| Diary: Gwyn Thomas
If You’re Going to Vomit, Please Don’t Do It in my Booth. (five tour dates in the life of a booth bitch) I should probably start this off by telling you all who I am. My name’s Gwyn. I’m twenty-one. Catherine Cartwright-Jones aka the Reverend Bunny is my mother. If you tell me how much you admire my mother, I might hit you. I just finished spending three years as a stripper. This gives you amazing sales skills, patience with idiots and a black belt in the fine art of niggapleeze. If you don’t know, don’t ask. My story pretty much begins this past June. I’ve gone to visit my mom, and we’re talking in the office. She tells me she’s gotten offered a contract to pick up five regional tour dates doing henna at Ozzfest. I tell her that’s great. At some point in the conversation, it becomes apparent that she needs someone to sit in the front of the booth, be pretty and pleasant, answer the questions, and make people spend money so that all the henna artists need to do is sling henna. Mom tells me that my strip-club-cultivated sales skills, patience, and black belt are much needed. Never one to pass up a free concert, I say yes. Thus, I become the booth bitch.
July 26, 2001. Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga-Falls-but-Everyone-Calls-it-Cleveland, OH. This venue
is local, and I’ve been here before. I’m reasonably functional, despite
having rolled in to set up at seven-thirty this morning. We get the
booth together with the help of my incessantly cheery husband, we eat breakfast,
and we sit in the booth. I think nothing is going to happen.
And then the gates open.
They have questions.
The crowd
around the booth is huge. The wait for henna stays about six people
deep all morning, and I manage to stumble away for lunch after about four
hours of serving as Reverend Bunny's idiot sieve.
By the time I get back from lunch, the main stage has started up, slowing business considerably. The rest of the afternoon is pretty idyllic. We recover from the morning. Shanon goes catatonic in a chair. I watch the concert and go buy t-shirts. A gaggle of hovercrafts cruises by every now and then, and we do some business. Having gotten shafted for electricity, we finish up when night falls-- no lights. We pack the booth, and I wander down the hill to watch Marilyn Manson. All the day's stress lifts as I pump my fist in unison with fifteen thousand other Angry Young People. "I wasn't born with enough middle fingers . . . " Yeah.
July 28, 2001. Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is six-thirty in the morning, and I am in a meeting. God help me. The vendors have gathered in the parking lot, handing in booth fees and fighting for spaces. I begin to wonder if I've just walked into the most pretentious group of people ever. Actually, it's just my morning grouchiness talking. The lady who sells banners has a pet chihuahua who weighs eight and a half ounces. My husband, who is making his debut as a henna artist today, pets it, addressing it as "light snack." The parking lot reeks of marijuana, and by the end of today I will understand why. Steve (the King of the Village of the Damned) informs us that we have a sold-out crowd of twenty-two thousand. After dissappearing briefly on Steve's golf cart, Mom tells us we're stationed directly in front of the beer stand.
Beer. That word by itself sums up today. They're serving fishbowls full of Coors Light. Fishbowls, I tell you . . . fishbowls! And you can get two at a time! The smell is making me nauseous and depressed, and today's crowd is doing about the same. We're doing a bit of business, but nowhere near what we did the last show. My husband is slowly and shakily slinging kanji onto the lower backs and upper arms of twenty-somethings who are drunk at noon.
Shanon looks angry. Mom looks tired.
I try to keep smiling, and make sure no one spills beer on the pattern
books. This crowd is intoxcated, belligerent, and broke. We're
not too far from the West Virginia border. I bend over to pull a
fresh stack of waivers out of one of our boxes.
This crowd is disgusting. They're
trying to haggle over prices with me. Business is slow as hell.
I try to go watch the concert to cheer myself up-- no good. Aside
from the previous adjectives, this crowd is mildly racist. I hear
murmurs of "black bitch" as I make my way through the masses. The
much darker-skinned men of Om-Baba Imports have been hiding in the back
of their booth, nervously passing a bowl for about six hours. I don't
blame them. Someone vomits disturbingly near the booth. It's
chunky. The entire venue stinks like cheap beer, and I begin to fall
into a full-scale panic attack. I need to be alone and breathe, but
this is impossible.
We pack. On the way out, I accidentally-on-purpose hit a drunk guy in the head with the booth poles. Beaten and exhausted, Mom and Shanon and I return to the hotel, and my husband decides to make the drive home tonight. We count money. Shanon has had an awful day, and and barely afford to pay me. I tell her it's okay. We're all in this together, you know? We go to B-W3's to eat a late dinner, and I destroy a basket of chicken wings. Mom announces she's going over to the bar to get a drink, and that it's not going to be a fishbowl of beer.
August 30-31, 2001. DTE Energy Center, Clarkston, Michigan. We roll into the bed and breakfast late as hell. I sit down on my bed for a minute and suddenly it's time to get up. I shower, and we head for the venue. I'm impressed. There are trees and water here. There are no fishbowls of beer. The airbrush body painter is positioned next
to us, and he and I know that there is a giant loophole in our country's
indecent exposure laws. Opaque covering = dressed. No one said
anything about fabric. He painted some friends of mine at Woodstock
‘99 and I was impressed with their pictures. He and I get an idea.
If I'm right next to his booth all day with painted boobs, he and I will
both get more business. As soon as his electricity is up, I remove
my shirt and opt for blue flames and bats, which he does free of charge.
I love them. So does everyone else. Mom and Shanon are impressed.
