This month, I am not spending lots of time listening to music, and I am not a rock star. This month, I am Joni Minstrel, Village Protest Singer, at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. If you've never worked at a Renaissance Festival, there's no way you can understand the whiplash it causes in every aspect of your life, but trust me; it's a crazy feeling. I'm caught between worlds: neither rock star nor truly minstrel, neither serious nor funny, neither wholly geeky nor exactly cool. Those of you who are Joni Minstrel fans already will be happy to know that the very first Joni Minstrel CD is now available for sale! Those of you who have not heard the Joni Minstrel act will probably want to go check out the CDBaby page first and listen to the sound clips before you buy. It's very different from a Lindsay Smith album: much more tongue in cheek, and with very sparse arrangements. Very folky. If that sounds like your kind of gig, check it out.

This month also kicks off Wedding Season 2004, which begins with my sister's wedding on Memorial Day Weekend. I'm beside myself with excitement, even as I try to cram all the other showers and planning for all the other weddings I'm attending this year around my sister's events. I feel like I've been too busy and too tired to be a truly great Maid of Honor; I need to get to work planning some surprises for Lee before the big day. It's strange in a way that my little sister is getting married, but I'm comfortable with it. I'm happy that we're adults. Sure, I sometimes wax nostalgic for my youth, when I could go out to see a band, go out dancing afterwards, and then go straight to class and not even feel the effects until the next day, but I wouldn't trade that ability for any of the blessings I have now.

Assuming I make it through my sister's wedding, all the various other showers and parties, and the entire run of the Renaissance Festival, I have some exciting gigs to look forward to in June and July. On June 17th I'll be playing at Eddie's Attic with two really cool chicks: Kelly Buchanan and Heidi Hensley. We'll be doing an in-the-round show, and it's been ages since I've done one of those, and I'm excited. I've always really loved that format; it keeps the audience from getting bored, and it keeps me entertained as well. Speaking of Kelly, she's heading to Atlanta for a few weeks to play some gigs in the Southeast; if you haven't heard her, check out a show if you can. She just finished recording an album with Mac Ritchey, who produced Tales From the Fruitbat Vat, and she's really, really good. She's got a really powerful voice, and her songs are great. I'm really happy to be doing a show with her; it's been a while.

On July 11th, I'll be back at Unplugged in the Park, the 99X-sponsored series at The Park Tavern in Piedmont Park. Last year, I had a blast at this show, so I can't wait to do it again. I'll be opening for Clay Cook, about whom I've heard good things but never have seen. Should be a fun night.

One of the strangest things about working at the Renaissance Festival is that I feel a little bit famous. I certainly don't have the screaming fans that The Lost Boys do, but it is definitely the case that people tend to know who I am. On the other hand, I am terrible with names (though the distinctive costumes make it easier than usual for me to remember who people are), and, every once in a while, I find myself having conversations with people who are much more invested in interacting with me than I am in talking with them. That doesn't happen very often, and most of the people at the Renaissance Festival are very cool people whom I wish I had time to get to know better. (In other words, if you're reading this, I'm probably not talking about you.) But every once in a while, I get trapped into talking to people I don't want to talk to, doing favors I really don't want to do, and spending time making people feel special who have no interest in me as a person, aside from the fact that talking to me makes them feel special. They think they know me, but they don't. I'm not really an actor, so I can't claim that Joni Minstrel is not me, but I am kind of one-dimensional when I'm out at the Ren Fest. Everything I do is done for effect. Interacting with Joni Minstrel is not quite the same as interacting with me.

Anyway, the whole thing has been reminding me of my policy of not talking to famous people, and I'm convinced all over again that the policy is a good one. I've always been very shy about talking to strangers anyway, and my feeling about talking to famous people (especially if they're my heroes) is that there's no reason on earth for them to want to talk to me. Just because I love their music or think they're cool is no reason to subject them to listening to me blather on about it.

