PROGRAM GUIDE COMFEST.COM COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2014 3 Welcome to ComFest 2014 WHAT’S INSIDE? Welcome to ComFest! You are now part of four decades of Columbus' biggest Do It Yourself Welcome ........................................................ 3,4 project. From its roots in 1972 as a cultural-political street party attended by a Festival Rules .................................................... 5 few hundred anarchists, hippies, dopers, alternative entrepreneurs, hangers-out Spirit and Purpose ...................................7, 24-27 and hangers-on, and curious students, ComFest has evolved into a three-day Who We Are ...................................................... 8 showcase of this year's theme, “Harmony and Humanity.” ComFest Principles/Meeting Schedule ............... 9 ComFest is many things to many people: a place to re-unite with old friends, hang out and listen to a smorgasbord of music, people-watch, drink Honored Community Activist .............................11 beer, browse booths overflowing with unique crafts, and/or participate in family This Year's Theme: Vote ....................................13 & children's activities or workshops on a range of political & cultural topics. Honored Community Organization ...................15 But it's more than that. ComFest is a vehicle for transforming a good time into Information Station/Field Guide .......................16 better times. Clean-up & Recycling ........................................17 A percentage of gross sales by vendors and profits from beer & wine sales Volunteer Thank Yous ................................18 - 23 offset the costs of producing the festival. Aside from the legal requirements of Workshop Schedule ......................................... 24 the festival's permits from the city, this is a major reason we enforce a no-BYOB Special Speakers ............................................ 25 policy; the festival is possible because you support it through your purchases of food, beer, wine, and Street Fair crafts and goods. Any funds beyond those Workshop Highlights.................................. 26, 27 needed to plan and produce the festival are recycled into the community through Honored Artist ................................................ 29 grants to innovative programs that meet special needs or offer creative avenues Grants ............................................................. 30 for individual and community improvement. Tonkey de la Peña/Wristbands/Poets .............. 31 In the past 13 years, your participation in ComFest—whether as a Fun Map ..................................................... 32-33 working volunteer or an attendee—has generated more than $300,000 in Stage Schedules.....................34-35, 38-39, 42-43 grants and direct assistance to community organizations, shelters for the Wine ............................................................... 34 homeless, and local food pantries, as well as projects to upgrade and maintain Goodale Park. And volunteers make it all happen—people who believe that 3 Word Descriptions ............................. 36, 40, 44 as citizens we share a commonwealth, a political community created for the Solar ............................................................... 38 common good. People who believe in the importance of “us.” People who Comedy ........................................................... 39 believe in Humanity. Beer ................................................................ 42 KiDSART/Kid Friendly Performances ................ 47 Participation—that's what's ComFest Booth/Logo Contest ........................... 48 gonna save the human race. Street Fair/Sculpture Garden ........................... 49 —Pete Seeger Honored Volunteers ....................................51, 53 The largest volunteer-run and administered festival in the U.S., ComFest Community Organizations/Food ...................... 55 provides a laboratory where people of good will and progressive values unite In Memoriam .............................................57, 59 to build a community that serves its people rather than corporations. Over Parking Tips & Information .............................. 59 the years, ComFest nurtured and sustained a different concept of community First Aid/Bike Corral .........................................61 identity, one rooted more in a philosophy than in a geographic area. That Leave Your Dog At Home ................................. 62 philosophy is enshrined in ComFest's Statement of Principles (p. 9). Heads Up Information ..................................... 64 ComFest is grounded in the idea that ordinary people can and should control their own lives. That meaningful cultural events can have a strong, comfest.com principled political underpinning and be successful without relying on corporate ComFest™ is a registered sponsorships or product endorsements. That large numbers of people with trademark of widely varying lifestyles and beliefs—humanity—can co-exist in harmony that Community Festival, Inc. emphasizes tolerance and peace. 4 COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2014 COMFEST.COM Nothing happens in isolation. The individual hero was a The banker man grows fat, myth developed to encourage self-reliance, but projects that Working man grows thin. support the common good have always required individuals It's all happened before, coming together voluntarily to produce something that no And it'll happen again. one could make alone. —Bruce Springsteen So even though a group of several dozen people “Jack of All Trades” organizes ComFest, it is only through the contributions (in 4-hour shifts) of thousands of volunteers that this Many of us are active in organizations that work for magic happens for three days on the last weekend of every justice. It's slow, difficult, long-term work to change attitudes June. They pick up and recycle trash, staff barricades and systems. Still, the seismic shift in attitudes about same- and oversee safety, provide medical care, haul musical sex marriage shows that careful, sustained effort by large instruments and amplifiers, distribute numbers of people can create a new programs, serve beer, among other jobs. reality. A similar effort by the Coalition of In doing so, they—WE—YOU— Immokalee Workers has produced slow make ComFest happen. Volunteers get but steady progress. The group's efforts a T-shirt, tokens for food and drink, have persuaded fast food and grocery and most importantly the satisfaction chains to join the Fair Food Program, of having contributed to the success which supports safe and fair conditions for of one the Midwest's most impressive women working in the fields of Florida. events. Stop by Information Station (see (Our hometown Wendy's continues to hold centerfold map) , ask what they need, and out against growing pressure from both become a participant. workers and shareholders.) These days, the failures of every Yet we also know that building branch of government breed an community is about more than work. It's understandable cynicism. The Congress also about celebration, a time to dance, does nothing, the current administration laugh, indulge, and share our past successes dithers and equivocates, and the Supreme and future goals for a better community. So Court makes decisions based on the we come together to create a place where partisan political views of its majority. we can experience the potential that lies in State governments disenfranchise numbers. By our actions we demonstrate thousands of poor and elderly voters. that we can live in peace but also can Political parties create voting districts Photo by Michael Gruber unite in common purpose to increase our that prevent true elections. And even common wealth—the fundamental sharing though the Supreme Court says corporations are actually that opens the door to “Harmony and Humanity.” people, no American corporations have been prosecuted Whether the issue is climate change or rule by the 1%, for wrecking the economy more than five years ago. This, we're all in this together. You're not just an observer of your at the same time the country's prison populations holds own life or the lives of others. You can Do Something. And more prisoners—most of them racial minorities—than you should. any other nation. —Steve Abbott • Edited by Mimi Morris, Steve Abbott, Michael Gruber • Design and Layout by Michael Gruber, Jonathan Johns, David Browning • Illustrations and Fun Map by Paul Volker - volkerworld.com Max Ink - www.maxinkcomix.com. Matt Wyatt - www.aliastrations.com and Jodi Kushins • Photos by Michael Gruber, Allen Zak, Michael Weber, Steve Abbott • 2014 ComFest logo design by Janean Weber • Writers: Michael Weber, Mimi Morris, Shanna Harrell, Connie Everett, Marty Stutz, Leslie Zak Curt Schieber, Bill Finzel, Charlie Einhorn • All photos copyrighted by the photographers • ComFest TM is a registered trademark of Community Festival, Inc. COMFEST.COM COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2014 5 IMPORTANT FESTIVAL RULES NOTE: No coolers, please. Don't leave backpacks unattended. Bags subject to being checked. • No bottles or cans/NO BYOB. No glass of any kind. • ComFest encourages following all city, county, state and Federal laws. • No weapons of any kind are allowed at the event. • No unauthorized parking inside the park. • Walk bikes inside the park. • No roller skates/blades/skateboards/Segways or scooters except medical mobility devices. • No vending, distribution of arts, crafts, literature or petitioning except at an authorized booth space. • No unauthorized