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Background
August 14, 2003
In June of 2002, I had been offered a three-month gig in France, Finland and Sweden, and figured I couldn’t pass that up. Plus, I was fed up with working at the art museum. The white was getting to me. White walls, white floors, white desks, white chairs, white clocks, white paperclips. The only thing not white, was the dress code, which was, of course, all black. Sometimes, at meetings, I’d squint and look around and swear that if a few of us stuck fish in our mouths, you wouldn’t be able to tell us apart from penguins on an ice flow.
I wasn’t happy there, so while I was unsure about what I might do after I returned from the trip, I quit. My last day at the museum was July 15th and I was leaving September 4th, so in the meantime, I was on the lookout for fun things to do. I knew that I had 12 days booked solid. Those were the magical days of the Minnesota State Fair, and so every opportunity that conflicted with the fair, I politely declined. I was especially pumped as this was the first year that I didn’t have a job to rudely interfere with my fair activities, so I was able to spend all of my time at the fair.
A few weeks prior to opening day, a friend who works at the fair mentioned that they were still looking to hire a few positions. I know that it’s usually not a good idea to mix work and pleasure, especially when it involves pancake batter and powdered sugar, but what could be the harm in at least seeing what they had open? I headed over to the employment center, dropped my friend’s name, and was taken back to see the head of employment. We talked about my background, and what's available, and nothing seemed right to either of us. Just as we were wrapping up, she had a thought, made a few phone calls, walked me over to interview with the head of Sales, and then offered me the position of Space Checker. "Ochen Kaylan, Space Checker for the Minnesota State Fair." I like that. I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded powerful.
I eventually figured out, it was their version of a conflict mediator. That’s cool too. So my job was to walk around the fairgrounds from 7 AM to 7 PM waiting to be called into action to solve a conflict. It was awesome. It was like being in heaven with a bladder problem. Sure, every once in a while, you have to go off and do your business, but most of the time, you’re just blissfully enjoying the experience.
I had a badge, and a walkie-talkie, and had to dress in street clothes, so that I could go undercover. It sounds silly, but I had to do it a number of times. Once to covertly photograph unofficial promotional signs, once again to monitor a particularly loud radio station, and even once to verify that yes, indeed, an unauthorized Superman was posing for photographs with children for $5.
It’s a dirty job.
There were a few conflicts that needed mediation, but for the most part, things were remarkably calm. You’d think that with the 1.7 million visitors, thousands of vendors, tens of thousands of employees, and the monolith of the State Fair itself, conflicts would abound, but thankfully, the bladder held.
I spent about 150 hours, walked over 100 miles, made about $900, spent about half of it back, and had a great time. And so this year when they asked me back, I jumped.
6 days and counting
August 15, 2003
I'm starting to get really excited. Last week I attended a small meeting of the building superintendents. There is only one new guy this year. He's at the Grandstand, so if you're gonna cause some trouble, give him a break and do it somewhere else.
It's amazing how little turnover the fair has. I'd say that over half of the folks at that meeting have worked the fair over 20 years, and only a handful (me included) have been there less than five years. I haven't decided if I think these folks are former 4H-ers gone wild, or wanabee 4H-ers that didn't ever fit in. Either way, they're good folk, fun to work with, and they all have great stories.
I picked up my badge today. They've got the system down pat. Came in with two forms of I.D., they match it up with their records, send me next door to have my picture taken, two minutes later my badge pops out of the printer, they hand me two shirts, and I'm off. The shirts this year are an awful neon yellow. Thank god I work undercover.
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It's so close
August 19, 2003
A few years before I started working at the fair, I started going everyday. Sometimes for just 10 minutes, sometimes all day long. I'd maybe swing by before work and pick up a suitcase of mini-doughnuts to share with co-workers. Or take a spin-a-painting and corndog lunch. Or grab a quick dinner on my way home. I just couldn't imagine the fair happening and missing it.
I often got "Can you really find enough things to do for 12 days?" which just floors me. At the end of every year, my to-do list is always less than half checked. The thing is, the more you do, the more you find to do, so even though I step up my involvement every year, my to-do list grows even faster. Like Audrey II without the catchy song.
This year, I started entering competitions. Four lots, three based on my legendary home-made French bread, and one for beginner Ukrainian egg decorators. I just started decorating eggs this last Easter. My partner and I have a little ongoing competition of our own, commonly manifest through 20th century folk arts, like Christmas tree decorating, jack-o-lantern carving, or spinart, and now, Easter egg decorating. I won that little game, and in the process, found that I really dug pysanka. I made two that Easter, and four more over the last week, including my entry.