Guys stand and grin at my bat-boobs long enough for me to sell them some
henna. I'm also sending the airbrush guy a fair amount of business.
Girls like my paint job, too, and I introduce them to henna. As I
spew a sales pitch, I hear the click of a camera and look up to see a guy
walking away.
It's a fairly nice day. A few bad seeds,
but a lot of really good ones. Everybody wants that damn sun-moon
design or the heart-looking knot thing. Thirty dollars, sign the
waiver, step on in and pop up when somebody yells "next!" At this
point in the tour, I have my henna speech so well-memorized that people
find it kinda amusing.
Later in the day, the naked breasts at the
airbrush booth cause some drunken rowdiness-- girls who don't share my
training in niggapleeze are getting stupid and acting cheap. When
Sorority Sluts Get Too Much Coors Light! Gee, if only the camera
crew from Girls Gone Wild were here. Actually it's getting kinda
bad. The last time I left the booth, some guy wanted me to dance
for him. The blood alcohol level in this place is rising, and the
IQ is dropping. I lean over to clean up the tables and organize the
boxes and, when I look up, there are easily thirty drunken frat boys standing
in front of the booth trying to look at my bat-boobs and the crowd is too
big for any prospective customers to get through. I put my shirt
back on and they whine. See ya. Things degenerate, and we pack
up. We don't have to be in until ten tomorrow morning. Yay!
It is obsecenely hot out. Oh, my god. It is so hot. I look at the little waterfall pools and wonder how long I could lay in one before security would ask me to move. Probably not very long. Business is mediocre, but dehydration is making this crowd completely insane. Drunkenness is causing further dehydration. Frat boys come by wanting their penises hennaed and I call their bluff. They get drunker and one propositions my mother. Security is unenthusiastic. Someone please turn down the sun. I take a sanity break and go sit under some trees in a very pleasant wooded area. Hey, look! People having sex! I move. One of the girls from the bondage booth is having problems carrying some stuff. I offer to help, and she's incredibly rude. Fine, then. It's hot out. Later, CJ from Drowning Pool stops by. He's cute. A pleasant girl with Edward Gorey illustrations tattooed on her arm gets vines hennaed on her palm. We like her. The sun goes down and the heat breaks. Having been shafted for electricity once again, we pack. As Donny and Marie would say . . . . GOODNIGHT, EVERYBODY! August 3, 2001, Polaris Amphitheater, Columbus, Ohio. Mom’s driving my car, and it’s not happy. It hadn’t previously shown any signs of having a problem, buti it’s been slipping out of gear ever since we packed it. I don’t think it likes the weight. Thus, we’re doing thirty-five down the freeway. Unpleasant. We get into our hotel at an ungodly hour, and get up at something even more ungodly. I went to a concert at the Polaris once before when I was younger. It’s kind of a cool-looking place. We get our area assignment– really near the stage. There are flowers behind us! This is good. The people here are soooo much more polite than Detroit and Pittsburgh. Its starts raining a little bit, and as I frantically secure all paper products, customers huddle under our tarp. No one wants to touch my tits. WE HAVE ELECTRICITY! Never mind that my mom had do dive into a flower bed to discover it– we can use the blow dryers today! Zimra’s with us today. I like her, and she’s far more enthusiastic than any of us are today– we’re too tired. This crowd wants slightly different things than all the previous ones. More people know what henna is, and we’re getting far more requests for traditional designs. Fewer people than usual are acting stupid with me, and I’m having a good day, despite impending car problems. I push henna, and soon the cool part of my
day arrives. Let me tell you about Rhiane. She’s Canadian, and she’s a
tour promoter of some sort. Pushing thirty, she dresses like a teenager,
and has many, many
After all this, I come to the conclusion that there’s no way in hell that my car is making it home. I call my husband, who has towing equipment. After some snapping and bribing, he agrees to come down here and tow my car. Mom, Shanon, and Zimra go to eat dinner in shifts. I’m just not hungry. Mom brings me back some ice cream, but I don’t want it. As the day progresses toward evening, we keep a steady flow of customers– this is actually really strange. However, we’re not complaining. We have electricity, and we keep going until the show ends. I am so tired. I just want to go home and never get out of bed ever again. Would I do this again? With a different demographic, yes. Oh, my god. I am so tired. I have aged about thirty years this summer, and my cohorts have noticed.
Diary: Shanon Lavendar Cleveland It's Thursday
so it must be Cleveland. We are told to show up at 7:30
Booth set up is less than a 1/2 hour so we
have a leisurely breakfast
Soon the first bands of the day get going and
Catherine realizes why I
This is a mostly fun crowd and a lot of them
know what henna is. This
Gwen is great as booth bitch/idiot sieve and
gets rid of the worst of
IF ONE MORE PERSON ASKS ME- DO YOU HAVE TO
KNOW HOW TO DRAW TO DO THIS?
It lets up slightly so I go to lunch around
1:30pm. This is an
Earlier in the day we had power but as dusk
approaches we realize that
It is a short drive back to Catherine's and
we are tired, euphoric and
I spend that night and most of the next day
recovering on my trusty
Pittsburgh The Microtel is quite nice. The rest
scares the hell out of me if I
LIGHTING THE GRASS IS ARSON. ARSON IS
A FELONY PUNISHABLE WITH HIGH
This is one of the first things I noticed at
6:30am. I'm not up to
A few hours later we aren't laughing anymore.
People were drunk as
Most of the way through the afternoon and
I'm afraid I'm not going to
As we waited for the crowd to thin I checked
out one of the other
We go back to the hotel and count money.
