Saturday at Six Flags pt.2 - The CAP'NS Experience

We now return to the tale of my day at Six Flags last Saturday, this time from a chiefly CAP'NS point of view.

Cap'n Cluck and I had decided to get a relatively early start on our day, planning on leaving from my place at around 10AM. I actually woke up quite a bit earlier than I wanted, despite having been out late bowling with PigPen and Peanut, so I made a quick doughnut run and stopped by the Public Library to hop online and see if anyone had responded to my Call for Topics. After reading the 4 or 5 responses that had come in, I headed back home to wait for Cluckity. I devoured several Krispy Kremes, and left the following note on the box for Slacker Magee in case he hadn't gotten his lazy self up before we left: "Yes, PigPen, you can have some. Signed, Cap’n 'Downtown' Neurotic." Surprisingly, PigPen was up and around before Cluck got there; even more surprisingly, he refused to comment on my latest feint in the Battle of the Trigger Songs. He was heading back towards his room when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks by the front door. He stared through the blinds on the door for a minute before motioning me over to join him. It seems that Cap'n Cluck was standing outside, pushing the doorbell repeatedly, not realizing that it didn't work. PigPen wanted to wait and see how long it took her to actually knock, so we both stood there watching her through the "we can see out but you can't see in" blinds before I finally opened the door and said "It doesn't work." She swore she had heard something when she pushed it; it was probably PigPen's maniacal giggling. I offered her a Krispy Kreme for her troubles, and then we were on our way.

Before we got to the park Cluck suggested that we should make an effort to ride all of the much advertised Ten New Rides, the joke being that after all of the hype they had turned out to be almost solely kiddie-friendly rides. I might have gone along with the suggestion if I hadn't known from the get-go that there was no way I was gong to ride the Acme Rock-N-Rocket which hangs you upside down for extended periods of time; I learned my lesson about those rides the hard way at Frontier City, where a similar attraction made me sick for the rest of the day. So, instead we started off on an old-school kiddie friendly ride: The Sombrero. I tried to do my best impression of my mom's usual reaction to the ride for Cluck's edification, but I know I didn't come close to doing her uncontrollable madcap laughter justice.

The park was a lot more crowded than the last several times I'd been there, so we only got a few of the big rides in before our hunger became overpowering and we headed to our traditional dinner spot of Cheddars across the street. The only real excitement came when we were a couple of spots away from getting on my favorite coaster, The Titan. After the cars had emptied out, a couple on the unloading side were trying to help their physically disabled friend on before the gates opened up, when suddenly one of the workers came back and told them they needed to wait. The worker then proceeded to walk down the tracks to where the next train was waiting to be taxied up and unloaded. It didn't take us long to figure out what the problem was, as we watched the other workers grab sawdust, cleaning solution, and gobs of paper towels. Yes, someone had hurled in the front seat. After some serious scrubbing, they got on the speaker and announced that that particular car was going to run empty three times. I quipped that it was the spin cycle, but Cluck posited that by the time the unclean car had finished its empty runs, there would be nobody left in the main line who had known what was going on. Either way, just glad it happened before our turn.

After our dinner at Cheddars, Cluck and I were both a bit stuffed, and so when we returned to the park and happened to stumble by the USA Stage just as the featured musical show was starting, we decided to grab a seat and enjoy the show. We had wandered past during a few of the earlier showings, and had had great fun mocking what few snippets we had seen, but that was nothing compared to the shear awesome cheesiness of the full show. What was so special about this show? Well, don't forget, this was Fright Fest, so it was nominally Halloween themed, with five struggling singer/dancers wearing "scary" costumes and acting "spooky" while singing songs by such "terrifying" acts as Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park, KISS, and . . . Ashlee Simpson. Granted, that last one is terrifying in a completely different sense than the others . . .

Although the performers were given character names, most of them didn't stick out, so Cluck and I tended to refer to them by their most striking piece of clothing. There were three different groupings.