I turned in my egg this morning. Winnie, the head honcho at the Ag-Hort-Bee competition let me place my egg in the case, which is usually a big no-no, but I think she may be used to people freaking out about someone else holding/moving/displaying their egg. As I went to the case and started setting up, I saw two other eggs; one chicken egg with a slightly modern pattern of dots on bands, and one etched goose egg. Both were nice. Both are stiff competition. Both are dead meat.
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Day 0
August 20, 2003
So I started today. The day before the fair opens is usually pretty quiet. Not for all of the vendors frantically setting up displays and carting boxes of paper cups from one end of the fair to the other, but for me. Conflicts don't seem to arise much until vendors have some time to sit around. Idle hands and all that jazz.
But I didn't see anyone manning the political booths, and they're always the biggest headache; always testing to see how far they can bend the rules. And the thing is, the fair is not interested in bending the rules. They have no incentive to do so, and so it becomes my headache.
It does make sense why it would be the political booths. The kid at the cheese curd booth has no vested interest in drawing customers. That kid gets paid minimum wage, busy or not, whereas the politicos do have a vested interest. The more they draw, the closer their guy or gal is to winning.
The other thing is that most of the volunteers are wannabe lawyers, so every time I go over and tell them that they can't be doing whatever the hell they're doing, they start throwing things in the air like freedom of speech and freedom of movement and freedom to assemble and all sorts of things that have nothing to do with anything at hand. The fact is, the fairground is private property. They may look like public streets, but then so to the streets on movie lots. Every vendor, upon invitation to appear at the fair, signs a contract that says you won't do all the crap the political booths insist on doing every year. But the fair keeps letting them in 'cause they keep changing. Yet another reason why term limits suck.
But today was fine. Hot as hell (figuratively) but good to be back.
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..and so it begins.
August 21, 2003
Boo-ya! My egg rocks! My egg got second place. Second to an eleventh-hour entry that, I must admit, is better than mine, but at least I beat the two that I saw when I dropped it off. I also got a third place ribbon for my honey French bread. I got no love from Creative Activities though, but as I walked through looking at the other entrants, I realized I was way outta my league. This was like me showing up in Sidney asking if I could try out for the Olympics. They may let me, if for no other reason than to get a good laugh, but of course I have no chance. Creative Activities bakers are hard core Iron Chef bakers. I'm intimidated just standing next to the cases.
Pretty quiet opening day. I had to take out a few street characters. The Charmin Bear didn't have a license to be there so I had to send her back into hibernation. "Beefman" only had a license to be in his booth, so I had to send him back to the ranch. There was a radio station, a station for single females (seriously) that was advertising 'nipples on a stick.' We got a few complaints from guests, so I had to get the nipples put away. But mostly quiet.
I remember that I was pretty sore at the end of the first day last year, but it must be like that 'birth pain' thing that I've heard about. A pain that is so intense that you just can't retain any sense of how intense it was. My god am I sore. I walked for 13 hours today. I walk more each day of the fair than the other 50 weeks combined. Not that I'm a super-lazy guy, but last year, I walked over 100 miles in 12 days. That's 4 marathons. What the hell was I thinking?
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Day 2
August 22, 2003
I have never been one of those fair-goers that must eat every typical fair food item they see. I can't really eat more than about one cheese curd every few years. I may eat one corndog, just to remind myself that I don't really care for then that much. Not such a fan of the mini doughnut. And I hate cotton candy. I also tend to stay far away from the new foods each year. They exist to get press, and rely on that press to pump their sales until a few years go by and people begin to realize that deep fried candy bars just don't taste that good. (Not that I've tried one, but it will happen.) While spending this summer vacation visiting county fairs around Minnesota, we did come across deep fried Oreos. I don't know what possessed us to try them, but we did and immediately regretted it. They were awful. Every once in a while, you need to remind yourself that the things you know, you know for a reason.
This year, true to my convictions, I have stayed far from the chocolate dipped key lime pie and chili dog pizza. However, I started hearing murmurs about the deep fried Twinkies that I just couldn't ignore. I heard from everyone that they were absolutely fabulous. That if they didn't advertise it as a Twinkie, even the most snobbish of foodies would fawn for the new dessert.
Well, how could I turn my back on such praise? After all, I do enjoy food very much. Good food, mind you. And so today, I tried one.
Oh my god, I can't even begin to describe how awful it was. The thing that finally got me to try one was hearing that it doesn't taste how you would expect a deep-fried Twinkie to taste. Yes, yes it does. And now you there reading this, you're imagining it, an that wince on your face, that was my stomach. At least you can stop thinking about it. I had to digest the thing.
I make this pledge to all who read this, and most who don't. I will neither eat food that I would not seek out during any other time of year, nor will I eat any food that has not been served at the fair for at least ten years. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Although that new salmon on a stick up at Giggles looks kinda good.
