Let's just take it chronologically, journal-style.
Thursday, September 2
7:45 AM - I am standing at the Delta counter at Washington Reagan National Airport, checking my bag. I hand the agent the Travelocity itenerary I printed from home.
"You're flying at 10:05?" she asks. I confirm. She frowns. "This reservation is for the 1st. You were flying yesterday."
Making an online flight reservation is not something I had considered myself capable of screwing up, but I did, and it cost me huge. My $150 bargain flight turned into a $480 baseball bat in the forehead. Add a $25 overweight charge for the bag (because of all the CDs) and the flight topped $500. I had no choice at that point but to book it. I hoped that this would be the worst thing that would happen on the trip.
LESSON 1: Pay more fucking attention when spending money online.
12:30 PM - I am sitting in a folding chair in Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, chatting with two friendly Dragon*Con staffers. The flight was fine, despite the bulkhead seat by the lavatory, another price of the last-minute booking. I have retrieved my bag, found the spot where Dragon*Con meets their guests with a free shuttle to the airport. The two nice women from Dragon*Con tell me to have a seat. The shuttle should be going pretty soon.
Third staffer shows up. He is also nice, but he is in charge. He tells me my name is not on the list of people who qualify for the free ride. This does not surprise me, as I have kept a very low profile with Dragon*Con.
See, here's how it works when a big, multi-track con like Dragon*Con books guests. The track committee makes decisions many, many months in advance about extending invitations. The people they contact first generally get offered a badge, and/or a room, and/or travel expenses, and/or a per diem. Each track has a budget, and the track head must make sure that the things which are offered to the guests (including even the badges) do not exceed their budget.
For the last three years, I have been given my badge on the Media Relations track. I cover Dragon*Con in my role as Associate Editor for Nth Degree. Dragon*Con loves Nth Degree, and vice versa. We give them reviews and ads and distribute at least a thousand free copies at Dragon*Con every year. They know and respect Nth Degree. So getting a Press badge through Media Relations is an automatic thumbs-up.
In the past, knowing that I did not have to ask a track head for any budgeted items, not even a badge, I could contact the heads of tracks and get added to the programming in the various tracks which I could contribute to. So I did this again. The webcomics panel was scheduled at least six months ago. The filk track was last minute, because we recorded the CD as soon as we could, and I did not want to ask for concert slots until I had the recorded tracks to point to and say, "I am a legitimate filk performer, worthy of some time in front of a crowd."
But in any event, this policy of mine of making it easy on the track heads worked when I had no kind of clout as a guest at all. It's probably time to change the policy to make the track heads aware that I have a lot to contribute to their efforts and that I merit some attention and budget.
So, it did not surprise me that I was not on the van list. However, I expected that I would be able to explain that I was a) Press, officially covering the con, b) A panelist, officially appearing on EFF Track programming, and c) A stage performer, booked for concerts on Saturday and Sunday nights.
It was not that none of this mattered to the guy at the airport, it was that he was not empowered to put me on the shuttle. He radioed the guy who could have approved it, but only asked if I was on the list, not if they would make an exception. Then he escorted me down to my cab, which cost $30, counting the tip.
LESSON 2: Fuck low profiles. It's time to start making myself more visible to cons, much farther in advance. It's time to come up with both a physical press kit and a referral page for con planners.
1:30 PM - I am sitting in the Marriott upper lobby. My bags are checked. I am tired from the early start and yet wired from caffeine overload. I am waiting for either my roommates (Team All-Grown-Up) to arrive (they are convoying from NC) or for my high school friend Robert Kelly to walk by. I am drinking Mountain Dew and eating a cookie, and thinking about Hurricane Frances, which is nearing the Bahamas and is still a Category 4. The TV flashes the FEMA logo, and I am struck with an idea.
I hit the gift shop and buy a cheap notepad. When I ask about pens, the guy at the counter smiles and gives me a hotel pen. There was nice service everywhere I went in Atlanta, but especially at the Marriott. It's great when a place realizes that they'll make more money in the long run by doing something nice like that than what they would make by selling me a pen.
I go back to the lobby. Over the next hour of waiting, I write an insta-filk. I've been a little worried about having enough material to fill my concert slots, and a con-specific filk is one way to guarantee some well-received filler. I wouldn't even need music, because it was to the tune of "Fever," so finger-snapping would do:
You've never seen a geek tornado,
You've never felt a fannish rain,
You've never seen a con go JATO,
Til the Dragon meets the hurricane.
