting of the surgeon fly. It carried my head scarf with it. (Being a professional, I made a lame joke about it and kept going with my presentation.)

Photo: Sos Boss The surgeon at his table under the fly

Photo: Mark Gist Hold on to your hat...

Photo: Sos Boss After a fly collapse, trying to keep my head scarf on

---

Sometime in the afternoon there was a battle planning meeting. Mark Gist had asked me if I wanted to fire the deck gun, so I trotted along to the meeting. Unlike most battle planning meetings, I actually paid some attention. Here is a bit of what I heard:

"...the pirates will send a messenger that the Romans will capture."
"Can we crucify the messenger?"
"That might be good. So the Romans will crucify the messenger. Who is going to be the messenger? It has to be someone who can scream real loud and get everyone's attention."
"I am a good screamer!"
"OK, Tinkerbell will be the pirate's messenger..."

It got weirder from there, so I decided it was better to stop listening and just take photos.

Photo: Mission The gathering to discuss the plan for the afternoon battle

Photo: Mission M.A. d'Dogge joining his battle compatriots - the ancient Romans

With the battle planned, it was time for lunch.
Photo: Dolphin Danni
The Romans enjoying their lunch
The planning meeting was right next to the Romans' campsite, so they tucked right in as you can see in the photo at left. I am going to suppose that they ate food correct for their period. It actually got me wondering about how they do their research. As tough as it is to figure out the details of what went on the 17th century, there are a surprising number of pictures and books out there that can be used for reference. But ancient Rome...? I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to try and discern what 1st century Romans ate. If I was reenacting that period, I would probably daily bemoan the loss of volumes in the Imperial Library at Constantinople.

Photo: Mission
Marci and Trish having lunch at Shananigens

Back in our site, the crew from Sos Boss had set up several trays of fruits and dry goods in a special 'reenactor only' area set up off the side of Shananigens for everyone to enjoy. I thought that was very neighborly of everyone to go to all that trouble. Carla was willing to man (or woman) the surgeon's table, so I ambled over to sit down and enjoy a bite.

Upon finishing my lunch, I decided to let Carla remain at the surgeon's table for a little longer so that I could wander a bit and see what was going on elsewhere in the site. I arrived at the Dufrenses home base where some of their brood were having lunch as well, as you see below. Daughter Elizabeth seemed to be in charge of the cooking and Zach seemed to be in charge of eating. (And eating like a pirate at that.)

Photo: Dolphin Danni Zach being served lunch at the Dufrenses Place

Photo: Dolphin Danni Here we find a comparison between girls...

Photo: Dolphin Danni and boys. Any questions?

---

Photo: David with MIssion's Camera
Tinkerbell being crucified by the Romans.
(Just like in the history books.)
After that little outing, I returned to the surgeon's table and relieved Carla from her fill-in duties. Actually, I think I may have relieved Mark Gist, but I'll explain that later. I settled down to reveal the wonders of the period surgical instruments to folks until 3:30, when the battle was scheduled to begin.

I knew when it was time because I heard Tinkerbell screaming like she was being beaten with hot pokers. (I'm told it was a bit much for the kids so she decided to tone it down a bit for Sunday.) I gave my camera to Dave of the Sos Boss Collective and was pleased to see that he had managed to get several photos of all that was going on while I was busy setting up the deck gun.

Poor Dave. Later in the battle, he got engrossed in watching the trebuchet being fired while holding my camera. I was standing near him and I said, "I thought you were going to get photos!" He apologized and started to take one, but I was done firing the deck gun at that point so I just took my camera back and took some really awful ones in his place. Sorry, Dave! Don't sic the Collective on me, please!

Now, while I had heard the battle plan... sort of... OK, I forgot most of it, knowing my role was to stand and fire the deck gun. But from looking at the photos, I can guess what happened. Tinkerbell was sent with a message to the Romans, probably inviting them to Hookah Joe's birthday party, which was not at the Rosebud. Unfortunately, she interrupted the Romans while they were playing knucklebones with giant wooden pieces. This made them mad, so they crucified her. The pirates eventually came over to see why the Romans weren't at Joe's party and where the heck Tinkerbell had gotten to and discovered what had happened. This incensed them causing them to abduct Caesar and tell him if he couldn't break Hookah Joe's piñata at the party in one try, they were going to put lit matches between his toes.

Photo: Dolphin Danni The messenger is released to talk with Caesar

Photo: David w/ Mission's Camera Finding Tinkerbell among knucklebones

Photo: David w/ Mission's Camera Capturing Caesar with a sausage.

Photo: David with MIssion's Camera
The pirates gathering opposite us
Once Caesar taken, I believe the pirates paraded around the the Festival area. (This was in part to show off their capture, but mostly to try and gather up the public who weren't aware that the battle was going on.) Then they trooped out onto field on the side opposite of us.

They had a civil war cannon on their side, which they fired at us. Trudi Dufrense told me that there were pirates during the American Civil War, which I kind of knew in a nebulous way, but hadn't studied enough to give any case studies here in the Journal. So the CW cannon had historical roots of some form.