I have made just enough to
TWO DATES IN DETROIT ROCK CITY The drive up there was interesting. Mapquest
sucks. Our route was
We eventually make our way to our Bed &
Breakfast. It is as charming
Our original plan had been to split our booth
fee with a local artist
Oddly enough this local artist shows up in
the parking lot with us
In Detroit we are set up next to the body painters.
We checked out
We pack at dusk anything easily portable.
Security is very nice and
We go back to the Millpond and meet our hostess.
She is kind, curious
We wake to enjoy a leisurely breakfast cooked
to order for us by our
We arrive at the DTE Center at the leisurely
hour of 930am. It is a
Columbus Something is wrong with Gwyn's car. The
drive becomes much longer and
For this gig we have the assistance of Zimra.
She is good to work with
Catherine leaves catering before I do and says
she is going to sack out for
No room left in the ampitheatre but we are
able to watch parts of the
We have dicey power so we stay to the very
end. Rich kindly shows up
How to be a Booth Bitch
(this can be lots of fun, and it can also suck) 1. Smile. No matter how much you don't want to. You are the face of your product. 2. Know what you're selling and like it. I have a basic knowledge of henna itself, and enough artistic ability to stand in for a slinger if aboslutely necessary. 3. Fit in. I've found it's a good idea to look like one of your target audience. 4. Project. My voice is naturally loud as hell. This helps. You'll most likely be shouting answers over music. 5. Become very comfortable holding five or more conversations at once. 6. Own your space. If someone is behaving inappropriately in your booth, make them fully aware of it. Ask someone to leave politely the first time. If this doesn't work, ask rudely. If this doesn't work, know where security is. 7. Know and like your cohorts. Heat and financial stress can make tempers flare, and you don't need to be pushing anybody's buttons. It's probably not a good idea to do a show with people you don't know well. 8. Above all, get paid. Your job is easily
as hard as the artist's, and you should get about as much money asthey
do. Forty percent of their net profit is an appropriate cut.
HEAT 95F to 105F is not an unusual afternoon temperature a summer festival in the USA. If you're working on black asphalt, with no shade, the temperature may actually be 115F or more! If the weather is also humid, this is a very dangerous situation! Make sure you and your boothworkers have a pint of fresh cold water to drink every hour, and keep a cooler of ice with you. If you are dizzy, nauseous, disoriented, headachy, or irritable you may be suffering from heat exhaustion! Put a ziploc bag of ice on your head, throat, neck, bosom. Cool off! Heat stroke is dangerous! Watch each other for signs of heat exhaustion, and and send overheated co-workers off to rest and cool down. Stay in the shade, move slowly, and wet your clothing with water. Do NOT drink alcohol in extreme heat!
Pattern Placement Most people do not understand that henna is NOT a tattoo, and will behave differently on the skin. If they've never heard of henna, you have the opportunity to show them a wonderful new art form! Do your best for them. Hands and feet, though they take henna best, are inconvenient for festival goers, and are rarely requested except by henna enthusiasts. When people want henna on an area where henna stains poorly, lay down thick henna lines to maximize stain. When they ask for an upper bicep or shoulder,
let them know that lower down on the arm will give them a better stain,
especially if they've recently gotten sunburned.
On men, the furless region that curves from inner elbow to inner wrist takes stain very well, and is well-suited to knotwork, tribals, and dragons ! Young women are fond of lower back henna. The areas to either side of the spine will take henna better than the skin directly over the spine. Try to convince them to have the pattern on their tummy, that will take stain better! Secure their t-shirts up under their bras, and remind them to leave them up for about 3 hours until the henna has fallen off. Waivers: Waivers make good legal and business sense. Your clients should be informed of what is in your henna mix, and you should be certain that they are at an age of consent, and understand what they are purchasing. Gwyn tirelessly waivered every last person who got henna! She read each statement to each person aloud, made certain that they agreed, and collected their signatures, then signed as a witness! To get henna, each person had to agree and sign that: 1) I am sixteen (16) years of age or older. (Persons under 16 must provide the signature of a perent or guardian.) 2) I understand that my henna is a temporary stain that will fade within a month. Henna is not a tattoo, nor it it permanent. 3) I understand that TapDancing Lizard henna paste does not contain para-phenylenediamine (PPD). 4) Tap Dancing Lizard henna paste includes
henna (lawsonia inermis) lemon juice, and sugar, and may contain
the following:
I am not, to my knowledge, allergic to
any of the included ingredients.
I hold harmless TapDancing Lizard, Catherine
Cartwright-Jones, and associates for any adverse affects of this henna.
Parent or guardian (if under sixteen)
Witness
For more info on henna, visit www.mehandi.com We asked people questions to determine if they
were allergic to the essential oils by asking: "Are you allergic to Ben
Gay, Icy Hot, Tiger Balm, Mentholatum, perfumes, after shaves, Coast soap,
Irish Spring soap, or Pine-Sol cleaner". If they said they were OK
with that lot, we felt fairly coinfident that the EO's wouldn't give them
any problem.
|
Diary: Catherine Cartwright Jones
"Rooms to Let" in the Village of the Damned: The vendor organizer for "OzzFest" emails me; their henna artist's van collapsed on the first day of the tour, and they need to fill in the dates. The tour magazine lists henna artists as being part of the "Village of the Damned", the group of vendors and amusements that accompany the tour, so the spot's got to be filled. I email back for details. The booth fee is steep, but do-able with a team. I consult the I Ching. The cast is favorable, with modest gains. I email back and say I'll take the five gigs close to home if I can secure help. I've never organized and headed a team of artists. I'm curious about the dynamic of working large crowds with henna, where several artists have to work together. In other countries groups of henna artists are hired to work their way quickly through hundreds of people, for instance for Diwali and Holi festivals, and for weddings. I want to try working with others, as thus far, I've mostly worked solo. Also, since every major rock festival tour, every major amusement park, every big renaissance festival carries a henna concession now, I want to have a taste, just to see if I like the flavor. I check out the OzzFest website. Looks like something other than else... Flatmates in the Village of the Damned: I put out a call for workers.