This policy could be seen as a cop-out, and maybe it is. I remember going to a show at the Variety Playhouse with Zach my freshman year of college at which Amy Ray appeared. I was beside myself to actually see her, and Zach kept trying to tell me that it was OK for me to go up and talk to her. He was right; she was just hanging out in the lobby, talking to people, and there was a line of people waiting to shake her hand and say hi to her. I really wanted to be in that line, but I was too terrified, and I couldn't make myself do it. Then, years later, I went to a CD release party at The Point (a moment of silence, please, for The Point) and saw Amy Ray again; she had come to do guest vocals on a song because this band's CD was being released on her label, Daemon Records. After her thing was over, she was hanging out in the crowd, watching the band. Only she didn't get to watch the band at all because, without her doing anything to encourage it, a line had formed that snaked all the way around the club of people who wanted to shake her hand and say hi to her. I was standing near her, and there was one guy who talked her ear off for ten minutes, completely oblivious to the line of people behind him, chattering on and on about how he was going to release an album and wanted her to hear it because he had hired the best mandolin player on earth to play on it and blah blah blah. I just thought, "Man, poor Amy Ray." She was so nice, though. She didn't say anything to that guy, and she very graciously spoke with every single person who wanted to talk to her. Now, I'm not really a fan of hearing famous people complain about being famous (here's a hint: fire your publicist), but I have to admit that it would suck more than I can imagine to go out to hear a band, chill out, and maybe have a few drinks and then spend the entire night talking to people I didn't know at all.

So, from what I've seen and experienced, I think it's a good idea to stick to my policy of never, ever talking to famous people. (I make an exception for local bands and artists I admire because I consider them to be my peers, even if they are way more talented and better known than I am.) I mean, sure, people like Kenny can just go up to people and stick out their hands and make friends in an instant, but I can't pull that off. I don't have that kind of confidence, nor do I speak the language of vintage gear or Beatles trivia or any of the other little cults in which Kenny is involved. Usually, the only thing I have to share with a famous person is my admiration for that person's work, and I always figure they've heard it before and don't need to hear it again from me. Also, I babble. How do I know this, you ask, given my policy? I confess: I once violated that policy. I shall now tell you the whole sad story, and you will understand why the policy was quickly reinstated, reinforced, and shall remain in place henceforth.

The place: Glasgow, Scotland. The famous person: Dar Williams. Some of you are going, "Who?" Exactly. Dar Williams is a moderately famous person, not a full-fledged famous person. Anyone deeply involved in the singer/songwriter scene would immediately know her; most other people would not. I decided that, since she was not only a moderately famous person but also probably much less famous in Scotland than she was in the U.S., this would be the perfect time to make an exception to my policy and try to talk to Dar Williams, who, it should be noted, is one of my heroes, so I really wanted to make a good impression. I love her writing. I went through a period in college during which I quit songwriting altogether, deciding there was no point since I had nothing to say that would change the world (see "Basically Good"). I was mostly listening to really political songwriters back then, and I just didn't think I had anything to add. Then I went to see Dar Williams at Eddie's Attic, and I was just blown away by her songs, her wit, her stage presence, her generosity towards the audience, just everything. There was a pretty large crowd that night, and I don't think a single member of that audience left without buying a CD. And most of her songs weren't political; however, they were all very affecting. Her songs told stories and viewed things through different lenses and talked about people and how they relate to each other. Things that, while not earth-shattering, really do matter. I recognized some of my own style and technique in what she was doing, and I went back to my dorm resolved that this songwriting thing was where I belonged after all.

So, anyway, I was in Scotland, my sister had come to visit me there, and we had decided to go see Dar Williams in Glasgow and stay with my friend Alistair. (I love the name Alistair. There are all these names that everyone has in Scotland that I had no idea were normal, common names. Ewan - or Ewen or Euan - is another one. And Eamonn, but that one's Irish. Really pretty names that everyone has over there that I had never even heard before.) Anyway, she was great, as always. Alistair said that his band had played at this club before (it was called the King Tut or something like that) and that he knew exactly which door she would come out of, so Lee and I laid in wait for her. When she came through the door, we had the following conversation: