Time to pack up and load out! We’re not actually leaving yet – that’s for tomorrow morning, all too bright and early – but we’ve already set up the duty schedules for all the Minions staying behind in the Lair, and now it’s just a matter of making sure we have everything we need.

I don’t know how much I’ll be on over the next week, though almost certainly at least a little. Other than that – see you at Worldcon, I hope!

ps: if you were in the ice cube tray discussion over the weekend, we may have decided at rehearsal that it needed a song and things got stupid pretty fast. XD

Facebook’s kind of broken tonight (eta: hey, it fixed itself overnight!), but here’s the event page for the Crime and the Forces of Evil and Leannan Sidhe shows in Tacoma on the 29th. Leannan Sidhe’s on at noon, CFoE on at 4pm, and there will be other bands too! Free show to the public as part of the Central Puget Sound Pagan Pride Festival, so c’mon out!

I tried to upload a temporary event picture, but Facebook was having no part of it. So right now it’s a big grey rectangle. I’ll try again later.

The World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane is a week away! Well, a week and two days, kind of? But I’m leaving a week from tomorrow.

I have to admit, I’m frankly a little nervous about it, given all the things going on as of late, and I’m not looking forward to going to all those business meetings. But needs must and all that.

Also, I’ve been looking over the schedule, and their music programme appears to be entirely filk-focused. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a large convention where the music programme is purely filk – the large events I go to tend to be mostly nerdcore and chiptunes. So this’ll be interesting.

On the downside, it doesn’t seem to be very interactive – across all five days, there are only seven non-concert daytime panels and/or workshops. That’s only a little more the entire week than I’d programme for a single day of nwcMUSIC at Norwescon.

I’m also hearing that the space given to non-concert musicians for evening open performing – “open filk” – is… very small. Too small, I am hearing, even for the crowd at the local convention, SpoCON.

This is not really how I’d fly that ship, myself. But hey; it’s not my ship.

Then after, I’ll be playing Puget Sound Pagan Pride, down in Tacoma! Twice, actually. Both times on the 29th. Once with Leannan Sidhe, at noon, and once as myself, at 4pm. Here’s the CPSPP page, with details; I’ll add a Facebook event tomorrow. It’s a free event, so add it to your calendars now!

Given what I’m hearing, I suspect I’ll likely be holding down the harder edge of that event’s concerts. I’m okay with that.

You likely know that over the last several years, I built a music festival at Norwescon, called nwcMUSIC. It’s a pan-geekmusic festival, with nerdcore and chiptunes and filk and elfmetal and seriously anything geek-friendly I could find. Here’s last year’s show report, and the year before (part one and part two), to give you a feel for it.

But it was built heavily on force of personality – specifically, mine – and I’m stepping down. So they need new people. Our sound crew is stepping down as well, so they need several new people. But there’s good news: it has momentum and all the tools are in place and everything. And it has that all-important social and political momentum; people want to keep it going.

There will be opportunities like Daytime Programming Lead, and I happen to know that Programming Head is looking for someone right now to take that slot. This kind of work is about making panels and workshops, and getting attending performers and pros onto those workshops. They’ve all been very hands-on/instructional in the past. One of the big advantages of this position is that all this work is usually done by January, so you can do this and go to the panels like usual. Sound like it’s for you? Mail programming@norwescon.org today.

They’ll also be needing Publicity and Communications Lead or whatever they end up calling it, promoting events and concerts. That’s work that will start in January and also is mostly done by convention time. There’ll like be a Special Events/Filkcircle Lead, which will have a mix of before-convention and at-con work. There will be a Concerts Lead, working tightly with the Daytime Programming Lead. This can also make you Concerts MC! That’s how I did it.

all this can be yours

There will be a Concerts Second (what I’ve called “Water Fairy,” ably managed by Anna in the past), who does stage management work at the shows, and fairly little beforehand. There will be a Concert Sound Engineer or two (replacing the most excellent Jen and John after six years), possibly a Videographer, and so on. For most of those, contact specialevents@norwescon.org – the sooner, the better.

I promise this: you will not be going in without help. I won’t be running things, and I won’t be on concom, but I will share everything I’ve done and learned because I want this to keep going. It’s built up into a nice community – one that I want to continue to be part of, as a musician. It’s a really good educational experience for the attendees, it promotes participation in your own culture, and it’s a heck of a venue for nerdy and geeky artists.

also, possibly some srsly bitchin’ gear

So someone – several someones – need to take my place and take these jobs. If no one does, it really will go away, and I don’t know anyone who wants that. So please – even if you aren’t the right person for any of these positions, cast that net wide, and pass along the news to everyone you know. Even if you’ve done it once already, do it again.

