Renaissance Faire certainly has character(s) - ContraCostaTimes.com

Renaissance Faire certainly has character(s) - ContraCostaTimes.com.

IT IS RELATIVELY mild for a Saturday in September in Hollister, and that's a good thing considering what people wear at the Northern California Renaissance Faire being held here. Queen's guards don colorful, and weighty, leather pants as they patrol the dusty, shaded grounds. Knights wear real shining armor, the sun glinting off the heavy metal. And jesters pile on layers of velvet and top themselves with those silly and heavy hats with bells on the pointed ends. One of those jesters, Dave Gregory, relaxes with water in hand after his husband-wife performance on a small stage inside the fair grounds. Gregory, a Berkeley native, is in his 40s and has been attending the Renaissance Faire since he was 12. "When I first came to the fair," he says, "I said 'Oh, I am home.' It's like my people are here. This is where they converge." Gregory eventually learned how to perform and juggle, and he and his partner, Anita Gregory, are the Unruly Fools, a jester and juggling act with a bickering "The Honeymooners"-type feel. The Renaissance Faire, the largest on the West Coast, is a safe place for the Gregorys to play, they say. Dave Gregory, a usually quiet guy, kindly but loudly hassles passers-by. It's OK, he says, because his jester hat and fuzzy pants put him in character and fair visitors are tolerant, if not accepting, of his act.