Fantasy Fest Survives and Thrives

By Rick Boettger

I decided to put on my Intrepid Reporter hat and go to the war zone of Fantasy Fest, to describe it to my largely aged readership, who are now mostly ignoring the event. Proximate cause was finding out our new Star Vocalist Jessica Wachs was headlining the Headdress Ball. Long ago I’d always gone to the Ball because of the fantastic hats, but one year the entertainment was so bad I never went back.

Well, this time Jesse blew off the headdresses with her amphitheatrical voice, and I loved it.  The headdresses were as fancifully amazing as ever.  Our new amphitheater is a great venue, large enough for  a large crowd to all see and hear well.

After that, I biked down Duval, packed on a Thursday night.  I’d say a little tamer than 20 years ago, when I actually costumed up myself.  On Thursday, my critical eye imagined the folk were not quite as handsome as they were back in the day, more like the cruise shippers than our usually well-off good-looking tourists and locals.  Any kind of real sexiness, meaning of course mainly painted tits, was at most 10% of the crowd.  And in the spirit of journalism I forced myself to try to espy the dreaded Fat German Man with an Obscene Thong, the target of the greatest scorn among the Fest’s critics.  Well, out of the thousands of people I saw, I espied two, and they weren’t that fat, and may not even have been German (I can razz Krauts ’cause I is one, as well as half Finnish, both making me at ease with nakedness).

The Saturday People’s March, now called the “Sponsor’s Masquerade,” made me reconsider my knock on general good looks.  It was the finest ‘Fest crowd I’ve ever seen.  So many gorgeous, humorously-costumed happy people in a well-behaved mob.  A skill I lack (of many) is writing vivid visual descriptions, so hit the InterWeb to see for yourself.  The only feature I’ll describe is the large number of blow-up costumes.  Fat men were all funny looking.  But the best were at the end of the parade.  First, about 8 large matching unicorns, striking as a herd after dozens of prior single unicorns, a feature of this fest.  And at the very end were two guys in many-tentacled squid outfits, bright orange and frisky.  They had to have won the prize, so hit the ‘net to see them if no one else.

A sad feature for me was not recognizing a single soul, not having anyone say hi to me, either.  Just last year I saw eight.  That’s why I’m writing this, and I suspect too many of my peeps are ignoring the Fest, as well as Mallory Sunset, or snorkeling at Zach, et cetera, letting the tourists have all the fun.

The after-action report is from the Sunday after the main parade, which I haven’t gone to since we ran Fast Buck Freddie’s out of town (new folks, FB’s made such great floats they were allowed to win only every other year).  I had a brief discussion with a guy outside the bar at Hog’s Breath.  He and his wife have been long-time Fest regulars, spending $3200 for a week at one of our guesthouses, who was greatly exercised by our Mayor’s trying to run off money like his. Mayor Teri Johnston wants to ban painted tits, and the word is out to the visitors.  I said in general the fest is not a favorite of our gay women and more fundamentally religious citizens, but he went further, saying Teri must be a “sad and frustrated old lady.”  I said, Hey, I disagree with her on this issue, but Teri is actually a pretty happy and lively gal, and is aging a hell of a lot better than, for example, I am.

I think our Mayor is going to lose on this one.  Fantasy Fest remains a force of our town’s very nature.

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