The Fiddler of Bedlam

My Hypnosis Website

2008-05-15T01:28:04Z

My certification with the International Hypnosis Federation became official today, so to celebrate I put my website online. I still haven't ironed out the details for office space, so for the moment it looks like I'm an itinerant hypnotist, delivering trances-to-go. (I wonder if I could make extra money by delivering pizzas at the same time: "You're getting sleepy, and yes, you do love anchovies . . . ")

Anyway, my site is www.harmonyhypnosis.net . It's the first I ever designed, so please be gentle in your criticisms.

Many thousand thanks, btw, to April for helping me with the backgrounds and logo. Any good qualities are because of her, and all flaws are mine.

I have the best luck with student-teacher ratios!

2008-04-21T17:29:59Z

When I signed up to start my hypnosis training last fall, it turned out that I had only one classmate. I remember thinking to myself, "Two-to-one, what a great student-teacher ratio!"

When my classmate dropped out after one week of training, I was sad to see him go, as he was a very talented student, but I cheered myself up by thinking, "One-to-one, that's an even better student-teacher ratio!"

Well, I thought it couldn't get much better than that, but it did.

I just spent the last four days at a regional hypnosis conference--but as Fate would have it, I was the only student who showed up.

Now, the guest-of-honor, the world-famous Shelley Stockwell, PhD, expert hypnotist with decades of experience, author of a dozen books on hypnosis, and founding president of the International Hypnosis Federation, could have said, "This is rotten! Only one person showed up to see me!" Instead, she said, "This is going to be exactly what each of us needs."

So, for the last four days, I've essentially been in class with Kathy Moore (my instructor), Dr. Stockwell (one of the world's top hypnotists), and Donna Tully (Dr. Stockwell's personal assistant, and an expert hypnotherapist herself). One-to-three student-teacher ratio! I win!

So there I was, a brand-new hypnotist whose just completed his certification hours, getting individual coaching from three amazing teachers . . . getting weight loss hypnosis from the person who wrote the book. (Literally--I have a copy of it.)

I am one lucky son-of-a-gun! It was like grad school but better. My brain is still reeling from all the things I learned, and it may take me a week to write it all down.

Adventures in Canada

2008-04-10T16:06:09Z

The Bedlam Bards are now officially international performers, as this last weekend we played in Toronto, Ontario, in an operation that has come to be known as "Bards Without Borders."

See, for sometime, Karen "Earthgirl" Paddison of Firefly Cargo Bay has been determined to get the Bedlam Bards to perform for the Toronto Browncoats. After trying various plans, she facilitated our appearance as guests at FilKONtario, a long-running filk music festival in Toronto. The convention committee made the Bards and the Browncoats very welcome, even offering a special one-day pass for BCs.

So last Thursday, Hawke, Joyce, and I boarded a plane in Austin for a very quick flight to Houston. We actually realized that if we had driven from Pine Valley Estates to the Houston Airport, we would have left at about the same time. Anyway, in Houston, we had the very shortest of layovers—to the point that we were basically running through the airport to make sure we didn't miss the flight to Toronto. Interestingly, the international flight was on a much smaller plane, but with fewer people onboard, several of us ended up with two seats to sprawl across. Another strange quality of that flight is that the climate control seemed to be aimed at getting us acclimatized to Canada; it got colder and colder as we flew. The flight attendant kept putting on more clothing. She was wearing a pea coat by the time we arrived. We, of course, were still dressed for Texas . . .

Getting through customs wasn't much of a hassle, and we were soon able to call for a shuttle to take us to the hotel. Once there, we were lucky that concom members recognized us at the front desk and were able to help us get checked in, as we weren't actually on the list to arrive that night.

As soon as we were checked in, Dave Gal, a fellow Browncoat Cruise alum, picked us up and took us to a showing of Serenity in HD on his ginormous home entertainment system. Wow! That was amazing. He was also kind enough to send out for pizza, which was good as the snack on the plane was a long time gone at that point. We also got to admire Dave's extensive sword collection and handle an actual prop from Serenity, one of Inara's hero arrows.

The next morning, Dave picked us up for a day of local sightseeing, which started at Tim Horton's, a fast-food joint featuring donuts and breakfast sandwiches. You actually can't spit in Toronto without hitting a Tim Horton's. Not that you spit.

Our next stop was the CN Tower, one of the world's tallest buildings. It's akin to the Space Needle and other towers of that type, only much taller. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day—there had actually been a bit of snow falling that morning—so visibility from the top was partly obscured by clouds, but it was still pretty awesome to look down at the city from so high up. The freakiest part is that a portion of the floor is glass. Now, we'd been told that the glass floor could hold 14 large hippos, so I knew it was perfectly safe. Even so, I involuntarily stopped short of stepping on it. (Perhaps I was wondering what had happened to that fifteenth hippo.) I did eventually make myself walk on it, staring down at the ground far below. I even took a few pictures of my feet above the clouds.

We exited through the gift shop—standard procedure for tourist attractions—and turned down the picture of us standing in front of green-screened images of Toronto on a clear day. Joyce got her requisite key-chain, and Hawke added another smashed penny to his collection. The smashed penny machine took only Canadian money, so he had to hit up Dave for the cash to do it.

We then walked a few blocks to catch the trolley car, as riding the trolley was on the list of 25 things you must do while in Toronto. I have to say that riding a bus has never struck me as a tourist attraction, but it did get us where we wanted to go. As before, Dave had to pay, as Canadian money was the only means for doing that. We hopped off the trolley on Spadina Street, which is the heart of Toronto's Chinatown. At last, we felt as though we were in a foreign country! Chinatown was picturesque, and we decided to take in some local flavor at a Chinese noodle house.

Okay, in addition to local flavor, we took in some local odors. A strong, not entirely pleasant, aroma assaulted our noses as we walked through the door. Fortunately, the smell wasn't really present at our table, though Hawke warned us that the bathroom reeked of mold.

Anyway, our hot-and-sour soup and our dumplings were all tasty enough, and no one suffered any ill effects later. When I went to pay with the Bard Card, the owner told us they didn't take credit, so we all turned to Dave to pay for our meal with that very pretty funny money they use up there. Thanks, Dave!

Next we walked down to "Kensington Market," which was actually a quaint little street (called "Kensington") lined with funky little shops that were once residences. It reminded me a lot of something you might see on South Congress in Austin, or in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Lots of used/vintage clothing, buttons with slogans like "McMurder," glass "novelty" pipes, and so on. Outside one shop, we saw something definitely Canadian: a black squirrel. All black fur. Joyce tried to get a good picture of it, but it acted like we were paparazzi.

That was our last sightseeing stop in Toronto before going back to the hotel to register for the con and do our sound checks. It was perhaps a bit odd to do sound checks the day before the performance, but the engineers wanted to get an idea of our set-up, and it did seem to help with the concert the next day. In between registration and sound checks, we caught up with Earthgirl, who was setting up the Firefly Cargo Bay booth in the dealer room. When I saw her, she gave me a gift for Vera (my truck), a car-sized version of the Independents' Flag. Very shiny. I already have a full-sized version, and Earthgirl showed me that they have two other sizes: one in between the car size and the full size, and a little stick flag size. I had to get one of the stick flags to go on my mandola. They're just too cool.

On Friday evening, we heard concerts by several great filk acts. First was a trio called Urban Tapestry. I'd never heard of them, but I was instantly impressed by their sweet harmonies, tight arrangements, and engaging personalities. Over the course of the weekend, we were surprised to learn that they were big fans of ours; in fact, they had scratched "Sail the Sky" from their set-list when they learned we were coming.

Next up on Friday night was Heather Dale, a multi-instrumentalist former SCA bardic Laurel. Her music was amazing. In particular, we were taken with a song she sang about the goddess Sedna; it was flat-out hypnotic.

After the concerts, Vixy and Tony had a CD-release party in the con suite. We stopped by to congratulate them on finishing their album, but con parties are just not my thing, so I went back downstairs to find one of the several filk circles listed on the schedule. Only one of the locations had anything going at that point, and it was just a few folks, including Bill Roper, the con's "Filk Waif" (whatever that is—he doesn't look waify), and Marilyn Miller, the con's Interfilk Guest. As the few of us there traded off, the room quickly filled; apparently the several different filk circles scheduled all ended up in one room that night. I eventually sang "The Scorpion Blues" and "Backyard Cylons," as I figured neither one would be in our Saturday concert. One of the fans there commented that the new season of BSG had started mere hours ago.

Saturday was the Browncoat day at the con. It started off with a Bedlam Bards Q&A/Autograph Session. No one asked for our autographs during the session, though we did plenty of autographing the rest of the weekend. We had several questions, and Hawke pretty much answered all of them. That's strange, because usually I'm the mouthpiece of the band.