We're callin' FEMA.
FEMA! FEMA won't you set things right?
FEMA, in the mornin'.
If we make it through the night.
No-one wants to hear from Frances.
We're hopin' she'll be quickly gone.
We'll hunker down and take our chances.
But we might get blown to World Con.
We're callin' FEMA.
FEMA! FEMA won't you set things right?
FEMA, in the mornin'.
If we make it through the night.
If she hits the masquerade show,
She'll take the "Master Fan" award,
But when a gust of hurricane blows,
It's a GOH we can't afford.
We're callin' FEMA.
To drain the LAN room. FEMA to restore the lights.
FEMA, in the mornin'.
If we make it through the night.
We've seen some mighty frightening Dopplers.
We're screwed no matter where she lands.
But if they have to send in choppers,
We're callin FEMA when the shit hits the fans.
We're callin' FEMA.
In the mornin'. FEMA, cause it beats a hymn.
FEMA! To the rescue.
Such a lovely acronym.
Such a lovely acronym.
Such a lovely acronym. FEMA!
4:35 PM - I am sitting in a bar at the Hyatt. I have checked in with the incomparably nice and knowledgable Star Roberts, head of Media Relations, and gotten my badge and con program. I am not surprised to see that I am not listed as a filk guest. Boogie Knights, who cancelled, are still listed in my slots. But I am stunned and annoyed that the EFF Track panelist list mentions only Pete Abrams. Even Kittyhawk, who organized the panel, is left off.
I'm in the Hyatt bar because at one point we had discussed it as a meeting place at the top of each hour, and I am wondering if signals got crossed. I nurse a rum and Coke and tell the bartender that the great big guy sitting at a nearby cocktail table is Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca. The bartender is unimpressed. He starts hanging out at the other end of the bar from me. I think it's going to be a rough weekend for that Mundane.
5 pm passes and I see nobody. I grab my notepad and leave the bar. On the way out, I lose a debate with myself and walk up to Peter Mayhew. I just wanted to tell him that at one of our parties, Nth Degree invented a "Chewbacca shot" (Chambord and Tuaca), and offer to buy him one. As soon as I say "excuse me" I can tell it was a mistake to bother him.
"Hey I don't mean to disturb you, I just wanted to say I missed my chance to talk with you at ConnectiCon..."
He gave me a withering look. "Yeah, well it ain't started yet."
I told him I understood, apologized, and vanished.
It's just as well; Chewbacca shots taste like cough syrup.
5:30 PM - I am back at the Marriott. My high school friend Robert Kelly has arrived. I haven't seen the guy in 17 years, but we were good friends way back then. He lives in Atlanta and has helped out Nth Degree by receiving the 10 boxes full of zines from Mike, thus saving $100 in fees the hotel charges. Aside from some hair loss, he looks like the kid I knew. Hard to believe he's got a 15-year-old son named Corwin, after my favorite character in Fantasy literature: Corwin of Amber.
A few minutes later, team All-Grown-Up makes an entrance. The team consists of Lunchbox, Coyto, Mullet, Wanda, Froggy (my first time meeting him) and Leslie (ditto), plus two more new faces unrelated to their comic: Bex and Joel. Somehow I miss getting introduced to Joel, so for the next ten minutes I think he's a creepy guy following us around. It's only when we're out at Robert's van and I hand him a box that I find out who he is.
We make a tour of the hotels, putting out stacks of zines and stowing the boxes under the freebie tables to replenish them later. The new issue (#11) is really sharp, by far the best-looking thing on the table, so I know they'll go fast.
I make a remark admiring the art on the cover, and it turns out that Wanda did it. It's a formation of three starships powering through a planetscape, and I think it's my favorite cover now, even more than the centipede attack cover for Issue #6. Wanda points out that the starships are christened the "NTH DEGREE," the "PEDERSON" and the "BALDER." I say, "You know which one of these ships isn't coming back from this mission, don't you? You know exactly which one is going to suffer a catastrophic warp core failure."