First were The Bad Girls, whose outfits were designed not to be scary but “tough”:

Maven (a.k.a. Ms. Neon Green Bodice), who looked and sounded like she had just escaped from a road company putting on a Day-Glo production of Rent in the role of Mimi.
Angelique (a.k.a. Ms. Slutty Skirt), who did little to stand out other than being a blonde in a slutty Catholic girl skirt but, hey, it doesn't really take much more than that, does it?

Next were the Bad Boys (or, perhaps more accurately, the Bad Boy Band Boys) who were also in “tough” clothing, with the added feature of faces done up in full-on KISS makeup

Fang (a.k.a. Mr. Gold Lamee Jacket), who would probably be the "goofy/sensitive" member of any boy band he joined; the fact that that aspect was so striking even while he was in full on KISS makeup is just kind of sad.

Crash (a.k.a. Mr. Leather Chaps), who was by far the best singer, and who was also by far the worst dancer. There was a look of intense concentration on his face every time they'd move into a group dance number. "Okay, step 1-2-3, kick 1-2-3, clap, clap, clapclapclap, hands down, wrists limp, now spin!" Honestly, you'd think that after doing four shows a day who knows how many days a week the stuff would start to come naturally. Then again, maybe his brain was just constantly repressing the memory that he had to keep doing dance moves that inspired Cluck to repeatedly say "We did that in drill team in high school!"

Last but not least, there was the leader of the pack, The Big Bad. His name was Spike, which, by the way, is pronounced “SPIGARRRRGGGGHHH”, screamed in guttural tones while writhing in psychotic paroxysms, flapping your long black trenchcoat and bugging out your eyes.

I think that was the real delimiter in the three groups: their attitude towards the performance. I mean, first, we had The Bad Girls, whose outfits had little to nothing to do with Halloween, unless they were going as slutty dancers from an 80s video. The Bad Girls knew why they were there: to shake their hips and act all sexy. The Bad Boy Band Guys were a little more in the Halloween spirit, but even so, they were more pseudo-punk than spooky/scary. As for the intent of their performance . . . well, I’m not quite sure what their purpose was supposed to be, but if it was to make everyone in the audience wonder if they were going to head to The Blue Oyster Bar* after work, well, mission accomplished! But SPIGARRRRGGGGHHH was totally into the “demented psycho-killer singer from H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks” shtick, and never broke character for an instant.

If I had written this post the day after we had seen it, I could have gone into excruciating detail about the joys of the show, but after almost a week it has all melted together in my memory into one big glob of glorious, glorious cheese. I think the high point for me was when Mr. Leather Chaps belted out Styx’s “Renegade” while the whole company danced around with (I kid you not) motorcycle handlebars complete with functioning headlights. I think it was at that moment when I turned to Cluckity and proclaimed that even if we never found Clan G’ovich, the day out had now totally been worth it. Cluck replied that watching the show kindled a desire in her to go see the American Idol tour, since it would almost certainly be almost exactly like Howl . . . only, y’know, less SPIGARRRRGGGGHHH.

After the wondrous spectacle was over, we headed towards The Shockwave, which is when we ran into the Parkerites. We visited for a while, then split up to ride our respective last rides before gathering again for the grand Fright Fest finale. The finale started off okay, but improved vastly once the stage was filled with a whole company of costumed singer/dancers including (you guessed it) The Bad Boy Band Boys and SPIGARRRRGGGGHHH; not sure where The Bad Girls were, but just getting to see Mr. Leather Chaps butcher more dance moves and SPIGARRRRGGGGHHH writhe like a madman made for a nice cap to the evening.

The next day while recounting some of our experiences to The Singles, Cluckity and I briefly demonstrated a particularly egregiously cheesy dance move from the Howl show, which I had commented should be outlawed; upon seeing the move, both PigPen and Peanut exclaimed “Never do that again. Ever!”

I guess there was some “terror” in Howl’s performance after all.

*Yes, I just made a Police Academy reference. I’m very ashamed.