I send in the contract. I get the insurance. I organize the gear and materials. I'll be camping with Shanon, Gwyn, and Zimra for the 2 weeks prior to Ozz, so we'll have a chance to learn how to work with each other. We'll manage. Moving into the Village of the Damned: Cleveland: Shanon's flown in from Seattle to sling henna, Gwyn's in for the tour, and her husband comes in with us to help schlep, and to see what henna's about. Other potential workers have found other places to be..... so there's 4 of us. A booth bitch, two slingers, and a spare. We drive into the Blossom Amphitheater parking lot at 7:30 am as was specified by the organizer, only to find out that 6:30 am was the vendor's meet-up time. A little clusterfuq is required to start off a gig. I look for someone with the attributes of authority: an insignia-printed polo shirt and a walkie-talkie. I try talking to a few such, but they don't seem to know anything. Shrugs. I go to the tattoo booth setting up and ask who I need to snag ... the guy with the wallpaper skin, pierced cheeks and spooled earlobes grunts, "Steve". I ask what Steve looks like. He says, "He's tall, on a golf cart, has a green t-shirt, has a ponytail and he's really ugly." That limits my search by about half the people on the premises. A few more tries and I find Steve, golf cart, ponytail, ugly and all. I introduce myself, and have to repeat myself several times until I realize he may be a tad deaf from working rock shows. I get myself to where he can see my mouth. Communication improves. After much flipping of paperwork, he says "Oh. You're "hennaes"." I don't care what I'm called, I just want to get set up. Steve takes me to our space, and gives us our Village of the Damned identification stickers. The sticker has a huge demon growling and extending its middle finger. We drive in our gear and set up the booth . Nice position! Under big trees, on grass ... we wander around and see what the other booths have: naughty t-shirts, pipes, amateur bondage gear, rude stickers, fun stuff. The smell of marijuana floats by on every ripple of breeze; the vendors are bracing for a day's work. We're squarely in front of the amphitheater, and between it and the second stage. They test the sound system, and we scramble for Shanon's cache of earplugs. Madonna's "Frozen" is amplified so loud that it loosens my back fillings. Auspicious, I think, though in a deafening sort of way. Shanon's been a bouncer at heavy metal concerts so she's got all the best survival gear. With her orange 30 decibel earplugs crammed in my ears, the sound is merely painful, rather than eye- watering. My horoscope said to find a place of silence and solitude today .... the earplugs provide a micro-environment of stillness within sound level of an accelerating jet engine.. At 10 am, opening time, we're nicely settled. I do some tourbabes for free, an offering to the henna deities. I glance over my shoulder towards the entrance, and there's a WALL of headbangers advancing down the path like the barbarian horde, but in a slacker sort of way. The cast of Scoobie Doo came alive, cloned a thousand fold, and walked out of their spawning beds pissed. Gwyn mans the front table and the slinging begins! In 10 minutes there's a line of people waiting for henna ... and 2 girls are already on their stomachs on our mats with Celtic patterns hennaed hip to hip below the waist. Shanon and I scramble to sling henna as fast as we can. By noon, I've hennaed three dozen girls hip to hip and they're arrayed on our mats, drying their henna, a butt gallery which draws more and more clients! They also draw a herd of guys staring at girls with jeans pulled down to buttcrack level so I can henna them to the point of no return. . They stare at me kneeling over the girls doing what seems to them to be some sort of tattooing, bewildered that there's no buzzing or blood wiping. About every 15 minutes one gets pushy and tries to impress me that body art without pain and blood is deeply inferior. I growl, "It's not fake anything, it's REAL HENNA." We keep slinging, raising up to shout "next!" every few minutes. Gwyn's losing her voice trying to shout over the bands on second stage to tell people what henna is, what it is not, handing the price lists, pattern books, and sorting out which slinger's line to go stand in. Gwyn defines her job as "idiot sieve" and is doing it wonderfully! By mid afternoon, we're hungry, and start sending one person at a time out for restroom and lunch breaks ... the lines for henna get longer. My thighs are shredded from kneeling over girls doing the hip to hip pieces. I get squared over them to line up patterns straight with their backbones, but I can't sit on them for hurting their knees. So, I kneel over them in a position like riding a horse without actually sitting on the saddle .. and some of these Cleveland girls are right little warhorses. I henna their biceps while they lie on their sides so they hold still, and I can sling with gravity pulling the henna strand down and even. I've cut the carrot bag tip wider open than usual, to hyperdrive the henna. The paste is mixed stringy and fluid, to sling fast, draping the lines. I usually work with the cone tip just barely skimming the skin, but to speedsling, the top farther is above and I balance the speed of my hand with the viscosity and flow of the henna, so the lines pull out long and smooth. Control is a BITCH. Focus, focus, focus! Shanon works in the booth in chairs, slinging butterflies fast and furious. The mildly theatrical array of bodies laid out on mats brings in more onlookers, and I speed-sling fast and large. Celtic after Celtic after Celtic! I sketch the knot in Stabilo pencil first, then henna fast. Every 5 minutes, I shout "next", every 5 minutes, another $20. I use every bit of concentration to keep doing interlacing knot work as fast as I can until 4 pm. I've got to take a break or drop face down in someone's butt dragon. The line of people slows down by 6 pm. The first stage bands are on, with Linkin Park, Drowning Pool, Papa Roach, Slipknot. Memorable lyrics