Faire Folk at Work

Danny Garland

Danny Garland gave himself a fancy title years ago and has been creating visual aspects of the faire with or without the fancy tilte for most of his life. He talks about stages and costumes created, lessons learned and people met. He also talks about the Fools Guild. They party.

Duration:: 57m
Broadcast on:: 06 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to another episode of Fair Folk at Work. You know, one of the neat things about the Fair was that it was really a village in that you were responding to the people around you, what they had done previously, what they had made. And my guest today is one of the people that laid that foundation at the Fair, Mr. Danny Garland. Danny, how's it going? Well, thank you. Let me start off with the traditional first Fair Folk at Work question, which is, who was the person who said to you, "There's this thing called Fair, and what did they say to get you out there?" Well, I was in high school. It was 1964. So if he had said anything about Fair, I wouldn't have known what the hell he was talking about. He was a high school teacher, Mr. Regolado. He taught English, and he would take us to concerts and the ballet and all kinds of things like that. So he was always enriching us. And one day, he said, "Be in the parking lot on Saturday at 8 o'clock, we're going to go somewhere." And even if he had said, "We're going to go to the Fair, we wouldn't have known what the hell he was talking about." Because it was really one of the first years and it was in Haskell's Rascals or something. It was very hilly, and they had separate parking and they shuttled us over in buses, and they had mimes on the buses. But we got there and we looked around and we said, "You mean we could have worn costumes?" And I have to tell you, two of the other people that went that day were Steve Gillen, who's now the chief of the Celts, and Ray Tatter, who was entertainment director in the early '70s. So that one trip was a turning point for all of us. I became a customer every year after that. What high school did you go to? St. Paul and Whittier, it was sort of catty corner to Sierra High School, which was also in Whittier. You drove all the way from Whittier to basically Polly Whittier. Yeah, yeah, and we did that every year. We moved to, from Whittier, we moved to La Habra, but we went every year as customers. And the year that Ray was entertainment director, I think he got us in free, and he gave us banners to carry in a parade and stuff like that. What's your first memory affair, either as a sensation or something you laid or saw? Well, I think the first was incense. It was the first time I had spilled, and I think it was co-paul. It was the first time I had smelled it outside of church. And I thought, "Oh, that's good." And another time I was in a booth that was selling prints and graving, stuff like that. And somebody brought them a thing of halva wrapped in paper and set it down on the counter. And he was cutting it up. He said, "Do you want some?" And as being a little Irish boy, I had no idea what halva was. So I said, "Okay, yeah." And I had some, and I loved it, and I loved it ever since. But just the generosity of people at Fair struck me right from the beginning. Did you get a sense that this was a different place? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I came from a very white-bred, brand-new suburban neighborhood in Santa Fe Springs. And being an art student, I was aware of the Bohemian, whatever, that kind of influence. So I understood it right away when I got there. What was the point when you said to yourself, you know, I could come out here and participate more than just with a pass, but I could be part of it? Well, I was living by myself in '66 and beautiful, I can't remember what it's called now. Anyway, and there was a ceramic shop right around the corner from where I lived. I would go in there and get play and make stuff, and she would fire it for me. And she had Egyptian paste. You know what Egyptian paste is? No, I don't. It's a self-glazing ceramic product. It's really hard to work with. It's kind of like frosting or something. If you've had it, it just slumps. So I made some Egyptian medallions, like cartouches, you know, cartouches. And I was going to sell them at Fair and I sent them my $5 to be a street peddler. And I never heard back from them. This was in the year they were in thousand Oaks when they got in trouble with Mrs. Altar Brennan for being hippies and nudity and drugs and all that stuff. I interviewed Judy Corey and has distinct memories of how she insulted the Brennan's and got the fair kicked out of what did she know who they were. I believe she assured me with a straight face that it was something about a cock growing and it was getting harder or something and she assured me that it was quite period and innocent and she was quite amazed that the Brennan's took offense at it. I know you would think being an actor of an actor family. They'd be a little more liberal, but I think there's all kinds of actors. So anyways, you sent your $5. I sent my $5 in and I never heard back from them. So I had my mom drive me out to the fair and it was during all this brew. Ha ha ha. I have a feeling that Ron was being pestered by all kinds of people, you know, the best and everybody. And it was at the end of the day and he was taking down banners at the front of the fair and I tried to talk to him and he just ignored me. So I charged it up to, you know, it was not a good day for him. But I was a customer up through the 70s and then I moved to Whittier and I sort of got out of it. And when I moved to Pasadena and a common friend between me and Steve Gillin, who was now in with St. Andrews, said in 1980, she said, you want to come out to the fair? Well, dress you, get you in, you can play all day. It won't cost you anything. I