After that, I had an hour to kill with group hypnosis. I'd never really done anything like that at a con, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Without a really big crowd, a hypnotist really can't count on there being enough natural somnambulists to do a conventional hypnosis show, so I made it more educational. We did a couple of exercises and some stress release. (Who can't use that?) Then to wrap it up, I invited three audience members to do arm catalepsy and woke them up while their arms were still cataleptic. I'd never done that on more than one person at a time. When I released their arms, they evidenced some discomfort, which Joyce pointed out. I did the three-count pain release, and one of the volunteers jerked her head around at me in amazement, trying to figure out where her pain had gone.

Next, we had some very shiny videos that Earthgirl had put together for us: a concert clip of me and Hawke in Albuquerque, a music video to "Mal's Song," the Mosquito parody, the extended gag reel, a slide show of "inspirational" posters using clips from Firefly and Serenity, and several videos in which Fisher-Price Little People were cast as the Big Damn Heroes. We laughed our asses off.

Then Hawke, Joyce, and I went to lunch with a bunch of the local BCs. We'd previously heard rumors of some sort of English pub, but instead for some reason we ended up at the Canadian equivalent of a Denny's. Go figure. While there, we commented on the fact that we'd been in Canada for several days, and no one had said "eh" yet.

After lunch, we had our concert in the convention's main hall. We had a little extra time during our sound check, so we "checked the mics" by singing "Whiskey in the Jar," which our audience quite enjoyed. There was little else going on during our concert, so we had most of the convention in our audience. Then, as often happens during important performances, Hawke broke a string; but for some reason, he had a particularly rough time getting it changed and getting the guitar back in tune. I filled the time by playing the funeral music from "The Message," and then by reprising "The Scorpion Blues" at the audience's request. That meant that our time was a little tight at the end of the show, so we skipped "Sail the Sky/Big Damn Trilogy" and concluded with "Freedom Costs." (At least one Toronto Browncoat is joining the 76th as a result of our performance.) Still, I think the audience liked our music. In between songs, someone in the audience asked why we weren't planning to just stay in Toronto all year, to which Dave Gal replied, "I can't afford it!"

Next up after us were Vixy and Tony. Browncoats outside of filk will know Vixy by her legal name, Michelle Dockrey, the writer of "Mal's Song." Between her amazing voice and Tony's virtuoso guitar playing, they put on an incredible show. At one point during their concert, Vixy thanked us for getting them into the Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle. Awwww. Because they were in Canada, they did Jonathon Coulton's "All We Want to Do is Eat Your Brains" in French. They had big cards with the lyrics written out for the audience to sing along; the lovely ladies of Urban Tapestry took on the job of holding them up at appropriate times. Then after the song, Michelle continued monologuing in French, while the signs informed us that the day before had been Tony's birthday, and we should all sing "Happy Birthday" at the count of three. Talk about blindsiding.

After the concerts broke up, I wandered over to the dealers' room and discovered there was an instrument maker set up. He handed me an awesome 10-string cittern in open tuning. Oh, don't throw me in that brier patch! He and I had a really great jam session, and then Heather Dale joined in. We were having a blast, but it was time to close the dealers' room. I asked the instrument maker if he'd be sticking around for the evening filk circles and could I borrow the cittern for the night, but he said he was packing up to go . . .

Dejected, I sought out the Browncoats, who were having a laid-back pizza party in one of the side rooms. (The rest of the con was doing a fancy banquet.) Earthgirl had some of those things like you see at faire, where there's a picture of some fanciful figure with the face cut out for people to pose in for photographs. (Those things must have a name, right? Beats me if I know what it is.) Only hers were Whedon-themed: One had the Fruity Oaty Bar girls, and the other had the Grrr Arrrgh monster. After we were all stuffed full of pizza, Karen asked if anyone was up for the Firefly-inspired games she had planned for the night, but one of my hypnosis volunteers from earlier in the day piped up, "Let's have Cedric hypnotize us again!"

Yeah, sure, I can just make something up on the spot, no problem. So before I knew it, I had the whole room closing their eyes, breathing deep, and experiencing a ride on Serenity, complete with climate-control malfunctions and tasty strawberries. I wrapped it up with a chance to absorb the better qualities of any of the characters into oneself. Folks seemed to really enjoy the chance to ride on Serenity.

Then Hawke and I gave a little mini-concert for the Browncoats present, on account of our earlier show being shorter than we're used to. We wrapped up fairly quickly and encouraged folks to go to the Interfilk auction, which raises money for an organization that sponsors kind of a regional filker exchange program. Vixy had donated a very shiny Kaylee parasol, which Dave Gal bought.

The final activity of the night was two separate filk circles, one reputedly more of an Irish session, at least in that there were a couple of professional Celtic musicians there being overly serious about Celtic music. They were good players, but they reminded me a bit of why I don't go to the Austin session. Still, we had some good jams before I wandered over to the smaller circle, which was a more typical filk session.

When I walked into that room, someone asked me if the other session had broken up, and I wondered why until I looked behind me and saw that about a dozen people had followed, including the members of Urban Tapestry, who sat literally at my feet when I found a chair. I joined in with fiddle harmonies on one of their songs—which was easy to do on account of how sweet their sound was already—and then I asked if they'd join me for "Sail the Sky." I just wish Hawke had been there, because that was a very cool collaboration. When we got to the instrumental break, I asked Debbie to take it on flute; their harmonies on the chorus really made it special. What a nifty moment. Afterwards, they informed me that I had to stay in Toronto, and they were starting a rumor to that effect. Funny, but I did hear that rumor several more times that weekend.

On Sunday morning, I got a call from Laura Crandall, a Buffalo, NY, Browncoat I had expected to see at the concert on Saturday. She told me that she got the days mixed up, and she and a friend were sitting in the lobby. So we went down and had breakfast with them. We'd met Laura at the Browncoat Backup Bash; she was one of the kind Browncoats who offered us a spare bed in her hotel room when we had no place to stay. Anyway, she and her friend were quite disappointed to have missed our concert, so we invited them and Dave Gal up to our room for a private concert. It was the least we could do, especially since she'd brought us Jayne hats! After a couple of songs, I curled up on my bed and slept while Hawke continued to sing. I like staying up late at those filk circles, but I really do need my beauty rest . . .

We eventually moseyed down to the main programming room and caught part of the children's concert, which had only one child attending, but lots of adults. We also spent a while wandering around trying to swap CDs with other musicians, and posing for spontaneous photo ops. When dinner rolled around, we invaded a local restaurant with our crew, only to discover that several other tables were filled with conventioneers. We picked up Dave's check, which he later commented seemed to even out the score. J

That evening, even though the con was officially over, there was a very large filk circle at the "Dead Penguin Party." (What is it with fans and penguins? That's the second con I've been to that has the penguin as its unofficial mascot.) I like to play along with what I hear, so I sat there picking on my mandola through most of the performances. That led someone to think that I was trying to get a chance to do a song, so they called on me to perform. Most of the songs had been pretty sedate, but I really didn't want to do sedate, so I sang "The Sparrow Song" instead. When I finished, there was kind of a lull, and someone close to me whispered, "No one wants to follow you, Cedric." Gorramit, I didn't even stand up to sing . . .

Eventually the wheel started turning again. There were some really great performances that night. Kathleen from Colorado asked me to play country fiddle on an Austin Lounge Lizards song; thank god she had a chord chart, because the song was in E-Major. I would have done much better in D. It made me think that I really ought to learn ALL's stupid Texas song. That would be a fun one to take to other places. Before I left, I played some gypsy fiddle, just to show off my range. *grin*

Well, despite what a great filk circle it was, I retired before the night got too late, as I knew we had a big day ahead of us on Monday. Dave Gal, our faithful tour guide and handler, met us at the A&W for breakfast at ten and then drove us down to Niagara Falls. I slept through quite a bit of the drive, but I don't think I missed a lot. A Canadian freeway looks a lot like an American freeway, once you've gotten used to seeing speed limits of 100 (kilometers, that is) and road signs in English and French. (You'd think that as long as the French-speaking population of Canada has been in the New World, they'd have learned to speak Spanish by now.)

