Browncoat Cruise and Mutant Enemy Strike Day
Well, I posted briefly right before the Browncoat Cruise, so I'll try to pick up the story from there.

First, the Cruise . . .

The night before the Cruise, Browncoats gathered at the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown San Diego, on Broadway Street. (I resisted making jokes about playing on Broadway this time. I think I've matured.) We couldn't set up the PA in their lobby, but folks listened intently and joined right in on the songs. Totally fun. I welcomed everyone to "The 2007 Browncoat Family Reunion," which is what it felt like. Jonathon Woodward showed up for the Shindig and downed an impressive number of Mudder's Milk cocktails, which tasted like tiramisu.

The hotel is built in an old bank, and it shows. The lobby ceiling in three storeys high and covered with art. The check-in desk has part of the original teller windows, and each floor has the antique mail drop. There's marble frickin' everywhere. The basement has meeting rooms and phone booths built into the original vaults. It's the kind of hotel that should be haunted, or possibly occupied by vampires.

The next morning, Hawke, Joyce, and I piled out early to get some breakfast at a local Denny's, as we're allergic to paying fancy hotel food prices. We found out too late that the BC Cruise probably would have covered our breakfast, and that Brian had arranged for us to have late checkout as well as a limo ride from the hotel to the pier with the other VIPs. Oh, well. We're just not used to thinking of ourselves as important. In any case, we had way too much luggage for a limo, and I had to take care of parking the truck in a secured lot for the cruise.

Boarding a cruise ship is not unlike boarding a plane. I drove up to where I could drop off Hawke, Joyce, and our eleven bags, boxes, and instruments for a porter to take them onboard. After parking Vera in a safe place, I hiked back over to the embarkation line so we could go through security, get issued our stateroom keys (which were also our Sail and Sign cards, or "Sail and Spend" as Joyce liked to call them), pose for a picture in front of a fake tropical backdrop (in all our winter gear, no less), and ultimately board the ship. Lunch was already being served, and we couldn't enter our stateroom yet, so we hung out on the Lido deck eating and drinking.

Eating and drinking are, by the way, the primary activities on a cruise ship. I mean, this really should have been a Lord of the Rings Cruise: we could have eaten breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies . . .

For us, though, the big fun was seeing all the Browncoats. Some of them we knew from our former travels, and some were new friends. Some approached us deferentially as though we were big stars. Would you believe some of them paid for photo ops with us, and dinners? I guess I should accept our fifteen minutes of fame by now.

As the ship pulled out of harbor, a bunch of us gathered on the foreward decks (the front, for you landlubbers) to watch San Diego get smaller and smaller. It was gorram exciting.

Not long after we'd set sail, the captain announced a safety drill, which required that we all report to our muster stations with our lifejackets, which were of course stored in our stateroom, five decks below where we were standing. I told Hawke and Joyce I'd meet them at the muster point with our stuff. Of course, the elevators were turned off for the drill, so I ran down five flights of stairs, grabbed three lifejackets, and ran back up five flights of stairs to rendezvous with Joyce and Hawke. I swore at that point not to climb another stair for the rest of the Cruise! (Hawke, on the other hand, took the stairs every time so as to counteract the hobbit-liking eating.)

Dinner rolled around before we knew it, and when we went to our assigned dining table, we were pleased to discover that our dining partners were none other than Michael Fairman (who played Niska on Firefly), his wife Joy, and their daughter Skye. I'd met Michael briefly the year before at B3, but it was great to actually get to converse with him and his family at length. He's an incredibly witty, cheerful, entertaining man who clearly enjoyed playing a psychopathic torturer. Joyce read his palm and apparently was dead-on, like she always is. His wife, who has both the looks and talent to get away with being haughty, is one of the sweetest people we've ever met. On one of the evenings, she treated the cruisers to her acapella rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"—good gods, what pipes. It was incredible.

After dinner on the first night, we sang a few songs at the opening ceremonies, where Ron Glass revealed the first of several tidbits about Shepherd Book's past. Apparently, there is going to be a graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics, titled "A Shepherd's Tale." Once opening ceremonies were over, Sonny Rhodes had his concert. I had originally suggested to Brian that Sonny's concert occur later in the cruise so that we'd have a chance to practice together, but that didn't work out. So there we were, a Celtic band backing up a Texas bluesman from Smithville, Texas (right down the road from where I live now, oddly enough). It all more or less worked out.