said, sure. So I went and played with the Celts for at least two years. And I think the third year I decided to actually join them. And I was the one that came up with the Saints banners they carry in grades because I would see them marching around. They need something, some kind of visual, give them some pizzazz. So those were all the mind to start out with. There have been subsequent people copying that style. What was your inspiration for the guild banners? Research. I am a Capricorn, so I'm all about research, anything, almost anything I do. Even if I know all about it already, I have to go and do some at least visual research. So there are Saints, I simplified them a lot. They're very flattened, very stylized, very long. The first ones we did on this polyester wool, grey sort of wool tweedy fabric. And we did it in real wool and they were stored in someone's garage and the real wool rotted. But the bays stayed there and I had painted in acrylic on the fabric. I was with the Celts for 10 years, marching around with a pike, doing all that stuff, clapping on main stage. And then after 10 years of doing that, I had enough. Did you ever go back to vending ceramics on the street or whatever? Well, I moved away from there. I moved away from my source, so I didn't have that lady's, you know, killed or used anymore. So I wasn't doing that. Then, and after the Celts, I helped a lady. I taught her how to make leather masks. I was working at a costume shop and I came up with a way of making masks on styrene bases, using suede or stretchy fabric or whatever. You might have heard of the shop I worked at. I was called somewhere in time in Pasadena. I was down in the basement making stuff. If it wasn't closed, if it was a head or hands or feet or shoes or whatever, I was making those parts. But I was the main designer. If they wanted something drawn, I was the one that drove it for them. Were you in school all at this time? Oh, no, I got out of school. Let's see, sometime in the mid '70s, I was going to Cypress JC learning theater design and fine arts at the same time. That's where my stage design smarts comes from, is having fine art background and theater design. Because I think a lot of theater designers don't have art history backgrounds. They don't have that to draw from. What shows slash other booths? What visually impacted you at fair when you were at this stage? I really liked the sculpture. There were a lot of guys doing iron, welded iron and stuff. I really liked those. And there was somebody in the '70s, a guy who was doing some kind of prints. I don't know if there were serographs, but there were like processions of medieval ladies in the woods or something. I really liked those. I have no idea who that was. And there were ceramics, it was airbrush that had like rainbow colors on a white body. I really like those. If I were to have asked you in 1985, what is the overall style of the Renaissance Fair? Kind of sort of artsy, crafty, renaissancey without being too technically authentic. It looks that way because if it was totally authentic, people wouldn't be able to read the signs or something. My mantra with signs, because I did signs for a while, it has to be legible and semi-period. You know, a period enough, but legible. Did you ever talk to Phyllis about or who sort of informed you what was the Gestalt of Fair? Ooh. Well, I did take Phyllis's History of Fair class workshop in Dvor, early in Dvor. But I also had dinner with her. I had dinner with her and she and Heidi B. That was very interesting. It was up at the Green Man, where I am now. It rose south, but it was when Jim Kelly owned it. So I used to listen to a KPFK when they were associated with the Fair and they would talk about it a lot. And they would have the program, the folio, which was the program of the radio station. But it also was the program for the Fair. The center was the map and had lists of shows and stuff. So I was getting it through there. And they also had things they would mail you, costume guides and stuff like that. So I was getting it through that, I think, before I actually worked there. And then after working with the mask lady. I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you remember any pearls of wisdom about what Phyllis was trying to do? Did she have some opinions on the look and feel and design of the Fair? I'd never heard her say anything like that. And I don't know that she knew, I don't think I was, I had a reputation then when I met her of doing stuff at Fair, even though I had done stuff. But I think I was on my own track about what things should look like, you know, because I knew about the media that they use, you know, Tempo or gouache or whatever it was they were using and what colors they had, where the colors came from and how they were produced. So it wasn't just guessing and I could reproduce it, but I would rather just use acrylics or something, you know, it's a little more user friendly. No, I think I was on my own picking and choosing about what I thought was authentic and what I thought was totally wrong. After you designed the banners for the different guilds, what was your next project? For the Celts, I did they had a nine pins game that they wanted to look like a hell mouth. So I painted a hell mouth on Peter 10 vertical planks with the mouth cut out and then a backdrop of yellow fabric with black little devils. And they used, they put it up this last year in their kelp camp. It's still around, but it was based on medieval eliminated manuscripts. And then I was sort of not doing anything. I think I was hanging out with Jim and Jennifer at the Green Man Floral Spooth because I got to be friends with them in 90 or 91. And then in 2001, I got a call from Bud Coffee asking me if I wanted to come and paint signs for the fair. But he got connected me from a Nell Blackwell and Steve Gillin. Steve Gillin