8:00 PM - I am having dinner at Mandarin House with Robert. This is a Chinese place I love that's right near the Hyatt, and I am eating the house specialty Mandarin Chicken. Robert is sporting a Press badge I asked Star for, for which he agreed to shoot pics for the con report. We talk about many things, but discover that we should probably avoid talking politics. Robert not only picks up the check, he buys one of my CDs with a Benjamin and tells me to keep the change. The man's a prince, and I have to say that Dragon*Con would have really sucked without him.
10:20 PM - Back at the room with my four roommates (Bex, Lunchbox, Coyto and Joel), I roll out the sleeping bag and pop in the patented Kleenex earplugs. I crash. No partying and no booze tonight. It's only Thursday, and you have to pace yourself or Dragon*Con could kill ya.
Friday, September 3
12:30 PM - I'm feeling extra-rested and zestfully clean, but really mundane in a plain red striped shirt and jeans. The dealers' room opens at 1, and I know I could "Press" the case and be let in early, but I decide to take it easy. At the Kinko's in the Marriott lobby, I pay $4 for 10 minutes of internet, to check mail and do the minimum daily internet routine. There is a donation waiting, and a CD pre-sale, and an email with a vague complaint about the Cliptoons archive. This last I forward to a friend who is working on my site, for him to puzzle out. Can't afford to investigate at 40 cents a minute.
1:30 PM - I have been over to the Hyatt and looked on all three floors for Tom Smith's table. No luck, but I grabbed a snack at the press room. Back at the Marriott, I make a complete circuit of the dealers' room, scanning for the right fannish T-shirt. The choices are mostly things I have seen at other cons, but an "A Clockwork Orange" shirt which says "Droogs Don't Run" on the front and "I'm singin' in the rain." on the back calls out to me. I'm filking in a hurricane, right?
In the dealers' room I run into Kittyhawk and her fiance Harry Lime, and we talk shop for 20 minutes. I haven't seen her since last year's panel so it's hard for us not to just gush out everything that has happened this year. We couldn't do that in 20 hours, at any rate.
I leave with my T-shirt and immediately run into Pete, Joe, Thyla, and (I am introduced to) Gloria from Team Sluggy. They have a great table location and they are already selling the new Beanie Bun-Buns by the fistful. Gloria makes custom soaps, and gives me a sample. (I find out later that she's doing those soaps that Randy Milholland is giving out to encourage hygiene among con-goers.) I say hey to all and move on, because these are my friends but not the specific ones I am looking for.
I next check Artists' Alley, on the off chance that they put Tom's table in there. That's where I run into Bill Holbrook and the Darlingtons of GPF, who are planning another dinner outing like that great one last year. I talk syndication with Bill for a while, because I had a couple of questions I had been saving up for the next time I saw him. It's astounding to me that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is running Kevin & Kell, and I wanted to find out if he'd had any complaint letters about the furry thing or the sentients-eating-sentients stuff. He gave me a really interesting insight: that he puts his email and not just his URL on every strip. Therefore he gets a lot more feedback from his print audience than I do from mine. When people have a problem they write to him. Mine write to my editors.
Also in the artists' room I run into Xan, a very nice woman I met at S.P.A.C.E. who reads my strip and bought my book, and her husband. It's gotten to be one of the best parts of going from con to con to not only meet new people but then catch up with them at random throughout the year. I leave with some home-made cookies from Team GPF and still no idea where to find Tom. I am also anxious to find SpellSinger, which is the handle of Dave O'Connell, head of the filk track. I want desperately to confirm my performance slots.
5:30 PM - I am wearing the A Clockwork Orange shirt. Having tried a few other things to find Tom, including talking to the central node of all Dragon*Con information (a man so wired with headsets, radios and laptops as to be the closest thing to a cyborg outside of the masquerade), I hit the liquor store for something in the smallest possible opaque plastic flask (Malibu, as it turns out), and a fifth of 99 Bananas to refill it with. I figure, it's Dragon*Con; go bananas.
On my way back through the Hyatt, I find the tables where they are putting Tom, Tony Goldmark, and The Great Luke Ski, all of whom were there and setting up. I say hi to Luke and shake his hand, getting a blank look when I say my name. I laugh and shake my head. "I have to re-introduce myself to you every week!" I complain.
