Introducing the PFG
// July 20th, 2007 // Blog, Kris's Soapbox
Originally written for my CBC Performer Blog:
Outside Kafka And Son, shortly before noon today, I met the man who I consider (so far) to be the most hardcore Winnipeg Fringer in existence. I approached him eagerly, because he was the kind of audience member who had already sprung for the “20 Years to Life” t-shirt, and offered him a flyer for The Churchill Protocol. He beamed at me and exclaimed “You’re on my list and we’re coming to see you this afternoon!”
“That’s great!” I said, as I warily watched him reach around to his back.
“Check it out,” he added, whipping a very large ziploc-style bag from some invisible rear pouch. “I have a system!”
His colleague, who had remained silent to this point, couldn’t help but chime in. “Wait until you see this,” he chided as he finished munching on a hot dog from the vendor outside the MTC Warehouse. “We don’t call him the Psycho Fringe Guy for nothing.”
In the plastic bag, Psycho Fringe Guy (“Um, he prefers ‘PFG’,” his friend helpfully added, after a stern glare from PFG) had stashed his Official Fringe Guide (never shall it be bent or creased) and a print-out of his itinerary. He pointed out that he had only put print-outs of the next couple of days’ worth of shows into the bag, since things may change at a moment’s notice. He showed me his exhaustive list of show selections. Each of them was annotated with a listing of the time the tickets went on sale, the performance start time, and the finish time. The list was optimized to minimize travel time between venues, while maximizing the number of performances that could be seen. “I saw 60 shows last year,” he said. “I think I can do better.” As I picked my jaw up off the ground, he added, “and all of this is on the web, too, so my friends can see where I am and what I’m doing and can join me if they want. We have several web sites, and they’re all linked together.”
I was flabbergasted. Really, how much more hard-core can a Fringer be? How many mortgages do you have to have on your home in order to be able to afford all those tickets? I thought about this, and then suggested that the next logical step in his evolution is an ankle bracelet with a GPS transmitter that his friends could use to track him in real time on the web. Imagine the fun he could have if his exact location could be found on the Internet at all times! If word were to get out that PFG was going to see more than 60 shows, artists would be all over him. They’d be playing “Hunt The Psycho”: using the CBC Web Cell as a base, chasing him down to hand him flyers for shows that he might want to add to his ever-growing list. It could be fun for everyone!
“That’s pushing it a little bit,” he squirmed after I excitedly offered my suggestion, “and I don’t think I like the title of the game. But I have to admit that the idea has some merit.”
If you think you’re more hard-core than PFG, track me down and prove it to me. I think Mr. PFG is a pretty tough act to follow, but I have been consistently amazed at the passion that people apply to their Fringe-going experiences. Here’s to you, PFG, and everyone like you — you rock my world!