did signs for a while. So I went and painted signs and Lisa Stell saw what I was doing. And she told AJ Hoffman, who was head of production, she said he should be doing sets, not signs, these two good. So the first set I did was in Devore. It was it had previously been a mud man set and they want it. They weren't there this year. So they covered up the mud pit through up some kind of backdrop. And I designed it and I think I painted it in three days. And it was at the front of the fair. So people were driving into the morning. They'd wave and say hi. Then there would be a maze at the end of the day, how much I had gotten done. So you were in an attraction as well as this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's because there were an older couple in Erwindale who I called the quote unquote painters. And they did a set, I don't know who hired them. I was Ricky or somebody hired them to paint this set. And it took them two months, I think to paint this set. And I knew why they were using like pieces of corrugated cardboard as a palette to mix acrylics on, which is totally stupid because the cardboard is going to soak up all the water. And they had bad color sense and it was just bad. I called it sunset on Mars. I think the lady was the one who painted these wispy little flowers that grew out of the cracks and the rocks that if you were at the foot of the stage, you couldn't even see them or so wispy. So over that I painted and I think they're still using this set. It's got two arches. It was the Felicity stage this last year in Erwindale. It's brown sort of neoclassical arches and there's an arch in the middle is the actual door and there's two arches on either side that you looks like you can see in landscape through those. Oh, yeah, that's over sunset on Mars. But I took pictures of just to show people how bad it was. It's got it with yellow and purple. It was bad. When you look at sets, you have designed. Are you the kind of person who sees what you should have done better? Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah. Do you ever say, wow, I nailed that. Oh, no, sometimes I do. Well, sometimes I will see it in the back of a photograph. I go, oh, that's pretty. Oh, I painted that, but I think any artist when they look at their stuff sees the mistakes. And I know that it's just me that sees them that nobody else sees them. So I don't worry about it. It's that theater thing. So I've done enough plays that it's frantic until the minute the curtain goes up. And then after the curtain goes up, everything's fine. When I was with the Celts, we would do these parties that were sometimes very elaborately decorated as like a Victorian dinner dance, right? And what the other officers said, it's amazing. You're running around here, you know, putting everything up. But once it starts, it's like you're a whole different person. I say, but that's because there's nothing you can do about it. Once the curtain goes up, you just have to let it go, you know. What set have you designed that you see the fewest amounts of mistakes on? Probably the Fool's stage in Arendelle. You know, it's got it's mostly blue with a sun burst in the middle and little red and yellow and blue stars going around the top. I design that specifically for Mooney and Broon because I knew Moonies in red and white and black and Broon is in black and red. Neither of those colors on the set. But I also wanted to make it look kind of circusy and it's actually plywood. People think it's canvas because I painted it to look like canvas. It's saggy. You can see the bottom is uneven and it curls back. The people across the street were putting up their booth. We're telling talking to the crew. They said, isn't that dangerous? Having all that canvas with them or juggling fire. They said, it's plywood. Both of them really, really liked it. They even wrote because I wrote on the back. Sometimes I write on the back of the set, dedication or something. But I told them it was just for them and I hope they liked it. And they both really, really, I think they both signed it on the back too. How did you get involved with the Fool's Guild? Oh, dear. Oh, that's an interesting story. We went to the 2001 reunion in Agora. And I went with Christina Fay who used to work with different people. We went there and we ran into Jim Kelly, who I'd met the year before at Debbie Cable's booth. And he had just bought a house, which is this house. He had a new friend of his Jerry Fitzgerald on the way out after the reunion. We ran into this guy and he said, are you going to come to the Fool's party? And said, well, we don't know anything about it. Said it's in Burbank. It's Arabian Nights and it's Feast of Fools. I said, OK, so that sounded fun. So we went to that and the whole time I'm sitting there at the party, I'm looking around thinking I could do a better party than this. And then a couple of years later, I actually did. Actually did a lot of parties for the Fool's. And maybe, I don't know, I want to say maybe 30 parties, major productions, all different kinds of themes. Most of them can't do anymore because they're culturally appropriation. So we had India and Arabia and China. What part of your artistic soul responds to the Renaissance fair? And which part responds to Fool's parties? I think the Renaissance fair is a little simpler. Not quite so that well, I don't have any control over light. You know, it's daylight. There's nothing I could do about that. In some cases, I will paint shadows into the set because I know there's no way I'm going to get a spotlight with a gobo or something. And then the Fool's parties are the themes are a challenge. You know, the themes and the venues that we have a lot of the parties I did. We're at the Burbank, Moose, which is this auditorium that has absolutely no particular whatsoever, it's just this box and a tiny little stage with