On the second morning of the Cruise, we all woke up to the sunlight streaming through the porthole, and we thought we were too late for breakfast. Turns out it was 7:30 a.m., and that breakfast goes 'till noon! I love cruise ships! Realizing that we had little in the way of timepieces, I went and bought a watch from the ten-dollar store on the ship.

After breakfast, Hawke and I went to the dining room where stars were posing for photo ops, and we discovered that we were scheduled for a few. We were also part of the group shots with all the stars; I stood next to Nectar Rose, arm around her waist and the whole bit. We also chatted with her while we were autographing posters. I eventually had to run without finishing all the autographs; I really wanted to make it to the Shindig Dancing Class.

Of course, no sooner had I learned the first few steps than Joyce came by and reminded me that I was supposed to be hypnotizing people right then. Frak! I screwed up my schedule and missed the dancing! Grrrr. Arrrrgh. (Sorry, Lara, I'll dance with you another time, if we're ever simultaneously on the same continent again.)

I was still hypnotizing people when Joyce went to the White Elephant Gift Exchange hosted by Jonathon Woodward. I've said it before and I'll say it again: That man ain't right. He was so impressed by the high-tech wheelchair that one of the Albuquerque BCs had that Jonathon declared a contest to see who could attach the tackiest crap to the chair by the end of the cruise. Entries had to be acquired on the ship and could not cost more than $5. The winner was a blow up doll of the ship's mascot, which is too tacky for me to accurately describe. Joyce came in second with a pair of coconut shells we nicked from the midnight buffet. Charles Girven claimed third place with a model of Serenity made entirely from trash found onboard. (The Girvens' good stuff, btw, can be found at firefly.girven.org.)

The exact schedule gets hazy in my mind after that. I know we had a fantastic panel with the four actors. At one point, Michael Fairman gave a very serious answer, which he concluded by saying, "I'm sorry. I seem to have made the mood way too serious. I will now remedy that by dancing!" Then he jumped up and did a dance that should really only be carried out for the purpose of proving to Willow that you really are Xander. It was hilarious. Much inspired, Nectar Rose later ended an answer by standing up and dancing the robot.

On the second night, Joyce and I went to the "speed-friending," which was a fun way to meet folks or get to know them better. Even met a person who works as an assistant entertainment director at a major faire . . . she said we might get a job out of it one of these days . . .

On the third day, we hit Cabo San Lucas! Eschewing the official excursion, Joyce, Hawke, and I wandered around the tourist district and did a little shopping. Cabo is much cleaner than the parts of Mexico I grew up near. Joyce had her hair done in cornrow braids by three tiny Mexican ladies. We ran into various fellow BCs and eventually hung out together at an open-air restaurant overlooking the harbor, where we downed copious quantities of hot sauce and alcohol while laughing at tourists posing for pictures in a sombrero that said, "I'm a dick," in Spanish on the front. At one point, we watched a seal cavorting in the harbor.

That night, the dining room served lobster tails and jumbo shrimp. Our server brought us seconds. Did I mention that I frickin' love cruises?

After dinner, we had another concert with Sonny Rhodes. This time we were into it enough that I actually got applause on some of my blues fiddle breaks. We backed him up in a rendition of "The Ballad of Serenity," which he read somewhat haltingly from a handwritten copy of the lyrics I had dictated to someone with better handwriting than mine before the show. Apparently, Sonny had not had cause to sing the Firefly theme song since the day he recorded it, but he was a good sport about giving it a shot, and we just hung on to the appropriate chords until he got around to singing each line. Afterwards, Joy sang, and then we had our set, which ended with everyone getting their kumbayayas on "Freedom Costs."

Once the concert was done, I was a bit too keyed up to sleep, so I had a piece of pizza from the 24-hour pizzeria and went to watch a little Firefly in the viewing room. Afterwards, I noticed that the pizza was not sitting well, so after wandering the ship for a bit I retreated to our stateroom to take some Zantac.

Now, I've had botulism before, and I know what it feels like, and this felt just like it. Turns out it wasn't. It was apparently the Noro Virus. Anyway, I puked several times that night and then had diarrhea. Joyce insisted on having me wheeled down to the infirmary the next morning, where they promptly confined me to quarters for 24 hours. I told them they couldn't do that because I had autographs to sign, and sing-a-longs to sing along at, and concerts to give, and they couldn't change that by making things all bendy, and the colored lights looked so pretty, and then the shot they gave me took effect and I slept most of the rest of the day . . .