Our first stop in Niagara was the Butterfly Observatory, which Earthgirl had recommended to us. I wasn't sure what we'd see in April, which is like a Texas January, but we wanted to check it out anyway. Well, once we were in there, it was amazing. It's a densely packed greenhouse full of tropical plants and waterfall; we started peeling off layers of clothing as soon as we got there. Just the plants and landscaping were really cool, but then you have to add the butterflies. There were literally everywhere, resting on branches, leaves, railings, and feeding platforms; zipping through the air playing tag; pushing one another off the choice flowers . . . butterflies in every color, from the huge blue ones that showed only brown when they landed to tiny tiger-striped beauties, and everything in between. Butterflies landed on three out of four of us, and we all had the experience of them flying right in front of our faces. At one end of the observatory was the cocoon area, where we could watch butterflies emerging and drying their wings. The whole place was magical.

The next stop was the Horseshoe Falls. As we drove towards them, suddenly my vocabulary was reduced to Keanu Reeves level: "Whoah. Dude. Dude! Look at that. Dude! Whoah . . . " Dave paid for us to park (Thanks, Dave!) and we all walked over to the Falls themselves. It's really an amazing sight. The water is green as it goes over the Falls, except that so much of it is spray that you can't even see where it hits. We could watch chunks of ice come down the river and over the Falls. As we got closer, we started adding more and more layer of clothing. Finally, standing where we had the most expansive view of the water, we had the experience of the wind blowing directly toward us. It was so strong and cold that it literally took our breath away, and so wet with spray that we said it was raining sideways. Words really can't describe what it's like to see the Falls.

Eventually we decided to go into the building, and the first part we encountered was the gift shop. Alas, there were no smoosh-faced lions, and the clerks were friendly and helpful, even when I asked them to honor a retroactive coupon. We picked up a few tourist items before heading over to the "Journey Beneath the Falls" ticket booth, which sported a big sign that read, "This is NOT the Maid of the Mists Boat Tour!" We'd been told that the Maid of the Mists Boat Tour (based on that totally fabricated "Native American" legend) is the quintessential Niagara experience, but alas, April was still too wintery for it to be running. In fact, we got a "winter discount" on the Journey Beneath the Falls because the lower observation deck was closed. Even so, it was really cool. After you pose for the obligatory green screen shot (sigh), an elevator takes you down into the earth, where you can walk through tunnels that open up literally under Horseshoe Falls. It's amazing. One of the openings was nothing but packed snow and ice, but the others had rushing water. Very shiny.

On our way back up the elevator, Hawke asked the elevator operator a question about a local historical event, and the answer included the defining Canadian experience I'd been missing the entire time: He said "eh"! Afterwards, I pointed it out, and Dave said he didn't even notice. Apparently it just slips by the Canadian ear, eh?

Well, all this rushing water had made us have to pee, so we hit the restrooms (or "washrooms" as our neighbors to the Nord call them). Why is this worth mentioning? Because the men's room in the Horseshoe Falls Visitor Center had foot washing stations. Foot washing stations, no kidding. If it hadn't been for the signs, I would have thought they were oddly shaped urinals. We have no idea what local activity (unique to males, apparently) necessitates foot washing in the washroom.

The sightseeing had given us a hearty appetite, so we went once more to Tim Horton's, where I discovered that a combo comes not with fries, but with a donut. That was a shocker, eh?

We considered the possibility of riding the aerocar over the great whirlpool, but by that point, we'd had plenty of tourism, so Dave drove us around colorful Niagara, including going past the water several times, just because it's so cool to look at. On our way out, we past entire streets that were nothing but B&B's, not to mention the giant "Wildflower Clock," which was totally brown at that point, and a wildflower sign reading "Niagara Falls Horticultural Gardens," which was also completely brown. There's just something ironic about that; it reminded me of how the audience had growled when I mentioned that we already had wildflowers blooming in Texas.

Having nothing planned for that evening, Dave took us back to his home theater for a screening of Unforgiven. It had been years since I'd seen that movie, but it holds up.

Too soon, Tuesday rolled around, and we had to bid farewell to Canada. It was certainly a wonderful experience getting to visit Toronto, meet lots of fun people for the first time, be reunited with many of our Browncoat friends, and enjoy lots of great music. We're truly lucky that people like Karen Paddison from Firefly Cargo Bay, the concom of FilKONtario, and our friend Dave Gal were willing to make this trip possible for us.

The Blogarazzi Strike Again

2008-03-31T05:22:02Z

Check this out: http://dallas-seasons-of-love.blogspot.com/

Go to the entry for March 17, and watch the video. That was one good party.

Charity Auction Reaches a Triumphant End

2008-03-04T06:32:37Z

This is too bizarre for me to even explain. You just have to see it for yourself:

http://tinyurl.com/26qxts

In other news, I had a lot of fun at NTIF, even if I wasn't playing there officially. Got to see lots of long lost friends, in addition to hearing Tullamore, Ed Miller (and company), Battlefield Band, and Altan. Wow.

More Fun with Hypnosis

2008-02-25T16:23:44Z

So on Saturday, I got to do my first group hypnosis presentation. It wasn't a hypnosis stage show like you usually think of; for those to work, you need at least fifty people in your audience (preferably a hundred), so that you can select the 5 to 10% who are natural somnambulists. I had about a dozen people, and in keeping with the statistical odds, I had one natural somnambulist, about eight people who were pretty good at going into hypnosis, and a few who either tried and didn't make it, or just preferred to watch. Considering that we were at a party with kids playing air hockey in the next room, dogs barking nearby, and all manner of other distractions, it's kind of amazing that anyone went under.

Funny side note: When the dog barked, the folks who weren't in hypnosis all instantly looked at it, but the folks who were under remained completely still. One of them said later that she hadn't even heard the dog. (She was the natural I mentioned.)

So for my finale, I asked the natural if she'd help me with a demonstration. After she agreed, I used a 10-second induction, and her head rolled back; she was out. I then informed her that her arm was becoming straight and stiff, which it did, so much that her whole body moved when I pushed her arm. Then I woke up the rest of her but left her arm in hypnosis. Her expression and laugh when she realized her arm was stuck in the air were truly priceless.

The next day, she and her two daughters each had a therapeutic session. One of her daughters was pretty much the same as she was, so at the end of the session, I asked if the daughter wanted to "do the arm thing." (The daughters had missed the demo the day before.) Being a really good sport, the daughter agreed; and her arm stayed in catalepsy, even though she was fully aware, for several minutes while I called everyone in the house to come see. In the meantime, her sister was having fun pushing her around by her arm. After I released her arm, I noticed her rubbing her shoulder, so I asked if she'd like the pain to go away. She nodded, and I said, "When I reach the count of three, all discomfort will be gone. One, two, three [snap fingers]!" I could tell from her expression that it worked.

fithelere @ 2008-02-25T09:57:00

2008-02-25T15:58:05Z

Ni-Howdy, Browncoats,

Would you like to have Cedric from the Bedlam Bards perform at your local Can't Stop the Serenity screening? Well, here's how:

In order to raise both funds and awareness for Equality Now, I am auctioning myself on eBay. Well, technically, I'm auctioning a performance at the Can't Stop the Serenity screening of your choice. Even better, the profits from the auction go to the CSTS screening of your choice, so it's a double whammy, but in a good way!

But wait, that's not all! You also get steak knives. Steak knives? To heck with the gorram steak knives, you get something a lot shinier than that.

A number of Browncoat artisans and celebrities have come forward to donate these prizes which the auction winner GETS TO KEEP:

-Autographed Poster* {from Quantum Mechanix}
-Autographed Bedlam Bards CDs
-Autographed Done The Impossible DVD and Soundtrack CD {from Brian Wiser}
-Autographed Browncoat Cruise Souvenir Book {from Brian Wiser}
-Independent Flag {from Firefly Cargo Bay}
-Jayne Hat {from Ma Cobb's Hat Shoppe www.geocities.com/fadingendlessly}
-Mal's Holster and Ammo Belt** {from www.browncoatfashions.com}
-Plus a built-up Mal Pistol***, Jayne Pistol, grenade, PAL Communicator and a Zoe 'Mare's Leg' Winchester {from Wilco models}

*Poster autographed by: Fillion, Tudyk, Minear, Fairman, Edmonson, Woodward, Sonny Rhodes, Nectar Rose, Adam Levermore-Rich (who did the art for the poster), and the Bedlam Bards. A similar poster fetched over $150 at auction

**Holster and Ammo Belt - The "standard" gun belt size will fit people with hips in the range of 40 to 50 inches. The winner should specify their actual hip measurement if they need a gun belt larger or smaller in size. The holster and gun belt come with an ammo pouch suitable for carrying an extra set of clips, a cell phone, or an iPod. It's like the one Mal wore in Serenity. This item typically sells for $160 + S&H

*** The Wilco Models replica of Mal's Pistol fits in the Browncoat Fashions holster.

Wow, if I weren't ineligible, I'd be bidding just to win that stuff!