no wings, no flies, no backstage, just a little stage. And we did some spectacular parties there. We just transformed the whole damn room into something else with paper and fabric and lights and props. The membership of the Fool's Guild is such a resource because we'll ask for some stuff, you know, like, I don't know how to plant or animals or almost anything. And somebody will bring some. That's great. Is there any difference in designing something for the fair that has to sort of be lived in day after day after day versus a Fool's Guild? It's up for the night and then. Well, well, for the fair, I think always think about weather. The sets are all sealed and I particularly particular about the edges, the top edges that get sealed so that the water doesn't get in. And you have no control. You can't run out and throw something over the set if it starts to rain. It's just got to get wet. That's all there is to it. Whereas Fool's Guild parties are totally ephemeral out of it just gets taken down and thrown away because it's mostly just paper and it's all illusion. All these, you know, theater people that know and movie people that do it. It's all an illusion. So let's do the illusion, you know. But they seem to do it really well and with the sense of humor. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Nothing serious. In fact, there was a lady at the pirate party at James's pirate party. And there was a big chest at the front of the venue. It was full of sand and prizes in the sand. You had to dig around in the sand to find whatever James put in there. So some lady that we don't know was not a regular fool was looking for something in the chest and got her ass touched. I don't know if it was a goose or a pinch or just a pat, but she got all incensed. She wanted her money back. You're all thinking, honey, you're at the wrong party because I would think at a fool's party, if you've been over and nobody touches your butt, you get incensed. Do you have any favorite foods out of fair? I like the Greek food, valid and full off holes because it's fresh and you can't fake fresh and it's always good and they're nice people. I haven't had a turkey leg since 1985. Aside from people who bang the iron, what were other crafts booths? The ceramics because I was had been doing ceramics. I was impressed with really well done ceramics. The paper, the paper dyeing guy. I always loved that. I always looked like too big of a mess for me to start doing it on my own. The weavers, maybe all the needle arts, embroidery and sewing. Well, clothes, I'm crazy for clothes. So I stayed away from all the clothing boots because I knew how expensive they were because I could make my own. If you were to make your own costume now, what class or? Probably a little higher middle class have been knighted. And I have actually a really fancy green doublet that I did pains at the shoulder between those. It's like a green woven fabric. But between the pains, it's damask. It's a green, damask. Is it a dark green? It's an emerald green. OK, it's a little different shade than the other one, but it's shinier and it's got a design on it and then it's all edged in copper. Well, the whole thing started with this fabric I found in a trash can in front of an upholstery shop. I think it was maybe eight inches wide and maybe two feet long. This yellow and orange floral craziness, foliate, but very period because it's still woven, it wasn't printed. So that became the lining of the sleeves and the cover of all the buttons. So set that sort of copper and yellow fabric. I think I had to go back three times to the fabric store to get enough rain. You often let the material suggest the final product. Oh, yeah, or I go looking for it. You know, I had a pair of big pants, like those big Dutch pants. He did heavy kind of damage material and I probably went to four different places before I found his brown kind of monks cloth, a little finer weave than that. It's got a very simple repeat floral thing in it. And I think I got all they had, which was almost half the art and not enough. So I had to make it stretch. What gives you more joy working in costumes and fabric or working on stages and props? Probably, I don't know, it's probably equal. I can't say anyone is better because they're just different. One is pencil paper and paint and the other one is fabric. Which part of you is attracted to fabric and which part of you is attracted to buildings? Well, I think the tactile part is fabric because it's is when I'm going and shopping for fabric, I don't just look at it, I feel it, you know, so it's a very tactile kind of thing. And I think the the stage set part is seeing people performing in it. I try not to sometimes it doesn't actually come out this way, but I try not to upstage the performers. I try to make a frame for them to do whatever they're going to do. Sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes they get carried away. It's kind of like doing a painting and then having somebody performing in front of it. Because that's what it is. I like it when the performers like the stages. So I try to not upstage them or cobble them in any way to try to make it easy to stay out of their way. When you talk about tactile fabric, are you thinking of tactile in the sense of how it looks as it flows or tactile in the sense of how does it feel? Someone's skin is partly, but partly it's how is it going to hang? You know, is it stiff? Is it wrinkly? Is it flowy? And is it going to look better this way or this way? Because the bias hanging something on the bias is different than hanging it square. So there's all those questions or you'll hang it all. I felt you look at these, some gossip or fabric. It looks so soft and you feel it and it's like window screen. It's so stiff. You're not feeling what you're seeing. That's right. And it's getting back to what you're talking