Somewhere in there I woke up to discover that Joyce had brought me the rest of the posters I was supposed to sign, and it took all my strength to sign them. Then she showed me one that nearly everyone on the BC Cruise had signed for me with get-well wishes. I must have had an allergic reaction to all the silver ink, because my throat got all tight and my eyes watered profusely.

While I was sleeping, I apparently missed all kinds of fun. Hawke gave a solo concert in the place of the one that we had scheduled for that night. The Browncoats took over karaoke with some Buffy songs. People in Jayne hats took over the hot tub. And get this: Michael Fairman stopped by the Serenity RPG to do a cameo as the villainous Niska. Talk about the ultimate roleplaying game experience! And I slept through it all.

The next morning I was well enough that the medics released me from quarantine. It was hard to tell quite how I was really feeling, though, because the ship was rocking from side-to-side big time. I mean, I had to wait until the edge of the bed was downhill before I could even get out. Plates and glasses were crashing off tables on the top deck. Then came the announcement that our planned trip to Ensenada, Mexico, was canceled because the port was closed due to the extreme sea swell. Oy vey.

Well, if anyone can handle a cancellation, it's Browncoats, so the organizers jumped into action and whipped up a schedule of activities for the day, including a make-up concert for me and Hawke that evening. Unfortunately, Hawke started feeling poorly during dinner and had to retreat to our stateroom during closing ceremonies. By our concert time, he was curled up moaning in bed, so I played solo and got a bunch of people to sign Hawke's get-well cruise poster. (He is reported to have had an even more severe allergic reaction to the silver ink.) One of the BCs on board was kind enough to take Hawke's guitar and back me up on a couple of songs. (Thanks, Eddie!)

When I was done, I retired to the stateroom, where Joyce was busy packing Hawke's bags (as he was comatose) and filling out our paperwork for debarkation. Bags had to be tagged with our debarkation number (originally 19, but changed to 3 when Jeremy got us priority debarkation on account of our famous demeanor) and out in the hallway by midnight. While doing that, I spied a somewhat tipsy Julesong being escorted to her cabin by none other than Ron Glass, who really went above and beyond the call of duty for a celebrity guest. After he made sure that she was safely returned to her stateroom, he commented to me that he'd had occasion to be grateful for similar assistance.

By the time I could finally sleep, Hawke was crashed out on the bed where Joyce and I had slept the other nights. Joyce climbed up into the Pullman bed that had been Hawke's bunk, which left me with the floor. I slept hard, hard, hard upon that floor, and woke up in time for one last breakfast on the ship. Because we had priority debarkation, they called our number to leave before we could eat, but the staff assured us that it would be okay for us to finish breakfast. Michael and Joy came by to ask how all of us were feeling and to make sure we had their email addresses.

Debarkation was pretty smooth, a reverse of the embarkation process. Our bags were all in group number three, so we piled them up on a porter's cart, counted ten, and realized we were one short. The porter told us to report that to a custom's agent, who suggested we search the other group numbers as things get mixed up all the time. Well, Hawke and I frantically searched the whole tent without finding the missing bag. (Hawke was barely ambulatory at this point, poor guy. And Joyce had an ear infection coming on that is still plaguing her.) We had just moved into the other tent when I realized that our missing bag would most likely be with group number nineteen, which is where all the rest of the luggage from our hallway had ended up. Sure enough, there it was. We were able to quickly load the truck and head out of San Diego.

Before I go into talking about the post-Cruise fun, I just want to say that the Browncoat Cruise was awesome. The folks who put it together did an amazing job and helped all of us forge memories that will last a lifetime. I know some people out there had doubts that it would work. All I can say is those people were dead wrong. The whole thing was top-notch, an excellent experience better than any convention. We're all three still wearing our "Balls and Barnacles Brigade" dog tags that served the purpose of con badges. I'm not sure I'm ever takin' mine off.


And then there was dinner with Greg Edmonson . . .

So, the Cruise was done, but we had more to do. While Hawke and Joyce got much needed sleep in the cab, I drove Vera on up to L.A. where we were sharing a room with Julesong, Chris Bridges, and Bix. That evening, Julie, Hawke, Joyce, and I drove to the home of the Big Damned Composer, Greg Edmonson, where he and his wife Suzanne hosted us for a lovely dinner of gourmet pizza. They have an incredible home decorated with amazing art and set into a hillside overlooking the city; we had a great time just sitting around chatting about music, the television industry, the writers strike, and of course Firefly. We swapped "life in Texas" stories with Greg and Suzanne, as they are Texans in exile there in California. Get this: it turns out that Greg attended my alma mater, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Weird, huh? At the end of our evening, Greg was kind enough to give us a tour of his home studio, which is where he composed the music for Firefly. I feel like I've walked on hallowed ground, though Greg is so laid back that it didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

And finally, the strike!