See, I filked with Luke at PenguiCon and shared a humor panel with him (and Tom, and Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary), even went to lunch with him, and I have IMed him most Thursdays when he does his internet radio show. He never quite registers who I am. Less than a month ago, he asked me, "Do you do some kind of comic strip?" He's a guy who is...I'd say, very focused on a particular set of priorities.
I also shake hands with Tony Goldmark, who does remember me from the PenguiCon all-night filk circle. And of course, I finally catch up with Tom, who has brought his friend Leslie, whom I remember from PenguiCon at that very same lunch, and who has since become a fan of my strip like Tom.
We are on the floor below the main lobby of the Hyatt, much of which has been turned into a kind of stage for the various performers who have tables on this level. This is a good thing, if you are the one on stage. Bad if you're the rest of us, getting drowned out. Tom's a little miffed about this. He knows he can sell CDs if he can get some stage time. I have brought only 60 CDs, which I figure I can sell after my two performances.
Nevertheless, now that I know where the table is, I decide to go get my CDs. I drop into Kinko's on the way, to print a sign for the price of the CDs. I get it laminated, but the lamination has bubbles and they don't charge me the five bucks. Score.
At the room, I meet up with Joel and Coyto and we hit the Food Court, then I return to Tom's table to sell CDs. Voltaire is now on the lobby stage, which is cool. I never managed to say hey to him, though. I sit with Tom and Leslie, and sell two CDs in about two hours before we close up for the night. I also kill the little flask of Malibu. One very nice guy comes by and says that he reads my comic, can't use PayPal, but wanted to give me a $10 donation. I thank him kindly but forget to get his email, so if you are that guy, please email me and I will give you access to the TotallyClips section.
Midnight, or sometime thereafter - I am on the cigar terrace at the Hyatt bar, where John Ringo is holding court. This was a part of Dragon*Con I missed out on last year, and I intend not to repeat that mistake. Thyla, Joe and Pete are also there. I am on my second flask of "that evil banana shit" as Coyto put it. Everyone is drinking and smoking heavily. I am talking to some of John's military/SheVaCon friends. These include Crystal, a soccer mom from Harrisonburg, and a guy whose name I can't remember. But he's military intelligence, active service, so perhaps the name is best forgotten. Crystal and I talk about Roanoke and other things, and the military intelligence guy and I talk meme theory. He's astoundingly well-read on that matter and others. A highly-smashed Thyla and I talk about...things that will not be repeated in this con report. Or elsewhere. This is the most interesting conversation of the night, however.
1:45 AM - I am back at the room, placing a brief call on the porcelain telephone. The evil banana shit is only partly to blame. The smoke had been getting to me all night, but I had to leave the cigar terrace immediately when Crystal, John, Thyla, and three others simultaneously lit a new cigarette and just smoked me the fuck out.
LESSON 3: With evil banana shit, the rule is "One flask good, two flasks bad."
Saturday, September 4
1:45 PM - I am making the rounds, replenishing the freebie tables with Nth Degree. This is the third set of stacks, and I know that Team All-Grown-Up has been doing this as well. The zines are moving. I take some more to the Media Lounge and get a snack. Then I get some more CDs and join Tom at his table. With no hangover to speak of, I'm chipper.
I find out that Robert Lynn Asprin, the author of the Myth Adventures series, is at the con and that Tom knows him. Although I haven't read a Myth Adventures book since college, up to about 1990 I had read every one. It's something my late friend Dan Fahs introduced me to, and we were both fairly rabid fans.
I give Tony Goldmark a copy of my CD, and tell him I enjoy his internet radio show, The Looney Bin. He opens it immediately to read the tracks list, and I am suddenly a little embarassed that this is a home-burned copy.
I finally meet Spellsinger, and confirm my slots - Saturday at 10 and Sunday at 10. I ask him about the sound system. Answer: no sound system. This is something I had asked him about in an email a week before the con and never got an answer. So I didn't bring my boom box. Didn't try to fit it into the overweight suitcase.
LESSON 4: Don't take no answer for an answer.
5:00 PM - I am (back) at Tom's table. I learn that my 10 PM concert will be opposite the big Doctor Demento filk extravaganza show, featuring Voltaire, Tom Smith, Tony Goldmark and The Great Luke Ski. Fabulous. Haven't sold a CD today, but I gave one to Tony Goldmark. Bought a boom box at the mall for $45. At Best Buy it would have cost me $30. Met a guy in full Jedi robes at the mall and he showed me his lightsabre. Shut up.