about before. Do you draw inspiration from the fabric or do you say to yourself, this is the character I'm building this for as a monster and it has to be. I think it's probably 50/50. But usually there's a character, you know, there's who is this person? What should the fabric look like? What should it do? You know, so and sometimes when I was working at the costume shop, I would just tell them what I needed and they would somebody else would go out and buy it. But it wasn't so critical then. Do you recall any instance of working specifically with an actor and a director to create a costume for them? When I worked at the costume shop and we never interacted with the directors, the directors never came by. But we would have the designer and some of their lackeys would come by. We did the hats and the clothes for the fival, the mouse show at Universal, beginning of the 90s, somebody else did the fiberglass heads and we did the bodies and the clothes for them. Now it was great. We got to a point and we had the designers come in and look at what we'd done to say or not. And one of them was this, I think she was a rat or a cat. I don't know, she was a big lady and she had this big bonnet that had to be like, it's like this big, the whole inside of the brim of the bonnet was in roost pink satin and the outside was like a purple moire or something with a ruffle. I don't remember. So they came in and the guys, OK, that's great. Can you make it an inch and a half bigger all the way around? Oh, yeah, no problem. So I never did. I just left it the way it was because I would have had to take all that fabric part and get either more fabric because it was at least three yards of fabric inside this thing, but that's a little secret with the designers. You create a stuff and then just ignore it. Let me change focus here for a bit and ask you if a young one kid comes to you and says, Denny, I want to just learn how to design just like you. What should I do? What would you say to them? Well, first I'd say you don't want to design just like me. You want to design like you. Take art history lessons. Take theater design, even if you're never going to do a set in a theater. It's good to know how that all work and look at every set you can think find books, movies, all of that stuff. Look at it all memorize it. I have one of those brains that remembers images. I will pull up something and execute it and then later on, I'll see the movie or something that I was influenced from without actually realizing it and practice. Make little sets for yourself. Set up your own limitations because that's what theater is all about. What kind of limitations have we got? There's always something tight with depth, light, water, no water practice, practice, practice, practice and to do some more. I'm going to ask a question I asked earlier, but turn it around because I am firmly convinced you can learn as much from failure as you can from success. What set or costume that you look back now upon and now no. Oh, I'll never do that again. Probably there's one I did just like a couple of years ago. For a La Ferra Casa. And I think it was just way too complicated. I wanted to have angles and stuff. So I thought just flat so it's fine. It doesn't have to have angles and doors and stuff. But we're limited. We can't have anybody more than like 27 inches off the deck. So you can't have second stories or balconies or even windows in a building up high. So that's a limiting, but there's like I said, there's limits. There's always some kind of limit. Has there been an instance where having a limit made the project better because you had to conform to some fairly arbitrary limit? I don't think so because even in college, when we were doing plays in college, we didn't have an actual theater yet. We had a recital hall, which had a stage with like 20 feet wide by 10 feet deep with no backstage, no wings, no flies, had a door on the left and door on the right end. It staged and just stopped. It stepped down because it was recital hall. So that's how I learned, you know, we had extreme limitations too. And they let me design a couple of shows, did anything goes and night of the iguana. Well, in a sense, the fair itself is a limitation. I mean, you got to make it look 16th century ish. Ish. Actors have to hit the wall and, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, we try to make the one of the first things we did when Ray Tatter was the director. We were doing a mystery play and they needed a hellmouth. So Steve Gillin and I built this hellmouth out of wood and duffed fabric and paint and stuff. And it was sturdy, but then we saw what the act damn actors were doing because it had like a drawbridge jaw. They were jumping up but down on it and doing all kinds of stuff. So you have to make a set of actor proof. Have you ever been less than stellar in actor proofing your stage? I don't think so. I don't think all survived. Yeah. Early on ages ago at Casa, a set I had that was mostly Mooney Phil Johnson, mostly him. And he juggled fire and there were two pillars that had gargos on the top and was masonry. But then I had real, I think, morning glories. I burnt a couple of the morning glories on the thing just as a joke for him. Because you couldn't really notice it from this audience. But if you're on stage, you saw these burnt leaves on this side. Have you ever designed an entire booth? Actually, yes. It never got built when we were talking about having a permanent site in a divorce. I designed a booth for Ray Griswold's Flower booth, Green Man Florals. It was two stories. The ground floor was only half enclosed. Half it was open to have a fountain and places to have flowers and a stone floor and things like that. Upstairs would be living and sleeping and storage and stuff. This is again a variation on a question I've asked before. But a personal satisfaction. Do you