The Fiddler of Bedlam

Video of my Hypnosis and Music Shows

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:35:40 GMT

Over the last two months, I've been traveling a lot, doing music shows as well as hypnosis shows, demos, workshops, and private sessions.

Here's a vid of me rocking out at Pennsic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S15AX6fdrXM

Last Wednesday, I brought the hypnosis show home to Texas, premiering it in Austin at the Blu Cafe. Here's a short collection of clips from that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WAZfr3tCAc

Enjoy!

Apple Sucks!

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:45:23 GMT

So a the beginning of this year, I entered the iPod-using world. Everytime I have to deal with the device, I find it painful.

Everything in iTunes is counterintuitive, but maybe that's because I'm a proud PC user and not a MacDrone. So I'll grant that maybe it's great software, and I'm just not used to thinking in MacTerms. Maybe that's why I spent 40 minutes and lots of cussing trying to move a video I bought from iTunes onto my iPod.

Of course, part of the problem is that when I look at my iPod's content in iTunes, it's organized one way. Then when I try to actually find it on my iPod, the content is organized according to a totally different hierarchy. Who's brilliant idea was that? Eventually I found the frickin' video.

So then I took my iPod over to the TV to watch the video. Plugged into my TV is an Apple cord, which a friend gave to me for this purpose. He had actually shown me video using this cord. Did I mention the cord was a proprietary Apple product? I pushed the jack into the socket on my 4th gen Nano, and hit play.

And the video played on the little screen on my Nano.

So I looked up on the Interwebs how to change the Setting to play on a TV. Easy enough. So then when I hit play, I get a message that says "Please Connect Video Accessory." What do you call a television, numbnuts?

I read further on the site, and discovered that Apple mixed up the colors, so I'm supposed to attach the yellow jack to the red outlet, and so on. Why, you might ask, would Apple do this? I refer you to the title of this post.

And I'm still getting the same message.

Back on the InnerTubes, I narrow my search, this time including "Nano 4th gen." And that's when I learn the cruel joke. The cords that worked for iPods before mine won't work on mine, apparently because people figured out how to hook common A/V cords to their iPods, despite Apple's clever ploy of mixing up the colors.

No, for my newer, more expensive product, I have to buy a proprietary cord that works only with my iPod. And the cord I have is trash. The backup cord I bought for travelling is also trash. And the money I spent buying a video I could just watch on YouTube but wanted to be able to easily show on my TV is also trash.

Apple sucks.

Next time, I'm getting a gorram Zune.

Where Cedric is Going to Be

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:45:51 GMT

I'm about to start a month-long tour, so if I'm nearby, I hope you'll stop to hear me play.

Here's my itinerary:

BabelCon (Baton Rouge, LA): July 17-19, www.babelcon.org/
http://www.myspace.com/babelcon

Tir na nOg (Raleigh, NC): July 22, 7 pm (seating starts at 6:30)

Confluence (Pittsburgh, PA): July 24-26, http://www.parsec-sff.org/confluence/

Pennsic War (Coopers Grove, PA): July 27-August 9

Browncoat Pub and Theatre (Wilmington, NC): August 12, 8 pm, www.guerillatheatre.com/

See you in the world!

Second Hand Hypnosis and Collateral Catalepsy

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:17:27 GMT

So last Sunday, a couple of musicians I know--Mark and April, a recently-formed musical act called the Tulstin Troubadours--asked if I would film them playing for a digital audition, and I proposed that my office would be a good location. I also asked if they would reciprocate by helping me create the hypnosis clip that is posted here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMYXyR0UuM

The only problem with recording at my office is that the window unit air conditioner is pretty loud, and we are in Texas in June after all. So after we were done filming and had moved to making audio recordings, April took off her top. No big deal--her bra covered more than most bikini tops, and we're all theater people anyway. But this detail will be important as the story unfolds . . .

As we were sitting around talking afterwards, and I'd already packed up the tripod and camcorder, Mark mentioned that he was still kind of skeptical about hypnosis, despite April's assurances that it's real. He had the usual objections, especially the claim that he couldn't be hypnotized because he wasn't willing to give up self-control.

