Wow! What a night! Thank you to everyone who attended the festivities at the Doubletree Inn! It was a sublime night, with songs, drinks and good feelings all around. Luxuries like air conditioning and soft carpeting only added to the positive vibes, and being able to see all your faces while we played just kept us energized all night. Here’s to best Bogfest we’ve ever had!

Several years ago, an unknown assailant filched one of our beloved signs. The sign said “Trained Monkey Hurls Feces (seating available)” on one side and “Fat Men Sing Dirty Songs” on the other.

While we never had any clear evidence as to who may have taken said sign, there were some clues. The stench in our hooch immediately after the sign was taken. A large “W” carved into our hooch door, apparently made with a whip. A drained keg. Various useless trinkets strewn about the floor: plastic Mardi Gras beads, a Diablo yo-yo, several scraps of paper with women’s names and phone numbers scrawled upon them, a bowl of steamed cabbage, a small pile of fake-gold baubles. All apparently left in some sort of carney-like one-sided barter arrangement.

Weeks later, I received a ransom note asking for a large sum of cash. It was far more that we could afford. A few weeks after that, I received another package — a dark, morbid package — containing sawdust.

Our sign was gone.

We felt guilt. We all felt it. Surely we could have done more. I personally woke up in a cold sweat many a night, screaming for our lost sign.

But time passed, wounds healed, but the scars, ever so faint, remained.

Last week we were victimized again. This time, the culprit took about half a dozen signs.

And I feel the need to reiterate something we’ve said many times before. The Poxy Boggards will never negotiate with carneys, no matter how small-handed and cabbagy.

I won’t deny that we’ve suffered during these attacks of carneyism.

Some say, “why don’t you just lock up your signs.” But if we do that, the carney’s win.

We will face this carney threat the same way we’ve faced all other attacks. We’ll face them the same way we faced the humiliating penguining of ‘02; and the shoehaning of ‘03, and the chalking and bill-posting of ‘04.

No. We won’t lock up our signs. We’ll face your assault (whoever you are) with the same complacency, sloth and indifference that has carried us through the many crises we’ve faced in our long history.

You cannot win. We have inertia on our side.