get a greater sense of joy from creating one outfit from one person and seeing how much they enjoy it? Or do you get a greater sense of joy from looking at a stage you've built and the people are all cavoring about it and everybody's laughing? No, but it's a stage and not just the actors when I get feedback from fair participants who've seen it and really, really like it. And the one I got the most from is the storybook stage at Casa. It's a big book. It's, I don't know, nine feet tall, something like that. And it's all a forced perspective, this book that's open on the stage. And on the left hand page, it says, once upon a time dot, dot, dot, on the other side has a door in a stone wall with vines growing all over it. And the door is functional. It's painted to look painted, but it actually opens. I think sometimes their kids are surprised when that door open. The original idea was the book would be closed. And when the show started, it would open like this and the storyteller would be standing there. But that was a little too complicated. I've gotten more compliments on that. I even got a masterpiece of work for that stage of Nora, but people like it. And I'm part of it was, and this seems odd, but part of it was I would see a young, young adolescent boys come to fair wearing a white shirt and a tie because they anything before they were born is all the same to them. They thought they were dressing in period clothes because so I was thinking, you know, books are going to be the same way kids are going to say, what's a book? So I put books up there to show that's where there's a lot of magic in books. And what's that? I'm sorry. It opens down stage. So it doesn't have to have something behind it when they open the door because you can't see into the door economy, you go. That's an example of using limits to create great art through less work. That's right. What's called economy of means, which is one of my favorite things when I said illustration where he's used almost nothing and giving you goosebumps. So that's the economy of means. One of the distinctions I've explored in this podcast is to compare fair to Disney. And my basic premise is that fair sort of allows the bottom up type of design as opposed to Disney, which is a very top down. Have you worked at, say, Disney like organizations and have you adapted to them at all? Like probably the closest when I was working for Roshu, did you know Roshu? There were a North Hollywood prop rentals, like big props for proms and I was working in the department where you were making mascot costumes. So we were adapting what we knew how to make to whatever their design was and the one I remember is we were making the characters from the page master. There was a fairy and a pirate and a monster and they were based on a book and their faces were on the spines of the book and their arms came out the sides. So we were making walk around costumes based on those designs, which were they gave us in two dimensions, you know, just a rendering, not projection or any just rendering. And then when we're almost done, the guy came in with models. Thanks a lot. Just a little models at this way. Thanks. We're almost done. That would have been helpful. It would have because we wouldn't seen it in three dimensions. I know it's always a problem with people you're working for that aren't designers or artists. They just can't think of things like that. Have you worked outside of the fair where you've tried to employ fair gestalt production methods in a non-fair environment? Probably when I was at the costume shop because I was doing Celts at the same time I was working at the costume shop. I did like a Santa throne. We already had this piece that was round and green velvet arms and a seat, but the back was boring, so I repainted that. How would you describe, say, the fair way of doing things to someone who is less finished because they're using a lot of signage now that's very slick. I think it's called one shot, which is a highly toxic enamel kind of paint that goes on real smooth and you can do all kinds of clever brush strokes and stuff with it. But I think it's too slick and the colors are too saturated. A fair, I always like to gray down the colors using a bright blue. I'll throw some orange to bring it down so it's not because there's a whole story about colors with the Renaissance fair, you know, because you couldn't just go out and buy colors. I mean, you could, but there weren't the colors we know now. The colors we know now are so bright and garish compared to the Renaissance. Where things were earthier. You didn't have anodleine red, you didn't have an iron red. Oh, I was like adding, adding age to stuff, you know, darken their edges or adding dirt, which is actually paint, but it looks like dirt. I mentioned I was talking the interview before this was Vicki Nebuchar and she said that distressing clothes was a major skill. Oh, yeah. Both acquired and you who's at the Renaissance fair. Yeah, I did some of that at the costume shop with sandpaper and snipping little reds and rubbing colored pastels into stuff. To make it look stained for a prop. How would you distress paper? I personally was of the dipping paper into lemon water. I did some of those, but I use paper that's called parchment. It's just sort of an uneven ochre color for a kelp stage show they needed a will to follow the Bible. So I did some research and I just wrote some what we call Greek doesn't actually some of it actually said stuff, but I was mostly just writing letters and then I folded it and I slashed it and I had a little strip of parchment to tie it together. I think I had any wax seals or anything. One of the other themes of this podcast is that audiences at the fair want to be included and they want to play. Has that been your general experience? Well, I when I'm during the fair because I don't work during