Why Dangerous Puppets is no longer at Dickens Fair
The short answer is, I don’t know.
The reason they gave me is completely untrue. They claim i was abusive to crew and other booth owners. I swear I never raised my voice, insulted anyone, or even laid blame for anything on any particular person. I’ve done Patterson shows so long I consider most participants my friends, if not extended family.Do you know the manipulation technique where someone continually irritates you, then when you respond, you are the bad guy?
When I showed up for stake-out last year, I intended to park and check in, but there was no parking space for a trailer. I saw the tall breezeway door was open so I mentally thanked Drew and attempted to drive to my booth space only to find it covered in pallets of other peoples stuff for the second year in a row. I tracked down someone to move it but for him to get to it, I had to back my trailer out (always tricky making it past Paddy West’s extensive booth materials). Then of course back in after the other stuff was moved. My only apparently abusive comment was “it would be nice if there wasn’t pallets of other people’s stuff in my booth space on the day I’m designated to set up my booth”. I didn’t mention it the previous year so I thought maybe if I said something this time, It might not happen again the next year (guess I was right in a way). I said this to the crew member who moved the stuff for me. I honestly meant no offense and even thought he’d agree with me, since he had to stop what he was doing, to move the pallets. Next I went to get my gate pass and found an hour long line. The vast majority of participants at Dickens are unpaid or underpaid volunteers. Booth owners are paying good money to be there. In my thirty years of vending these shows, i’ve never been expected to wait an hour for a gate pass. Nobody should have to. My again apparently abusive comment was something like “really? There’s no way around this? I didn’t plan on this and really can’t be here that long.” I said this in the operations trailer to no one in particular. See the thing is, before I started vending and performing at Dickens, I put a lot of thought into how to make it lucrative as slinging puppets is not exactly the most profitable business. One of my solutions was to build a wagon so I wouldnt have to spend unpaid time building and tearing down a booth. It worked great in providing a really well made display that I could set up in a half hour. This may help to explain my disappointment in an hour long wait for a pass. Leslie was kind enough to walk me to the back door of the pass house while lecturing me on how it was the state’s fault that there was a line. She got her pass at the same time and I remember looking out at all my friends in the huge line as the person making my pass asked me three times if I wanted a new photo. I looked at the line and said no thanks. I think the third time Leslie even answered for me. That was it, I got my pass, everyone seemed happy.I sent two emails to various people trying to establish show times in the breezeway. I received no response. The Fagan’s Den folks did the same. Nothing was done until we worked it out ourselves. In all other years this was done in advance and showtimes were even printed in the program.Also, the curtains behind my and the Chestnut folks booths covered only half the wall, looking really tacky. I brought my own sheet to cover it. I mention these things just to point out some things that didn’t even get a negative comment out of me. I think this all points to that manipulation technique. I believe myself to be on good if not great terms with every booth owner at Dickens except perhaps one. A few years back people started asking if I had a second cart. Then Brian Patterson asked if I’d seen the guy who copied me. Then the booth owner’s own mother stopped by and explained that they had seen me at Edwardian Ball and were inspired to do something similar. A bit too similar as it turns out. First he had a cart selling creatures. But also he called himself Professor and some of his designs were much like my mine, though there were no puppets and it was all made from satellite glue*. Now it seems to break fair’s own regulations to allow a booth to sell something crafted from such a non-period material but that’s their business. I’m very proud of how i was bestowed the name Professor Insanity by the illustrious Sir David Springhorn. He was fronting my show and asked beforehand what I was called. He was very unimpressed by my answer of Puppetguy. He took it on himself to come up with something better and he did. I digress. So I asked the creature cart booth owner to maybe differentiate himself from me a bit. I politely asked if he would maybe build a booth or change his name. I literally had people asking every weekend if I had another cart. He declined and seemed insulted but also seemed to want to work something out. I started to walk off a couple times but he said he didn’t want it to end like that. It was all very peaceful except perhaps for a brief moment when he asked me if I wanted to step outside. I quickly realize he wasn’t challenging me to a fight but I think that might be when his mother ran off to tell Leslie. I realized the conversation was going nowhere so went back to my booth. Leslie showed up shortly after and scolded me for talking to him rather than take it up with her as vendor coordinator. This conversation also went nowhere. That’s it. I avoided his booth from then on.This is every interaction I can think of that could be even misconstrued as abusive. Believe me I have wracked my brains to think of anything. It’s hard not to after such accusations and expulsion from a fair I’ve done over a decade without a warning or a talking to. Perhaps there is an ulterior motive to all this, but I can only speculate. I write all this not to gripe or air my grievances. I just feel I owe it to my followers to give an explanation and address the unfounded accusations against me. I will greatly miss every attendee, customer, participant, booth owner, crew member at Dickens. And I thank from the bottom of my heart everyone who ever helped out at the booth or with a show. A part of me can’t believe it’s over but it very much is. There’s no way for me to ever go back to a show that made such baseless allegations. If anyone does feel I have abused them in any way I do humbly apologize. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mean to, as I have no hard feelings toward anyone.
I am so sorry to all who made Dangerous Puppets a regular visit during the holidays. My website will have a full inventory throughout the holidays for those who wish to continue adding to their collections, and keep an eye on my Youtube channel for new videos.
Look for great things to come soon from Dangerous Puppets as I will get to spend more time on the big projects I have In mind.
Cheers! And ‘appy Christmas!
-Darren Way
(Professor Insanity)
- *my dad was an aerospace engineer who had early access to epoxy and called it “satellite glue”. He even glued my surfboard back together after I broke it in half. It worked but weighed about 10 pounds more.