I'm sure some of you already heard that Kenny passed away recently.

It's left me quite disturbed and melancholy. I didn't really know Kenny; he was a hard man to truly "know." But I had many encounters with him. He was such an integral part of my memories of Blackpoint Faire, and his passing feels to me as if a happy watercolor of my past has just been smeared into a wet, brown puddle.

One year at Faire, I took a required advanced improv workshop from him. It was, from an acting standpoint, doubtless the most useless workshop I ever experienced. Kenny was not a natural teacher, and his rambling, disconnected manner of speaking often left people scratching their heads. He was very shy with such direct communication, barely made eye contact, and often mumbled. Whatever lessons he wished to impart were lost on us, his would-be students.

But this experience did give me a tiny peek into the window of his true personality, so rarely seen in performance. He was clearly a very kind, warm-hearted, gentle guy, with never a bad thing to say about anybody, and his shyness made him smile constantly, as if he was somewhat embarrassed, though greatly pleased, by our attention.

His true improv lessons were gotten only by watching Kenny in action on the dusty streets of Faire. Kenny channeled true dada, a mixture of nonsense, zen foolishness, and macabre humor. He was a creature of the dirt, like an archetypal Hopi mudhead clown, and was typically found cross-legged on the ground, his rumble-pot churning out a flatulent counterpoint to his gleefully un-sane chanting.

Like many, I took him for granted. Kenny, so much larger-than-life, felt at times more like a fixture than a person, as dependably present as the black oak around us (which we also, mistakenly, took for granted -- but that's another story).

He died, sadly, just like his peasant persona lived -- as a pauper.

I'll miss you, Kenny.

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Details of Kenny's life and passing, as well as his upcoming memorial, can be found here:

tubertalis.blogspot.com/2008/0...ll.html