So here's the info on the auction:

Item number: 120225274158

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cedric-of-the-Bedlam-Bards-Your-CSTS-Screening_W0QQitemZ120225274158QQihZ002QQcategoryZ45208QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This listing lasts only 10 days, so bid early and bid often!

I'll see you at your screening,

Cedric
www.BedlamBards.com

P.S. Please feel free to spread the word and post this message everywhere you can. Let the whole gorram 'verse know what we Browncoats are doing!

Observations on my Hypnosis Work

2008-02-21T18:55:35Z

Since I started studying hypnosis, I've been so busy doing hypnosis for other people that I really haven't had much chance to do it for myself. But two weeks ago, I scripted and then recorded a session for myself, which I have used consistently, at least five days a week, since then. The session focuses on eating smaller portions of food by encouraging me to be very calm while eating, to savor my food, and feel full and satisfied with small to normal portions, rather than the huge amounts I used to eat. The recording even includes seeing myself ordering a meal in a restaurant and asking for a to-go box at the same time; half the meal is to go in the box.

Sooo, my results? I now feel absolutely buffet-stuffed after eating a Jumbo Jack (no fries). I remember when I used to down two of them at a sitting, with fries. I went to Freebird burritos yesterday and could barely finish their standard burrito; next time, I'm getting the "Half-Bird." When I have soup at home, I'm stopping after one bowl instead of getting seconds because it tastes so good. (Joyce makes really good soup. Mmmmm, wife soup.) I had to put a half-empty bowl of picante sauce in the fridge the other day, because I really couldn't eat another bite. I turned down a second slice of avocado a few days ago. Avocado! Also, it takes me about twice as long to eat anything as it used to, which is great. I'm taking smaller bites (even though that wasn't specifically mentioned in the session) and really enjoying my food, rather than wolfing it down the way I used to. I'm staying full longer, also.

Yeah, this might sound like nothing to those of you who have been light eaters all your lives. But I was the guy who could always down another bite, and usually did. So it's amazing to be turning into a light eater.

But I've found some secondary results as well. For one thing, I've learned a lot about hypnosis, from practical things like how to improve my recordings to general things like how it feels to react to a post-hypnotic suggestion. (When I was getting out bread to make a sandwich last week and debating about whether I wanted one sandwich or two, a voice in my head quoted the hypnosis session, saying, "One sandwich is better than two.") I've learned that in the early stages of habit change, some conscious effort is needed to encourage/remember the new habit, but it becomes easier and eventually effortless.

Another interesting secondary result has been that I feel great. Now, there are suggestions in the session for feeling great when the session is done, and I've found that listening to it first thing in the morning makes me feel energized most of the day. But I think there's more at work than just that. A person who meditates for half an hour a day will experience all kinds of benefits, including increased energy, happiness, and a sense of wellbeing. Even knowing this, I've never been able to get myself to meditate on a regular basis. Scholars have shown that the hypnotic state and the meditative state are extremely similar, possibly identical. So in addition to responding to the hypnotic suggestions I'm giving myself, I'm also getting the benefits of regular meditation. Considering that I was in an inexplicably bad mood for several weeks before I started this program, I'm really amazed at the difference.

In other news, I've had lots of great feedback from people I've worked with. One says that she feels so energetic that she's hardly sleeping, but not feeling tired. One who asked for help with procrastination emailed me to say that the day after her session was the most productive she's ever had. One client has raved so much to my teacher that we are considering selling recordings based on that session.

A Little Hypnosis Bragging

2008-01-27T21:23:26Z

About two weeks ago, my hypnosis teacher called me to see if I wanted to practice my pain management--she'd been contacted by a nurse who was in so much pain from a work injury that she could no longer work, and therefore had no money to pay for a hypnosis session.

When I talked to the nurse, I learned that she'd been on prescription pain killers, including methadone, for some time. Since her injury several years ago, she'd spent over $30000 on medical pain management alone. Some people even accused her of being a junkie, but I could tell she really wanted to be off her pills and well enough to work a full shift. She was a little dubious about hypnosis, though she admitted she'd seen the placebo effect at work in the hospital. Ultimately, she was desperate enough to try anything.

Just to get to my teacher's hypnosis office, she'd had to take the last of the pain pills she could scrape together. Even so, she rated her pain at a 6 out of 10 before we started, and that was on medication.

When we were done with the session, she rated her pain at a 1 out of 10. One out of ten! She commented that her pain pills really should have worn off by the time we were done, so normally she would have been curled up in agony at that point.

Okay, maybe it's wrong to brag, but I'm really thrilled to have had a success like that, especially since it involved helping someone who really needed it.

Ground Hog Day Bedlam Bards Show

2008-01-27T17:48:54Z

Well, we've decided to come out of hibernation for a brief performance in Austin this coming Saturday.

The 2008 12th Street/East End International Heritage Festival will take place from 10am to 4pm Saturday, February 2 at Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1801 Pennsylvania Ave., Austin, featuring music, vendors, food, fun & games, entertainment, and community awards.

Please note that if we see our shadows during that gig, there will be another six weeks of winter. :-)

See you there!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2007-12-25T13:55:05Z

So last year, when our entire neighborhood was caught up in the throes of the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, I decided to throw a holiday party for Joyce and invite some of our friends over. The turkey I made for it (using Alton Brown's recipe) was such a big hit that this year, when my friends decided to throw a neighborhood party on Christmas day, they asked me to bring the turkey.

Of course, last night, Joyce had the Christmas Eve shift at the 'dillo. She gets this shift because we have no children and therefore, one presumes, no desire to be at home on Christmas Eve. So after packing up the stock and getting out of there at about midnight, we stopped for food at the Waffle Ho (only place open, pretty much), and drove the hour plus it takes to get to our home in the forest. Then I had to turn the turkey and add the secret ingredients to the brine. Add to that some heated discussions Joyce and I were having, and it was pretty frakking late by the time I got to bed.

And the alarm went off way too early so that I could start cooking that monster bird that it'll take to feed the whole neighborhood. So here I am, sitting at my computer before the crack of nine on Christmas, reflecting on the fact that I didn't get most of my gift-shopping done, thanking chance that booth tear-down at the Armadillo has been moved to the 26th--it used to always be on Christmas--and wondering where the hell my coffee is.

Browncoat Cruise and Mutant Enemy Strike Day

2007-12-11T23:00:52Z

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.

in posh San Diego

2007-12-01T03:18:54Z

Well, it involved some long driving, but we've made it to San Diego and are ensconced at the snazzy Marriott. After getting our instruments checked with customs, we ran into all kinds of cool people we haven't seen in days, weeks, or months. And check this out--the Cruise badges are dog-tags, actual dog-tags identifying us as members of the "Balls and Barnacles Brigade." (We waited in line to get our badges, and then Brian told us that we didn't have to because we're VIPs. Lord, it's hard to get that idea through my head. I just don't feel important. Would you believe that tomorrow we get to board early, along with Ron Glass and other Big Damn Heroes? It's gorram crazy.)

36 hours* to the cruise!

2007-11-30T01:28:06Z

*Or something like that. Figure is an estimate. Exact boarding times may vary.

So I'm currently in Phoenix, at the home of a very generous Browncoat who is allowing us to stay with him. Tomorrow morning, we drive to San Diego, go straight to the customs office so that we won't have to pay import taxes to get our instruments and gear back off the boat when we return, and then to the hotel for a shiny pre-cruise Shindig. And Saturday . . . we set sail.

It's been an exciting trip so far. We visited my mom in Colorado for Thanksgiving and gave an SRO performance the next day at the Hazlerig Music House. We had a great crowd despite the snow.

Then it was down to Albuquerque for a Shindig concert at the home of Chuck and Mary Girven, who are some of the most dedicated Browncoats I've ever met. They'll be with us on the Cruise. (While I was at their house, I got a call from Sonny Rhodes. If you don't know who that is, watch the Firefly opening credits again. Turns out he's from Smithville, right down the road from where I live.)

Yesterday, we made an early start so that we could get to Phoenix in time to hear Paul from Allanah perform at a coffeehouse. He put on a great show.

Today, we'e just been unpacking, repacking, filling out forms, affixing luggage tags, sorting stock, and so on. It's gonna be nice to finally get on that Big Damn Boat!

Upcoming gigs in Albuquerque and Phoenix

2007-11-23T20:18:35Z

In case you've been hankering for some Bardic Goodness, your favorite bards from Bedlam will be playing a shindig in Albuquerque next Tuesday (11/27) at the home of Mary Girven.

