Get yer freak on!

Every year, Asheville hosts the Fringe Freak Festival: an event where you don't know WHAT to expect, but can count on a variety of local talents. This year was no exception. The LaZoom bus (a biodiesel purple beast that I have spoken of in the past I am sure) carted us around the city to some live music on Saturday night for a crazy good time. We stopped at to see someone's "time traveler." There was a puppet show, theatre and dancing. And, of course: a zombie brothel. My pictures don't really show you what happened because my camera had to be sans flash, but the images seemed to really capture the weird. Photographer capturing an image of a belly dancing lizard lady at the zombie brothel Uh.maze.ing. marionettes and puppeteer. I hadn't laughed that hard in a while! Oh yeah, and the bus crashed. Whoops.
Weeeeee!

Lazoooooooooooooooooooom!

The LaZoom Tourbus (also known around the city as “the big purple bus”) gives daily historical tours of Asheville, mixed in with a comedy routine and hysterical passenger participation. I had been planning this for quite some time and was really excited to go on the bus myself. I've been on the bus a handful of times, as it can frequently be seen shuttling around crowds at festivals, so I did not know what to expect for a paid “traditional” tour. I surprised Tina and Tanya with tickets to ride the bus on the last day that they were visiting (hey...two things for the price of one....I didn't have to give them a tour myself AND we could drink cocktails on the back of a big fun purple bus that even stopped midway at a bar!) The ride was absolutely hysterical and worth every penny! Jen (one of the owners of the bus) dressed as an adorably tacky diner waitress who presented an hour and a half of side splitting comedy. The bus drove through downtown, the River Arts District and Montford homes, where we got to “ooh” and “ahh” over the gorgeous old houses. The bus “picked up” various characters along the way—from a fire-eating nun to a “levitating healer” named Tony to an artist painting down by the river, who came on and drew a caricature of one of the riders. Completely fun—check it out at http://www.lazoomtours.com/!