And contact Norwescon to get involved, as soon as possible. This is a big change for Norwescon, too. We’ve got a hell of a thing here. Step up. Keep nwcMUSIC going.

As promised, more photos from Clallam Bay Comicon, a.k.a. CBCC, a.k.a. the Party on the Peninsula. Scroll down, there’s a third fireworks picture that’s pretty good, and a fourth one that I really like.

I’ve mentioned before that CBCC is really kind of a weekend vacation for me, but one where I’m running a table and doing a show, and how that works out to be a vacation is mostly because it’s also during Fun Days, a yearly event out there. Also, the fish and chips at the Clallam Bay Inn.

There are Giant Metal Salmon:

Yes, It Will Eat You. But there’s art inside.

And a small-town parade, with goats and, of course, antique cars:

C’mon, goat!

The Obligatory Muscle Car

And there’s also a whole-town potluck and some surprisingly good hamburgers from the local Lion’s Club and all that sort of thing that goes with rural festivals thrown in the middle of summer just because you can.

But there is also a convention! I did a few panels, and here’s Anna doing a roundtable discussion panel on self- and hybrid publishing:

Anna took a picture of my show, which was nice of her! She posted it on Facebook earlier, but there was some Thanks Facebook compression and artefacting that I cleaned up.

The con had an official hotel for the first time – the Winter-Summer Inn, which is actually a Bed-and-Breakfast, which means it books about… 16? I’m not sure. Something like that. Still, it’s our hotel, and we sold it out.

From the road, it looks super-tiny. I mean, hilariously small. Turns out it’s actually quite large inside. Not quite TARDIS-like, but surprising. This is one of the common rooms, where the mini-video film festival took place:

And in the evening, SO MANY FIREWORKS OH MY GODS. This year we went down to the beach itself. While the explosions went on for over two hours, it was quieter than usual, probably because of the burn ban followed by surprise but deeply, deeply appreciated all-day rain. (On the way out, the fire danger signs were all at their highest levels; on the way back, all the way back down to “high,” which is normal. Such a relief.)

Anyway, the best part about sitting directly on the beach is that some of the fireworks end up directly overhead. Which is seriously the best thing. Plus, if someone happened to, you know, find some fireworks somewhere, you might set them off! Can’t leave them there, after all, that’d be a hazard.

Donna Lights One Up

I’ve put more photos than here on the Flickr account, but these and the other two posted on Monday are my favourites. This first one? Directly overhead. A highly satisfactory BOOM.

And I love the sillouettes on this one. There are more kind of like this on Flickr, but this one has the best colour and scatter.

So, yeah! See you there next year, maybe. As long as we don’t get destroyed by giant earthquakes before then. Boom.

Going out to play on the peninsula is the best thing. The weather is normal and the rain gods are kind and on the right weekends there are stupid amounts of fireworks over the water. It’s fundamentally just so restorative. Here, have some explosions.

Also, here’s a photo of the Saturday show from Anna in the audience. Thanks again, Clallam Bay! <3

Can’t make it to San Diego? C’mon out to the party on the peninsula! Clallam Bay Comicon is this weekend, out in Clallam Bay, and it’s more or less a geek party, including hours – no, really, hours – of fireworks on the beach. And by that I do in fact mean actual fireworks, not an old-timey euphemism for sex.

The whole thing is Donna Barr’s fault; it started as a party in her front yard. This year, there’s actually a GoH and an actual con hotel, by which I mean con B&B. It’s booked up, but there are other hotels which… are likely also full, because it’s Clallam Fun Days. But there’s camping! And the weather is supposed to be good. And being out in Clallam Bay, attending memberships are free.

But even leaving aside the parade – we’re in it – and beach party, the basics are there. Track programming during the afternoons, a tiny gaming room, a dealer’s den, apparently a couple of room parties, stuff like that. No official cosplay yet, but I’m pretty sure the parade will make up for that.

I have a concert on Saturday at 4pm, and some panels on Sunday; Anna is doing a self-publishing/small-press panel at 1pm on Saturday, even if it’s not on the schedule yet. I had a breakthrough on “Everybody’s Famous (at the NSA)” last night and I’m definitely going to do my best to stumble through that on stage. Also “Getting Away With It” and “Thirteen” and I’m still trying to finish another thing. Sadly, I’m almost certainly not doing “We’re Not Friends,” which despite the title, is super upbeat, and is still super-unfinished. I’m not used to writing upbeat, it’s hard. XD

I don’t have nearly as many photos of the dry side as I want, particularly ones taken on the way back. As we were headed west, I kept pointing at things and going, “goddammit, I wish I had a picture of that,” but I was flying that Raptor and the only one who could, so not so much for me. Full autopilot, where are you when I need you?