Then after the Browncoat Cruise, we'll be stopping of in Mesa, Arizona, at the Goatshead Salloon for a Battle of the Bards with the infamous Whiskey Bards. The Bedouin Tribe Belly Dancers will also be appearing. For more info go to www.arizonabrowncoats.com.

Admission for either event is a donation of $10, and each event will include a charity raffle with lots of shiny prizes!

In other news, I'm in Colorado at the moment and there is snow on the ground! Ack!

One More Wavecard Update

2007-11-01T18:18:41Z

The people at Universal we want to contact to ask for a Serenity sequel are:

Marc Shmuger, Co-Chairman
David Lande, Co-Chairman
Donna Langley, President of Production

So, if you wish to add an attention: line to any Wavecards you haven't sent off yet, the entire address is:

Universal Pictures
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Attn: Marc Shmuger, Co-Chairman
David Lande, Co-Chairman
Donna Langley, President of Production

Just a reminder, the Blue Sun Travel Wavecards are on sale at a discount from QMx:

http://www.quantummechanix.com/Blue%20Sun%20Travel%20Wavecards.html

Keep those cards flowing!

Oklahoma Shindig--Reserve your tickets now!

2007-10-21T06:09:53Z

Oklahoma Grand Shindig II
Sunday, November 18th, 2 to 6 pm
Black Boare Pub at the Castle of Muskogee (www.okcastle.com)
Tickets: $10 at the door, but please RSVP to Cedric (fithelere AT aol DOT com)

What's Happening: The shiniest gathering Oklahoma Browncoats all year! Performances by the Bedlam Bards, trivia contest, costume contest, sexy strawberry-eating contest, fun, frivolity, a charity raffle, and all around shindiggery! Part of the proceeds will support a local charity, so come prepared for generosity! Hors d'oevres will be provided, and the pub will be serving beer and soda. (No outside drinks please.)

Last year's was amazing, but this year's will be even better!

Reserve your spot now!

Update: Wave Cards on Sale!

2007-10-19T22:52:51Z

This just in:

Up till now, the wave-card campaign has been strictly fan-generated, but Andy over at QMx has just announced that the wave-cards are going on sale. Think of this as getting several cards for free!

Andy writes: "We are so thrilled that the Browncoat community has decided to use our humble cards as the vessel of this critical message, we've decided to reduce the price of the Wavecards by $5 a set until the campaign is complete, so as to make it just a little bit more affordable for folks who want to use these to do good works. You can go right now, this minute, to our listing on Amazon.

The price should also change on our website by tomorrow morning.

Thanks again. And let's see if we can make that sequel happen!"

For those of you wondering what to write on your cards to Universal, Companion Kate (who cooked up this idea in the first place) suggests this article. It's about how to write to a TV network, but I think some of these ideas apply:

http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/2007/07/emily-posts-guide-to-save-our-show.html

Ultimately, be polite, be kind, and be articulate.

And remember, the sequel is worth fighting for.

Wave Card for a Serenity Sequel

2007-10-18T22:39:45Z

Please spread the word:

Ni-howdy, Browncoats,

We live in exciting times. I'm sure you know that Joss Whedon hinted that Universal would be taking a close look at Serenity Collector's Edition sales, and that Alan Tudyk recently let it slip that there are rumblings about a sequel at Universal. Now is the time to let our voices be heard.

That's why I'm writing to you to endorse the wavecard writing campaign recently proposed over on The Signal forum:

http://fireflydvd.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3794

Basically, the idea is quite simple. Quantum Mechanix sells packs of really shiny 'Verse-themed postcards. If you haven't seen 'em, check 'em out. They're pretty and funny:

http://www.quantummechanix.com/Blue%20Sun%20Travel%20Wavecards.html

So the plan is to order sets of these cards, write a note asking (politely) for Serenity sequel on each one, and send them to Universal at this address:

Universal Pictures
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Attn: Donna Langley
and
Attn: Jon Gordon

(BTW, there's some uncertainty on The Signal forum about the attn names, so if anyone has more up to date info, please don't keep it to yourself. In any case, we know it's the right address, and the postcards are sure to get someone's attention.)

Why is this letter writing campaign different from those of the past?

First off, timing. We know Universal is on the verge of greenlighting the Big Damn Sequel.

Second off, Universal Licensed Products. In the film industry, money talks, so by sending these wavecards, which are official licensed products, we're putting money in Universal's pocket and underscoring the potential for lots more profit.

Third, this time, we're all behind it. Only you can make sure that we do the impossible—again. When all the Browncoats stand united, there's not a power in the 'Verse that can stop us.

Let's make it happen, folks,

Cedric
www.BedlamBards.com

A Hedgehog Peed on My Bed This Morning

2007-10-04T16:56:55Z

Do I really have to say anything after a title like that?

I suppose I do. Ozzie, the hedgehog Joyce adopted a month or so back, finally decided today that he is used to us, so Joyce brought him over to the bedroom so that he could run around. He was quite keen on burrowing under the blankets, and he spent a lot of time sniffing the area where I sleep. He slobbered a bit on the sheets, and then he decided to pee. I guess he feels comfortable with us now.

All told, I don't really mind--it's hardly anything. And it's nice to see him getting out and about.

Austinites, Mark Your Calendars

2007-10-01T19:30:30Z

Hawke and I will be performing at Geekstravaganza on October 21st. For more info, check out www.geekstravaganza.com

In other news, April pointed me toward this site with bunches of pics from FenCon: www.onthedriftphotography.com

Interesting URL, huh?

Oh, and I'll be posting at more length later, but the Browncoat Ball rocked! And Austin won the bid for 2008, so we're really looking forward to that!

Change of Plans

2007-09-27T17:52:21Z

Well, since I first posted here about my hypnosis studies, I've learned something very interesting: Most of the people who read my LJ live in Oklahoma or Missourri . . . I am hoping to get a chance to work with some of those folks this November. I'll know more about my exact schedule when the time gets closer.

The other thing I've learned, since posting here and to the Texas Poly lists, is that no one is interested in researching applications of hypnosis to manage jealousy. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect that the issue is just a little too personal. Polys aren't willing to admit to jealousy, I guess. Or maybe they just don't feel comfortable using hypnosis to help them manage their emotions; maybe it's a matter of pride. In any case, no volunteers have come forward for a research project on this subject, so I'm going to have to move that one to a back-burner and proceed with something I think I'll be able to get more volunteers for.

So here's my other research idea: Perfect Pitch. It's the holy grail of musical ear training, and many musicians believe you're either born with it or you aren't. There are non-hypnotic training programs out there to help people develop it, but reports say it's slow going. (There is also apparently a hypnosis-based program for sale, but the reviews of it are universally bad. That reputation will be an obstacle to overcome.)

Now, I don't believe that a person can just be hypnotized into having perfect pitch; hypnosis is not a magic wand. But I hypothesize that hypnosis can be used to augment aural training to a significant degree.

One important tool will be several shareware ear training programs that can be used to test a person's pitch accuracy. That way, I can see where a person ranks to start with and where they are as time goes on.

As with most of my ideas about hypnosis, I really want to develop this so that I can use it on myself!

Recent Developments

2007-09-19T14:49:43Z

Well, I haven't posted since my account of Dragon*Con, and the reason is that I've been busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

First off, Bedlam Bards-related news: We had a great time at the Tablerock Fantasy Faire, and we have gigs coming up over the next several weekends, including FenCon in Dallas and the Browncoat Ball in Philadelphia, followed by Middlefaire in Hillsboro, TX, and Geekstravaganza in Austin, TX. Whew. And we're this close to having Hawke's album ready to send off to the presses. :-)

Second, a development that began several weeks before Dragon*Con and really heated up right after.

Well, in some ways, it started before I was born. See, my mother used hypnobirthing techniques for pain management starting with my oldest sibling, who was born in 1958, the year the AMA approved the use of hypnosis. I grew up on stories of how my mother was hypnotized while I was born, and I've been fascinated with hypnosis ever since.

However, about eight weeks ago, my fascination with the tool really heated up, and I began looking for a place where I could study it formally. Beleive it or not, there isn't one in Austin. Even worse, all of the programs seemed to run on weekends when I'm booked to play gigs. And as if missing gigs and paying for travel wasn't enough damage on my finances, the training runs from about $150 to $200 per day.

Then by synchronicity, I happened to mention hypnosis to someone I barely knew, who was able to put me in touch with a teacher in San Antonio. (I'd been hearing from various people in Austin that there was a great hypnosis teacher in Austin, but no one seemed to know how to contact her.) Checking out her website, I discovered that her program runs Mondays thru Fridays and is on the low-end price-wise. Finally, San Antonio is only an hour and a half drive from my home, and I have a cousin who lives there and is thrilled to have me in her spare bedroom. It all fell into place.

