I apologize up front today to anyone caught in the crossfire, but y’all need to know this.

I am currently wrecked with stress, anxiety and the afteraffects of insomnia. It’s very likely I’m going to, with roughly equal chances on average with variations based on current conditions on the ground, ignore you, rage at you, or weep on you today. It’s not necessarily your fault, unless you’re one of the people who have contributed to the conditions feeding my stress, then it totally is.

Because I’m a grown-ass adult though, I’m going to to my best to try and hold it together and power through it, because that’s what fucking grown-ass adults do.

I do, however, kind of feel, maybe a little, for the folks who have to deal with me on conference calls today (if the fucking office phones would start working) and the folks at the other back-to-school night have to cover this evening. Odds are, I’ll keep it together and they’ll never know, because, to be perfectly honest, they’re not important enough factors in my life to even matter.

Just know that today, on the inside, I’m one of those people who wouldn’t necessarily mind watching the world burn.

Oh, it’s also Talk Like A Pirate Day!

I posted this way back (I can’t actually find it), though it was always my favorite TLAP celebratory stunt, courtesy of PlunderAsunder:

Ahoy! Four score an’ se’en voyages ago th’ old salts brought fore on
these waters, a new crew, free an’ dedicated t’ th’ accord that all
swabs be on the account.

Now we be engaged in war amongst we brothers o’ th’ coast, testin’
whether that crew, or any crew so conceived an’ so dedicated, can hold
fast. We be met on th’ briney deep. We be gathered t’ th’ Spanish
Main, Davey Jone`s locker fer them who here gave the’r lives that th’
crew might sail. ‘t be altogether fittin’ an’ proper that we be ortin’
ta do this.

We canna dedicate — we canna consecrate — we canna hallow — th’
deep. Scallywags, livin` or dead men be, layed by th’ lee, be havin’
consecrated ‘t, far above our poor power t’ add or detract. Ye`ll nay
strike th’ colors, nor long reckon what we say here, but ‘t can
nereforget what they did here. ‘Tis fer us th’ livin’, rather, t’ be
dedicated here t’ th’ unfinished work which they who fought here be
havin’ walked the plank. ‘Tis rather fer us t’ be comin’ about t’ th’
great task remainin’ before us — that from these honored dead we take
increased custom fer that cause which they gave th’ last full peice of
eight — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall nay be
havin’ sank t’Davy Jones’ locker in vain — that this crew, damn th’r
eyes, be havin’ a new birth o’ freedom — an’ that th’ Articles o’ th’
brethren, by th’ brethren, fer th’ brethren, shant dance wi’ Jack
Ketch.

As mentioned previously, I spent the weekend with The Blibbering Humdingers at the Central NC Pagan Pride Festival at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh.

The weather was warm, though we had plenty of shade. The company was likewise warm, though we really didn’t feel the need to shield ourselves from it. I’d never been to this event before, though as I kind of expected, it was tremendously welcoming, a great gathering of eccentrics united in shared experience. There was a bit of everything – part commune, part renfaire, part fairie festival, part spiritual retreat (The UU in me felt right at home); Some great celtic, medieval, and roots music…and, of course, us.

In spite of some (I assume) back-to-school-related sinus/throat issues, we knocked out a couple of pretty great sets, which seemed well-appreciated by the folks who settled down to watch and interact with us, as well as those passing by and engaging in commerce in nearby vendor tents (we ended both sets with more of an audience than we started with, which is always nice). Also, my sincere thanks to the organizers and sound folks who made us sound good across the entire festival area.

We also, and I can say I’m definitely looking forward to this, hatched some plans to add some new tunes to the repertoire that sound like a lot of fun – we were going to work them in the evening after the festival closed on Saturday, but we were all kind of worn out and had bellies full of really good Thai food. It’ll happen soon, I hope. Certainly in plenty of time to give our friends at Marscon some new material to chew on.

So yeah, thanks to the festival organizers for putting on a great event, thanks to all the folks who stopped by to listen to some tunes or say hello and buy music and other stuff at the merch tent, and thanks, as always, to Scott and Kirsten for continuing to drag me along on all these great little adventures we keep having!

So, thanks to an overloaded family schedule and somehow projecting dates into next week, I totally missed the Willie Nelson show I had tickets for last night on the other side of town. I totally had it in my head that the show was on the 20th rather than the 15th. Even if I had realized before I found myself sitting in the auditorium waiting for the high school “Back to School Night” to kick off (as I was covering two kids’ schedules at once…at least I got a hug from the very friendly art teacher) half an hour after the opener went on, I probably would have had to bail on it anyway, but at least I would have been able to pass the ticket on to someone who could have enjoyed it.