I hang out until the start of the webcomics panel at 5:30. I end up being a minute or two late, but it gives me the opportunity to make a better entrance than last year.
"Let me through," I declare, "I have a webcomic!"
This year's panel is in the Piedmont conference room, and again is standing-room-only. Even more people are standing than last year, probably because Pete is there. The participating comics are: PartiallyClips, Sluggy Freelance, Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki by Kittyhawk, The Devil's Panties by Jennie Breeden, and All-Grown-Up, with Mullet, Coyto and Lunchbox representin'. The Holy Trinity.
EFF runs a great panel again. My one complaint is that we are across the hall from the anime room. Instead of closing those doors to block the noise, someone closes our doors and we just swelter. Stewed in our own juices. Robert is there, taking pictures. My ex-fiancee Karen is there, having arrived that morning. Jeff Darlington is in the back, among others who could just as easily been sitting on the panel.
Everybody gets to throw down their own perspective on the various questions. Pete goes into "Dragon*Con ate my brain" mode. Jennie makes sure to mention her boyfriend in a tactical nuclear shootdown of every hopeful guy in the room (in other words, she's very pretty, nice, and well-spoken). Few new questions are asked that I haven't heard on other panels, but one, "What do you think of Scott Kurtz's plan to give his comic to newspapers for free?" causes me to answer at some length.
I point out that I was at Comic-Con when Scott announced it, and had to talk with him afterwards to make sure he didn't mean "forever." I felt that this would "break comics" and ultimately put a lot more comic strip creators out of work than it helped. It turns out, he envisions a very similar plan to what I did to get into the alt weeklies two years ago. It's just that he can do it with mainstream papers because of the PG-rated content of his strip and the fact that it's a daily. I say, in essence, that I thought Scott's plan was a great one when I thought of it and did it in 2002.
Pete then does something he hasn't done in the dozen or more panels we've done together. He clashes with me. He takes issue with my belief that one guy could break comics by offering his strip to the papers for free, forever. Maybe he was planning to do that, but I certainly never heard him mention it. I defend my position by pointing out that maybe 95% of people who make a living with a comic strip do it through syndication still, and that the papers are trying to break the syndicates, and so having a source of free comics their readers would accept would give them the leverage to do it. Scott Kurtz would only be the first. Many more would follow. I invoke the mental image of Scott in running shorts, smashing the syndicates with a thrown sledgehammer like the Apple 1984 commercial.
Pete goes back to "Dragon*Con ate my brain" mode, but I kind of wish it had turned more lively. I've had differences of opinion with Pete, and more than half the time, it has turned out he was right. Maybe I should reconsider.
The panel ends and I get two invitations to dinner, both of which I give a "maybe I'll meet you there" to. I really want to hang out in the lobby with the other panelists, as I did last year. But everyone but Kittyhawk disappears. Robert introduces me to his son Corwin, and we talk the Chronicles of Amber for a while.
7:30 PM - Robert and Corwin and I go out to dinner. I play my CD in the van for them, and we find a Taco Cabana. This is a chain of pink-painted, 24-hour Mexican restaurants that I love and had no idea existed outside of Texas. That there could be a Taco Cabana where you could get friendly and efficient service was not something I had ever dreamed possible. It raises my estimation of Atlanta one full notch.
We spend a lot of time talking about our lives since high school. I keep marvelling that I have known Robert since he was his son's age.
9:15 PM - Robert and Corwin drop me in front of the Marriott to go get my boom box and other necessities for my concert, especially CDs and lyrics sheets. I meet them outside of the Roswell Room at the Hyatt.
The Brobdignagian Bards are finishing up their 9 PM set. Robert, Corwin and I are in the hallway. A woman shuts the door on them, I guess to protect those inside from hallway noise, even though there isn't any. This is a phenomenon I run into at cons from time to time: the overthinker who invents problems they need to police. Like the woman at Jersey Devil Con who complained to the hotel that someone might panic and think there was terrorism because one of the conference rooms had a smoke machine going. Mm-kay.
Some folks show up with guitars and comment that they are going to "take over" the Roswell room at 10, because Boogie Knights have cancelled. I mention that I have been put into that slot instead. They're pretty cool about it. One of them is Robert Lynn Asprin. I tell him I'm a big fan. He tells me he's seen much bigger than me. I now know for certain that this is the creator of Aahz and Skeeve.