Here’s me packing the last thing to be loaded in – the cooler – before heading off. I’m wearing a highly appropriate shirt given the decision which had just come down that morning. Korrasami 5eva:

It’s canon and you gotta deal with it!

When you’re out and you want to eat somewhere, and you don’t want to do stupid chain restaurants, you kind of get a grip on recognising where is going to be good. Old locals eating there? Probably at least okay. This place was called something like… Backwoods BBQ? I don’t even know. They also had a big “BURGERS” sign up. Regardless, it’s here. I’d put in a streetview link, but here’s what that looks like, so thanks a pantload, Google Maps Driver. Regardless, they had good BBQ.

We were making really good time, and the plan was to get there and help Zinger set up his giant pavilion, but then out of nowhere this happened, and we moved about 5km in 90 minutes.

No, seriously, that’s not a guess, that’s an approximation on distance and specifically correct on time. So I also took the opportunity to take a few pictures of rocks. As usual, everything is larger and there are more photos on the Flickr feed:

This one is particularly worth looking at bigger. It’s pretty good for a shot-while-driving photo, I think:

Once we got there too late to help out with setup, it was already goofy hot and working on getting worse. That’s where I learned I can’t be in sunlight at those temperatures unless I feel like passing out, which was pretty much what I almost did. Emphasis on almost, since the band noticed I wasn’t answering questions even though I thought I was, and intervened with coldpacks and ice and fans and such.

Somehow I hadn’t recognised when getting directions and stuff that we were playing a bunch of shows in Amon Park. 48C/119F and in Amon Park. Definitely the worst Korra AU ever:

NO.

After Saturday’s last show, we ducked out to a nearby Thai restaurant (Baan Khun Ya Thai – recommended) mostly for the air conditioning. The staff were really nice and let us linger for a couple of hours while the worst of the heat… well, I’d like to say ‘passed by,’ but really, it mostly hung around, trying to wait us out.

I Am Carrot-Head Groot

Also at a rest stop we saw this. Who the hell needs to be told this, anyway? I mean, c’mon, have some sense. Don’t just toss these out.

No fine high enough

More and bigger pics start here. Next we’re headed west, to Clallam Bay Comicon again. That’ll be both a Crime and the Forces of Evil and a Leannan Sidhe show, because we’re both going and being in each others’ bands and all that. See you there, I hope!

Got back early this morning. Pretty sleepy still, but now I can say I’ve survived a weekend of gigging in 46-48C (115-119F) temperatures. Surprisingly good crowds, particularly given the weather. Sunday went particularly well – we kind of turned a morning set in an isolated section of the fairgrounds into a musician jam-along that we’re all thinking we should do on purpose next year.

Also, shout outs to the aid pavilion staff who were there helping people do heat management. I spent most of the day Saturday and all of Sunday in the aid pavilion partly in self-care and partly – particularly on Saturday when I didn’t have the sense to go straight there – being treated by the nurses on staff. It was a wash-rinse-repeat cycle of aid-pavilion-with-fans-and-cooling-and-ice / perform a set / back to aid tent, emphasis on wash and repeat.

I did learn a few things. I dissipate heat well few places, but one place that works is in my hands. The staff were kind of amazed by how quickly I can melt ice just by holding it. Aheh. Drinking cold fluids didn’t help much; just eating ice in chunks as large as I could swallow helped a lot. So did ordering a case of chemical cold-packs in advance. But in future, with forecasts like these? We’re getting a hotel room or we aren’t doing it.

Pictures tomorrow. Not as many as usual, but a few nice ones, including a broad landscape that also happens to show the 90-minute traffic jam out in the middle of EXACTLY NOWHERE HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN? But that was okay. At that point, we had AC. 😀

Too busy loading out for shows to write a real post this morning, but congratulations to all the QUILTBAG people in the States on getting marriage equality. I was a little worried they’d limit their ruling to full-faith-and-credit, but they didn’t.

And a shout-out to all the queer kids in homes where their parents and/or guardians are raving and ranting about this ruling today. Keep it together, stay strong, it may seem like forever but you will be out of there eventually. They’re wrong, and you aren’t.

See you in Richland!