So I offered to teach him how to hypnotize himself, and before long we had eye catalepsy. I then suggested he had helium balloons tied to his wrist in increasing numbers. While I was keeping that going, I started wondering why the AC unit wasn't cooling us down as well I'd like, so I went to investigate while keeping the patter going. After determining that the AC really was on, I started to head back over to Mark, when some stray threads from my cut-off shorts caught in the tuning pegs of his harp, nearly knocking it to the ground. I managed to disentangle myself while keeping up the patter.

When I looked back at Mark, his right arm was about a foot above his lap. :-) I wanted to be sure that April was witnessing this, but I noticed that she was sitting very still in her chair, with her eyes closed . . . Fine, I thought, I need to wake her up so she can tell him this really happened. So I tapped her wrist to quietly rouse her, and her wrist floated up into the air, propelled by imaginary balloons.

So then I realized that if Mark had any amnesia, I was going to have no way to prove what happened. Keeping up my patter, I dug the camcorder out of my pack and started filming with one hand while taking both him and April through a bunch of different phenomena--heavy pen, cold pen, hot pen, sticky pen. I was moving the camera back and forth between the two and thinking that I might have something YouTube worthy, when I realized that April not only had her skirt hiked up for the heat, but also was not wearing a top. While she's not body shy around close friends, I knew that footage wasn't going on YouTube . . .

I realized then that I was going to have to keep the camera on Mark, so I thought it would be good to dehypnotize April. Dang it, I wanted her to see me at work! Remembering the stage shows I'd watched, I touched her hand and said, "The person I am touching will come out of trance feeling great on the count of three. One, two, three!" She opened her eyes and looked around, so I moved back over to Mark.

Well, he still had a pen stuck in his hand, so I took him through the routine I shamelessly ripped off from Sean Michael Andrews, unsticking the pen when his hand stuck to his head, then unsticking that hand when the other was stuck to his nose, and so on. Then I unstuck all his limbs but made his arm stiff and straight in front of him. And here's my favorite move: I brought the rest of him out of trance while leaving his arm rigid. After giving him long enough to realize that he was conscious and yet his arm was paralyzed, I released it and reinduced trance, wrapping up with some feel good suggestions before bringing him out.

So I quit filming and handed him the camera to watch the evidence before I turned to April to see her reaction. She said, "Yeah, that was neat. Um, could you release this pen from my hand now?" I'd forgotten she had the pen in her hand when I brought her out.

In the end, Mark agreed that he was no longer skeptical. Unfortunately, on the parts that came after I quit filming topless April, my handheld camera work was so bouncy as to induce nausea, and I realized that posting it anywhere would constitute public humiliation--for me.

Bedlam Bards Live Album Available

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:42:40 GMT

Barnyard Bedlam: A Cock and Bull Story is now available online!

You can check out the cover, read the song list, and order your copy here:

http://tinyurl.com/BarnyardBedlam

This is the album we recorded last May in the Black Boare Pub at OKRF. We took a three-day weekend's worth of bawdy pub shows and boiled them down to a 79 minute CD.

I should say that this is the album your mother warned you about. These songs are dirty. No one should ever listen to songs like this, much less laugh while doing so. All but two are about sex, and half of those involve animals or clergy, or in some cases, animals and clergy. What can I say? Our fans are sick puppies.

Please spread the word (about the album, not about our fans).

Life after Fire

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:55:22 GMT

Well, I've been weighing my options, trying to figure out whether I should be looking for a new office space. There are some other attractive options, which seem more attractive if I don't compare them to what I had at Alum Creek . . .

Late in the day, I got two phone calls that have eased my mind quite a bit. One was from the accupuncturist who had the office across the way from me. (It burned to the ground. She had just moved a load of new equipment in.) She was calling to tell me that the Smithville Chamber of Commerce president had located a free space for us to use on Main Street. "Free as in available, you mean?" I asked. "Yes, but also free of charge until we can find permanent office space."