blast through the air, "Hey, Motherfucker! Yeah, yeah, yeah.....yeah, yeah!" Other songs are screamed/growled into the microphone, which Shanon says reminds her uncomfortably of someone vomiting into a loudspeaker. The crowd, that was cheerful and slack in the morning is getting drunk. They crowd towards the ampitheater to salute the bands with two handed devil's horn gestures; chunks of sod fly through the air in the mosh pit. Gwyn takes a work break and runs to the mosh pit and comes back with dirt in her hair. The morning clients were sober or slightly stoned, and generally cheerful. The police made a high visibility walk-through, and the whiffs of pot smoke vanished; now the beer lines are long. Drunk clients turn up ... a woman flops down for a henna, so drunk she's not able to hold her body still. I ask her to lay on her side to do a bicep henna, hoping that she'll doze off and stop wobbling. She's soaked with beer sweat, and the henna won't dry. She gets uncomfortable on one side and wants to roll over onto her wet henna. I dive to grab her and remind her to not smash her henna. She whines. I henna other clients. She whines more about the wet henna, and starts poking at it to show me that it's smearing all over. She staggers off while I keep hennaeing client after client, and I'm not going after her. Band after band exhorts the crowd to stand and deliver, they scream into the microphone. Fireworks and flame explode from the stage. I can just see the video display of Marilyn Manson's performance start ... with fireworks and a rotting American flag ... Clients trail off to nothing as it gets dark, and we're exhausted . We disassemble the booth, pack it to the cars, and go home. Shanon and I are so tired we're giggly-stupid; I get stuck in a tape loop of frenzied laughing several times flying through the darkness towards Stow. We crash, and get ready for the Pittsburgh show. On a Yahoo Ozzfest message board, Gwyn, fronting the henna booth, has been declared a "hottie" Pittsburgh The vendors meet up in the parking lot at 6:30 am. This is my first chance to see the lot of them ... looks like the low rent section of Babylon 5. There are two black vendors with carefully cultivated dreads who have vaguely Jamaican wares and pipes. The proprietress of the bondage booth is in a fuzzy blue bathrobe. There are two dozen of us, and Steve takes each of our booth fees in cash and counts it out, then directs us to our vendor spaces. Because we're the last team to join the show, we get dead last pick. Dead last is by the beer. It's going to be over 90F, and we're on blacktop. Beer here is dispensed in FISH BOWLS; full to the brim fish bowls. We set up, and admire Gwyn's husband's new collection of naughty Kanji. Insane, Sexy, Foxy, and Evil are requested time after time. The crowd comes through the gate at 10 am. I look for 3 "prettygurlz" to henna for free to start the day .... no gurlz! Just guyz, and they walk in drunk and hostile. The first potential client has 3 green shreds of teeth, is swaying drunkenly, and reeks of alcohol. At 10 in the morning? Rich says that some couples swap off morning and evening shifts being blind drunk so one is left sober to drive each way. The man drops a lit cigarette on the ground, and I accidentally step barefoot on it and howl ... he apologizes, and I say he can make it up to me by buying a $30 henna. I henna his and his betrothed's name on his arm while he tells me over and over about his Irish grandmother. The next passerby is drunk, red-faced and muscular, and has a bloody lip fresh from a fistfight. He says "You doin' them fake tattoos here? Mine are REAL!" He flexes. I snap, "This isn't fake anything. It's real henna. Fuck off." He does a double take at middle aged me telling him to fuck off, and prepares to pick another fistfight, but looks bewildered. I tell him to fuck off again, and he does. Perhaps he thinks I'm crazy enough to be dangerous. There are few women in this crowd, and they look intimidated and sulky. Where's someone to do free for the henna fairy? Groups of Marilyn Manson fans wander through, with a fastidiously cultivated necrophiliac dress code. They look over heated in black vinyl and velvet, but endeavor to maintain a dour, disdainful, deranged look. The headbangers wear just busted jeans, tattoos and a mullet. When acquaintances meet, they shout "Whoooooaaaaaauuaaaaggghhhhh" and throw a few punches and body slams at each other. There's a steady trickle of customers, but most of them are running short of money fast from buying $10 fish bowls full of beer. It's difficult to keep beer off our pattern books. As afternoon crawls on, more hot, drowsy, dizzy drunks insist on flopping in our chairs and on our mats, and pick fights when we ask them to leave. I'm astonished that I'm still making money, but Shanon and Rich are having trouble keeping busy. Most of the requests are for Celtic knotwork, especially the spiky heart one, and dragons, and I handle those. The rest are for rude Kanji, which Rich and Shanon do. We try to amuse ourselves by mullet punching, but it's hopeless. Mullet points pile up like Polish words on a Scrabble board. Gwyn wanders off to see the other vendors. They're all miserable. About 3 pm, a young woman is looking at the pattern book with her friends, and I ask if she'd like hennaed. She says she hennaes, herself. I ask her if she'd like to buy one of my pattern books, and she looks astonished, "YOU'RE Catherine Cartwright Jones?" "Yes." "Oh My God!" She gets very excited. She'd been telling her friends that it was so shabby that someone had gone through Mehandi, Henna Page, and Reverend Bunny and had collected all the patterns and was passing them off as their own. She had been on the Henna Forum for some time, and was astonished to meet me. I sit and chat with her about henna, terpines, and I henna her arm from knuckles to elbow. She's giggly, happy and a bit starstruck, and it makes me feel much better. By evening, when the major bands come on, very few of the crowd aren't drunk, and work is sparse. Explosions go off in the amphitheater to start