Besides, we had a bunch of bucket-booted, feather-hatted, large silver belt-buckled movie pirates holding Julius Caesar prisoner across from we buckle-shoed, tricorned, waist-coated pirates being assisted by the 1st century Roman Army, so how could we even begin to debate historical accuracy?

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta What is with those spongy swords?!

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Caesar being held by the pirates.

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta The Civil War pirate cannon

The defender's side of the battle field had fewer people. (All the cool kids wanted to hang out with the pirates, you see.) What we lacked in personnel, we made up for in firepower. The Forsaken crew had marched out from the sidelines across our end of the field when the pirates had appeared. The Forsaken had all the weapons they were accustomed to bringing to pirate events and were firing fairly steadily at the pirates. The pirates had a few guns, but several of them were apparently hoping to smack the bullets back with their giant, colorful, spongy-hose 'swords.'

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Bill Kroska firing from the pirate side

Photo: David with Mission's Camera The Forsaken's small arms firing line

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta The Romans recapture their leader

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta
The cannon crew lines up along the Firefly waiting for firing orders If they were indeed going to try and hit strikes with their sponge swords, the least we could do was give them decent-sized targets to swing at. We had two weapons for that purpose: Mark Gist's cannon and his deck gun, which was attached to his boat the Firefly. That may seem like an awful unwieldy mounting platform to you. He had actually brought it for the sail in as mentioned in Chapter 1 and it was on wheels, so... I was firing from the front of a land yacht.

Marci Kroska had apparently decided to adopt an American Civil War attitude and take the side opposing the pirates - where her husband Bill was recently seen firing at our side. (In the scheme of the battle plan, I suppose it made perfect sense.) She assisted Mark with loading and readying the cannon while I manned the deck gun.

Photo: David w/ Mission's Camera Mark and Marci prep the cannon

Photo: David with Mission's Camera Mission preps the deck gun

Photo: Stolen Blondie preps a larger gun. (Still... see the resemblance?)

Photo: Amanda MacDonald
The Romans preparing to fire a bolt from their ballista Eventually all the black powder was spent and the non-black powder weapons took the stage. This part of the battle was mostly to show off historical weapons from what I can tell. In fact, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that the whole "Pirates Through the Ages" theme wasn't really just an elaborate ploy to allow Dennis Dufrense to build and fire a trebuchet in public.

The Romans started the festivities with their ballista, which is a sort of giant crossbow that fires tennis-sized balls and two foot or so long bolts. It could really launch them, too. Then Dennis warmed up his trebuchet and started launching ripe melons onto the battlefield. When it launched, they'd shout "Trebuchet away!" which actually reminded me of the stupid movie Timeline. (Don't see it. Read the book it's based upon, which is much better.) The one memorable thing I took away from the movie was that they'd should "Trebuchet!" with a vicious glee whenever the weapons gracefully launched their payload. (So at least they took the best part of that.)

Photo: David w/ Mission's Camera Dennis Dufrense and his trebuchet

Photo: David with Mission's Camera The trebuchet arcs its load skyward

Photo: Dolphin Danni A melon explodes with delightful shrapnel

So that was the battle. I must confess that the whole thing reminded me of the Big Bang Theory episode The Hamburger Postulate where they're laying out an imaginary battle using restaurant table accessories in the Cheesecake Factory where Penny waitresses.

Photo: Pirated "All right. I'm moving my infantry division... augmented by a battalion of orcs from Lord of the Rings. We flank the Tennessee Volunteers and the North once again wins the Battle of Gettysburg.
"Not so fast! Remember the South still has two infantry divisions, plus ... (holding up a ketchup and hot pepper bottle) ... Superman and Godzilla."
"No-no-no-no! Orcs are magic, Superman is vulnerable to magic. Not to mention, you already lost Godzilla to the Illinois cavalry and Hulk.
"Why don't you just have Robert E. Lee charge the line with Shiva and Ganesh?"
(Penny appears.) "Hi, you guys ready to order?"
"Hang on, honey. Shiva and Ganesh? The Hindu Gods against the entire Union army?"
" And orcs."
(Penny) " I'll be back."
"Excuse me. Ganesh is the remover of obstacles and Shiva is the destroyer. When the smoke clears, Abraham Lincoln will be speaking Hindi and drinking mint juleps."
(Penny, re-appearing) "All right, my boss says you two either have to order or leave and never come back."

Now you may think I'm overstating it by bringing in a TV show skit which includes comic book characters and Hindi gods, but check out some of the other amazing fantasy characters who who were present at this event.

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Shrek with his warrior stick.

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta The Dread Pirate Wesley Roberts

Photo: Dolphin Danni Robin the Hood

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Billie Beach

Overall, it was a fine battle, with a nice historically-challenged story line that the public seemed to enjoy. And that really is the point, isn't it? (Answer: no. The point is to burn as much black powder and make as much noise as we possibly can.)

---

Photo: Amanda MacDonald
The crew portages the Firefly from the battlefield Once the battle was over, there were things to be done. The first was getting all the cannon equipment back to the Forsaken/Mercury encampment. Fortunately we had a lot of people standing around who could help do that. David grabbed the rope attached to Mark Gist's Cannon and heaved that homeward across the grass (seen below left). The deck gun and its mounting were another story.