the fair, I just hang out and I talk to the customers and but that's been my experience. Yeah, like the washerwell wenches everybody at that show wants to do something they're ready, you know, they've either seen him before or heard about him or something, but they they want to. And I think people need that because so much entertainment now is just passive sit there and let it wash over you. You don't have to even think about it. What do you like to do on the street with customer? Well, one of the things I do there's often be a mom with a couple kids standing around and she's handing out money to them and I will just sort of stand there with my hand in the group. So she sees him, but she doesn't really see me, but then they finally when they do see me, they think it's funny. And it did work once when the lady was handing out chocolate like Hershey bar or something broken a little squares just out here. Do you have any other little street bits that you like to do to play with talks? Well, if they're if they're in a period costume and they're dressed, it's just wrong. You know, the way they have it on is wrong. So tell them who they'll dress you this morning and rearrange it on them, you know, especially guys who are wearing a novel outfit and they've got that little capelet. It's tied around their neck instead of being on porn. That's not how you wear that. Who dressed you this morning? You have to fire that servant because they don't know, you know, most people will rent the costume and they'll just put it on how they think it should go. And they also don't realize people then had help getting them dressed. The richer you were, the more complicated your clothes were and the more you had somebody help you put it on. How do you deal with, say, a Disney princess or a pirate? Well, I go a lot, but little especially little girls are dressed like princesses. I say you don't want to be a princess. That is a hard job. That is a 24 hour job. You never have time yourself. You think you're going to have fun and won't be fun. Have you ever had any pushback or they? They sort of think about it. Usually they're so young they don't know that they can talk to strangers, you know, but it gives them something to think about. I think, you know, they think being a princess is just a Disney fantasy of singing birds and stuff like that. Do you talk to little boys who have wooden swords and Robin Hood hats? Well, I tell them, keep your point down. Having a sword is a privilege and not a right. And your mom can take that privilege right away from you like that. So be careful. Oh, I saw the best thing I saw. This is one of those categorizes fair magic moments. I was walking down the street and there was a kid like two and a half, three years old standing by his stroller. And he had just gotten, I think it was a wooden sword. And he had a pacifier in his mouth. And I was thinking, kid, you got to decide is it the sword or the pacifier? And as I got next to it, I didn't say that. I was only thinking it. He turned to his stroller and spat the pacifier into the stroller. And then I went and told his mom what he did. She thought, no, it's great. But that's one of those things that most people wouldn't have even noticed. And I was hearing that kid is going to remember that the rest of his life. The sword or the pacifier. But those wooden swords and even the little stuffed soft swords, I wonder how many dads are going to get whacked in the groin with those. I'm going to do a counterfactual on you. If you had lived in a world without a Renaissance fair, how would your life have turned out? Ooh, it would be totally different. I'd probably be working in a costume shop someplace doing that kind of stuff, designing that kind of stuff. But starting in 2001, the last 20, whatever the year is, it's been two fairs a year, Northern Fair and Southern Fair, which takes up. It's only actually a month of work, you know, but the whole set to work for the fair. And God bless her, my boss. She never tells me what I'm going to be doing until I get there. I say, please tell me beforehand and so I can at least have it cooking in my head. But she usually waits till I get there. Here, this is what I want you to do. OK, so I have to flip a whole library of books with me. What is your official title at the fair? That's this is a good one. When Fair Play first started at CASA, when they took over from REP or whatever it was called, I got rehired basically doing the same thing I was doing before, got rehired as the art director. And I said, can I pick my own title? And Lisa said, oh, sure. So I became the executive esthetician, which doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but it looks good, especially on a business card. I don't have business cards. Do you get many people beating it down your door and say, I want to work for the fair? No, usually I have to recruit people. And it's people say, I'm not a good enough artist. You don't have to be an artist. You just have to follow directions. Don't talk too much and clean the brushes. That's all you need to do. You don't have to once in a while, you might have to paint something. But it's very far and few and far between, you don't have to paint anything. But I have a crew. And if I went through all the people I've had working for me, I'd be amazed. Right now, at both fairs, I have Amy Broderson, who's my number one monkey because I have her climb ladders to paint things up high. So I'm too old to be standing on top of a ladder, painting something. And people think I'm insulting her by calling her a monkey. But it's a badge of honor to be one of Mr. Garland's monkeys. I think I have probably half a dozen. I will have them do things like stenciling, which I use a lot. When I have a repeat border or something, I'll use a big stencil that I make myself and have them do it, show them how to do it. But I have tricks