It still chaps my ass. I was looking forward to this show, and Willie isn’t getting any younger. Please stick around a few more years, Mr. Nelson, you’re a freakin’ national treasure, and your show is one of those boxes on my bucket list I have to tick. Tell Dolly to stick around a while longer as well while you’re at it, okay?

Not a whole lot of other news to report, other than the fact that my still-slightly-blue-from-Dragon*Con beard (I mentioned that my wife dyed the grey in my beard blue prior to D*C this year, right?) will be gracing my employee ID card for the next three years. RAWK.

Anyway. Like I mentioned in the previous post earlier this week, I’m playing a couple of shows in NC this weekend, so if you’re in or around Raleigh, come on out.

Here are some tunes that Pandora spit out this morning:

1. “Alleyways” – The Neighbourhood
2. “Welcome to the Jungle” – Guns ‘n Roses
3. “Man on the Moon” – REM
4. “Thunderbird” – They Might Be Giants
5. “I Want It All” – Queen
6. “Glory Bound” – The Wailin’ Jennys
7. “Your Love” – The Outfield
8. “Sweetest Thing” – U2
9. “Good Times Roll” – The Cars
10. “Runaway” – Bon Jovi
11. “Favorite Thing” – The Replacements

And just because, here’s this week’s random Eleven news.

The other day I mentioned a gig this weekend with the Humdingers, and now I have the details:

We’re playing both days of the Central NC Pagan Pride Festival at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. If you’re in the area, come on out, admission each day is a non-perishable donation to the Central and Eastern NC Food Bank.

We’re on stage at 3pm on Saturday and noon on Sunday; I expect we’ll be playing some of the cool fairie and myth-inspired stuff as well as our usual buffoonery. I’m hoping for a good time.

Rather than just dumping the spam folder out of hand every couple of weeks, sometimes I like to pore through it and get…creative.

The short poems below are taken directly from text included in spam comments; I’ve mixed and matched and assembled, though I haven’t added any words; it’s directly out of the spam pile otherwise.

an amusingly old school cry for help:

Hey! I just wanted to ask
if you ever have any trouble with hackers?
I really found you by error, while I was looking on Aol
for something else
Hmm it seems like your site ate my first comment (it was super long)

praise and colorful metaphors:

Wow, that’s what I was exploring for, what a information!
I’m slightly certain I’ll be informed
plenty
look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post.
F*ckin’ remarkable things here.

a paean to monetization of services:

It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button!
I think one of your commercials caused my web browser to resize,
you may well want to put that on your blacklist.
One thing I’d like to comment on is that weightloss system

a ballad to community-organized scientific grammarians:

We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community
Much of the infor mation about signal transmission in the nervous system has been obtained from experiments
A number of them are rife with spelling problems
and I find it very
troublesome to inform the truth

This one is actually more flash fiction than poetry; it’s pretty much a spam comment in it’s entirety (I axed a line with a link trying to sell me black-market cialis), but it was fun.

Today, I went to the beach front with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back!

This has been the most recent edition of our semi-regular literary experiment. I hope you feel as cultured as I do.

I didn’t do a hell of a lot this weekend. I thought I’d mostly avoided the con crud, though ill feelings started creeping in Friday afternoon; by the time we’d gotten to our friends’ house for an evening of board games on Friday night, I was feeling pretty off.

I woke briefly on Saturday morning and cancelled all my plans (Shindig, sunday brewery tour, etc) and went back to bed. My lovely wife brought me some nyquil, and I spent most of Saturday in bed, either sleeping or working through the Replacements bio I’m reading.

Sunday was much the same, though I forced myself to stay (mostly) awake for the day. Couch and movies. Worked for me.

I think I’m mostly clear now (I’m working, but taking it a bit easy…it’s a light day today anyway), though I’ll give myself some more rest this evening before stuff really starts happening around here. Based on the word from my fellow D*C performers on social media, I got off light. Still, I gotta be healthy by the weekend, as there’s another gig on the calendar, which I need to get a little more information about, though once I have it, I’ll post it here.

…and the 50th anniversary (give or take) of Star Trek:

I needed that. I hope you did too.

What with all the dragoncon stuff the last couple of weeks, there’s been little attention paid to all the other stuff going on. The biggest of this is the fact that we sent the kids back to school this week. I have two kids in high school now. I’m getting too old for this shit, seriously.