So, one weekend after I left Dragon*Con, I started hypnosis certification training. It's a 500-hour program, with more class time than any of the others I could have considered.

I'm really excited about it. For several years, I've wanted a secondary revenue stream that I would enjoy as much as music, but which would not require extended periods away from home. Once I'm certified, I'll have that.

Also, I'm really excited about doing something that helps people. My previous secondary work never really did that, even though I was working in the education industry.

I've found, as I practice my new skills with various volunteers, that I go into an up-trance during a session, not unlike the feeling I get during a good performance. I never once had that while writing test questions, even when I was supposedly a hot-shot at it.

There's also been another interesting side-effect. Night before last, I did a session for a neighbor who has had trouble sleeping. He couldn't fall asleep until two or three in the morning, then he would wake up tired around ten or eleven. He wanted to fall asleep at midnight and wake up at eight, so in addition to various other techniques, I had him repeat suggestions that I gave him in first person while he was in trance.

The trick is that I programmed myself at the same time by accident. So I got sleepy that night at midnight and woke up the next morning at eight, having slept deep. I felt absolutely fantastic the entire day, better than I have in a long time. I'm glad I felt the benefits, though I'll have to be careful if I ever do a breast enhancement.

BTW, my neighbor came by later in the day to tell me that he fell asleep promptly at midnight and slept hard for eleven hours, after which he woke up feeling fantastic. He also presented me with a beautiful wooden letter opener he had carved. It's the first 'payment' I've received for hypnosis.

I am still looking for volunteers who would like to experience the wonderful feeling and benefits of hypnosis. By next year, I should be charging between $60 and $100 an hour for something like this, so it's a great chance to try it for free.

Also, my instructor encourages each student to undertake an independent research project. Hers involved developing a hypnotic protocol for Type II Diabetes. I've decided to develop a program to help polyamorous people cope with jealousy and territoriality. In addition to volunteers, I need help from anyone out there who is poly and has wrestled with jealousy--ain't that redundant--I need metaphors, descriptions of how it feels, descriptions of how compersion feels, observations, rationales, and so on. Of course I have my own experience to draw on, but I need as many viewpoints as possible. If anyone reading this wants to pass along this info, please tell people to email their thoughts and observations to me at fithelere AT aol DOT com.

Cedric's Adventures at Dragon*con 2007

2007-09-07T16:06:03Z

Over the last few days, people have asked me how our trip to Dragon*Con 2007 was, and I've been able to answer only with a blur of adjectives: incredible, exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating, exciting, profitable, overwhelming, soreness-inducing, sleep-depriving, immune-system weakening, and downright frickin' amazing.

Hawke, Joyce, and I arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday night before the convention, pulling into the home of Rob Kuhlman, a fellow Browncoat musician, at around the hour of nine p.m. Rob is the guy who wrote the theme song for the documentary Done the Impossible, and the upstairs of his home is a huge Firefly shrine. (His next album, Brother Browncoat, will be released this November.) The downstairs of his home is a massive music studio. Anyway, before long, we broke out instruments and had a great jam session between our band and his. Brian Wiser, one of the creators of DTI, started filming, so who knows where that jam session will end up.

On Thursday--mind you the convention hasn't really started yet--we went downtown to get registered, pick up our guest badges, find out where our sales space would be, and meet up with my neice and nephew, who had flown down from Seattle to join us.

Now, I could continue with a blow-by-blow account of the weekend, but I think it would be better to just hit the highlights in each direction.

Before I get into the good stuff, let me just get the annoying parts out of the way. A lot of people faced frustration this year. The hotels were overcrowded, and the fire marshal was cranky, which had several results for us:

(A)We ended up sharing a table with Luke Ski, who is a great guy but has a display just as big as ours. It was a little silly that of all the filk artists, the two with the biggest displays were shoved onto one table. Many other tables sat empty for hours or even days at the convention.

(B) We periodically had to pick up and move our entire display and the stuff underneath the table. Fortunately, the Brobdingnagian Bards were kind enough to let us store the bass amp behind their table.

(C) At least once per day, the fire marshal would declare that the Hyatt had too many people in it, resulting in people who'd waited hours to see us not getting into the hotel. It also meant that when we wanted to leave, the elevators and escalators had essentially been shut down.

(D) We had to pack our stuff in and out every day, but the security could never decide what an acceptable route was for us to take out of the maze-like environs of the hotel.

(E) The fire marshal limited the number of chairs in the filk room, meaning that nearly half our audience was standing or sitting on the floor for Sunday's show.

(F) All the band booths were on one floor, and no one was regulating the sound. Imagine if you will a half-dozen goth-metal bands, all blasting their music as loud as possible, in one hotel lobby. That's what we had. I killed my voice not by singing, but just by talking to customers.

Despite these various frustrations, we had an utterly amazing time. We got to watch my neice and nephew experience Dragon*Con for the first time. They had of course never seen anything like it. I would describe it for you in this post, but it defies description. It's three high-rise hotels, each the size of a city block, each one packed beyond capacity with sci-fi and fantasy fans.

Every costume imaginable is worn, and you'd best have a rather wild and horny imagination if you want to get a handle on D*C. (Or just do a google image search for "Dragon*Con.") One Scottish lad we partied with commented on Friday, "I've seen more kilts at Dragon*Con in the last two hours than I've seen in Scotland in the last two years." I'd be inclined to add that I saw more Catholic schoolgirl skirts at Dragon*Con than I did in all of fourth and fifth grade--when my elementary school was across the street from the Catholic school. However, I should add that if you placed all the fabric used in the D*C schoolgirl skirts into one pile, you might have enough cloth to cover two or three actual students. Dragon*Con is the only place in the world where I found myself wishing that an attractive, scantily-clad woman standing in my field of vision would move out of the way so that I could get a good look at the even more attractive, more scantily-clad woman who was prancing around and posing for the cameras. And only at Dragon*Con have I ever thought to myself, "That plaid skirt is actually too short."

Of course, one reason we go to conventions is for the chance to see our fans, and I must say that they truly made us feel like stars this time. Twice during the weekend, we had the experience of walking past a long line of people waiting to get into a room where we were about to play. There's something about being able to go up to a security guard and say, "We're the band, so you need to let us in."

Two years ago, we couldn't have paid to play at the Saturday night Shindig, and this year, we were onstage. The room was packed to capacity, and literally hundreds of people were so excited that it felt like a rock concert. There was a mosh pit in front of our stage and a circle of people folk dancing off to one side. When we finished, I could not stop grinning. I had this huge smile for half an hour straight.

We also got to play for the Signal Podcast, which records a live episode every year at Dragon*Con. We barely made it in time and had to leave as soon as we were done performing, but we had lots of fun. (BTW, we did our Kaylee song, which is not available on CD yet, so if you have to have a recording, check out the Signal podcast.) Marc and Andrew also played there, and they did so well that I later told Andrew I hated to have to follow that act. He replied, "Are you kidding? You guys set the standard for Firefly filk!" Later that evening, I joined them onstage at the Shindig for a couple of renfaire dance tunes.

(Speaking of jamming, I joined "The Violinists of Dragon*Con" for a collective jam on the Concourse stage on Monday. It was like a five-way Vitulari.)

Saturday's parade saw the inaugural march of the 76th Independent Battalion, which is a group of people who dress in the uniform of the Browncoat soldiers as seen in flashbacks. They looked awesome! I commented that they were like the Fox network's worst nightmare: Browncoats with guns! Hawke and I are honorary members of the 76th, which means we get to wear their patches without actually owning standard uniforms. *smile* On Monday night, we went and partied with them in Alabama, at Colonel Tristan's home. He had one room of the basement decorated to look like the Maidenhead bar; it was like stepping into a scene from the Big Damned Movie--complete with a fight breaking out, as the 76th members kept shooting each other with airsoft pistols. (The house rules were "No Shooting in the Face" and "No Shooting at the Bards!") The attendance was quite international: We had Glaswegians, Canadians, an Australian, and a South African. Leave it to Browncoats to assemble a veritable United Nations and then get them all shooting at each other. It was the opposite of the Shindig on the show, where guns were confiscated; airsoft pistols were practically issued at the door for the 76th Shindig.

