Life is a raging torrent that threatens with every step to sweep us away
to some uncertain future. Living is knowing where to put your feet.
- Frank Herbert
Patrick the Butcher is a lifelong student of music, history and the martial arts.
He and the S.C.A. were meant for each other, and have been together for 15 years.
They are very happy and hope to have children someday. Patrick began to study the
hand drum as an instrument in 1993, but after a back injury in 1996 sidelined him as
a fighter, he began to study seriously, and by 1999 he was playing professionally.
In 2001 he began to lay the foundations of The Red Hands Tribe, and he and his tribe
have since had the honor of sharing the stage with such local favorites as Domba and
the Cult De Fu, as well as performances at several S.C.A. events. Patrick misses no
opportunity to practice his art (hoping one day to be good enough to stop practicing)
and teaches both beginner and intermediate classes once a week. {Send an email to
info@redhandstribe.com for time and
location.} Patrick has no real life outside of the tribe and spends most
of his spare time pretending to be important and writing lewd letters to the Bush twins,
who think he is their prison pen pal. He likes dancing girls (women, even!),
music -country music doesn't count-, performing, fighting hard suit, the pleasures of
the flesh and puttin' the boot in the groin.*
* Upon advice from his therapist, Patrick no longer puts the boot in the groin.+
+ Except upon cincere request.
If you can read this, you do not need glasses.
Pi R not squared, Pi R round.
- H. Patrick O'Connor
Brilliant and complicated, Wolffe hails from New York and has been thrown out of every decent college
between here and there for being to smart for his own good. Although he hasn't been playing the
hand drum long (about 3 years now) he excels and improves every day (he can cut chops like a butcher
when he's on). He attacks every thing with a passion that frightens the unwary and delights his friends.
We would be lost with out the klieg light of his wonderful mind. He thinks where I feel and calculates
when I guesstimate, so between the two of us there is nothing we cannot figure out, from how to count
a rhythm to how to build a gher. He is the center link in our chain of love, the sun around which we
orbit, my polar opposite and my goad. He is more gifted, beautiful and smart than the rest of us put
together (excepting our dancers, definitely cuter than him) but to shy to write his own bio.
Go figure.
Someone has to decide who gets eaten or not,
and that person is me.
- Joe Bardgett
Mahyar is a deranged garden gnome with delusions of grandeur and as such is poised to take
over the world. He is a long time friend of Wolffe's and began playing the hand drum with us in 2002.
Uber-nerd and king of the geeks, he rules over all you see on this web site. In the short time I have
known him I have watched him change from a soft, translucent Everquest-addict into a hardened and
positively machiavellian SCAdian, hand drummer and captain at arms. I think he is also planning to
kill me once he knows all my secrets, so I couldn't be more proud if he were my own son. His
inexhaustible energies and teeth-grinding tenacity both disturb and amaze me, but have (at times) been
the only reason we have kept this thing going. He can make people do things, which means when you've
got Mahyar, things get done. We owe him much and love him more than we could rightly say.
I am deep inside your children,
they defy you in my name
- Zack de la Rocha
What ever I might say about Chelsey it will fall short of the reality of this amazing woman. She
and Joe joined us at the same time (for obvious reasons) and she has spent every moment since packing
us full of sugar and love. Heart-breaking beautiful, shrewd as an Arab trader and hopelessly addicted
to chocolates. She never ceases to impress and surprise me with her wit, charm and evil genius. One of
the best things about being "Papa Red Hands" has been watching Chelsey (cool unpretentious girl next
door) become Charon (bright and terrible goddess of the dance). She is the sunlight that warms our
hearts and lights our way and without that light we would surely perish.
While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life.
I can only be joyful and whole. That is why I dance.
- Hans Bos
I saw my first belly dancer the first time I attended an event sponsored by The Society
for Creative Anachronism. The drumbeats started, and out walked a woman. She wasn't the
youngest one there, or the most beautiful, nor was her body what most Americans consider 'ideal'.
But when she moved, when she expressed physically what the music did to her emotionally, well,
it was captivating, to say the least. I was absolutely mesmerized by her power. The way she
moved cast a spell on everyone watching, and when she finished I literally wiped a tear from my
eye. I was moved, tremendously. And man, did I want to learn how to do that!
It took me more time then I would like to admit to get up the guts to start dancing. I never took
a formal dance class. I would practice to videos, and ask every dancer I saw "How do you do that?"
Thankfully I was surrounded by beautiful, giving women who loved to share their knowledge. The
catalyst came when I joined The Red Hands Tribe. We were planning our first performance, and I
was given the option to do a solo. I had just started dancing (barely over one month) and said
"Sure". The performance was almost three months away, and I felt sure that I would be able to
work something out. Well, having a deadline sure does make you practice!
Here I am, two years later, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to dance.