Marilyn Manson's show. We go to plug in our lights and find that the power drop has been stolen. Perhaps security removed it when they found inebriates sitting slumped on the 1000 watt converter/outlet box. We bag it and pack out. We've made money, but not near enough to compensate dealing with 22,000 drunken mullets. I used to like beer. The smell gags me now. The Pittsburgh media reports over 150 arrests just in the parking lot at Ozzfest. Detroit I scrounge the internet for a room in Detroit, and find a bed and breakfast. That will be a blessed comfort after Pittsburgh! I download directions, which feature a 1 ½ hour excursion in the wrong direction through a nasty neighborhood in downtown Detroit. So, I drive us into a m*th*rf*ck*r tornado-laden multilevel midwestern electric torrential thunderstorm, (I can't see the pavement in the downpour, let alone the lane markers) then get lost in crackhead central. I pretend to be calm. Arriving at the B&B past midnight, we dive into bed; we have to be up at 5:45 am again. We go into the amphitheater parking lot for the 6:30 call. Other vendors slept in their vans. It's going to be hot. I get last pick again, but it's not anywhere near beer, thank God. We're next to the airbrush artist, near the toilets, at the entrance. We discuss how to handle being the first thing Ozzfesters see upon entering. Gwyn takes the initiative. USA decency law reads that a post adolescent female breast must have an opaque covering, specifically on the nipples and aureolae, when in public places. The interpretation here is that spray painted boobies are street legal. The airbrush artist is a kewhl dude, and worked Woodstock II, Mardi Gras and other Bacchanalia. His specialty is to airbrush marijuana leaves on nipples, with faux psychadelic ripples between midriff and shoulders. He does a great $20 boob job. Gwyn knows other strippers who had him poof their boobies at Woodstock, has a chat with him, and goes for it as soon as his electrics are hooked up. The temperature is over 95F on the blacktop by 11 am, and she wants the comfort of toplessness. She gets vampire bats on her nipples with blue flames surrounding. She looks terrific. Gwyn's bat boobs DO attract the attention of every MSU frat boy coming through the gates .... and business starts up fast! I begin riding the rocker gurlz, though heat is oppressive, and the audience is less than 10% female. It's a tough group to work ... the guyz want TRIBALZ, and they want TATTOOZ. They want needles and blood and nothing less. I snap, "This isn't fake anything. It's REAL HENNA." Some start working on their blood alcohol level with a fierce determination and practiced professionalism, getting it up over 3% as quickly as possible. Through the early afternoon, the clients are cheerful, suburban college students. Most guyz admire the bats, and grin politely, long enough for Gwyn to hustle them some henna. There's a profitable synchrony between our booth and the airbrush poofer. We draw a good crowd and keep busy. I line up rocker gurlz to dry on our mats, and people admire the hip-to-hip knotwork. Every so often some poor Michigan boy who's never seen boobs before snaps a pic of Gwyn. The Vampire Bat lunges into the crowd and comfiscates his camera, fangs bared! One, two, three, we have FIVE disposable cameras! Ask permission, dudes, this isn't a zoo! The sun beats down harder, people pound back more beer. By 4 pm the mood swings from playfulness into inebriated aggression. Two sloppy drunk college girls tease the crowd into paying them to take off their shirts for airbrushing. They draw a nasty, stupid crowd. The money comes to a halt as frat guyz press forward to stare, gape, and make gorilla sounds. Security comes in, and sends everyone on their way. Security agrees boobs are fine, but assholes suck. Business stays slow, with the sober few tricking through. Gwyn and Shanon are trashed from the heat, I worry about them. One fellow drags in and flops into a chair. He's wasted on drugs, alcohol, or heatstroke, or all of the above, and I let him stay while he leafs through a pattern book. His speech is slurred, and he can't hold his head up. Another girl is slumped over on a bench across the way. I go to check on her to see if she needs a paramedic. She's drunk, and the boyfriend who drove her in just dumped her, so she has no way home. She's not in peril, just pissed, ditched and miserable. Men stagger up to the booth and ask if we'll henna their penises. We say "Sorry, we left the magnifying glass and tweezers at home". Or, to break the tedium, "Whip it on out!". They elbow their buddies, snort and stagger off. Bevis and Butthead grew pubes and are standing in front of us. Butthead propositions me, bragging he can fuck me two days nonstop. The voice of impotence bellows, boasts, and belches beer. Any time a sober appreciative person shows up, we greet them with absolute joy and do the best henna possible. Some clients come back by to show us fantastic stains from their morning hennaes. Those who got hennaed are thrilled with the results! We henna a charming gothgurl with tattoos copied from Edward Gorey's"Gashleycrumb Tinies". CJ from Drowning Pool comes along and considers getting hennaed. The sentient people are great, and we enjoy hennaeing them. A tour management lady comes by and asks how we're doing, and we give her free henna. She's delighted! We do free henna on any tour person, we know they deserve a break! She asks if we'd do another rockfest. She has connections. Hell, yes!, as long as its a chickfest and not booze'n'ballz. If you can speed-sling, have marathon endurance, have nerves of steel, and killer business instincts, this stuff is FANTASTIC. If you're anything less than a henna Pit Bull alpha bitch, find another gig! Every so often I go down to the festival office to sort and count down the cash accumulating in my purse. Twenties get crammed in fast and need sorted! No way to do that in the crowd without risking a mugging. I usually pull out all the money into my skirt in a locked ladies room stall, but the lines are too long (something