When It Comes to Insults, All Is Not Fair at the Faire

Even in an age of assertiveness, Andrew the Ugly (that’s what it says on his business card) stands out.

For a dollar, he’ll insult the victim of your choice.

And not just street-corner, in-your-face insults, but insults with a Monty Python tang or an Olde English flair.

Scalding oaths such as, “Go away or I’ll unclog my nose at you,” or “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.”

Or, my favorite, “You’re an anal-retentive son of an impotent boil-popper.”

Andrew, a.k.a. Andrew Cameron, 23, a resident of Ocean Beach and student at Mesa College, peddles his insouciant insolence at Renaissance/pleasure fairs throughout the state, including the San Marcos Renaissance Faire each October.

A good insult, he says, “is pleasing to the ear and offensive to the soul.”

The insult trade, of course, leans heavily on an excremental vision and concern with bodily functions: “You festering heap of yak dung,” “You shovelful of sun-laden camel snot,” etc.

On a good day, he can hurl 50 to 60 insults.

“I take frequent breaks,” he said. “I have to think up new material, recompose myself and let my voice rest.”

He’s never been punched, but he was ruled out of bounds by the Renaissance-Pleasure Faire now under way at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino. The faire fathers ruled that insults were not in keeping with the period theme.

“Cow cookies,” responds Andrew the Ugly. “The Elizabethans were a very bawdy group.”

He notes that the fair is also selling artichokes and churros (Mexican sweet breads), delicacies unknown in Renaissance times.

Still, he’s not letting his insult-ouster keep him away. He has merely shifted to his secondary specialties:

Dung sales and creative passing-out.

Sorting Things Out

Voice of the people.

* The San Diego Libertarian Party plans a float in the North Park Toyland Parade next December.

But the group is stumped for a politically appropriate entry.

Among the suggestions: A Bureaucratic Briefcase Brigade (talking gibberish, of course), a Boston Tea Party tableau, or Anti-Tax Muppets.

* Lead from political story by San Diego bureau of United Press International:

“Political candidates who want to bag votes in California’s second-largest city need only utter four words--’I’m against The Merger.’ ”

* One of the initiatives that has not yet qualified for the statewide ballot is the Starvation Initiative being circulated by Eleanor George of San Diego.

It calls for the state Legislature to urge Congress to buy breakfast for everyone on earth once a year.

I wonder if McDonald’s can handle takeout for 5.2 billion?

* Advice from political consultant and Cardiff resident Jack Orr: “Never say anything good about your opponent, unless it’s false.”

On Top of Things

It’s true, whether it happened or not.

* Whip those avocados.

Forget what you’ve heard about Fallbrook being a fuddy-duddy retirement community.

Lambada lessons are being given at the local Community Center.

* There will not be a Mercedes-Benz television commercial shot atop Horton Plaza. Too many hassles, says the Chamber of Commerce’s Motion Picture and Television Bureau.

* So many hydrants, so few firefighters.

The state fire marshal and the San Diego Fire Department today will introduce Buggs and Sam, the first dogs to graduate from Accelerant Detection School.

The two Labrador retrievers will aid in arson investigations throughout the state.

* I like that new subdivision sign at Interstate 15 and Via Rancho Parkway in Escondido:

“Montclair,” and beneath it, “Gated Country Estates.”

Woodsy ambience and fortress security. The North County ideal.