Y'know, the theme of that possibly cheesy Chamber banquet I went to on Saturday night was "Why We Love Smithville." Suddenly that doesn't seem so cheesy anymore.

It's such a relief to know that I don't have to make the decision right now. I have breathing space. People in big cities might look down on small-town provincialism, but where else would the president of the CoC be worrying about whether the new hypnotist in town could stay in business?

The next call was from the owner of Alum Creek Center. I had been putting myself in his shoes all day, and I'd been getting more and more discouraged about the long-term prospects. Turns out, I had it all wrong. He was more fired up--pardon the pun--about rebuilding than I've ever heard him about anything. He's lined up a salvage company that will pay him for the privilege of cleaning up all the scrap metal. He has secured a bulldozer and a backhoe, and he's making progress on applying for disaster relief funds.

Things are looking up, and my little Firefly-class office might just sail again.

Fire Spares Harmony Hypnosis

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:32:03 GMT

Yesterday, I had a fine chance to put into practice all of the stress release techniques I've been teaching.

At 2 pm, I was happily staining the wood for a sign to go in front of my office, to replace the temporary sign I've been using. (It's one of my bandit signs, meant for putting on power poles around rural Bastrop County.) My wife stepped out onto the porch and shouted that there was a fire near my office, and we should get anything of value out of it. The owner of the bead store adjacent to my office had called the number on my temporary sign. (Note to self: Add phone number to new sign.)

Joyce and I worked calmly and efficiently to unload my truck and get it ready. As we made the half-hour drive, I didn't even freak out when the people in front of me on that little two-lane road insisted on going ten miles under the speed limit.

By the time we reached Alum Creek Center, where my office is located, the air was thick with smoke and ash; I asked a firefighter if I would be allowed to go to my office, and his reply was, "We're not stopping people yet, but I wouldn't advise it." Joyce and I decided to go in anyway.

We ran into my office and immediately started grabbing the small electronic equipment that was there. I stepped up on the loveseat and pried upholstery tacks out of the wall with my bare hands--my tools were still sitting on the porch at home, next to my unfinished sign--so that I could save the antique Persian rug I had on my wall. Next I hefted the massage recliner into the back of the truck, turning it on its side so that I could get the antique loveseat in next to it. Joyce was grabbing anything of value she could reach in the meantime--my books, my certificate, my father's wood carving, my salt lamp, the brand-new water cooler I finished setting up a few days ago. We made one last sweep to get what we could and then hightailed it out of there. By then we could feel the heat of the approaching fire. Shortly after we left, the authorities closed the highway.

We went to Bastrop and had a cup of coffee at the Green Chai Cafe, where someone commented that we smelled like smoke. After that, we went home, where I continued working on my sign while visualizing a protective barrier around my office. Joyce and I got showers and went to the Smithville Chamber of Commerce annual banquet, which ended with all of the attendees converting the banquet hall into a refugee center.

Watching the news last night, I saw reports that all of Alum Creek Center (where my office is located) had burned to the ground. I went to bed kicking myself for not spending another ten minutes grabbing a few more things, and then reminding myself to focus on sending positive thoughts to those who had lost their homes.

This morning, I got a phone call informing me that not all of Alum Creek burned--my building and two others were spared. You can see footage of it here:

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/Massive_wildfire_threatens_Bastrop

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and watch the second video. You'll see my office and the bead store.

I don't know what the long term plan is. I doubt that Alum Creek Center will be rebuilt, so for the moment, though my office stands, it has no electricity and no bathrooms. I don't know what kind of heat and smoke damage there might be. But all in all, it's a miracle.

This Makes Me Feel Good

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:01:10 GMT

One of my clients (who is remaining nameless for confidentiality purposes) gave me permission to quote the email she sent me after her fear-of-public-speaking session:

"Hi James,

I wanted to thank you for the session. I did pretty well in my Icebreaker speech at Toastmaster. Not only did I survive; I actually won the blue ribbon (Best Speaker) award."

Moments like that make this job so worth it!

