Jack McNamara
This past week I had a rare and extremely relieving moment of serenity in what has otherwise been a high-strung semester. It was a reminder of how far positive thinking can get someone, but more importantly it was a reminder of this time I was misled into going to an underlit building in New Jersey.
During the tail end of my first semester of college, my good friend Jayson Cowley – who last I checked is currently hunting for pelts in the wilderness of suburban Denver – came up to me and asked if I would be interested in attending a RENAISSANCE FAIR. I, best put, was uncertain.
“I don’t know man, what exactly does one do at one of those?”
“Renaissance stuff, I hope,” he replied.
Having been sold by Jayson’s unparalleled wordsmithery (sic), later that week I piled into a hijacked (possibly rented) university van containing myself, Jayson, Kelly Young, Steph Burr and Jeff ‘Wild Jeff’ Seiser. The drive was long, and we pulled over for a quick stop not too long after crossing into New Jersey, or at least that’s what I thought we did. We were somewhere in Lyndhurst, literally a stone’s throw away from the concrete Hoffa mausoleum that is the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
“We’re here,” Jayson proclaimed, much to my surprise.
“Where’s the fair?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not so much a Renaissance fair as it is a Medieval Times.”
To those not familiar with this fine establishment: it’s a national chain of knight-themed, family-friendly dinner theaters which treats silverware with the same kind of tolerance Fairfield University has for trees. This particular Medieval Times was a very ELABORATE dinner theater, but it didn’t change the fact it was as authentic a historical experience as Taco Bell was to a vacation in Tijuana. I felt deceived.
This being the case, I was pissed, and probably would have remained that way if it wasn’t for the fact everyone else was being so stubborn about having a great time and enjoying each other’s company. So I rolled with it for everyone else’s sake, and actually ended up enjoying myself as a result of fake-enjoying myself. Our section — representing the Principality of Blue or something like that — never had a crowd as fanatical as the one led by me that night.
Slogans shouted at a very high volume to promote our Blue Knight’s inevitable victories included “If you’re not blue, you’re through!” “O-blue-terate him!” and “Murder your enemies to death, Blue!” Because of my direct support, the Blue Knight won two of his epic battles, which were surely not staged. Both times he took a victory lap, tossed a rose into the crowd and both times the rose was caught by Jeff ‘Abs of Steel’ Seiser. I’m pretty sure Jeff would have gotten a third rose too, were it not for the Green Knight being such a cheat, that dick.
In retrospect, I like the memory of me having fun at Medieval Times more than the memory of me hating it. It’s a useful frame of reference for when I find myself in unpleasant situations.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Tijuana.
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