Actually, once we got the Firefly and its carriage rolling along it wasn't too bad. It was getting it started that took all the effort. Well, that and turning it. Speaking of The Big Bang Theory, let me paraphrase
Photo: Amanda
Dave and cannon our problems with the boat by saying, "Newton's First Law of Motion, thou art a heartless bitch." (No, I'm not going to explain that. I had to suffer through a physics course to learn Newton's Laws, you can take a minute to Google one of them to see if the joke is funny or not.)

Back at my table, Carla was happy to see me because there were kids waiting at my table holding trading cards that they wanted me to sign. As part of the pre-event publicity, trading cards featuring various pirates could be picked up at various local businesses. (Different businesses had different cards.) I was on one of the trading cards. Once they were signed, the trading cards could be brought to the local library and turned in for... well, I don't know what for. See, that's where I lost track of this whole process. It is actually quite complex now that I see it all in print. Whatever they were for, I had several people come up to me throughout the weekend and ask me to sign their cards. I felt like baseball player Joe Shlabotnick signing cards. M.A. d'Dogge also had a card, although I never got a chance to see his.

With the battle over and the traffic slowing, Mark Gist decided it was a good time to get out his fiddle. It seemed to me that he had learned some new songs since I'd last listened in to one of his sessions. His playing also brought more people over to our area and allowed me to do a few more surgical presentations, so that was nice.

Photo: Mission's Camera Mission signing his card for a fan.

Photo: Mission MIssion's Trading Card

Photo: Dolphin Danni Mark playing his fiddle

This brings us to Amanda. "Who is Amanda?" you may now be asking. I don't really know. See, I never met Amanda and only became aware of her when people started getting tagged in her Facebook photo album. I naturally assumed she was one of the Pirate Brethren reenactors, so I asked her if I could use her photos of M.A. d'Dogge and Billie with the mermaids (which you'll see in a moment.) She seemed quite pleased that I had asked, so I sent her a message. This was when I learned that she was not a reenactor and we had not met. Naturally I decided to profile her in this Journal. (You know how I am.)

Photo: Amanda MacDonald
I asked her about this photo and she said, "I left home
that day and forgot to shave. You know, things happen"
Amanda came out to the Pirate Festival because she had a friend there working as a mermaid and she said she was a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. She actually apologized for this (possibly thinking I would look down upon the movies) so I explained that I had seen the first movie seven times in the theater.

This was also when I learned that she wasn't a pirate reenactor, but she was thinking about doing it. (Chalk up another pirate reenactor thanks to Disney. Disney creates pirates!) As she explained to me "I've always thought that reenacting and dressing up in a myriad of styles/cultures always seemed like fun, and I suppose that comes from my love of history and costuming."

From her Facebook profile, I learned that she had gotten a college degree in costume designing. She told me she had created all sorts of costumes, although "Nothing tangible yet, just paper designs, as I still have to acquire the skill of sewing." I advised her to definitely get into reenacting where you either had to learn to sew or find someone who was willing and able to do it for you.

I asked what the best costumes she'd seen were, but her reply was very cagey. She clearly is not the sort of person who lists and organizes such things. So I rephrased the question to ask what costumes had really appealed to her. She told me she liked fantasy and sci-fi movies because they often push the boundaries of what is normal and acceptable. Eventually she even admitted - only under duress, mind you - that good examples of this were "the White Witch, in the Chronicles of Narnia movie, or all of the costumes in the recent Thor movie."

Photo: Amanda MacDonald Amanda about to be skunked

Photo: Amanda MacDonald Amanda wearing Rats' hat, posing with he and MD

Photo: Amanda MacDonald Yes! Kill the ewok! Do it! Do it!

Among the other fantasy creatures that were at the event were a group of mermaids.
Photo: Amanda MacDonald
M.A. d'Dogge and the catch of the day
One of them was Sarah Schneider, friend of Amanda (the one with the blue tail being carried off by M.A. d'Dogge at left.) Mermaid reenacting seems to be an art unto itself. Earlier in the day I had stopped by to take some photos that were nowhere near as interesting as the ones you see here. While there, I asked them why they didn't grow legs. The answered that it was a long and complicated process. (Plus, why be at the mermaid pool if you're not a mermaid?)

Photo: Amanda MacDonald
M.A. d'Dogge and Billie net themselves dinner

Of course, my lame interview was nothing interesting compared to the Beach Brothers journey over to the mermaid pond.

As you can see in these first few photos, their original intent seemed to be to capture the mermaids. (They are pirates, after all.) Of course, the mermaids eventually changed their tune and wooed them into submission, after which Billie willingly submitted and was captured and presumably drowned. (But he'll be back. That guy has more lives than a tom cat. He behaves like one too.)

Photo: Sergio Mazzotta The mermaids change the pirate's minds

Photo: Amanda MacDonald Billie bewitched and bewildered

Photo: Amanda MacDonald The mermaids turn. Now who's dinner?

 

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