to do with the beer). There's a Brit in the office, part of OzzFest crew, chattering about having gotten arrested in Arizona (though his lawyer bailed him out). Perhaps the story will sound more amusing in Shepard's Bush. I joke with him. Next morning, at the B&B breakfast, we meet young Ozzfesters. We talk about Ozz, and I mention that the beer is a bother. The boy across the table from me immediately stops eating breakfast, so his stomach will be good and empty to get the full alcahol impact of the first beer at 10 am. I tell him that if he comes to my booth drunk, I will personally wring his neck. He goes back to his pancakes and scrambled eggs. The second day of Detroit is a repeat of the first. Hot, and though pleasant enough in the morning, the afternoons deteriorate into boozy, ballsy, uselessness. A few people get hauled from the mosh pits to the paramedic room, and out again with neck collars. We bail at dusk and go home. I've made money, but I'll not do this gig again. I want to henna at a chick concert! My minimum price for guyz asking me to henna their alleged 13" dicks (yeh, riiight!) is going to start at $1000 a minute as of now. There are 2 days break before Columbus. We are comatose. Columbus: Something is NOT right with Gwyn's clutch, and it gets worse as we drive, turning a 2 hour drive into 4. We pull into the parking lot at 6:30 again, pleased that it's the last day out. Zimra is there to work with us. We're so exhausted we're thrilled to have a spare pair of hands. I'm near euphoric that this is the last day. I've made the all money I need, so I can slack off. Zimra pitches in fast and helps us set up. We're near the beer again, but we're also near big flower beds. The tour management lady comes by again for more henna and offers to do us favors, like getting us passes for good dinner with the bands, and a "all access pass" for Gwyn so she can meet band members. Kewhl! We start the morning as usual ... I grab the first three "pretty gurlz" and henna them for free, Celtic knots to please the crowd , free to propitiate the henna fairy. Once we have a few babes on display drying their henna, business starts rolling in. Zimra's steady and persistent, doing lovely delicate patterns, but Shanon, Gwyn and I have totally lost our drive and are slacking. We're stupid tired. I'm grateful for a brief rain shower giving me the opportunity to fold up the books and wander off to look at the bands and other vendors. The rain makes the grassy area above the amphitheater muddy, and headbangers summersault down the incline and wallow in the muck. They're an agreeable college crowd. Our end of the arena is sparse. The other side is so packed people can barely move. I do more henna, relax, and let Shanon and Zimra do the bulk of the work and collect the bulk of the money. The clients are steady, but there's seldom more than 1 or 2 waiting in line. It's drizzly, so we get out the blow dryers to crusty-up the henna. We are on the same electric drop as a funnel cake vendor, and every time their deep-fat fryer thermostat kicks in, it blows out the dryers. First time we've gotten our promised electricity, and it STILL doesn't work right! I sling a few patterns Shanon and Zimra can't do, and booth bitch so Gwyn can go backstage to get her CD signed by all the band members. She comes back giggly and pleased. I'm glad to see Shanon's got steady slinging to do. She's had a helluva time breaking even. Speed is the only way to make money here ... speed I've got. I go to the lunch place, and pass the police/med tent. A drunk headbanger, knuckles and tshirt splashed with blood, is handcuffed to a wheelchair. He's whining to 3 girls to "not tell" the police anything. The girls look ashamed, annoyed, cooperative, and are talking to an officer with a notebook! As the afternoon passes, 3 more guyz are escorted out by security, 2 in handcuffs. Gwyn tells me her rear tire has split. I go to check, and there's no way it can be driven home. We ask Zimra if she can help schlep us back to Akron, and call Gwyn's husband to tow her car. Ugh. There's a break in traffic around 5, I go for dinner. Shanon and I have passes to the catered meal for band crews and members, that requires getting through 3 layers of security. Past the last security level is prime rib, ice cream, salads, braised veggies, fruit, cakes, and scruffy young men dressed in black. Their long hair, tattooes, piercings, conspicuous leather, massive dangerous jewelery and elegantly vulgar demeanor identify them as boys in the band. They look tired. Marilyn Manson, whom I'd met years before, is identifiable by his height, is trying to balance all his dinner on a paper plate, and find a place to sit. I recognize most of the band members from the program magazines that have been left around, but they're not a generation of musicians I know much about. I've gotten fond of the music over the last week, in the way you get fond of jets taking off if you live under an airport. I finish dinner and get ice cream. I'm so grateful that it's almost over, and that I've had a nice dinner. The Englishman from the office recognizes me and jokes over the vanilla. I'm tired and tell Shanon I'm going to take a rest. I step outside, and find a place in a secure area that I won't fear being mugged for my money. I sit on the concrete and lean up against a rough cement block wall ... secure myself ... and fall sound asleep sitting up. I'm vaguely aware of security coming by me to check if I'm alive from time to time. I wake up, ready to roll, half an hour later. I get back and Zimra says someone came by with what appeared be fresh PPD black henna! She says the person got it at the Casbah Camel cigarette smoking area. I charge off with my teeth clenched to find out why there is another henna artist, and why they're being allowed to use PPD. I find her and she's got 3 drunk clients, and is doing a heavy black henna tribal on a guyz arm. I ask her what's in her mix. She doesn't know. I rant her on the FDA regulations on PPD, and the health hazards. She doesn't know and she doesn't want to know. I start