One of the most amazing things about an event like this was getting to reconnect with the Browncoat community. From marching with them in the parade to playing for the podcast to rocking the house at the Shindig, it was just great seeing so many fellow flans. I especially enjoyed participating in the Keep Flyin' panel on Sunday. Despite having no actual movie stars at a con packed with them, our room was SRO. We had an assortment of leaders in the BC community, and at the outset of the panel we were each asked to state our names and tell what we do. As such luminaries as Les Howard, Kevin Bacheldor, and Brian Wiser introduced themselves and received applause for their achievements, I silently rehearsed a brief explanation of who the Bedlam Bards are and what we've done in Firefly fandom. When my turn came, I leaned into the microphone and said, "Hi, I'm called Cedric, and I'm with a band called the Bedlam Bards. We--" and at that point anything else I'd planned to say was drowned out by the entire room cheering like maniacs. It was then that I realized we've truly stepped into a bardic role within the Firefly fandom. Before I left the panel, Wayne Hutchison (who ran the Whedon Track) surprised me by asking for a song. Despite my voice being shot (see earlier comment about goth bands with public address systems), I gave the room a pep talk about not giving up on Serenity before leading a rousing rendition of "Big Damn Trilogy." The next day, a flan I've known for several years came up to me and said that the panel had inspired him to become more active, to really embrace being a Browncoat and working toward the charitable goals of the movement.

Well, I'm on my third page, and I feel like I'm barely beginning to scratch all the fun things we did at D*C. Let's see, we got Ron Glass and Mark Shepherd's autographs, and I got to attend a panel with Mark Shepherd, at which I held up a "More Badger" sign. Hawke and he had a great conversation about Irish music; Shepherd has actually played with the Pogues, the Dubliners, Tommy Makem and quite a few other stars of the genre. We gave Ron Glass a copy of On the Drift and told him to bring it on the Cruise so that we can autograph it for him. *grin* I played "The Scorpion Blues" for legendary author Peter Beagle, and I sang part of "Backyard Cylons" for Richard Hatch, the actor who played the original Apollo as well as Tom Zarek on the current Battlestar Galactica. He liked it so much he gave me his email address and asked me to send him a recording, which he wants to post to the official BSG site! (I was pretty proud of that brush with greatness until I found out that one of the 76th actually got to spend five hours in a private RPG session with Hatch. Lucky bastard. And he'd never even gamed before.)

Whew. I could go on and on about the trip. I could tell you about hearing and meeting Carla Ulbrich, an incredibly funny singer-songwriter, or about interacting with Tom Smith, the World's Fastest Filker, or about what it feels like to march in a parade with fifty-plus Browncoats. I could tell you about the joys of hanging out with my neice at a Waffle House at 2 a.m., or about getting to have my nephew onstage with the Bedlam Bards. But I'm tired, a little sick, and very, very sleep-deprived, so I'll just say, see you at Tablerock.

Conestoga and Seattle Shindig

2007-08-07T00:03:13Z

A description of my adventures . . .

Conestoga was my first science-fiction/fantasy convention in Oklahoma, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. However, I knew that Randy Farran, author of the infamous line "Do Virgins Taste Better than Girls Who Are Not," was the con-chair for life of that convention, so I was delighted when Elspeth Bloodgood, this year's organizer, contacted me about performing. As it turns out, having musical guests was a new step for Conestoga, so I'm especially honored that the Bedlam Bards were amongst the first performers invited.

I took a Thursday to drive up to OK, and I arrived in Tulsa at a minute past midnight, which should please any Gurf Morlix fans out there. The hotel was the Radisson Tulsa, and it was appropriately posh—quite a contrast to sleeping in the back of my truck! The con didn't officially open until noon Friday, so I had plenty of time to set up my table in the dealer's room. I did, however, have a bit of worry when I asked about the location of my table; it was then that I learned that Lukeski and I were scheduled to share a table. Now, I've see Lukeski's set up at Dragon*Con, and I knew he could take up a whole table. Heck, the Bedlam Bards can take up a whole table, easy. So I spread my tablecloth and banner over the whole thing and set up my stock on half of it. As patrons filtered in, I strummed my mandola and sang softly so as to not interfere with my fellow vendor's sales.

I saw a number of people I knew throughout the day. Tulsa's anime store was set up next to me, and it's run by the same fine folks who put on the Midsummer Ball I played back in June. Yard Dog Press was on the other side, and I've come to know them from doing conventions. AmberBob stopped by and I subjected her to a new song I wrote. It made her cry. Peter Schorn, a friend from back in my SCA days, wore an expression of amazement at seeing me there; it'd been at least a decade. Throughout the weekend, I ran into various folks I knew from OKRF.

Closing time came faster than I expected, and oddly, my table partner had not shown up. We were both scheduled to perform at the concert that night, so I was a bit curious as to how close he would cut it.

At eight o'clock that night, the pre-concert belly dance show started, followed by Queen's Gambit's first ever performance at a sci-fi convention. The did great and invited me to join them for their closer, a performance of River's Dance/River's Jig. Then I took the stage in my Utilikilt, and we had fun joking about what a bizarre world conventions are: it was raining outside and nobody cared; Bruce was wearing pants; and I was wearing a kilt. (We kept the pants/kilt joke going all weekend.)

My show went quite well, even eliciting a thumbs-up from Peter Schorn, whom I should mention as one of the great bards I looked up to in the SCA. (He was Cadfan ap Morgan for those who remember.) Next up was Eric ????, a singer-songwriter who seemed to specialize in songs about not getting laid, a subject that I suppose appeals to geeks, if only because they can relate to it. Finally, as Eric was wrapping up his set, Lukeski arrived. By then, most of the audience had wandered off, the hour being somewhat late, so Luke opened his set with the words, "I just drove ten hours to perform for five fans, so let's rock this place!"

I have to say that I wasn't sure what to expect from "The Great Lukeski," and I feared he would be a talentless egomaniac. I was definitely not stoked about sharing a sales table or a hotel room with the guy.

Boy, was I wrong. Luke's lyrics are really clever. He's a great performer, and he turned out to be a very easygoing, laid-back, likable guy. We got along great, and I really enjoyed his work. When I told him we'd be sharing a table, he just nodded and said we'd make it work.

As it turned out, we didn't have to share a table on Saturday, mostly because I annoyed the right people. Let me explain. :-)

On Saturday morning, I rolled out of bed bright and early because I had believed the schedule that said the dealer's room opened at 9 a.m. (It was lying!) So I was set up and ready to go at 8:30. As I was sitting there with nothing to do, I took out my mandola and started practicing. My fellow dealers seemed to enjoy the serenade while they were laying out their stock, and I wouldn't be interfering with sales talk, so I warmed up at full voice, much as I would in the morning at faire. I didn't even think about the fact that the wall right behind me was one of those temporary room dividers that convention centers use. Things were going just great until a con staff volunteer came into the room and said, "There have been some complaints from the next room about the noise." I looked at him and answered, "I don't mind stopping, but could you at least call it music?"

Perhaps I looked a little gruff—I'm told that sometimes I look a little gruff—when I answered, because mere moments later, Elspeth Bloodgood came to me with a rather concerned expression and offered me a room out in the hallway, where I could sing and play as loudly as I'd like. I checked out the location, a spot where pretty much everyone at the convention would have to walk by at some point, and I considered that I would have a full table, as would Luke, and I said yes.

It was the best move I made at the con. Before I could get completely set up, I'd sold more CDs than I have at some entire gigs. Since I was able to get a bit louder, I set up my amp and plugged in my fiddle; I had a great time playing electric bits while people were going from panel to panel. There were even couches nearby where folks could sit and listen. April helped me quite a bit at the table, so many times I was able to attract attention by playing while she handled the sales.

One odd thing about conventions is that I often have far fewer sets than I'm used to. I had no performances at all scheduled for Saturday, which made singing in the hallway even more fun. Saturday night, I went to dinner with April, Jeff, Jenny, and various members of Queen's Gambit. We had some truly awesome Indian food and lots of great conversation. Becky (aka Lady Niniane) of QG has a cousin in Austin who repairs instruments; as it happens, I'd taken my violin to him to replace the peg that broke at White Hart. During my conversation with him, it came up that I do renfaires, and he mentioned his cousin. In the end, he gave me a note to deliver to Becky, and he fixed my fiddle for free.

After dinner, we went back to the convention and waited for the evening's masquerade—basically a costume contest, play, and variety show. While waiting, I sat down in the hallway on one of those big, comfy couches, and wouldn't you know it, April curled up on my right side and Jenny on my left. That alone elicited a number of comments and a few photographs. Then some friends from OKRF cast wandered by, including a lovely young blonde girl who shouted, "Cedric, I love you" (as many girls on the OKRF cast are wont to shout), before sitting on my knee and hugging me. So there I was with a redhead on one side, a brunette on the other, and a blonde in my lap, and all of them gorgeous. Sometimes, it just sucks to be me.