Oh heck, that’s probably the biggest other thing. We’re settling into our new fall semester routine, which means figuring out who/where everybody’s gotta be on any given afternoon. the answer to that is usually “the dance school”, though the question is who’s got to be there which nights and when (this is mostly due to the school’s newish “family flat fee if you’re registered for at least so many classes” policy, which means they’re taking ALL THE CLASSES).

Oh one dragoncon thing I didn’t mention previously was the fact that I was far enough away from my usual haunts that the Pokemon ecosystem was a bit different. Downtown Atlanta, constantly lured due to D*C, was full of Clefairies, Horseas, and Tauros. I was a happy camper. I also got Kirsten hooked on the game by the end of the con. Judge me all you want, Barb:

Heading into the weekend, I think we’re talking about hitting the Shindig in Norfolk tomorrow, but as I haven’t bought tickets yet, we’ll see. I also might be drinking some beer at some point.

And here’s the random eleven for this week; not a bad mix; getting a few different things lately. Variety is nice.

1. “Nothin’ But A Good Time” – Poison
2. “Karla with a K” – Hooters
3. “Saucy Sailor” – The Wailin’ Jennys
4. “Hold Me Now” – Thompson Twins
5. “Solsbury Hill” – Peter Gabriel
6. “Last Breath” – Ensiferum
7. “Faded” – Zhu
8. “Iron Hand” – Grand Magus
9. “Gagged and Tied” – that dog
10. “If You Leave” – Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
11. “My Best Friend’s Hot” – The Dollyrots

I saw a bunch of cool Stranger Things costumes this past weekend, but was usually too busy to take pictures. The alphabet walls were generally pretty great, though. In any case, here’s another random Eleven, because she’s awesome.

So, after a couple of days of recovery, the story can be told. This was, in a lot of ways, the best Dragon*Con we’ve ever had. The energy from the audience at our shows was great, we *played* great, we had a lot of fun, and the fans (we have fans!) really supported us throughout the weekend.

All told, the whole Blibbering Humdinger crew had a great time, thanks especially to the folks running the D*C Filk Track (Robby, Amber, Pat, Walt, Grace, and all the people I’m surely forgetting) for taking such great care of us, even when one of us lost a badge, however, temporarily, on Saturday evening. Thanks also to the great performers we got to share the stage with, including Mikey, Metricula, Sooj, Gray, Nick, Tom, Marc and Andrew, The Doubleclicks, the guys from Foot Pound Force, Grace and Braxton and Sarah from Valentine Wolfe, who had to drop out at the last minute for personal reasons, but whose absence (and presence) was felt the entire weekend by all of us – love you guys.

…plus all the people I forgot. Of which I’m sure there are a ton.

Dragoncon itself is a huge, weird, and overwhelming experience, as always, though after three years, I’m starting to figure my way around; I know where most of the major stuff is, I don’t get completely lost through the hotels and the habitrails connecting them. I can weave around giant costumes and impromptu photo shoots with the best of them, can tell you where all the bathrooms are, and haul gear up eleven flights of stairs while barely breaking a sweat…barely.

we had a great merching location this year, right on the main thorofare through the Marriott (this probably helped a lot with making the con particularly successful this year), so we got to talk to a lot of the fans, get ourselves out in front of a lot of people walking by. Also, we got to partake in a lot of entertaining people watching; the costumes at this event are amazing; I didn’t get many pictures this year, though I highly recommend poking around the googles to get a look at some of them. Neat stuff.

I also had more celebrity encounters than usual this year, including minor run-ins with Charlie “Daredevil” Cox, Eliza “swoon” Dushku (who’s oh so pretty, but not as pretty as Charlie Cox), Sean Maher, and got a dirty look from Judge Reinhold as he almost bumped into me in the hallway. Perhaps the coolest bit was having Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm amble by our table on their way to some important VIP musician function while we were testing out our little PA for our Sunday night “Wrenegade Wrock Show”, and seeing them bob their heads appreciatively while we ripped through a very well-sorted version of “Hermione’s Beaded Bag”. Oh yeah.

Also was the usual general silliness and shenanigans we all get up to – I was mistaken for Mikey Mason at least once, was present at the creation of yet another Dragon*Con “composed at the merch table” tune (last year’s was “Waiting to Wait in Line”), the soon to be viral hit “A Hufflepuff Knocked My House Elf Up”, and was witness to some vaguely unsettling discussion of Doozer Cosplay involving very tiny hats. Also, thanks to my t-shirt on Friday, I seem to be, now-and-forever, famously known as “The World’s Okayest Bassist” (I even got asked to sign some autographs that way) at Dragon*Con; a title I’m perfectly okay with…

yeah, it was cool.