Playing in Austin this Weekend

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:43:14 GMT

Hey, BedHeads,

We're playing in Austin this weekend (Friday and Saturday nights) at Fiddler's Hearth on Barton Springs Road. It's an early show, which in Austin means we start at 9 pm. Come get your ren fix before being stuck with family for the holidays!

www.fiddlershearth.com

Please repost this everywhere you can. :-)

Love ya,

Cedric

DragonCon 2008

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:12:45 GMT

After a summer of playing Serenity screenings and throwing myself full force into promoting my new hypnosis business, I found myself last week suddenly realizing that it was time to pack the truck and go to Dragon*Con. There was no time to get either excited or anxious about this year, so we rather matter-of-factly threw everything in the truck and started driving: one day to get to Keith and Dionne's in New Orleans, and a second day to get to Rob Kuhlmann's in Atlanta.

On the drive out, we entertained ourselves by listening repeatedly to the bare bones recording of Rob's new song, "Unspoken," about Mal and Inara's relationship. Upon arriving at Rob's, we found a jam session/rehearsal in full swing, so despite having been on the road all day, we broke out our instruments and play until the wee hour of the mornings, after which we wrestled with Brian Wiser for the best sleeping couch. (We lost. He's incredibly wirey, that Brian.)

Thursday before the con opens is always interesting, because registration and set-up are already happening, so we proceeded to our hotel near the convention, met up with Earthgirl and Fandone to set up the booth we shared with them, and went to get our stinkin' badges. Because the con didn't even have a filk director until a month ago, our names weren't on the list, so we had to wait a while for said badges to materialize.

That evening, we convened with members of the 76th Independent Battalion on the 10th floor of the Marriott for a wedding and barbecue. It seemed that pretty much everytime we turned around at Dragon*Con, we were running into someone we knew, especially at any Browncoat event.

As in past years, the lines for the Firefly panels were incredibly long, so I stood outside and played music for the folks waiting in line, who always appreciate a little distraction. This year, there were four members of the Firefly cast present: Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Jewel Staite, and Morena Baccarin. As always, they were hilarious in panel. Fillion had various silly sound effects prepared on his cell phone, which he used to great effect. By Sunday, the lines for the Firefly panel had gotten so long that they had to move it to an absolutely huge room in the Marriott; unfortunately (for me), that put the line inside the lobby, where I couldn’t really play for people. Even so, I just walked down the line hawking my CDs and ran out of what I could carry before I'd made it halfway down the line. I hate going straight salesman like that, but sometimes it's necessary. In any case, that panel included the high point of the con: at Jewel Staite's prompting, Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin kissed on stage. (Okay, they're actors, so it could have been faked.)

Another high point was the Shindig. This year, it was moved into a room with a maximum capacity of 1500 people, which led some fans online to squee, saying, "Yay! No one will have to be turned away." They were wrong. The room filled to capacity, and there were still people waiting outside to get in. We played last that evening, starting sometime after midnight and playing until two a.m. There was basically a Celtic mosh pit in front of our stage. It was wild.

Much of the weekend was a blur, but some things stand out. I walked the parade once again, and it seems like we have more and more Browncoats in the parade each year. (This year we were joined by a number of Doctor Horribles and Captain Hammers, as well as a few members of the Evil League of Evil.) I saw a number of awesome costumes, but several stand out in my memory. There was Doctor Octopus, who looked like he'd stepped right out of the movie. I don't know how that guy gets up and down the escalators. There was a Jayne hat—the entire costume was a giant Jayne hat, unbelievable. There was the Mach 5, from Speed Racer—not actually a costume so much as an actual car tricked out to be a replica. (As I was standing near it waiting for the parade, a couple of Anime chicks came around the corner and saw it. As the paused in awe, one of them said, "Tell me you see that, too.") There was a Boba Fett with all his technology built out of Legos, and a Home Depot guy built out of Home Depot cardboard boxes. And there was a really hot Laura Croft. (Okay, not the most increbible costume, but, well, she just stands out in my memory because she was *really* hot. Did I mention how hot she was?)

