I got to the con at 2ish, and after a little problem where my badge disappeared, and turned up stuck in the flap in my art bag that can go over the handle of a carryon bag only after I'd spent 10 minutes running around like a headless chicken looking for it, I got to the art show. There was no problem with putting the pieces I had in the show, and they said I could put them anywhere that wasn't already taken. There was one panel in the bay right in front of the door, which you could see from the hallway as you walked in. Almost the best spot in the show (though only a single panel, since the rest of the bay was full). I figured, what the heck, and put my stuff up. Then I spent a couple of hours helping get things ready and running the bag check once the show opened.
I took a break at 5 to see the "We're friends but we've never met" panel (about online communities including LJ and the peculiarities of relationships with people we only know on-line). A reasonably entertaining discussion with
ericcoleman, almeda, and unclevlad on the panel, though perhaps not really coming out with insights that we haven't already seen on similar panels.I grabbed a bite to eat, put in another couple of hours working at the art show, took advantage of my artist ribbon to actually look at the art show a little bit during the artists' reception, and went to the filk. The filk was pretty good Friday night, even though I wasn't; I was tired and out of practice, and made enough of a hash of the Berryman's "After Life Goes By" that
markiv1111 probably regretted having requested it in a conversation in the hall (though he would be too kind to say so). It was definitely not up to my standards. Later, I played "Benson, Arizona", and proved that I can't quite do it in my sleep, since I was mostly asleep and I made more mistakes than I thought I could, though I don't think it was that bad. After that, having proved I could play both guitars badly, I did an a capella song -- Juanita's setting of Heinlein's "Along the Grand Canal". Nobody threw any rotten tomatoes at me, but for all I know that only reflects that tomatoes are out of season. (I think it was OK, I had a little bit of trouble on a note or two.) I went to bed fairly early, being too tired.Saturday started with Nate's guitar workshop, which turned out to be a repeat of the workshop he gave at Torcon. Which I can't complain about, since it puts at least as much good stuff into one hour as an hour can possibly hold, and I have not actually practiced the exercises he introduced, so having him run me through them again is not a bad thing at all. If I could attend the workshop twice a week, maybe after a few months I'd actually have done the exercises enough for my fingers to have learned something. (It's all stuff I understand intellectually just fine. It's the practice that I need.)
Next we had concerts. First, my good friend Art Warneke had a solo billing for a slot, but he arranged to have Milwaukee drummer Joe Connolly and Filk GoH Nate Bucklin be his backup band. It sounded really good. I think it was really generous of a Guest of Honor to be a sideman, especially when he lives in a different state from the main performer and they couldn't rehearse much. He played fairly basic bass lines, but he played them well. Art and Joe have rehearsed a little more together. They sounded really nice on stage.
Next, science guest Mark Osier had a concert slot. (I didn't get to any of his science stuff, unfortunately.) He did more tacky humor material than I hoped for, because that meant that he did less of what I think is his really good stuff, but still a good concert.
I did not stay for the remaining concerts because I needed to get more volunteer hours, and also because I have trouble sitting for too many hours of concerts in a row, and while I consider
ericcoleman and filkertom friends and I also like their material, I wasn't expecting either concert to have stuff I hadn't heard so I didn't absolutely *have* to hear them.Then the filk pizza party, where I indulged myself in a limited way (I had only one slice of Giordano's stuffed sausage and pepperoni), which became a little impromptu filk for a while, I caught a few minutes of Samuel Travis Clemmons (comedy storytelling, with material and delivery that would not be out of place on a stage in a venue that charged asmission), and then the Guest of Honor concert, where Nate and Louie gave us a really tasty hour. They made a point of ending their concert after just one hour, and then we filkers promptly arranged the room into a circle and proceeded to sit around and converse in small groups for an hour. I decided that this had gone on long enough, and launched into Hope Eyrie, where I proved that I still was less than completely awake as I stumbled over the words a little bit, and the audience didn't seem to be much into it (at least, most people weren't singing along very enthusiastically), but the filk started. It was a good filk. I think any filk where Nate is sitting in and putting bass behind most of the songs is going to be good. I sang "Little Fuzzy Animals" because Sue had requested it earlier in our impromptu session, and it seemed to go pretty well. I recited "Horrton Hears a Heart (by Dr. Edgar Allan Seuss)", and I think it went over pretty well, though I stumbled a little bit on the scansion-challenged places because I haven't practiced that enough either. I think that was about when some schmuck pulled the fire alarm, and the hotel made us all go stand outside in the howling gale for 20 minutes. I took my guitar out with me, and when I started getting cold, I started singing "Jim Root's Ride" because I thought I should sing about something hot. The hotel let us back in about halfway through the song, and I kept singing.
birder2 said I looked like the Pied Piper leading people back in, but I was oblivious. After we got back into the filk room, almeda did the almost obligatory rendition of Jeff Bohnhoff's song about the fire alarms at Baycon, with markiv1111 playing guitar. I had a nice snuggle with exapno, where we agreed that it stinks that there's so much distance between us that we probably won't be in the same room again until Capricon. Art asked me to do "Dangerous Color" when I asked if anyone wanted anything before I turned completely orange.Sunday, I got to
catalana's concert, where it was nice to hear a bunch of her songs while janmagic and I traded backscratches. The rest of the day was devoted to the art show. The greatest annoyance of the whole con came when I got my artist checkout sheet, and discovered that "Who, Me?" had been sold for $10, when it was supposed to be $20 minimum bid. They showed me the bid sheet, and inconceivable unfathomable brainless twit that I am, I had written the numbers for the print run (print 5 of 10) in the blanks for the minimum bid and quick sale price on the bid sheet, and since neither I nor the art show staffer who checked me in noticed it, they sold the piece for the "10" that was written in the quick sale price blank. After an hour or so I managed to calm down enough that I didn't actually want to borrow a morningstar and bash my own brains in, but as I write this, I'm still really annoyed that I could be that stupid. I spent several hours loading flats into the truck, which was a really great workout -- I'll probably be sore all week -- but was pretty therapeutic. If someone would pay me what I was making as a computer programmer to do work like that, I'd go for it.