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Day 3
August 23, 2003
Don't eat the salmon.
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Day 4
August 24, 2003
I've been playing a game over the last few days that I like to call "CEO or truck driver."
The game is played as follows: Choose a contestant from the crowd. For this game, only males can be contestants. (For female contestants, choose our sister game, "Power-Broker or Power-Shopper".) You have five seconds to place the contestant in one of two categories. The 'CEO' category is for white-collar men making over $100,000 per year. The 'truck driver' category is for blue-collar men making under $60,000 per year. Once the decision is made, you have two minutes to test your guess. You may use any form of verification that seems sporting to you.
It's a game that you can only play at a very small number of places. So rarely are there events in our culture where class distinctions are minimized, if not altogether removed. The State Fair is one of them. Over half the time, I'm either wrong, or can't make a guess. You can't really tell if the guy in a tee-shirt, pulling a wagon of two kids is a CEO or a truck driver, and neither can anyone else. And so, everyone is there, eating the same corn on the curb, buying the same super-shamies, making the same jokes about the baby pigs.
The fair isn't only about seeing the animals, eating the food, and riding the Midway. It's about learning the role of the Ferris wheel in the Midwest's early adoption of technology. It's about learning the role baking competitions had on the suffrage movement. It's about observing the cultural clues of class warfare, and enjoying the brief moments of respite.
I've tried to get someone to play "Sid Hoffman or Sid Frenchmen" with me, but so far, no takers.
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Day 5
August 25, 2003
I found Farley today, but as with most events in my life, not when and how I intended to do so. I read the clue this morning and visited a few places I thought might be options. No luck, and by that time, I had moved on to actual work. A little later, while checking out the Adventure Park vendors, I say Farley sitting there next to some guy on a bench. I whipped out my camera and snapped a shot. I went back to the Strib booth and found the one employee that knows.
I whispered "Farley's with some guy in Adventure Park."
"Sorry. Nope. Try again." She replied.
"Uhh... Yeah he is. Look!" and I showed her the photo. She said that she was wondering why so few people had spotted Farley today. This guy must have been one of the first to see Farley, and contrary to what is clearly stated in the rules, he removed Farley. The weird thing is that instead of returning Farley to the Strib booth to claim a prize, he just started walking around with the doll.
After thinking for a second, she decided that I had indeed found Farley and handed me a prize. She then asked me to lead her to Farley.
I guess it's funny that I had to lead the Strib to Farley. I should have given her a lousy clue instead.
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Day 6
August 26, 2003
I spend a lot of time walking against the flow. (You see very little if you walk with the flow.) By doing this, I hear mostly one-line conversations. Here is a one-block excerpt from my day:
"Now that's a boat"
"If surgery can save him, why put him down?"
"I like the boyfriend thing"
"Doesn't that just hit the spot?"
"That's no turkey. That's a chicken!"
By the way, it was actually a swan.
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Day 7
August 27, 2003
As I mentioned some time ago, the more you're at the fair, the more you find at the fair. I think this year's big find for me is the history museum. Heritage Square is an area of the fair that's often forgotten or just outright ignored. It's not in any traffic path, so the only people who go there are people that specifically want to go there. It's ok. It's never been a must see for me, but it's fun. Well, behind Heritage Square, there are all of these abandoned rail cars that create a nice barrier between the fair and the parking lot. It turns out, all those rail cars have stuff inside. And it turns out, that stuff is cool. Cool if you like that sort of thing. It is pretty heavy on fair and circus memorabilia, which I totally dig. It also has a lot of early car stuff, which I don't dig so much.
At the end, there's a newspaper museum, which I've been to before, but never took the time to really check out the place. It's awesome. If you can take the time, you can see the lines of type molded at the linotype, then see it blocked into a page, see the pages ganged, see the gang set into the press, see a sheet printed, and finally see that sheet folded. Seeing each machine work takes about five minutes. Following a single line of type takes about an hour. But in that hour, talking with everyone in there working about what they're doing, and hearing their ideas on the craft, and hearing their favorite trade jokes, just makes the whole experience a gift.
A nice thing about spending 12 hours on the grounds is that there is never any need to rush anywhere, unless, of course, I'm on a call. But if I'm not busy, and things are quiet, I can spend all sorts of time with things.
I also watched the blacksmith demonstration for about an hour. Absolutely fascinating. He made a striker and candle holder. Damn that's cool. I wanna do that when I grow up.
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Day 8
August 28, 2003
Today I stumbled across the celebrity butter-carving contest. The celebrities were three Minnesota Vixen, two dairy princesses (including Princess Kay of the Milky Way), Mary Kiffmeyer, the Beef Princess, five FFA kids, and Mud-donna. One of the Vixen won with her sculpture of a fish in coral. My personal favorite was the FFA kid's sculpture of the cow in the middle of giving birth.
