Second in a series
In the midst of the 1992 Long Beach Renaissance Arts Festival, the Tribe received its first gig. People from Marshall Scotty’s Playland Park in El Cajon were seeking entertainers to perform at their new Wild West Renaissance Festival in a month or so, and they really wanted the Tribe to join them.
None of us had any idea who Marshall Scotty was or what this thing was all about, but (if I recall correctly) they were going to pay us for coming out there. So we got our stuff together and made the first of many Tribal caravans beyond the Orange Curtain.
The Playland was surreal. The Western theme was punctuated by worn, old-time buildings and costumed cowboys. We set up our encampment in front of a giant water slide that was carved into the side of a hill. There was also a small Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a roller coaster, and several other carnival-type attractions which probably required an insurance waiver to ride, but not nearly as bad as “Class Action Park“.
The park opened–and almost nobody came. We were scheduled to perform two shows at the park’s picnic area. We paraded around the grounds to our “stage” for the noon show, where a family hosting a birthday party had taken over the picnic tables. Undaunted, we performed our show to our mostly disinterested audience. When the time came to grovel for tips, the parents were offended. I really think that they thought we were part of the included entertainment for the birthday party.
The Tribe spent most of the day either seeking shade in the encampment or wandering the Playland to meet with other Faire folk or the park’s resident cowboys; all were about as bored as we were. Many of the vendors packed up early, and several enterainers left the park before their scheduled shows since there was no audience.
As dusk turned to evening, we started up a fire pit and cooked up some meats while others headed out to the local fast food establishments for nourishment. Everybody huddled around the fire, and people from the other encampments wandered in with their drinking horns (“don’t sniff, just drink”). And then something quite unexpected happened…
Led by Mike Hall, the Tribe was host to an evening’s entertainment of (mostly dirty) pirate shanties, dancing, storytelling, and whatever else our inebriated guests wanted to perform. At once I realized this is why people are willing to sacrifice their time, money, relationships, and sanity to go out to become Faire nerds. Everybody was bonded by the fire, and Tribe Roman Morga infused a lasting reputation of inclusion and fun, if not for being a little stand-offish.
The morning after saw a few more patrons and many hung-over participants. Some in the Tribe braved the water slide; alas the other rides were non-functional. We performed our first show for an audience comprised mostly of our family members and friends. The cowboys and Faire folk met in a bizarre time-twisted battle in the afternoon. By that time, the park was mostly empty of patrons. We packed up our gear early and headed home with the almost-obligatory dinner at Coco’s.
The friendships and good will forged at the Tribe’s fire pit carried us through new events at Golden West College, the infamous Ojai “Mud Faire”, Santa Barbara, and eventually to Indio (my next story). Marshall Scotty’s fate was much less fortunate.
Hemorrhaging money and failing to attract crowds who would rather go to more established attractions like Disneyland or Sea World, the owners of Marshall Scotty’s filed for bankruptcy and shut down the park a few years later. Now the site’s legend is attracting seekers of hidden and abandoned places, enough so that the property owner has set up security cameras and dogs to dissuade interlopers.
The property owner attempted to revive the park last year with a Haunted Amusement Park Scare Trail experience. The rusted, collapsed Ferris wheel and dismantled roller coaster highlight a grim tour of dilapidated buildings and overgrown park land. The security measures failed to stop this guy and his drone, where he unknowingly wanders through the Tribe’s encampment area. Little does he know of the magical evening that brought Tribe Roman Morga into its own.