Well, eventually we dislodged ourselves from the couch to attend the masquerade, which started with Lukeski performing his one Firefly-based song, "A Man Called Jayne," which I believe he picked in part because he knew I hadn't heard it yet. It was, as I had guessed, based on "A Boy Called Sue," but it was a far-cleverer parody than I would have come up with. The play for the evening was "Lost Heroes of Battlestar Galactica" by Randy Farran, and it included three new songs he'd written. (How do people do that?)

After the play, April and I made our way up to the filking room. For those who've never attended a filk circle, let me explain. Basically, everyone sits in a circle, and the performance moves around it in a clockwise fashion, each person getting a chance to "pick, pass, or play"—that is pick (or request) a song, pass, or perform something oneself. A filk circle is extremely egalitarian and the audience extremely forgiving; the rankest amateur may stumble through a copy of the most complicated or obtuse parody while seasoned professionals wait their turns, and the circle will give its support and encouragement to the amateur. What is important is that one perform with a certain dedication and spirit.

I didn't want to repeat anything from my concert the night before, so I opened with "Whiskey for the Bards." When my next turn came, I offered up a medley of "Good Riddance" and "Fruity Oaty Bars" that had people laughing. For my final turn of the evening, I warned folks that I wanted to sing my newest song, which was not filk, not even funny. They encouraged me to sing it, and I had many of the women sighing over the love song I sang.

On Sunday, I had my table in the hallway once again, and a con volunteer was kind enough to watch it for me during a panel and my set that afternoon. The panel was on writing filk lyrics, and for some reason I was moderating, a first for me. Mostly that consisted of keeping Eric on topic. *smile* Since my set was in the same room, I set up my gear before the panel, and Eric and I had a nifty little DADGAD guitar/electric fiddle jam while we were waiting for Luke to arrive. My set after the panel was pretty good, despite my stumbling a bit on "The Titillating Riddle." My new song, which I think I'm calling "Never," went over very well. Queen's Gambit was up next, so we reprised our Rivers transition. I had to get back to my table, or I would have stuck around for their whole performance.

As the convention wound down, Julia, the fiddler from QG took a seat at my table, and we talked for quite a while. Even though we've jammed together at various faires for years, we'd never actually had a long conversation, so it was a real pleasure to finally do so. After I finally packed up the table, Jenny, Julia, and I headed over to Spaghetti Warehouse for the Dead-Dog Party, kind of an after-party for the convention.

On Monday, as I was driving back, I kept thinking about Aesop's fable of the frog and the scorpion, which I'd had several opportunities to reference that weekend. As I sped down Highway 69 over Lake Eufaula, a song based on the fable started taking form in my head, and I spent the whole drive home composing it. I'd kind of like to call it "The Anthropomorphic Arthropod Blues," but I think "The Scorpion Blues" will be its actual title. Over the next several days, I made various edits to it, incorporating some ideas given to me by Joyce and our neighbor Lars. More on that song later.

All in all, Conestoga was a great experience. Sales were good, and I was approached about playing at two other conventions. I met some wonderful people and reconnected with some long-time friends.

Well, there was little time to rest, as Joyce and I had a plane to catch for Seattle early on Wednesday morning. The flight was great. We were bumped up to first class. As we'd already grabbed a bite on the way to the airport, what we were served on the flight was, you guessed it, "second breakfast"!

We got to spend a fun week with my sister and other relatives in Seattle, complete with a Shindig concert at the Wayward Coffeehouse. It felt great to see Hawke again and especially to do a show with him again. My nephew Alex joined us on bass, having had about fifteen minutes to actually rehearse with us. He did a great job, even nailing a bass solo in "On the Drift." When we finished the two-hour concert (with no break), Alex commented that he'd never actually played the bass for two hours straight. Personally, I felt like we were just getting warmed up . . . The audience was great, including some folks who traveled over four hours just to hear us.

The next day, we went to a recital of the studio where Alex studies bass. As there were only two bass players, he played on about half the songs, most of which were classic rock songs performed by an ever-changing ensemble of students. Unfortunately, the studio does not seem to teach anything about performance skills, so we endured some of the most terrified, wooden, and dull renditions of songs that were really meant to rock. A few of the students had figured out performance on their own, but I thought it was really sad that the school was not teaching them anything about it.

In between concerts, I spent a lot of time on the 'net, ironing out details for future gigs. And I have great news: We're playing Dragon*Con, officially this time! In addition to our official show in the filk room, we'll also be playing at the Shindig, the live Signal podcast, and the post-DC party hosted by the 76th Independent Battalion, which I believe is naming us honorary members. Woohoo!

On Monday, Joyce and I went to downtown Seattle. While Joyce hit various other stores, I went to Lark in the Morning and played cool instruments. After fooling around a bit with a nickelharpa, I asked to try out their various mandolas. The first one the clerk brought down for me was a Portuguese-style mandola, made by the English luthier Fylde. The Porto has an extra octave string added to each of the lower courses, giving it a very full, impressive sound. And it's a Fylde, so it played like a dream about heaven. The sticker price was only $1500, quite a bit less than what's listed in the catalog. After quite a bit of playing, I concluded that while I enjoyed the extra strings for some pieces, they didn't quite fit with some others; I would prefer to own the standard model, not that I can afford either.

Next I played Hungarian mandola priced at $250. After one song, I handed it back. The low end sounded like crap. Finally, I checked out their $300 Mexican mandola, and I was quite pleased. For the price, it had a great sound, and I'd be comfortable replacing my main mandola with it someday. I think I may even prefer it over my Trinity mandola, which cost half again as much. It's good to know where I can get a replacement if my workhorse ever goes lame.

Tuesday, we got to the airport at 1:30 pm for our 3:55 flight, the drive having gone quicker than we expected. Check in was easy, but when I asked about our chances of getting on the flight---we fly standby to save money---I was told that the flight was looking pretty full. Sure enough, quite a few people boarded, and when the time came, we were informed that there was only one seat left. Joyce and I discussed what to do and decided I should go on, as I had only two days before I'd have to leave home again for BabelCon. So I got on the plane. When I got to my seat, I noticed that the lady next to me was seated quite some distance from her husband, so I offered the switch. The flight attendants clearly appreciated my kindness and led me back to the man. However, when we got there, the flight attendant spotted an empty seat a few rows back from him, and she said, "Why don't you take that spot, and we can put your wife in his seat? Both of you will get to travel after all."

Joyce was nearly in her seat when a passenger walked up behind me in the aisle and said, "You're in my seat." She'd been in the bathroom, and the flight attendants had given me her seat. So Joyce was back off the flight.

Finally, the plane began to taxi toward the runway. As the jets fired up, we all heard a loud THUNK-THUNK-THUNK, which several passengers brought to the attention of the flight attendants. A few moments later, the captain assured us that he'd heard the sound, too, and we'd be taxiing to another gate for maintenance inspection, which would take forty minutes to an hour. We were welcome to get off the plane if we wanted, but having fought so hard to get on it, I really didn't want to give up my seat. I borrowed a cell phone from another passenger---I'd left mine in Texas---and called Joyce to let her know what was happening, so she could update Lars, who was scheduled to be picking us up at the airport.

A few minutes later, they called for all passengers to get off the plane for a special engine test. As I filtered back into the airport, I found a payphone and called Joyce again, only to learn that she was sitting at the coffee shop two gates away. Apparently, the airline had offered her a later connecting flight through DFW. So we spent a while hanging out together in the airport, until there was an announcement that a new plane was being brought up, and we'd be leaving at 7:55 p.m. That gave us several hours of sitting around the airport; it's a good thing we both had books by Neil Gaiman. I was able to talk to the desk clerks and learn that several passengers had jumped ship, so Joyce and I were able to board together. In fact, the desk clerk even worked it out so that we'd have an empty coach seat between us.

Well, once we got on the flight, it turned out that not as many folks had transferred as we'd thought. Two of the other standers-by had to get off the plane, and the flight attendants were quite vexed trying to find two adjacent seats for a teenaged brother and sister traveling together. Joyce and I volunteered to sit separately, so I moved up to a spot next to a dad traveling with a one-year-old, while Joyce ended up with the teenagers next to her. I got the better end of that deal, as the teenagers made friends with the kids behind them and proceeded to spend the entire four hours bouncing in their seats and bragging about how much pot they smoke. I on the other hand had a great conversation with the dad, who is an amateur musician; mostly, though, I nearly finished my Neil Gaiman novel.

We finally landed in Austin at about 2:30 a.m., and Lars was there to pick us up and take us home. We got to bed at about four a.m. and slept till well after noon.

Now I have just one day left to get ready to leave for BabelCon in Baton Rouge. It should be a blast. I'll tell you all about it . . .