I found out through the grapevine that San Francisco would be hosting its first La Tomatina event minus the ham. For more information on La Tomatina look here. Anyways, the event was a blast and a little strange seeing that there were more photographers than there were participants. Here are some photos as usual on flickr and some others here.
My friend Mike and I, using an idea of Jeff’s, that was evolved, and enacted, by a great group of people, decided to stage a mime and clown turf war in the streets. The event involved mimes getting pied, West Side Story dance moves, and a tricycle. The video explains it better than I ever could, so without further ado a give you a great video put together by Evan. Also here are some great photos of the after party on flickr.
I recently tagged along with some friends to visit a hay bail maze. It was a great experience with highlights including actually getting lost in the maze, a petting zoo, watching some people reenact sword fights in medieval armor, jumping into bus windows, a minotaur at the center of the labyrinth, and a pleasant picnic afterwards on the beach. The following picture is of Jade and Sandwich having successfully defeated the minotaur in hand-to-hand combat.
Some friends of friends put on a great event each year at Folsom Street Fair. The event involves everyone dressing up in very prim and proper victorian era clothing and having a tea party in the middle of the crazy fetish sex romp that is the Folsom Street Fair. It adds a very nice contrast as many people are in character around people who are also in character, but the kind that involves a gimp mask and being whipped. Here is a picture of the organizers from an earlier year and a set from the year I participated.
Having invested quite a lot of time in the CTFL over the last 2 years I finally felt ready to move onto other projects and let anyone else who was interested pick up the torch. This lead to the last Cardboard Tube Fighting League event I will host taking place at Corona Heights Park in San Francisco. The event went off wonderfully and the photos can be seen here on flickr.
Recently my 10 year high school reunion came up and surprised me. After I recovered from the shock, I started to put together a costume with a close friend of mine who was also going. We dressed in the costumes shown below and talked the whole evening about our exploits and how immensely successful we had become. It was all in good fun and well received by our former classmates.
So I have some friends at a game company called Three Rings who were invaded by pirates from a company called Instructables. See this video for explanation. In retaliation the Three Rings crowd organized a zombie invasion of Instructables. I helped by filming the event for prosperity. Someone else edited the footage and here is how it all went down.
This year I was lucky enough to take part in the Zombie Flash mob that sometimes finds its way around San Francisco. For those of you unfamiliar with a zombie flash mob, check out their website here. I had planned ahead of time and bought a used chainsaw. I then modified it so that the chain/bar was removed and in its place was foam. The chainsaw still worked, but it was completely safe. At the event I went for a Bruce Campbell look, and planned to pretend to saw some zombies in half before I was turned into a zombie myself. Sadly I proved a common horror movie cliche, which is, if a mob of zombies is barreling down on you your chainsaw will not start. Oh well, here are some photos on Flickr.
This was the largest CTFL event I have ever hosted. There were roughly 200-250 people at the event and the costumes were magnificent. The event took place at Dolores Park and was a children’s tournament followed by a large scale battle with over 100 participants. Here is a link to the CTFL photos on Flickr. Also the below is a video of my cardboards warriors charging into battle.
In preparation for the largest, and most insane Cardboard Tube Fighting League event yet, I arranged an armor building workshop at a local cafe. I was working on cardboard bagpipes while other peoples projects ranged from Optimus Prime, to a toilet paper roll.