with my stencils. What's one thing you would like to see more of at fair? One of the things that I would like to have more of, but it's harder to do. They did it when they had the ship was to have what the customer is walking on, having it change. So you feel like you're in a different place. They do it at Disneyland. Each land has its own sort of special kind of pavement. Frontierland has a horse hooves and wagon wheels. Is it pseudo wooden planks or something like that? No, it wouldn't planks, but where it's concrete, it's got horse hooves in and wagon ruts in it. It's a subtle thing, you know, but what you're standing on changes how you feel about stuff or where you are, your whole idea of the environment. What other environmental clues does the fair give to being back in time? Just the dirt because I don't think kids walk on dirt anymore. You know, I think it's a different sensation for them. There was a couple of years ago at Casa. It was at the end of a day that had been a warm day and up in the front by the washer women and somehow there was water in the street and there were puddles still in the street and there was this little girl like five or six years old. We're in a t-shirt and some little shorts, no shoes was jumping around in the puddles and having a great time. And her mom, I could see her mom was watching her and it was probably one of those moms that thought you play in the dirt, you get exposed to all these germs that you'll be developing immunity for later on, but the little girl was having the greatest, greatest time just with mud, you know. And then I saw another little girl just like a princess with a little gold skirt and jewels and everything looking at the girl playing in the mud, looking at the girl, finally she decided and jumped both feet into a mud puddle when she was sad because her shoes were muddy, only a fair. Only a fair. I'm kind of running out of words, so I'm going to ask my final questions. When you were kind enough to say, sure, I'll be interviewed, was there something in your brain that went, oh, be sure to mention blah, blah, blah. So this is your chance to mention blah, blah, blah. No, it's what's 64, 74, 84, it's like 50 years of my life. I think it's to the people, like most things, it comes down to the people. I'm going to get all, I'm going to get choked up when I get choked up. The kindness of the people, the family feeling, generosity, all of that stuff. So that's meant more to me than cover anything else. And you felt it first time you went at fair and you still feel it. I think so, yeah. That same year that I had my mom drop me off at fair. I was going to go to a pay phone and call her back. So going out of the fair was a long line of cars going through a field on a dirt road going out. And I'm walking next to them with my sleeping bag that I brought because I was going to spend the night someplace before they had to organize camping or anything. You just sleep someplace. A lady in a car going by said, do you need to ride somewhere? I said, yeah, just to call, you know, go to a pay phone and call my mom. So she said, get in. We're going to these people's house and you can call from there. And they went to this people, a family of Leonard Brown who was a writer. He worked on on K.P.F.K. He had a show on K.P.F.K. He, I think he did at least one Star Trek episode. And they had their variable heme and they had, I don't know, four little kids running around. He was making dinner. They were expecting David Osmond to come by because the fire science theater was still working at K.P.F.K. And they were associated with the fair too, but he never showed up. But just the people taking me into their home, feeding me, not knowing who the hell I was, you know, the fact that I was at fair and wearing sort of a costume was enough and they were wonderful. I'm sorry, I've lost track of them. I think I went back and saw them another weekend. And I just totally lost track of them. But you always keep finding people like that if you keep them into their house. Even now, the last couple of years, I've needed a ride in Erwindale from the fair over to the Metro station, which is, it's not even a mile, maybe. But getting out of the park is a long walk for somebody my age. So I hitchhike out of the fair and it has never taken more than 10 minutes for me to get a ride from somebody, mostly customers. Sometimes it's somebody I know, but mostly it's customers. I ask them their story, I tell them who I am. And it's, you know, it's still going on, which is great. Well, I think I will draw this interview to a close and thank you very much. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun. And do I get to check? Oh, let me tell you it's. Well, you have a choice and I'm going to be honest with you here. I could cut you a check right now. Yeah. Or we could wait for the residuals to come. There you go, residuals. The residuals and the interest off the money that's already there, which is, you know, compounding daily. I mean, compounding hourly. I mean, even as we speak, it gets more. So it's up to you. I can cut you a check right now and I can put it in the mail or. We can put it in the bank and you can draw on it when you need. So anyway, let me push the stop recording button, which. That's my August 2024 interview with Danny Garland. I'm your host, Dan McLaughlin. And this has been another episode of Fair Folk at Work. If you would like me to pass along information, questions or comments to Danny Garland, you can email me them at DJNG@earthlink.net. If you have questions or comments about the podcast itself, you can email them to me at DJNG@earthlink.net. If you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on Fair Folk at Work, email me at DJNG@earthlink.net. But that's it for this time. Thanks for listening. See you later. Bye-bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]