quoting chapter and verse on blistering, lesions, scarring, long term health damage, and her client starts looking uneasy. I bear down. She gets very defensive, and tells me she's just hired to do a job, and she's never heard anything about black henna being any sort of a problem. Bullshit. I tell her that I'm contacting festival management, and that for her own health she needs to find out what's in her mix and what it can do to her and her clients. The two drunks hassle me all the way, slurring, looking pukey. The client she's hennaeing is very nervous by the time she's done, and leaves FAST. She's about to cry. Tough shit. When I get back, the main bands are starting up. I want to see Marilyn Manson perform, but the stadium area is standing room only. There are TV monitors by us. I watch, impressed with the local boy made good! He's never gotten a corset to fit right, but the rest of his costume is excellent. Clients continue to trickle in. The concert rocks, fireworks go off, smoke billows, amps roar. It's over. At 11, Gwyn's husband arrives to bail out her car, and we pack up. The band busses load up and flee Columbus for Connecticut. Midnight, at the security kiosk, Marilyn Manson groupies beg to be let in to party with their idols, but too late. The party's long gone. We're done but for the drive home. Thank God. Catherine Cartwright Jones's
Just apply this henna mix to a client, let it dry, and send them on their way! When the henna falls off in one to three hours, it will leave a bright orange stain, even on hard to stain areas, that will darken to a rich brown in 48 hours! In the Headbanger Henna Mix, I use only henna, lemon juice and Cajeput essential oil. It has a scent like Ben Gay or Icy Hot. To a mosher, this smells sexy. Mix per henna artist per full day's work: 100g of henna powder. Mix enough lemon juice into the henna powder to make a paste as thick as yoghurt, let it set 12 hours at 75F. Mix 5 ml, or 1/6 oz of Cajeput essential oil into each 4 oz of mixed henna paste. Stir out all the lumps and put that in a carrot bag to either use directly or to fill a jac bottle. Let that sit for 12 hours before using the paste. If there is paste left over from one day, it can be used up to 48 hours later. Clean the skin first with isopropyl alcohol to remove any skin oil. Apply the henna. Let it dry. Advise the person to try to keep the henna in place for an hour, or a few hours if possible, and then let it fall off. The only aftercare is to mosh, dance, sweat, have fun! This mix will leave a brilliant orange stain on the skin after as little as1/2 hour, which will darken to chocolate over 48 hours. I used henna from Castle Art: both Jamila and regular. PAPERWORK Many festival organizers require their vendors to have Liability Insurance! A USA, Canada or UK henna artist can get insurance from: Ye Olde World Living History Foundation
Get your insurance, then ask your insurance provider to fax a waiver
to any festival organizer for the specific festival dates and locations.
Tnat's all there is to it!
CONTRACTS Large festivals require vendors to sign contracts before they will be admitted and allowed to set up! NO ONE'S permitted to cruise into a major venue and sell off a blanket! Have copies of your contract and pertinent correspondence with you when you arrive to set up, as well as a copy of your insurance, the phone number person who issued you the contract .... and a cellphone just in case. Someone is going to want proof that you are supposed to be there! The Money Thing
Booth fee for Ozzfest was $400 each day, to be paid in cash on arrival. I paid the booth every morning, and purchased the insurance. All henna slingers split the booth fee and insurance evenly. Slingers paid me back their share at the end of each day. We all worked out of the same pattern book, at approximately the same prices per piece. The final price was negotiated between the artist and client, and each artist collected the money. At the end of each day, each slinger paid the "boothbitch" a share of their profit, well earned for hustling people in, and being idiot sieve. We split hotel accomodations evenly. The person who made the most money treated the others to dinner. Set your pricing so that you can make your booth fee in one hour of
solid work, and still give clients good worth for money. If you can't
henna fast enough to do that, profit may be untenable, and you should look
for a less expensive venue.
Booth and Mats I've used "pole and connector " booths for
nearly 15 years. They're cheap, versatile, pack down small, and damn
near indestructible. We set up in 1/2 hour max, and tear down faster.
Keep your booth simple. It MUST fit in
a small, cheap rental car, because at some point your vehicle will break
down. After 18 hours working, you won't want to pack ANYTHING not
absolutely necessary. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Polypropylene
plastic mats are a godsend for henna artists! They look nice, you can
lay clients out on them, they're lightweight, they're cheap, they last
for years, they roll up small, and you can hose beer and crud off of them
between shows. You can find them at Asian markets, and dog shows.
Trust and Teamwork Gwyn, Shanon, Zimra, Rich and I have known each other for 3 years. We camped together, and worked together at Sirius Rising and Starwood. We had one of those classic "teambuilding experiences" when a small tornado went through the campground in July. We learned to be dirty together, tired together, happy together, work our asses off together, to care about each other, to rely on each other, to trust each other, and to NOT push each other's buttons! Trust and teamwork got us through Ozzfest. Each of us were absolutely reliable, and each felt she could rely on the others. Egotism, selfishness, jealousy and cheating were unthinkable! We helped each other, we took care of each other. Under the pressure of 18 hour work days, cooperation and reliability were crucial, not only to success, but to survival! We did it. We were a helluva team!
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