11:00 PM - Robert and I are in the Grand Ballroom, watching Doctor Demento host the live filk show. I did not actually do a set in Roswell. One member of Boogie Knights showed up and re-claimed their spot. She did tell me, however, that my slot for Sunday night is safe.
I am not involved in this show, for the most part because of timing. I only decided to go ahead with recording a CD back in April, inspired by meeting Tom, Tony, Luke and Shoebox at Penguicon. The four months between that decision and this con was not enough time to record a CD from scratch and then get sufficiently famous and loved to be invited to share a stage with these gentlemen, all of whom have many years of performing experience, multiple CDs, and much history with Doctor Demento behind them.
I watch Tony, then Tom, then Luke come out in succession. They each overcome sound and technical issues, and wow the crowd. Tony and Luke are strong performers, with well-planned, well-written and well-rehearsed material and schtick. Tom is just a guy with a guitar who can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand. His material is certainly strong, but even when it's not scoring points, the audience wants to love him and therefore does. The large crowd digs all of the performers tonight. This is the pinnacle of a filk concert. It couldn't have been better if Weird Al had shown up.
As much as I enjoy the show, I am having doubts as to whether or not I would be good enough to get on that stage too. These three guys know exactly what they are doing.
12:00 AM - Robert and I are still in the Ballroom, and Corwin is still off somewhere playing LAN games. The woman who played Cissy on Family Affair has come out and serenaded Dr. D with a wretched piece of schmaltz she recorded in the sixties called "Lem, the Orkan Reindeer." This is apparently one of the prize selections in the Doctor's massive collection of rare Christmas tunes. Its kitch value is outweighed by the pain it inflicts. Cissy still looks pretty good, though.
Voltaire comes out and starts a set. In the third song, all the sound starts dying, mic by mic. He handles it like the pro he is, and bravely decides to do an "unplugged" set. The crowd coalesces around the stage edge, but at this point I realize that Tom is supposed to do a set in Roswell at midnight, and I am late. Robert and I head down to see it.
2:00 AM - Tom has finished a stellar set with a good crowd. Robert and Corwin have long gone home. I decide not to clog up the lanes as Tom sells CDs to these people he has just pleased. Plenty of time to congratulate him tomorrow.
I head back toward the Hyatt, and a big ugly depression starts to set in. I'm happy for my friends, but nothing is going right for me at this con. I really need to sell some CDs, but how can I compete? There are hundreds of people interested in this kind of music here, but they've now heard everyone else but me. Plus, I'm completely intimidated by the crowd-magic these guys can work. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to please an audience like that.
Both hotels are jammed with 5-10,000 raucous partygoers, mostly goths and cosplayers. Music blares, smoke hangs, ass cheeks jiggle, angel wings flap. There's a limbo contest in the awning-covered courtyard, and weasely-looking goth with a knit cap and a lip stud is apparently winning. I'm wearing my most obnoxiously loud piece of con-garb, which is an oversized, wrap-print black t-shirt with a neon-green cyborg skull on the front and a neon-green cyborg ribcage in the back. It literally glows in the dark. Wearing it in this crowd, I feel mundane and invisible.
At the room, I think I possibly interrupt something. So I fill my flask with 99 Bananas and return to the megaparty. I have this vague idea that I can catch up to Team Sluggy on the cigar terrace, but neither they nor John Ringo are present. I sit down with Crystal and the Army intelligence guy, and their Army friends. One of them has "cosplayed" in his Army uniform and is carrying his sidearm.
"I stripped the peace bonding off of it," he says. "I got tired of it." He lays the presumably loaded handgun on the cocktail table and we keep drinking and talking. Bubba Ho-Tep is running on the HDTV screen of the bar, but sound is hopeless. I'm the only one at the table who has seen it, so I give them a plot synopsis.
I ask the military intelligence guy how it is that he can be active military but still be an independent thinker. He tells me that in any other part of the Army it would be a liability. They need people who can ask questions in intelligence, though. He says he does not know whether he will be returning to Iraq or if his work there is done. I tell him that for his sake I hope he's not headed back there, but for the sake of the US I hope he is. I'm guessing that he's very good at his job.
