Unimatrix Two

Tenth Episode Anniversary

I’m a little amazed that I’m sitting here working on the eleventh episode of Managlitch City Underground. I’ve already released just over two hours of audio since I started: an entire movie’s worth of storytelling. And while it’s not a complete one-man show, I do most of the heavy lifting all by myself: writing, most of the acting, editing, graphics, webmastering, etc. This is literally the product of four decades of trying my hand at anything that interested me.

Is it any good? I like it, and I know of at least a few regular listeners. Like any creative type would, I hope I keep getting more. I do think it steadily improves as I learn more and more about what I’m doing – by making mistakes, of course. Only way to improve.

I had to ditch another con due to finances, as $1000 of car repairs (front CV joints and tires) swallowed up my Shore Leave money without a trace. That meant leaving my fellow actors in Luna-C without a cast member, so it’s extra painful, though they had a month’s notice to work around the problem. Looking forward to working with them at MarsCon next January.

I’m still going to Intervention in two weeks, mainly because I can’t drop out of that; I’m staffing coordinator there, thanks to a terrible attack of constaffus volunteeritis. On top of that, I’m a member of a panel on World Building with Pete “Sluggy Freelance” Abrams, I’m presenting a talk on the making of my bawdy slapstick videos, and I’m recording an episode of Managlitch City Underground live at the con with audience participation and special guest voices which I can’t yet discuss. I’ll almost certainly cosplay too; I hope I see lots of my friends there. Gonna be fun, and I’m going to be exhausted when it’s done!

I’ve been to see a doctor for the first time in years. They’ve x-rayed my hip and kidney to be sure neither will be offering trouble anytime soon, and I’m back on anti-anxiety meds which is wonderful. I lose so much time and work to panic attacks and general feelings of dread; I’m absolutely thrilled to have the chemical tools again to beat that back. Things are still great with Maya, and I’m so lucky to have her at my back when things are bumpy. We make an amazing team.

With luck, I’ll have lots of amazing news from Intervention. Until then, drop me a note if you’re enjoying the podcast!

February: A Con Odyssey

Just did Farpoint in Baltimore, and MystiCon in Roanoke back to back. Both cons are five hours away from my home. Pro tip: don’t do this.

Farpoint was the second stop for Luna-C, so as usual I spent most of the weekend preparing for the performance in one way or another. Of course, I simultaneously love live performing from the depths of my soul and it triggers my anxieties as only a job interview can, so it’s both relief and regret when the show is done. Regret must win, though, since I’m always eager for the next show. We premiered my “Lonely Villain” skit which I think is quite funny; and I got to play Scotty again, which has been one of my lifelong dreams.

I also premiered the My Little Pony “Twilight Sparkle” costume at Farpoint, and I must say it was a pretty big hit. I’ve known since the fandom took off that I would need an MLP costume before long, so of course I had to do it in my own special fashion.

(more…)

Back from Shore Leave!

The new car behaved itself well! Much less general wear on a car = much better gas mileage, as I made Baltimore and back on only a tank and a half. Dwight and Dawn were excellent company: among other things, I got to hear a Duran Duran album I hadn't picked up yet. Huyndais handle differently with three people and a trunk of con luggage in them than they do with one, something I'm not yet completely used to.

The Hunt Valley no-longer-Marriott is an interesting hotel. Every year I manage to get lost in their hall layout at least two or three times, and combining that with the eye-searing carpet makes me suspect that it will be a rough place when the stars are right. Also, the room was too darn humid the whole time. Clothing in my still-packed bag felt a bit damp this morning.

The con itself was a lovely time. I picked up a nice Ron Weasley wand replica for the "Warehouse 9 3/4" skit and a replacement UFP patch for my Trek flight jacket. Didn't get to hit the vendor area much, which no doubt was good for my wallet; but I attended an interesting costuming panel and was a panelist on another, got many good costume photos of Kara that I must send her, and of course performed with Luna-C.

I glitched twice during my first skit, though I was assured it was unnoticeable from the audience. Phew! The other three went nice and smooth, and in fact I think the Holmes and Watson podcast skit got more laughs than ever. From a backstage perspective, the skits I wasn't in seemed to work very well, with good comic timing and plenty of laughs. I believe this was one of our strongest performances! (And we got to meet Kate Mulgrew very very briefly backstage beforehand, which I enjoyed!)

Afterwards, I got hit in the head with being 43 years old: I needed a nap. I wanted to watch the Masquerade but my body wasn't into it. We did head down to the Ten-Forward party at 11… the music mostly stank, but I finally got to put a name to Paulette Guillory-Gardner, a lovely lady with whom I've been crossing convention paths often. My Alice costume went over well, and I even got a picture or two with a White Rabbit before it was time to head back up to bed.

In the morning, we headed down for the Luna-C breakfast and wrap-up. Dana Stewart gave me exactly the Doctor Who costume idea I'd been looking for, complete with a bad pun to go with it – win-win. I grabbed a couple more click-base random starships, but I think from now on I might spend the extra couple of bucks and buy the specific ones I want from eBay. I don't like getting duplicates, when I don't have lots of folks interested in trading.

The drive home was too long, frankly. The company was still good, but I just wanted to be home. Still, made it in safe by 7:30, said my goodbyes to Dwight and Dawn, stuffed a sandwich in my mouth and was unconscious by 9:30. All in all: quite the good weekend.

Gaining a new fandom in five easy steps

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I first became an anime fan probably around the age of six, when I saw a single episode of “Speed Racer”. I didn’t know what was going on in the story, but that car was awesome. Later on, I unwittingly fed the growing otaku inside me when I became addicted to “Battle of the Planets”. The show seemed oddly edited, and the plots a bit repetitive, but that plane/spaceship* was awesome. My final step came with my introduction by rattrap to “Robotech: Macross”. True, I cringed every time Minmei appeared on screen**, but those transforming fighter planes were awesome.