The public butter-carving contest is tomorrow. The devil on one shoulder is saying, "Enter, enter, ENTER!"
The devil on the other shoulder is saying, "No, spend the next year practicing."
I went back to the blacksmith's demonstration. Across the room was a wood turner, so I watched him for a while. Now I wanna do that when I grow up.
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Day 9
August 29, 2003
Because the end of the fair is getting close, I started going down my must-do list. This list is mostly made up of things that I've been doing at the fair since I started coming; the things that make the fair feel like the fair.
I took a break today from work and headed into the 4-H building. If you haven't seen a 4-H exhibit, you should try. Each kid chooses a topic and/or medium and creates a project around it. Projects can be anything from how to wire a light switch or how to care for your cat, to the causes of hoof-in-mouth disease or the arguments for and against circus animals to presenting your four favorite photos or restoring an old tractor, to performing in a play or planning a meal. My favorite piece this year was the telling of a forgotten piece of Minnesota history, the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, a department created to facilitate the persecution of German-Americans living in Minnesota during World War I. I sure didn't know about it. Thanks Noah for teaching me.
I then took a stroll through a few of the barns looking at the chickens, ducks, geese, goats, pigs, and cows.
Spending twelve hours a day walking around talking with guests, vendors, and the fair about problems doesn't give me much opportunity or motivation to remember why I love the fair so much.There are so many amazing, funny, beautiful things to see and do at the fair. I'm gonna try to spend as much time as I can these last few days remembering why it is that I look forward to these twelve days all year long.
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Day 10
August 30, 2003
"Hey Ochen, who's that?"
"Where?"
"In the picture."
"Over on the left?"
"Yeah."
"What about it?"
"Who's that in the picture?"
"That's me."
"No dumbass, who are you with?"
"That girl?"
"Yeah, who is she?"
"Why, that's Princess Kay of the Milky Way."
"Nice."
"I know."
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Day 11
August 31, 2003
In my estimation, there are far too few good, clean, smart pranks being pulled these days. I stumbled across one today. Near the top of pillar one of the Skyride, someone had cable-tied a life-size, inflatable Spiderman. Then on top of pillar five, they tied a life-size, inflatable Hulk. They faced each other, as if they were finally, once and for all, going to answer that age-old question.
This was beautiful. This was the sort of prank I like. It's inherently funny and slightly absurd. It uses the resources available. (The inflatables were purchased at a novelty stand on the fairgrounds.) It takes careful planning. It's courageous. (The pranksters would most likely be charged with trespassing and endangering fair guests.) And it's public.
I didn't want to say too much, as I didn't want to see it taken down, but I also had my job to do. I started sniffing around the Skyride booths, talking with a few junior employees. It turns out, the inflatables were put there by the Skyride folks themselves. I was greatly disappointed. The only props I can give them are on the mild creativity. It's a less creative idea for folks that work on the machine everyday. It wasn't well planned or courageous. Just a couple of guys getting antsy as the end gets near.
Where are the pranks of old?
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Day 12, the last day
September 1, 2003
And so it's over. The cows and roosters and goats and rabbits are all heading back to their own beds. All the vendors are off to the next town. The Midway unit is breaking down the rides on the beds of semi-trucks. And the Dairy Bar is probably still giving away free milkshakes trying to empty the machines while wasting as little as possible.
I have spent the last twelve days, in part, publicly and privately complaining about the various things I dislike about the fair. Or more accurately, the things that I'm finding tough about my job at the fair. The physical thing, the walking for twelve hours a day for twelve days straight, just kicked my ass. Trying to find three square meals a day in a selection where nearly everything is deep-fried. Getting an average of three or four hours of sleep a night. These things and more have made the last twelve days difficult.
But I haven't spent much time talking about the things I enjoy about my job at the fair. I love being able to roam the fairgrounds from end to end however and whenever I like. I love that it forces me to check out things that I normally wouldn't visit on my own. I love that since I'm there so long each day, I don't have a limited schedule, so I don't feel pressured to move on to the next thing. I love seeing the evolution over the twelve days, seeing how the people, booths, moods, weather, and personalities evolve. I love being the expert when all my friends come to the fair. I love stretching a part of myself that I don't usually get to, bringing people together who might have a conflict and calming everyone down and working things out. I love getting sucked into a completely different world for twelve days.
I've heard the fair compared to putting on a wedding reception for two-million people, and that's exactly what it feels like we're doing. I'm grateful for the opportunity of being a part of it.
Thanks for reading. We'll see you next year.