3:30 AM - The Hyatt bar closes and we are swept out of the lounge. I bid my drinking companions a good night, return to the room, and sleep. I do not barf; I didn't actually do much damage to the flask tonight, and the Army guys helped with that.
Sunday, September 5
2:00 PM - I have decided that I need to write a strip. I am back at Mandarin House, eating the same Mandarin Chicken. It's that good, and I only get one chance a year to eat it. I am communing with a blank strip involving an evil-looking wizard holding a bag. I sit there with the clip for an hour, but I can't make with teh funneh.
4:00 PM - I am sitting at Tom's table, with Tom and Leslie. For all the time I have spent there, I still have not been at the table at the same time as Doctor Demento. I am not sure what to do about that fact. Nobody seems to know where he is.
Tom and Leslie and I talk about performing. I tell them about my doubts that I'll ever have the necessary stage presence to perform at Tom's level. I suggest to Tom that he's got an easier time with a crowd because he has a guitar, and he objects. He tells me a guitar is a very weak crutch. Leslie talks about an improv group she runs, and I say that my speed-of-association humor just has never been my strength. I drag out the blank strip and hand it to Tom.
"You could probably come up with something pretty funny for that, right off the top of your head," I say.
He rolls up his sleeves with glee and begins to write immediately. When he's finished, he's got something that's chuckle-worthy, better than I could have come up with, given the time frame. But I have to explain that it's on the order of the three-dozen gags I typically think of and throw away when I am writing a strip.
6:00 PM - I am sitting silently in the hotel room, looking down from the 33rd floor at the city of Atlanta. By now, it's clear that Hurricane Frances is going to sit on Florida and give Dragon*Con a free pass. I sit there for 45 minutes, decompressing and thinking about everything that has happened so far.
7:00 PM - I am standing at the Sluggy table, with Pete, Thyla, Gloria, Joe, and Karen. The vibe with Karen is really weird. Pete and I take a little time to talk about Get Nifty. The Sluggy table has done very well. It is broken down and hauled over to the Hyatt, where we regroup and head to dinner. The consensus is for Indian.
At the Indian restaurant, Pete's remaining brain cells that have not been eaten by the con begin to break down. Some of the Indian music starts to sound like the ghost of Pete's lamb dish. I have a very good beer called Kingfisher for the first time. The meal is great, and we go family-style. I get the mutter paneer.
At 9:15, I leave cash for the meal and excuse myself. In theory, I have a concert at 10. But I am beginning to feel like the whole con is a write off, and I expect something to come up to stomp on this thing too.
On the way to the hotel to get my new boom box, I run into Lunchbox. He goes with me over to Roswell. Tom and Leslie are there, sitting at the back. Tom and I go out into the hallway to rehearse "Rich Fantasy Lives." We have trouble matching the guitar to the recording, so we decide to let the boom box handle the accompaniment.
The Brobignagian Bards are finishing up another set. As they do, they ask out loud if there's more music coming up. "Yes, me!" I shout. This draws the attention of a bespectacled woman named Theresa, who is involved in the filk track. I let her know that Spellsinger has booked me for the open slot. Tom confirms this. She seems pleased, and not remotely surprised that she was not informed. Half the room empties, but the twenty or so people who stay to hear me are hardcore filk fans.
10:40 PM - I am finishing my set by singing the "Rich Fantasy Lives" duet with Tom. Wow! Not only did we lay them out with that song, but they were really into my performance. My second-to-last number was "Technobabble World," and I almost tripped over it because of the sheer amazement of what I was seeing.
Two women in the front row were singing along. How could that even be possible?
I shake Tom's hand and the crowd cheers. Lunchbox has already started selling my CDs in the back, as Tom sets up to perform. Leslie comes up to me and grins.
"So what's this bullshit about you not being able to perform?" she says.
Since I am new to filk performing and I only have the one CD (and that has only 8 tracks), I have to do a shorter set than most. So Tom has agreed to take up the slack with some of his twenty odd years of material. And I do mean odd.
I end up selling CDs to more than half the people who saw me. The two women who were singing explain that they have the videotape of my disasterous performance at the Trek Track filksing last year, the infamous "Cluster Filk." The fact that they have gone over this tape enough times to memorize that song is simultaneously flattering and disturbing. I don't want to think about the fact that that tape exists, but I should probably see about getting a copy of it.
