Month: October 2011

Happy Diwalloween!

I am in full regalia including the Foncy Hat.  And, of course, got dragged into a meeting where I can only thank a merciful providence that the new Customer Service Overlords couldn’t see me in my “vampire slaying outfit”. 

For the first time in 30 years I won’t be handing out candy or stickers this year.  I’m okay with that.  Maybe I’ll feel like it next year.

I am off from 11th to 21st November… whatevva shall I DO????  I suppose a visit to my parents is in order.  I am too gravely in debt from the last trip to go anywhere.  Maybe I’ll just book a spa day for me and Katie and call it happy birthday.

Previously unseen sketches & other things.

The Hobbit.

Also, I am helping pay for food for Occupy Boston with the help of somebody I met online through reputation management.  This is a seasonal vegetable curry my new friend made.

When I don’t talk about my personal life on my blog, is it because things are bad or because I’m busy…. Social media has holes in it.

Nuff said

I watched the helicopter video of the assault on the Oakland OWS folks Gas.  Un fracking believable.  And oh look.  http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2011/10/26/oakland-police-love-kittens-teargas/

So instead of showing the veteran who was injured by the assault by the police on peaceful protesters, they show an Oakland cop petting a kitten.  If you see the video, you will be amazed and appalled.

Not impressed, Mister Mass Media.  Not one whit.

Concert went fine

Cindy was marvellous as always and I managed to survive the event without shaming myself too much.

Media filk last night went great and OH CTHULHU it was grand to hear Blind Lemming Chiffon play blues.  Also that Tim Griffin guy SEE BELOW.

PLEASE GO TO THIS WEBSITE AND PICK ANY SONG THAT LOOKS INTERESTING and play it.  Tim is a grade school science teacher in LA and I fell madly in love with him when he played the Philosopher’s song.

Pegasus concert

Highlights:

Toyboat doing a heavy metal (okay, fuzzy rock) version of Little Fuzzy Animals.

A beautiful audience participation version of Nessie Come Up. (Both the above songs in heavy rotation by John Caspell, so much sighing on my part).

Finding out that there’s an MP3 of the Roberta Bondar song on Judith’s website!  yes.  I can now learn it and then sing it to my mother at my leisure.

Breakfast done, quick confab with Cindy over last minute tweaks to the set list, and now I have to find a printer so I can print out our last minute embiggened lyrics, etc.  Also the chord cheat sheet for Still Star Struck.  I can haz borrowed electrified guitar.

Juanita Coulson just sang me 4 songs

and I laughed, and laughed and laughed.  It never ceases to amaze me how WONDERFUL people in filk fandom are.  How attentive, and sweet natured, and by Darwin’s beard, among the funniest.  I called mOm to tell her, and she said, “But… I have some of her books.”  Well, of course.  The circle is small….

I publicly declare Juanita my filk mom, and take her pronouncement “If it’s played in the filk room, it’s filk” as the definition.

Cindy is here and kipped out in her own room, which is PROVIDENTIALLY across the hall.  Because this hotel is big, man.  No zoo for me today, but perhaps I’ll go Sunday and come back for the Dead Dog.  (It’s called a Smoked Salmon in the PNW).

I blow the universe a kiss, and I am now keeping a filk book, in which I will write all the anecdotes and songs and provenances thereof, as a kind of ethnomusicological effort.  Also to keep things straight, because my memory sucks a Greyhound bus station Men’s room mop.  The hairy end.  Eiyeish.

I am settled into my room at the Double Tree Worthington

Cindy will arrive shortly and go straight to sleep in my room. I will find something to do with myself while she kips and waits for her room to be ready – I am thinking I might like to go look at the enslaved animals, if only in remembrance of the other Ohio animals who didn’t make it.  Besides, they have bonobos, and I ain’t never seen any.  Or I could wander down to the “German Village” room (!?) and see if anybody is filking yet.  Or maybe I’ll say fuck it and go to Macy’s.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Starbucks coffee is nauseatingly bad.  They may be proud to serve it but I’m a fool to drink it.

Gadhafi’s STILL dead, sic semper tyrannis.

So far, except for the coffee, I am loving this hotel.  The staff are really, really professional, friendly and courteous.  Room was supposed to be non-smoking, when I bleated they fixed it without a hiccup.

Weather’s like Vancouver, but windy.

I got selected for ‘special screening’ yesterday.  O goody.  I also got yelled at by every single one of the ‘security theatre’ staff, to the point that I would say “Please don’t yell at me,” not that it helped.  Note to self – travel in slip-ons next time.

“Miles Vorkosigan’s” filk of Lady Miss Banjola’s “Wreck of the Crash” MUST GET LYRICS and sing for my pOp.

It’s about the legal repercussions of losing your hotel room key, and it, like the song it’s based on is bloody hilarious.  YES there was filking last night and it was still going on when I went to bed at midnight local time.

A simply Splendid Time

A visiting English filker named Deborah, who plays splendid violin /fiddle, landed at Tom and Peggy’s last night.  The siren song of Filk and Poutine rang out across E Burnaby, and Rob W,  Paul, daughter Katie, The Bean Family (Bean is SO cute now) plus Cindy, and we all sang.  Frobisher Bay made somebody cry, I won’t say who.  Katie was hopping up and down for Ramboing, and in general it was A GOODNESS.  And it was John’s birthday, and his picture smiled down on us from the mantel…. He would have approved.

Life is good.