The next morning, Julesong, Bix, and I left Joyce and Hawke sleeping off their infections at the hotel room while the rest of us went down to the Mutant Enemy Strike Day. Jules had written some really cool strike songs, and she also coordinated a collaboration between me, Bridges, and Bix. She made copies of the lyrics and handed them out at the strike.

The fan picketing made national news, and it's also extensively covered on YouTube and Flickr. There's a really cool fanmade mini-documentary about it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ze0orUIToM

There's a lot of discussion of that documentary, and my appearance in it, here:

http://whedonesque.com/comments/14946

Also, there's some footage of us marching from the parking lot to the picket line, featuring me singing "Freedom Costs," here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umo-hUJZpf8&NR=1

If you go to Flickr and search "Mutant Enemy Strike Day," you'll find about 1500 stills, including a few of me, but mostly of famous actors and writers who showed up.

The whole thing was an amazingly emotional experience. I walked for about four hours straight; I think my blisters have blisters. But it was amazing to be marching along with all those Mutant Enemy fans from all over the world, mostly Browncoats, many of them new friends from the Cruise, right in front of Fox Studios. Anytime I started a song, a whole crew of folks would fall in behind me and Julie, singing right along.

At one point, I found myself marching next to Ben Edlund, who wrote "Jaynestown" and of course "The Hero of Canton." I identified myself to him, and he complimented our album! I got to say hi to Jane Espenson during a break; she remembered me from the DFW screening. Michael Fairman called out my name when he saw me on the picket line, and Ron Glass also addressed me by name. While I was getting some water in the fairly crowded tent, Eliza Dushku had to squeeze her way past me; we didn't rub shoulders so much as shoulder blades. That's right. Eliza Dushku touched me. I managed to not collapse in a puddle of fanboy fervor.

In fact, I resisted the urge to run up and pose with various stars, as we had all agreed that such behavior was not appropriate that day. Didn't stop some folks, though. Grrrr.

After the four hours of picketing, the BCs had a big picnic in the park, which I unfortunately could not stick around for on account of having a shindig in Phoenix the next day. However, as I was packing up in the parking lot, I noticed that Tim Minear, Nathan Fillion, and Alan Tudyk were clumped around the back of a car (which turned out to be Tudyk's). I had in my possession a set of QMx Travel Posters that had been autographed by the artist, Adam Levermore-Rich, as well as by all the guests on the Cruise and Greg Edmonson, so I grabbed them and hurried over to where the three were standing. In my humblest tones, I explained that I would never ask this for myself, but would they be kind enough to autograph the posters for charity? They all three did, even though it made Alan Tudyk late for his guitar lesson. One of those posters auctioned at the Phoenix Shindig for $185 for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

Our friend Kimie had asked if she could get a ride to LAX airport after the picket, so she and I hopped in Vera and headed out. However, as we were stopped at the light on Motor Street, Kimie pointed out that Joss Whedon was walking down the sidewalk across from us, alone even. At Kimie's urging, I rolled down the window, stuck my head out, and sang a chorus of "The Ballad of Joss" to the man himself. He stopped and smiled from ear to ear, then lifted both fists up in a gesture of triumph as I reached the final "man they call Jossssss!" That's right. I sang for Joss Ruttin' Whedon!

Well, it was a quick trip to the hotel to collect Joyce and Hawke (who was quite happy to see Kimie again), drop Kimie at the airport, and hit I-10. When I'd made the plan to picket and travel in the same day, I thought we'd be able to switch off between three drivers, but with both Hawke and Joyce out of commission, I pulled the whole bloody thing myself. Oy. I think that counts as a Stupid Cedric Trick.

So, the next afternoon we rolled into the Goathead Salloon for a charity concert with the Whiskey Bards, a kick-ass acapella group, and the Bedouin Tribe, who put on one of the best bellydance shows I've ever seen. There are MP3s of the concert at http://hosted.filefront.com/manosdvd/ (Thanks, Dave!)

And two days later, we finally made it back to Pine Valley Estates. We had some great adventures in our three weeks on the road, but we're glad to finally be home.