After I am done singing, selling and signing, Lunchbox takes off and I stay to hear Tom's set. He's even more "on" tonight than last night. He gives them lots of the funny stuff, but then knocks out the crowd with three serious songs in a row. I have never heard "A Boy and His Frog" before, Tom's tribute to Jim Henson as sung by Kermit, and it's impossible not to mist up over it.
LESSON 5: Get stage time! If I can perform, the CDs WILL sell!
At 11, when Tom's set is supposed to officially start, the room fills up. If I could have been on the program for real instead of pinch hitting, then I know I would have had a full room too and sold more CDs.
Luke is supposed to have a set at midnight, but doesn't show. It's just as well, though; Tom is on an unstoppable roll. At one point he invites me up to do the banter in "Talk Like a Pirate Day," the part Steve Jackson was doing at Penguicon, but I demure. I don't think I've got it memorized well enough to do it justice. Tom does both parts himself and it's just fine. Tom ends up doing a set of about 2 hours and fifteen minutes, which leads straight into Open Filk.
1:30 AM - I am sitting in the greatest filk circle of my con-going experience, between Theresa to my right and Robert Lynn Asprin, whom I have taken to calling "Bob" like everyone else. Tom is next to Bob. To Tom's left is Spellsinger, and to Spellsinger's left is Michael "Moonwolf" Longcor, a big name in the filk community and frequent filk GOH at cons. Luke Ski and Tony Goldmark have just shown up, explaining that their presentation at the Masquerade of "Sirius Black" (which won the Most Humorous award) kept them late and they took the wrong bus.
The filk circle consists of seven performers and about an equal number of listeners. The rest of the room contains another 15 or 20 intent listeners. We start to filk in random order of performance (going "chaos") as most filk circles do these days. Tony and Luke have their boom box and I have mine. The rest of the performers use guitars. Early on, Tony and Luke reprise Sirius Black for those of us who couldn't be at the masquerade. They are still in their Harry Potter costumes.
Bob and the guitar guys are somewhat stunned by the choreography. Luke and Tony have it all down pat, and the audience goes nuts for the part where Tony (as Harry) uses his wand to make Luke (as Malfoy) breakdance. They get big applause.
"I think we may be outdated," says Bob.
"Like hell!" says Moonwolf.
"Do YOU want to follow that?" says Bob.
Moonwolf does. He stands up and pounds out a great, gory war-ballad about hacking the king's men to pieces. We all shout out the choruses with morbid glee.
Before long, Tom starts to flag, and understandably so. That marathon performance would grind anyone down. Before he can go, Luke and Tony make him do the Ballad of Optimus Prime. I make him do Rich Fantasy Lives again, since 90 percent of the room hadn't actually seen my concert. Unless I am very much mistaken, Luke is singing along to Rich Fantasy Lives.
3:00 AM - It's still fun but it's just getting too late. I have to fly the next day, and I can see Luke getting ready to go. I cross the circle and give him a copy of my CD, to which he says, "OK, the next two CDs you do, you gotta give me too." He grins and gives me copies of the three CDs he currently has for sale.
I tell the circle I am going to have to go, but that I have an insta-filk about the hurricane that's ready to expire. With the remaining people in the room snapping I give them the best rendition of "FEMA" I can manage from memory. They dig it a lot. Then Luke gets up and does the 12-minute long "Fanboy Christmas." This is a medley of almost every Christmas carol married to almost every type of fandom you can name. At first, Bob is a little cranky about it, but the singular brilliance of this filk wins him over. I can hear him laughing despite himself. When it ends, he leads a standing ovation. Luke seems a bit stunned by this.
Before I go, three more people want to buy my CD. One says he's taking it back to Israel and wants to start a filk movement there. Theresa gives me quite a friendly hug.
On the way back through the Marriott, I grudgingly put in a wake-up call for 8:45.
Monday, September 6
5:30 PM - I am home. Robert gave me a ride to the airport, airplane to Metro to shuttle to door, with nothing out of the ordinary. I see from weather.com that I got out of Atlanta with only a few hours to spare before Frances socked them in. I discover the bug that has been killing my archives for pretty much the whole weekend and I go nuts. *sigh* Back to the monster To Do list. Biggest looming item: this con report. *check*
