I seemed to piss off somebody powerful on a bi-weekly basis. Every single week would’ve been too much, I think. From June 21, 1989. – JDW
I’ve never been to a festival. I’m a creature of habit, mashed-potato comfort, I like rugs.
Our sofa’s squishy. Maybe too squishy – it’s hard to get up sometimes. – Martin Freeman
Saw the other day, don’t remember where, somebody’s asking the question – obviously for lack of better things to ask the public – what would you change about the Rose Festival? Good question. Where do I begin?
The market survey under way suggests, since you have just enjoyed or withstood or endured or ignored the annual celebration of that faraway land called Rosaria – you know, like a cosmic Sister City – there is no better time to review this metropolitan extravaganza.
Okay, I’ll bite. What do you like about the Rose Fest? What don’t you like? Ask yourself. Is this the best use of our city? Our time? Our energies?
The grass at Waterfront Park?
I’m of two minds regarding the big Rose Festival Parade. Maybe three. Whose idea was it to hire as host the lamentable and aptly named Robin Leach? Allegedly a star for his participation in the loathsome “Lifestyles of the Rich & Rarely Interesting.” Has this gala event sunk so low, to a level we must solicit the involvement of such a “celebrity” as Mr. Leach.
They call me, Mr. Leach.
Ewwwww. I don’t think so.
I had this dream were I was taken prisoner by alien life forms. They looked like a cross between Richard Simmons and a 1968 Mercury Comet.
You’ll be pleased to learn I saw Elvis Presley on board the space ship. He’s fine. He looks great. He’s slimmed down some. He’s a trustee.
This was a Sunday. These ALFs (?) had planned to visit the day before, the Saturday of the Grand Floral Parade. But they couldn’t find any place to park. Okay, they could maybe eventually find a parking lot but City Center wanted seven dollars ($7!) for the day.
And the guys with the turn signals in the middle of their foreheads didn’t have the cash.
In my dream, the aliens wanted to know about our ways, our customs. “Tell us about this Glorious Flowered Procession,” the ugly one ordered.
I feigned ignorance. Like usual. I told him I couldn’t explain Thing One about this parade. Not a clue. Frankly, all parades amaze me. As my editors are so fond of asking about what I submit to them, “What’s the point?”
I’ll tell you what I told them. The alien life forms, not the editors.
It is its own point. There is no explanation. It is what it is. A parade is a parade is a parade is a parade.
There is no such thing as a bad parade.
The Scum Center is an entirely different matter.
Have you seen the headlines? And I quote: “Festival center to open; beer, wine available (June 2). Police keeping busy at festival center (June 7). Police report fun center has a quiet night (June 8). Presence of gangs adds to problems at fun center (June 9). Fun center gets high marks from officials (June 12).” Such kidders.
I asked a police officer blocking off traffic about this. He said he had been so busy dealing with all the festivities he hadn’t been able to keep up with current events. I challenged him. “But, surely, you have an opinion about the Rose Fest fun center?”
“Let me put it this way. I wouldn’t go down there after dark,” the cop responded. “And don’t call me Shirley.”
I had to go down to the Fun Center. I was invited to toss out the ceremonial first corn dog.
Jerry Rigg and Robin Rocken went with me. Buddies from hell.
Of course, we had to go on the rides. “Just the Puke City Machinery,” Robin exclaims. “Nothing silly. I’ll even buy the tickets.”
“This is against my better judgment,” Jerry says, in a second-thought kind of way.
“You don’t have a better judgment,” I pointed out. “When you don’t have bad judgment, you have no judgment at all.”
Robin came back looking like he’d just paid off his car loan. “I got enough so we can do two rides apiece.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Jerry said. “I just remembered. I have to get back to work.”
“You don’t have a job,” I reminded him.
“I mean, I just remembered this was the day I was going to look for one.”
“The good news,” Robin says as we watch Jerry leave, “is now, Jack D., you get to go on three rides.”
We headed straight for THE ZIPPER. You won’t believe this, there’s actually a line of people, who have paid actual money, waiting to spin backwards while upside down in a cage suspended three stories above the ground. Sure. Why not.
Who would do this?
I saw a woman in a macrame bikini and a hickie on her neck, holding a rope attached to which was a pit bull that looked like a state fair exhibit with glandular problems.
The lady’s companion, all three-hundred pounds of him, had a sword-sized hunting knife strapped to his stained jeans. Those jeans hung down just low enough so you could see the top of his posterior, an “I Love Firearms” T-shirt, and a hat which said “Drain Bramaged.”
They’re so cute at that age.
I really hate it when you have to wait in line while they spot-weld the carnival ride you’re about to strap into.
We’re next. The contraption moves to load us, and a woman in the next basket all but topples face-first onto the ramp as her door flies wide-open.
Her face turns white and she jumps to the ground and walks away dazed.
“Wow! Did you see that!! Wow!!! That was scary!!!!” Robin is astonished. “Imagine if that had happened when she was at the top.”
“Maybe we could get out money back.”
“Don’t be crazy,” he tells me. “What are the chances of that happening again?”
It was a question that stayed with me through every twist and turn, when my eyeballs were heading south while I was plummeting north, when my stomach switched positions with my heart and both of them got stuck in my throat.
There’s a lot that’s nauseating about the Rose Festival Fun Center. Twenty felony arrests, 195 misdemeanor arrests and 568 park exclusions.
As in, keep your stinky ass out of here.
We ruin the grass, attract criminal gangs downtown and create havoc with parking and traffic.
To what end?
The Festival Center is a detriment to the spirit of the Rose Festival and it detracts from the event’s overall stature. It bespeaks a lack of culture, a dearth of class, a societal shallowness I find a tad unbecoming.
It’s time to put the carnival back where it belongs – on the road.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: According to Rose Festival officials, an estimated 410,000 people attended the Festival Center.)