At one point, I had really good plans to crash out and go to sleep, but instead I found myself mysteriously attending an arcane ritual known as Klingon Karaoke. I had expected Klingon opera, but it was more standard karaoke hosted by a couple of Klingons and attended by some extremely drunk enthusiastic Trekkies. Some inebriated Trill kept twisting my arm to sing, and I finally thought, "Oh, what the heck. No one here knows who I am, so if I bomb, what does it matter? It won't reflect on my professionally." So I picked out a song and handed my card to the towering woman with the head ridges. She glanced at my name and said, "Cedric! It's so great to see you again!"

Oh, boy.

So as soon as the current song was done, the Klingon hostess announced, "Ladies and beings, we have a rare treat! Cedric from the Bedlam Bards, a real live professional musician who will be utterly humiliated in public if he crashes and burns at karaoke, which he will probably do because he spent his entire youth listening to Irish folk music instead of American pop, which just proves what a dysfunctional geek he is, is in the house!" Okay, that might not be exactly how she phrased it. It was probably just "Cedric from the Bedlam Bards is in the house."

"All right," I thought, "time to reach down inside and summon my inner rock star." And that's exactly what I did. I swaggered up to the front, snatched the mic, looked out at the crowd and said, "Are you ready to rock? I said, are you ready to rock!" As the cheering died down and the first strains of "Born to Be Wild" started playing, I thought, "I hope I'm ready to rock."

Apparently I was. Despite having not heard the song in decades, I put all the attitude I could muster into the song and still managed to hit most of the lyrics on time. Near the end of the guitar break, I tossed my hat into the lap of an audience member on the front row, pulled out my ponytail holder, and proceeded to head bang. The Trekkies went wild. Throughout the rest of the con, nearly as many people stopped me to say, "Weren't you at karaoke?" as to say, "Aren't you one of the Bedlam Bards?"

I also got in a performance at the live Signal podcast. Les and the crew had asked me if I'd come by and sing a song late in the show. (Emerald Rose was the official musical guest this year.) They wanted an exclusive of my newest Serenity-inspired song. I warned them that it was a bit political, but they said that was okay. After I sang it, one of the audience members said, "Wow, Cedric, if you weren't on the homeland security watch list yet, you are now!" He was videotaping it by the way, so it will no doubt be on YouTube soon. Or of course you can go to signal.serenityfirefly.com and listen to the 2008 DragonCon Live Signal Podcast (as soon as it's up). My song is the very last thing on it.

Speaking of YouTube, Monday morning's string jam isn't up there yet, but I'm sure it will be before long.

The only presentation I made it to other than the Firefly panels was a solo talk that Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica gave. He showed some cool video, including a mock trailer he and some friends created ten years ago in an attempt to get studios interested in reviving BSG. It was so good that I wanted to see the movie they never made. Anyway, listening to Hatch was truly inspirational; he's committed to creating a new way of producing sci-fi, free of network control, and he used Firefly as his example of how it could be done. Certainly, I've heard lots of fans talk about fan-funded TV, but it was interesting in this post-Dr. Horrible time to hear a Hollywood insider talking about it.

Speaking of Richard Hatch, there is another very exciting development that was announced at D*C. Hatch is teaming up with Brian Wiser, one of the main organizers of the Browncoat Cruise, to put on a combined Firefly and BSG fan event, very likely a cruise. In the same breath in which Brian announced it, he added, "And we want the Bedlam Bards to be there." I might have actually squeed at the thought of going on another cruise.

After the con was over, we went back to Rob Kuhlmann's house to record guitar and fiddle tracks on his newest Firefly song. It took pretty much all night and a good chunk of the next day, but we were pleased with the product. I'm sure Rob plans to put it on his myspace as soon as he's done tweaking it, and of course it will be on his upcoming album.

For the trip back, we took I-20 so as to avoid the worst of Gustav, but we still had to push through some very nasty rain. We also ate by flashlight when the power went out at the Waffle House where we'd stopped for dinner. (It was Waffle House number 34, by the way. There are forty-seven between Rob's house and mine. Yes, we counted.)