(What pattern? Yes, I’m a SF hardware nerd, so what?)

But my first “hey, this is in Japanese” anime told the story of a comedy alien invasion led by a green-haired, tiger-stripe-bikini-clad princess named Lum. I saw a single episode before leaving for a con, and began learning the fan technique of “supplying one’s own storyline to go with the untranslated video”. Still confusing, but the princess was adorable, and the love interest was clearly a complete dork: a character I could relate to!

Oh, I still might have escaped anime fandom. Pretty unlikely: I still had the “Dirty Pair”, “Captain Harlock”, and “BubbleGum Crisis” ahead of me, and all those wonderful, wonderful, animated spaceships and giant robots. But no, I was doomed: at the next con I attended, a local fan delectably costumed herself as Lum.*** That was pretty much it for me. I’ve been con-going, costuming, and performing ever since. And now that Starr’s picked out a couple of characters to try, and I’ve hooked up with Luna-C, I don’t see this changing anytime soon.**** As was said at Farpoint, I’ll stop by reality long enough to get the bills paid, but I’ve got the next con marked on my calendar…

*The Phoenix was only supposed to be a plane, but American translator/editors turned it into a spaceship. I have no grounds to criticize, as I did that often enough with my toys when little.

**In the Japanese original, Minmay does sing better… but she’s not really much less annoying.

***Longtime members of southwest Virginia fandom may well remember the lady in question. Especially if they’re straight males or gay females.

****Fear not; I have enough respect for your collective eyeballs to never wear a Lum costume. Besides, it’s drafty.

In which I succumb to Lunacy

Saturday night, I got to fuel an old addiction. Like many other addictions, the experience was thrilling and draining. It also cost a few bucks, but at least this addiction doesn’t do any physical damage. Really, I don’t remember when I was first bitten by the acting bug, but I know I was quite young. I understood even back then that some people got to share their games of make-believe with the entire world, and that sounded to me like incredible fun.

Some years later, 1986 or ’87 I think, I attended Stellarcon with a crowd of new friends from a club named VTSFFC. We learned that their Saturday afternoon masquerade was desperately short of entries, and I remembered seeing at RoVaCon a group called “Doctors In the House” that performed costumed science-fiction comedy skits. Inspired, I grabbed what little I’d brought for hall costuming, and created the “Starfleet Vice” troupe. We had a great deal of fun over the next few years, but after many performances at RoVaCon, Technicon, and SciCon, we moved on to other things, and Starfleet Vice faded away.

“Starfleet Vice” – RoVaCon 1987 From left: Heather McLaughlin as “Kei” from the Dirty Pair, Paul Danielsen as officer “Crock”, Sonoko Konishi as “Yuri” from the Dirty Pair, and me as officer “Stubble”. I don’t even remember what the skit was that year.		Starfleet Vice t-shirt graphic From the left, the characters are “Ruth” (Beth Lipes), “Dr. Whizbang” (Mark Haymaker), “Cmdr. Paisley” (Tom Monaghan), “Stubble” (me), “Crock” (Paul Danielsen), and “Herald Harold” (Mike Layne). Eventually, Tom acquired a paisley “Next Generation” Starfleet uniform. Audience members were driven blind.

Further years later, I learned that my VTSFFC friend Helen Madden had become involved with “Luna-C”, a group that I later learned had evolved from the old “Doctors”. I enjoyed Luna-C’s performances at many cons over the next several years, and often felt twinges of nostalgia for the stage – by then, I’d done “You Can’t Take it With You”, “Arsenic and Old Lace”, “Gentleman’s Agreement“, and “Space Rogues“. But I had plenty else on my plate and never seriously concerned myself with those old memories.

Well, at this year’s MarsCon, I was socializing with Luna-C members after the performance, and I jokingly suggested that with the hall costume I was wearing I could have substituted for one of the players. A little further into the conversation, and it wasn’t a joke. So, this weekend I attended a convention I hadn’t planned to hit in 2010. I had an amazing time, and had my first hit of serious memorized-lines-and-costumes acting in ages. It felt goooood.

They gave me six skits to do: an AFLAC parody (I wasn’t the duck), a “Fringe” skit where I played Peter, an SG:Universe scene where I played Dr. Rush, a James Bond / Austin Powers back-and-forth (guess who I played, baby), and two final skits in which I fulfilled a longtime ambition to play the Fourth Doctor. (I tried for days to get a Tom Baker voice going, and I failed; but Deb told me during the show that she thought I had the cadences of his voice nailed. Ego-boost +30!) I didn’t have as much rehearsal time as I’d hoped, and I know I mised some lines, but they covered for me wonderfully. I don’t think I did a bad job at all!

Now RavenCon is coming up, and both Starr and I will be joining Luna-C there if all goes as planned. Yep. Won’t be kicking this addiction any time soon.

Geek magic

Harry Potter and the Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack

Hermione: Hey, I was thinking…

Ron: Not again!

Hermione: (ignoring him) None of us want to say You-Know-Who’s name because he knows when you do it, right?

Harry: Yes, he’s magically linked to the sound, it automatically draws his attention to you so he knows what you’re saying about him. Why?

Hermione: Well, back home this summer I was reading about a website called Slashdot…

Ron: What’s a ‘web site’? Not more spiders, ugh!!

Harry & Hermione: (Ignoring him)

One week later…

“Daily Prophet” barker: EXTRA! EXTRA! Harry Potter gets entire wizarding world to say Voldemort’s name at once! Dark Wizard found dead in lair with brain cells leaking out of his ears! Read All About It!

(inspired in part by the Luna-C performance at MarsCon of all seven books in 45 minutes, and by Starr)