Fray Day Rocked
Just a thought from 15 November 2004 about Fray.

Photo by Charlene Wright.

I could not be prouder of how well Fray Day 8 San Francisco went. The stories were fantastic, whether they were from a featured performer or open mic participant, the venue was beautiful, the sound was great (we may even be able to make a CD out of the recording this year), the music was incredible (Goh was perfect and Kid Beyond had everyone on their feet), and I got to tell a little two-part story of my own. We started at 8pm sharp and ended promptly at 11pm.

One of the problems anyone who runs an open mic has is getting people to stick to the time limits. In Fray, that means 10 minutes for the featured performers and 5 for the open mic. In past years, I wasn't always able to cut someone off when I should have. I mean, I got into this because I like hearing people's stories. So stopping them in the middle is hard.

But this year we introduced the Boa of Shame - a red boa that I threatened to put on the shoulders of anyone who went over their time limit. And I never got to use it! The mere threat of the Boa of Shame was enough to keep everyone in their time limit.

I especially wanna thank Dinah Sanders, who was really my rock this year. She did just as much to make Fray Day 8 SF a reality as I did. And I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks also to Jay Allen, Jish Mukerji, Min Jung Kim, and Shannon Hale, who all showed up early and helped get what needed to get done, done. Having a team of volunteers like this makes an event like this work, and work well.

See y'all next year ... or sooner.