My First Street Hypnosis Experience

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:52:59 GMT

Last night, my wife set up a booth to sell her adorable craft goods (www.gypsyharte.etsy.com) at a street fair in Austin, Texas. Since I was going along to do the heavy lifting anyway, I printed out a couple of signs that read "Free Hypnosis Today," laminated them, and posted them around her booth. Wearing my "Hamony Hypnosis" gimme cap guaranteed that everyone knew who the hypnotist was.

I had several volunteers early in the evening. The first was a pink-haired girl who had confessed that she only had twenty bucks to spend that night, so I'd told her the hypnosis was free. I didn't really think about the fact that this was the first time I did a rapid induction with a stranger who wasn't selected from a big crowd by a bunch of tests to pick out the natural somnambulists. Good thing, too; it might have blown my concentration. Anyway, her mini-session went well, with sticky 'nosis working. (She didn't go for the drunk finger, but she seemed to have fun anyway.)

Next, I noticed a woman with whom I'm already acquainted reading one of my flyers. After answering a few questions about weight loss hypnosis, I asked if she'd like a brief demo. It went all right, with arm catalepsy, despite the fact that I had to more or less yell into her hearing aid to get past the drum jam going on in the street. (Welcome to Austin . . . ) She commented that she was amazed I could make it work at all, considering the distractions.

Next, her husband volunteered, at her urging and a little warily. (What is it about us men that we don't want to be hypnotized? I'd say it's machismo, but this guy was wearing a skirt, eyeliner, and mascara. Welcome to Austin . . . ) Anyway, the arm yank on him didn't quite put him down, but I kept going with some deepeners, and before we were done, he achieved a wonderfully pleasant state. He left the chair with kind of a blissed-out expression.

Once they were both done, I sat back and wondered whether I'd have any other takers.

Then I realized it was really dumb to wonder, and instead I sent out a silent call for the Universe to bring me people who needed to experience hypnosis and people who needed my help. Having done that, I could relax and enjoy the evening, secure in the knowledge that the outcome would be exactly what was best for everyone.

Eventually, the sun went down, and the crowds came out. At that point, parts of the evening become a blur. I don't remember who my next volunteer was, but I do know that I was much more in tune with my intuition regarding which inductions, deepeners, phenomena, and suggestions to use for the rest of the evening. Pretty much as soon as I had one person in the trancing chair, I had a crowd gathered and no shortage of people eager for a taste. (When the friend I had invited to come be a back-up volunteer arrived, I was so busy that I didn't need her to trance.) With some, I did arm catalepsy and sticky stuff, with others I gave helpful suggestions based on things they'd said before we started. Once I focused on helping people, the night went great, and I knew what to do for each one.

I got to use a number of different inductions, including the handshake interrupt, which I'd never actually done before. That choice must have been pure intuition, because it worked like a charm. At one point, I had two girls who asked if they could trance at the same time, so I said, "Sure!" while my mind quickly replayed a video of Richard Nongard doing two clients at once. (That came out wrong, didn't it?)

When I took a break and went into the store that was hosting us (White Crane, on South Congress--great store), a couple came over to me, asked a bunch of questions, and then demanded a card. I'd actually left all my cards at the booth, but the couple sought me out there later to get a card and ask more questions. I'm sure they'll be calling for private sessions. :-)

Was it all perfect? No. Did every person I worked with respond perfectly to every suggestion? No. But what needed to happen, happened. I learned a lot about trusting my intuition and reading my trance partners. (I also learned to bring a chair for myself!) And when I stopped and realized it was my first street hypnosis experience, I was very pleased with the results.

My Hypnosis Website

Thu, 15 May 2008 01:28:04 GMT

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!

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:29:59 GMT

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

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:06:09 GMT

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

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:22:02 GMT

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

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:32:37 GMT

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

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:23:44 GMT

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.

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:58:05 GMT

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

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:55:35 GMT

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

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:23:26 GMT

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

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:48:54 GMT

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

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:55:05 GMT

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

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:00:52 GMT

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

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 03:18:54 GMT

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!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:28:06 GMT

*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!